Antonin Dvořák, from a photograph by Duras.Antonin Dvořák.
During all this time he seems to have made no attempt at publication or performance. We can hardly suppose that his silence was altogether enforced by lack of occasion: his friend Bendl was conductor of the chief choral society in Prague; his friend Smetana was in supreme command at the opera: patriotism was searching every corner for evidences of native genius, and would scarcely have refused him the hearing that it had granted to Sebor and Roskosny. But as yet he had nothing ready to offer. His more ambitious efforts appeared, for the most part, tentative and experimental; the songs, in which alone his true personality had found expression, were to be kept in reserve until he had made his mark with a broader line: on all grounds, it was better to wait in retirement than to injure the cause by a premature display. Once let him attain to some adequate mastery of his materials, and Fate might well be trusted to supply him with opportunity.
At last, apparently in 1871, he was commissioned to write an opera for the Bohemian Theatre,[46]and accepted the invitation with all the responsibility that a first appearance naturally entails. He had, indeed, no little reason to feel responsible. He was now nine-and-twenty years of age, he had spent two-thirds of his life in study and preparation, he was entering thatfield in which his country's art had hitherto reaped the richer portion of its harvest. Besides, he had recently become acquainted with some of Wagner's work, and was in a state of intense proselytising enthusiasm on the subject of the Music drama. The little folk-song operas were pretty enough, and possessed, no doubt, a true educational value; but the level of public taste was now sufficiently high to appreciate a more solid and serious form of composition. In short, the first period of Bohemian music was drawing to a close, and this commission from the theatre had come, just in the nick of time, to inaugurate the second. He therefore took for his libretto a peasant comedy entitled 'King and Collier,' set it on the most elaborate Wagnerian lines, and, having thus marked in strong relief the difference between his method and that of his predecessors, went confidently down to the theatre and distributed the parts for rehearsal.
There is no great sagacity required to foretell the result. We can imagine the consternation of Smetana, who looked for a new expression of the national idiom, and found himself confronted with a fantastic exaggeration ofMeistersinger. We can imagine the dismay of the soloists, accustomed to melody as simple as that of Mozart, and now lost in a tangle of declamatory phrases. The music was at once declared to be wholly impossible, the score was returned with a few disheartening compliments, and Dvořák went back to his place in the ranks, there to meditate at his leisure on the incompatibility of alien systems. It was no doubt unfortunate that his chance should have come to him in a moment of aberration. His Wagner-worship was but a sudden episode, of whichno trace can be found in the earlier compositions, of which little or no effect remains in the record of the later work: and it was a sorry jest of the fates, that offered him a native audience at the one period in his life when he had forsaken the native tongue.
But on an apt pupil a lesson, even from Orbilius, is never wasted. Once recovered from the disappointment, Dvořák realised that he was on the wrong tack; that he was forcing his genius in a direction to which it was unsuited; and that if he wished to convince his countrymen, he must address them not in German but in Slavonic. After all, the recent disaster was only a parenthesis; an otiose quotation that could be readily erased: henceforward he would deliver his message in the phraseology that was its natural embodiment. So, by way of palinode, he set Hálek's fine patriotic hymn, 'The Heirs of the White Mountain,' a poem which, in scope and feeling, may almost rank as the counterpart of Leopardi's 'Italia'; and, in the season of 1873, made with it an appeal to that national sympathy which his last work had done so little to conciliate. No choice could have been more happily inspired. The theme was one of which patriotism was never weary; the strong, manly verses were already familiar as household words; the music held the concert-room in breathless attention from the sombre opening to the great, glorious cadence in the final stanza. There was no longer any question of his place in Bohemian art. At one stroke the memory of old failure was obliterated; at one step the patriot passed from obscurity into the full light of honour and reputation.
As yet, however, there was little hope of material reward. It was still the day of small things inBohemia: posts were few; salaries were meagre; fame spread but slowly across the mountain barriers by which the frontier was encircled. But in any case, it was impossible that Dvořák should remain any longer in his present penury, and at some time in 1873 he was appointed organist to the city church of St Adalbert. The change was somewhat incongruous after eleven years' viola playing in a theatre orchestra, but at least it brought him a more individual position, opened to him some career as a teacher, and assured him a stipend upon which he found it possible to marry. A pleasant indication of altered circumstances is to be found in an'Ave Maris Stella,'dedicated'uxori carissimæ,'and printed'sumptibus et proprietate Emilii Stary.'When a man is raised to ecclesiastical office, the least that he can do is to assume the state and dignity of a learned language.
In the winter of 1873 appeared a notturno for strings, followed in the next year by a symphony in E flat, and the scherzo of a symphony in D minor. Meantime, the theatre, which had been keeping a watchful eye on its truant ever since his return to the paths of patriotism, once more summoned him into its presence, and made amends for past disfavour by the offer of another commission. For answer, Dvořák took the old libretto that had shared the misfortune of hisdébut, reset it from beginning to end, and in less than three months, presented to the directors a new version of the unlucky drama, in which, it is said, not one bar of the original score was preserved. The feat is one of the most remarkable in the history of opera. There are plenty of cases in which a composer has altered or revisedhis work—Wagner made additions toTannhäuser, Weber reluctantly excised an important scene fromDer Freischütz—but it is one thing to remodel a few details; it is another to reorganise an entire structure. Some little versatility is required to set even a song in two different ways; much more to find a new musical expression for a complete cast ofdramatis personæ.
But the most curious part of the story is still to come. The second version of 'King and Collier' was produced on October 24th, and at once revealed the fact that its libretto was totally inadequate. Thetour de force, in short, had altogether failed, and Dvořák found that he had only escaped the charge of melody that could not be sung, to meet with equally galling condolence on a play that could not be acted. No doubt the music was welcomed with acclamation, especially the overture and the scene in the collier's cottage, but its very transparency brought into clearer view the manifest imperfection of the words. It was a thousand pities, said the critics, that so great a composer should have spent his genius on a rambling incoherent farce with a poor plot, a hero eminently unheroic, and a third act merely irrelevant and absurd. He would have done far better if he had followed the more common-place method of providing himself with another subject.
Dvořák, however, was not to be beaten. He knew that his own part in the work had been satisfactorily played; he could see no reason for losing his labour; and so, after an interval which was occupied in further compositions, he set himself to look for a new librettist. In course of time he met with a poet called Novotny, who had just written an opera-bookfor Smetana, called him into collaboration, and produced, with his aid, a final version of the play in which the first two acts are considerably altered, and the third replaced by a more adequate substitute. There can be no doubt that the changes were of vital improvement. In its present form the intrigue runs easily enough, the characters are well drawn, the situations are mainly striking and effective, and the mock trial brings down the curtain on a climax of fitting irony. But we are here less concerned with a criticism of the result than with a sketch of the remarkable series of conditions under which it was effected. An opera of which the text is rewritten and the music recomposed is a phenomenon sufficiently unusual to demand more than a passing word of comment. The Irishman's knife, which had a new blade and a new handle, does not offer a more bewildering problem of identity.
It was natural that the fresh interest should bring Dvořák, for the time, into a more intimate relation with the Bohemian Theatre. By the end of 1875 he had completed two more operas; one a bright little village comedy called 'The Stubborn Heads'; one a tragedy in five acts, on the subject of Vanda, Queen of Poland. The latter is at present beyond the reach of discussion; even the opera-house at Prague possesses no copy of the score, and no part of the music has yet been printed, except the fine gloomy overture. But the former, which, for some reason, was kept in reserve until 1882, is now easily attainable, and may well claim a better fate than our indifference has accorded to it. The theme is simplicity itself. Farmer Vavra has a grown-up son; Widow Rihova, who lives over the way, has a marriageable daughter; of course they lay their heads together and decidethat their children shall make a match of it. Unfortunately the young people, who would have liked nothing better if they had been left to themselves, declined altogether to have their affections forced, and break out into open mutiny. Vavra threatens, Tonik defies; Rihova pleads, Lenka snaps her fingers; and matters have come to a hopeless deadlock when there steps in old father Rericha the village diplomatist. He has been watching the failure of authority with sardonic delight, he foretold it from the beginning, but nobody paid any attention to him; now he takes the two mutineers, provokes them first into jealousy, then into recrimination, then into a lovers' quarrel, and finally induces them to plight their troth before they are quite certain that they have been reconciled. For reasons of stage policy, the parents are made unconscious accomplices in the plot; and there is an amusing scene in which Rericha, having lured them into a couple of unjustifiable flirtations, betrays them to the village, and has them denounced by an excited chorus. Of the music there is no need to speak in detail. It is neither great nor meant to be great, but it is all pleasant and tuneful; a stream of wayside melody that appeals the more to us for its lack of pretension. The whole work belongs to the playtime of art: it is a holiday opera, gay, careless and spontaneous, occupying its hour without a dull bar or a perfunctory phrase.
Meanwhile, other forms of composition were not neglected. At the beginning of 1875 appeared a string quartett in A minor; later in the year followed a serenade in E for stringed orchestra, a quintett in G, and, greatest of all, a brilliant symphony in F major. It is probable, too, that we may attribute tothe same period the first pianoforte trio, the first pianoforte quartett, and at least three volumes of small vocal pieces; but in these, as in other of Dvořák's early works, the record is too uncertain to admit of any strict chronological accuracy. He was still a prophet honoured in his own country alone; and his message, though heard with enthusiasm by his people, had not yet been published abroad in the ears of Europe.
However, in 1875, there occurred an event, which not only brought relief to the daily need, but opened as well a wider prospect of fame and fortune. Encouraged by the success of his work at Prague, Dvořák sent in an application to the Pension committee of the AustrianKultusministerium, submitted an opera and a symphony by way of credentials, and received in answer a grant of some thirty pounds; the first recognition that his genius had won from beyond the border. No doubt to Imperial munificence the amount was an inconsidered trifle; to the organist of St Adalbert's it meant first the equivalent of a year's salary, and secondly the more valuable guerdon of a foothold in Vienna. The judges who had awarded his prize were among the acknowledged leaders of musical art; supported by their authority he could hardly fail to obtain a wider hearing; and if that was once secured the future rested with himself. The frontier had at last been traversed, and before him lay the broad fertile plains that were waiting to be conquered.
To equip himself with a greater freedom, he resigned his post in the year 1876, and began to devote his life almost entirely to the more pressing requirements of composition. It was a bold step, for it lefthim with a growing household, and an income chiefly dependent upon his pen; but like all true artists he had the courage of inspiration, and felt that victory was certain, if he were allowed to maintain his cause with his own weapons. The immediate result was the creation of a masterpiece, which, had he written nothing else, would suffice to rank him among the greatest composers of our time. It may be possible that in the Stabat Mater there are a few imperfections, that the sterner qualities are wanting, that some of the phrases are a thought too ingenious and recondite. But its opulence of melody, its warmth of colour, its exquisite beauty of theme and treatment, are far more than enough to condone any real or imaginary defects. With its completion the music of Dvořák passed out of adolescence into the full vigour of maturity and manhood. In its achievement the long years of unsparing labour found at last a befitting reward.
The score was sent off to try its fortune in Vienna, and, by some incredible error, was rejected.[47]Perhaps the judges were afraid of creating a precedent, perhaps they thought that dewdrops of celestial melody should be either invaluable or of no value, in any case they withheld their guineas and added another item to the long catalogue of academic injustice. To Dvořák the loss must have been a serious matter, for he had now no official position, and his pupils had never brought any great accession to his revenue, but with his usual sturdy patience he refused to be disheartened by the mischance, and gathered his forcesinto winter quarters, there to make preparation for another campaign. After all the disaster was but a temporary check; it could retard his progress, it could cut off his supplies, but it could neither impair his capacity, nor turn the edge of his resolution. He had already gained one success at Vienna: next year it should go hard, but he would match it with a second.
Accordingly, in 1877, he again made appeal to theKultusministerium, offering in defence of his claim the Moravian duets, and a few of the more recent chamber-works. They arrived at an opportune moment, for Brahms had just been appointed a member of the awarding committee, and, under his guidance, there could no longer be any doubt of its decision. The grant was at once renewed and augmented, the composer was welcomed with cordial and generous commendation; finally the duets were sent off to Simrock, franked by a letter of introduction that was more than enough to secure their acceptance. Back came an answer from the great publishing house at Berlin—the duets should be printed without delay; other manuscripts might be despatched for consideration, in the meantime would Herr Dvořák accept the commission to write a set of characteristic national dances? To such an offer there was only one possible response. Before the close of the year theSlavische Tänzewere finished; at the beginning of 1878 they were in print, in a few months they had roused the whole of Germany to the appreciation of a neglected genius. Henceforward his reputation was established beyond dispute. Like Byron, he awoke to find himself famous, and to look back upon the times of darknessand disappointment as a man looks back upon his dreams.
Among the other compositions of 1877 may be noted a set of symphonic variations, and a new comedy, the Cunning Peasant. In the latter Dvořák was again hampered by his uncritical acceptance of a bad libretto. The plot is clumsy and ill-contrived, a medley of cross-purposes entwined at random, and severed in despair; the characters are drawn after a wholly conventional pattern, the humour is for the most part shallow and superficial. When Betuska defies parental tyranny, we all know that she will be rewarded with the suitor that she has chosen for herself. When old Martin lays a trap for the hero, we all know that the comic valet is destined to fall into it. When the count appears as adiabolus ex machinâ, anyone can foresee that he will end by blessing the lovers in a fit of stage repentance. And the incident on which the intrigue is made to depend, a twilight scene, with three indistinguishable heroines, forestalls its effect by elaborate preparation, and then only strikes the spectator as an extreme demand upon his credulity. But Dvořák, like Schubert, could 'set a handbill to music.' Out of this unpromising material he has made an opera, which, from overture to finale, sparkles with the merriest tunes, an opera which altogether disregards the impracticable requirements of the dramatist, and goes back openly and frankly to the lyric standpoint. As a play it offers a hundred hostages to criticism, but then it has already been betrayed by a treacherous alliance. As a musical extravaganza it is almost irresistible; brightly written, admirably scored, and charming enough to redeem the most rigorous of pledges.
In spite of its text the opera was so favourably received that Dvořák sent the score to Simrock, who at once printed the overture as a concert piece, and supplemented it later with a German version of the entire work. Indeed, during the next few years, the presses were busy with compositions by the new master, some of them fresh written, some gathered from the great pile of manuscript that had been accumulating since 1861. Day after day was filled with correspondence, with proof correction, with all the numberless details of the printing office: day after day saw another stone added to the structure that had waited so long for its foundation. And, beside this, the bare catalogue of more recent production is in itself a sign of no inconsiderable activity. To 1878 belong the Slavonic Rhapsodies, the serenade for wind, 'cello and contrabass, the bagatellen, the string sestett in A major, the 149th psalm, and a host of smaller pieces; next year came the orchestral suite, and the violin concerto; next year theLegenden, and the violin sonata in F; next year the Stabat Mater and the great D major symphony. Even these are but items in the sum, not indications of its total amount. There is little wonder that Europe should feel itself the richer for a gift so unexpected and so abundant.
But Dvořák could not wholly give up to mankind what was meant, in the first instance, for a patriotic party. The opening of the New Bohemian Theatre in 1881 recalled him from Legends and Rhapsodies into the full stir and impetus of national life, and set him once more in the van of that strange, half-artistic, half-political movement that had found its type and representative in the 'Heirs of the WhiteMountain.' The two works which he wrote this year for the stage have almost the tone of manifestoes; curiously alike in scope and plan, curiously different in the measure of their ultimate value. Both make direct appeal to popular sympathy; both recall some notable period in the history of Bohemia; both draw their inspiration from melodies that have gained acceptance among the folk-songs of the people. But here parallel gives way to contrast. The Husitska overture, founded on a famous battle-song of the Hussite wars, is a masterpiece which turns to a noble use, one of the finest themes in Bohemian art—the incidental music to Samberk's 'Tyl,' takes perforce the poor melody of the national anthem, for which Tyl had written the words, and so foredooms itself to failure by a fault that is not its own. Of course in the latter case the choice was inevitable. A drama which had the revolutionary poet for central figure, could only be set bymotifsthat made reference to the best known of his works, and in Bohemia, as in many other countries, the national anthem has been accepted by accident, and maintained by force of association. Still, the comparison of the two results is a lesson of the highest significance. In Husitska, Dvořák selected a genuine folk-song, and raised it into a national monument that will stand the test of time. In Tyl he borrowed the tune of a PragueKapellmeister, and with all ingenuity of treatment, could lift it to no higher level than that of apièce d'occasion. It was perfectly natural that both works alike should obtain an immediate welcome. They appeared at a moment of crisis; they addressed a sentiment of loyalty; they stood for the time outside the range of dispassionate criticism. But to us, whomay regard the matter from a purely artistic standpoint, the difference between them is incalculable. Both are well written; both have accessory themes of great beauty; both are scored with all their composer's accustomed skill, but one is built upon the bed-rock of the Bohemian mountains, the other upon an artificial basement that only holds together by external support.
Having once more gained access to the Theatre, Dvořák proceeded to occupy the position, and in 1882 strengthened it by the production of Dimitrij, which, among all his operas, is the largest in scale, and the most dramatic in treatment. He had, indeed, a subject made to his hand. The romance of history contains no more striking episode than that of the false Demetrius; a story of heroism and imposture, of honour in conflict with ambition, of love that betrays a trust, and jealousy that wrecks a life. Marina's character is one of singular interest and complexity, torn between allegiance to her nation and loyalty to her husband, aiding him to usurp the throne which he believes to be his by right, denouncing him in anger when he uses his power against her countrymen, watching his assassination on the spot where she had shared his triumph. Here are no foregone conclusions; no idle displays of theatrical ingenuity; no stage lay figures clad in traditional garb; the whole event is a transcript from nature, vivid, real, convincing, and the more tragic for the cross issue upon which it turns. It may be added that Dvořák has accomplished his part in the work with unusual care and anxiety. After the first performance some important changes were made, notably in the overture, and in the closing scenes, and though themusic has since been printed in its revised form, the composer, still dissatisfied, has recently submitted it to a new process of recension. Yet in its earlier shape the score contained passages and numbers which the world would be the poorer for losing. The most relentless self-criticism could hardly have bettered the entry into Moscow, or Xenia's flight, or the great duet in the second act.
Meantime the curtain was rising upon another scene, which had England for its stage, and Dvořák himself for its hero. As early as 1879, the attention of English musicians had been aroused by a performance of theSlavische Tänze; the interest once excited had steadily grown and gathered as new works made their appearance; and, in March 1883, the composer was invited over to conduct his Stabat Mater at the Albert Hall. His reception was one of the most cordial ever offered by our land to a foreign artist. The house was crowded and appreciative; the press for once raised a unanimous voice of approbation; the example set by London was soon followed by other great centres throughout the country. No doubt there was something of fashion and novelty in the movement:—every great stream of tendency carries these attendant bubbles upon its surface: but at least the current was set in a right direction, and was destined to maintain its course without swerving. The lapse of years may have brought us a cooler judgment; it has certainly brought us a stronger and more reasoned admiration.
In 1884 the Stabat Mater was repeated at Worcester, where it met with so brilliant a success, that Dvořák was at once commissioned to write a cantatafor next year's Birmingham Festival. As libretto he took a Slavonic version of the Lenore legend, a vampyre story, even wilder and more savage than the famous ballad which Burger wrote, and Scott translated. It is not, perhaps, a very satisfactory subject for a long work. There is too much monotony of suffering: there is too much gloom and terror and pain: a tragedy so unrelieved comes near to over-straining the sympathy of the spectator. But for all this it offers certain points of vantage which Dvořák was abundantly qualified to seize. In setting the words, he wisely treated the musical aspect as paramount, brought to the task all his resources of rhythm and harmony and melodic invention, and produced a poem in which horror itself is made beautiful, and darkness lightened with flashes of electric genius. Grant that the 'Spectre's Bride' is too long, that it needs compression; that it loses effect by repetition and redundance; none the less it can show some of the finest numbers that its composer has ever written, and with such summits attained, may well look down upon any censure of inequality.
A remarkable contrast is afforded by the Oratorio of St Ludmila, which was produced at the Leeds Festival of 1886. The theme is fertile in opportunity, the book is written by the first of living Bohemian poets, the music dates from the centre of Dvořák's richest period, and yet the whole impression left on the hearer is one of failure and disappointment. For this our own reputation is chiefly to blame. It is a matter of common belief abroad, that the only works which can really attract a British audience are the Elijah and the Messiah; that in them we find all music comprised, that from them we construct astandard by which we test the entire range of composition. Perhaps our past history in some degree justifies the charge; perhaps we have unduly favoured the two great masterpieces that were written for our country; in any case the tradition obtains, and St Ludmila may stand as the most salient example of its effect. The opening chorus is characteristic enough; the rest is all dominated by the influence of Handel and Mendelssohn; a labour that is lost by conformity with an alien method, a gift that is marred by the very means taken to render it acceptable.
But during all these years, the best record of Dvořák's genius is to be found in his instrumental compositions. Even the Spectre's Bride is not of more account than the Symphony in D minor, the Symphony in G, and the array of chamber-works that reach their climax with the famous Pianoforte Quintett. To these may be added the trifles of a lighter mood—waltzes, mazurkas, dainty little sketches for the pianoforte—all too slight to establish a reputation, but all beautiful enough for its adornment. At the same time he was gaining strength and experience as a song-writer. TheZigeunerliederhad already marked a new stage in his lyric method; they were now followed by three volumes of equal charm and of a style even more fully developed. Indeed, as we look through the pages of successful attainment, we are in no mind to cavil because one effort has missed its mark. Assuredly, there was no lack of power in the artist who could retrieve a single defeat with so many victories.
In 1889 he brought out his sixth opera, Jakobin—a sentimental comedy of a type that held the stage some half-century ago. The play is somewhat spoiledby a double intrigue, of which it may be said that the less prominent strand is the better woven. We grow rather weary of Count Bohus and his peasant-wife; driven from home by an unbending father, supplanted by a wicked cousin, restored by a reminiscence of early childhood; but we can all sympathise with the oldKapellmeisterwho arranges the castle pageants, and who, on the eve of his cantata, has to choose a son-in-law between the burgomaster of the town and its only tenor.
Later events are of too recent a memory to require any detailed description. In 1889, Dvořák was decorated by the Austrian Court; in 1890 he was admitted to the Honorary Doctorate at Cambridge; in the same year, Prague elected him Doctor of Philosophy, and appointed him Professor of Composition at the Conservatorium. Next autumn he again visited England, to conduct his Requiem at the Birmingham Festival, and shortly afterwards accepted the post of Musical Director at New York, where, with an occasional holiday in Bohemia, he remained until 1895. During his residence in America he was much attracted by the sweetness andnaïvetéof the negro melodies, and, though he never actually transferred any of them to his own pages, yet in more than one composition he shows clear traces of their influence. This is particularly the case with his symphony, 'From the New World' (Op. 95), so named because it was the first work of his written in the United States, and with the String Quartett in F major (Op. 96) and A flat major (Op. 105). In all these the most conspicuous themes are intimately affected by the 'Plantation Songs,' and it is interesting to note with what skill Dvořák has absorbed their character into his own style and method.
Among other notable works published at this period should be mentioned the set of 'Elegies' (Dumky) for Pianoforte trio, the three great concert overtures,'In der Natur,''Carnaval,' and 'Otello,' a quintett in E flat minor, and a collection of 'Bible Songs,' the words of which are mainly taken from the Psalms. His last Transatlantic composition was a cantata, 'The American Flag,' written for the Chicago Exhibition of 1895. Shortly afterwards, influenced, it would seem, by sheer nostalgia, he resigned his appointment and returned to Bohemia, where he has since resided; partly in Prague and partly in his country house some thirty miles away. His restoration to his own country was marked by another outburst of composition, and in 1896 there appeared the Violoncello Concerto, the String Quartetts in A flat and G, and the three symphonic poems, 'Der Wassermann,' 'Die Mittagshexe,' and 'Das Goldene Spinnrad.' In the same year was published the 'Te Deum,' which had been produced at the Birmingham Festival of 1894, but the work, in spite of some brilliant passages, is not one of his greatest and needs here no more than the bare mention. After 1896 came an interval of silence; doubtless to be explained by the cares of office at the Prague Conservatorium: then in 1899 followed 'Die Waldtaube,' and 'Heldenlied,' and in 1901 the new opera of 'Roussalka.'
The statical conditions which aid in the formation of character may roughly be classified under three principal heads. First, there is the broad general basis of humanity, the common foundation of thought and feeling which enables us to sympathise, in some measure, with distant lands and remote ages. Secondly, there is the individual element, the particular blend of personal characteristics, the special idiosyncrasy that marks the difference between one man and his fellow. Third, and intermediate between the other two, is the debt that we owe to our nation the long inheritance that our forefathers have accumulated, that has been put to interest from the beginning of our race, and augmented by every occurrence in our history. And since art is essentially the outcome of character, it would seem to follow, that the artist should display in his work some trace of these three conditions, that his manner should be affected by causes which belong partly to mankind at large, partly to his own temper and circumstances, partly to the distinctive attributes of his people.
The first two of these have never been called inquestion. All criticism admits that art is at once human and personal, that its aim is to particularise, through the medium of the artist, some ideal or truth which is universal in its ultimate essence. But the admission of the national element has been so strenuously attacked, that a few words may perhaps be offered in its defence; and there could be no more fitting occasion than the study of a composer whose best work has been devoted to the service of a national movement. Hence, before beginning any detailed investigation of Dvořák's method, it will be advisable to consider, first, what is precisely implied in the statement that he was influenced by the character of his country, and secondly, whether this influence was a source of strength or of weakness?
Now the differences by which national temperaments are distinguished appear to be such palpable facts, that it is hardly worth while to assert their existence. In conversation, in travel, in all intercourse we are constantly being reminded that Europe is divided by frontier lines, drawn, no doubt, over the surface of a common earth, but for all that, setting up barriers which are not solely geographical. There is some intermixture of races, but it only bars the rule with a rare exception. There is a growing development of breadth and sympathy, but it only teaches us that the foreign standpoint is as good as our own, not that it is the same. The human mind, says Bacon, is a broken and distorted mirror which can but reflect a part of the truth, and assuredly the part reflected by any individual mind is in great measure determined by national and social conditions.
Again the poet, though he be the spokesman of thewhole world, is in a more intimate degree the spokesman of his own country. He has a particular set of traditions for background, he has a particular language for vehicle, and both of these give shape and colour to the abstract ideas which it is his function to express. Wordsworth, for example, is as purely English as Victor Hugo is French or Goethe German; each is the embodiment of a national spirit, each make a closer appeal to his compatriots than to the wisest and most liberal criticism across the border. And this does not depend upon the mere difficulty of translation, it is not a question of grammar and dictionary, rather it is the point of view which seems strange to a foreign reader, which requires some readjustment before the true focus can be obtained. Nor is the discrepancy less in the minuter points of rhythm and versification. The assonances of Calderon are perfectly satisfying to a Spanish ear; to us they have simply the effect of a false rhyme. Alfred de Musset threw French literature into a ferment by ending an Alexandrine with the words 'tu es;' we pass over the line without noting anything unusual in its cadence. In a word, apart from Heine, we shall hardly find an instance of great poetry which is not saturated with a national atmosphere, and even Heine is an exception easily explained, and more easily overstated.
The rule is equally applicable to painting. When Mr Whistler tells us that 'there is no such thing as English art,' and that 'we might as well talk of English mathematics,' we can only suppose that he is experimenting in paradox, at least we may wait for conviction until we have found the counterparts of Reynolds and Gainsborough, of Morland andConstable. The last of these, indeed, may be taken as a crucial case. There can be no doubt that the Barbizon School was influenced by his method and example, that in some degree it shared his aim and followed his style, yet Constable is as English as the 'Excursion,' Millet as French as the 'Feuilles d'Automne.' The distinctions may be more subtle than those of language, but they are not more unreal. The lines of demarcation may be obscured by imitators and copyists, but they still exist for those who make their art a reality. Even community of school or subject will do very little to obliterate the inherent differences of temper; a man may find his teacher in Paris and his model in Rome, and learn after all that'cælum non animum mutat.'
Here an objection occurs. Grant, it will be said, that the representative arts are in some way affected by theentourageof the artist, we cannot therefore infer that the same will hold good of music. They are comparatively material and concrete, they depict the actual, they stand in direct relation to an external world, but in music we are dealing with pure abstract form, and the laws of form are universal. Hence the composer is not bound by national limitations; he stands above them, 'he alone with the stars;' he is the citizen of an ideal kingdom where there is one common language and one common scheme of life. To this it is an obvious answer, that music idealises the natural language of emotion, and that if the emotional temper differs in separate countries, the music must differ also. The abstract element is the paramount need of balance and symmetry, but there are a thousand ways in which this requirement can be fulfilled, and the methodselected by any school or country will depend upon its own predilections and its own character. And if the music be true and vital, it will always be found to embody some phase of the national temperament, it will speak with a tone and cadence that are unlike those of neighbouring lands, it will express shades and nuances of feeling which are in some way special to the country that has given it birth.
There is little likelihood that we shall ever be able to reduce these distinctions to phrase and formula, but we may readily observe them by a comparison of theVolksliederthat obtain among the different races of Europe. Here we shall find the national idioms in their simplest and most unsophisticated expression, the direct primary utterance of the same ideas, which attain a fuller and more developed beauty at the hands of the great composers. Of course, as the music of a country progresses, it will advance farther and farther from theVolkslied, it will grow richer and more complex, it will treat its material by methods which the artist has inherited, not so much from his nation as from his predecessors in the art. Yet it still remains true, that the line of ancestry is continuous, that the course of genealogy may be traced, and that the masterpiece, with all its finish and civilisation, is of the same flesh and blood as its humbler compatriot. Again, there are cases where a composer has naturalised himself in a new home, and has become, in a sense, bilingual; in all these it will be found that the language of his birth holds the predominance, and that his new acquirement is only an added grace. Brahms, for instance, does not treat the Hungarian idiom in the same way as Liszt, or even as Schubert, heemploys it with extraordinary ease and mastery, but he never lets us forget that he is a German.
We may conclude, then, that a composer of genius, if he write simply and naturally, will express his own character, and in so doing will express that of his country as well. More particularly will this be true if he appear during the stir and stress of a patriotic movement, if he be occupied in constructing a system for the guidance and direction of his successors. For a time of political crisis not only brings out all that is best in a man, it also draws him nearer to his people, and makes him at once more desirous and more capable of serving as its true representative. And so it has been with Dvořák. If we compare his melody with that of Smetana, and with that of the Bohemian folk-songs, we shall find a notable resemblance of thought and feeling, they are all of one family, of one kindred, connected by a sympathy that the widest distinctions of treatment cannot annul. No doubt Smetana is often content to reproduce the methods of the folk-song, while in Dvořák the curves are made richer, and the designs more complex and beautiful, still the emotional basis of the one is that of the other, and the distinctions between them depend partly on the personal element, partly on the accident of historical position. Smetana came first into the field; it was his work to gather the stones and to lay the foundation. Dvořák followed him, and began, with the same materials, to raise a superstructure.
Hence it is not a little significant that his few misadventures have always marked some momentary defection from the national cause. The first version of 'King and Collier' has long passed beyond thereach of criticism, but at least we know that it was written in imitation of Wagner, and that it was unsuccessful. The 149th Psalm is merely a careful and conscientious expression of German method, and has hardly a greater value than that which belongs to an Academic exercise. The Oratorio of St Ludmila is a concession to the supposed requirements of English taste, and in the record of its composer's works it has almost dropped out of account. And if we turn for contrast to such achievements as the Pianoforte Quintett, or the Spectre's Bride, or the D minor Symphony, we are at once struck, not only with the difference of result, but with the total difference of character. Here Dvořák is delivering his own message in his own words, here he attains a native eloquence that can readily compel our attention. It is surely no extreme inference that we should here recognise some connection of cause and effect.
At the same time we must remember that the racial element is only one among formative conditions, and that it is itself a factor in personal idiosyncrasy. 'Just what constitutes special power and genius in a man,' says Matthew Arnold, 'seems often to be his blending with the basis of a national temperament some additional gift or grace not proper to that temperament.' And of this we may find a ready illustration in Dvořák's treatment of the scale, an illustration of double interest, partly because it shows one of the most distinctive attributes in his music, partly because even here he stands in direct relation to an ethnological background. We have already seen that the scale now in use among western nations was set in course by the Florentine revolutionof 1600, and that it spread from Florence to Paris, and from Paris to Leipsic, until it was finally established by Sebastian Bach. Hence the music of Italy, France, and Germany grew with its growth, developed with its development, and constructed by its means a common body of system and tradition. With all their divergencies of emotional impulse, the composers of these three countries have this formal point of union, that they accepted the diatonic scale as their unit, and treated the chromatic rather as an appenage and an extension. From this followed an important consequence. For, in the first place, a settled scale is not only a vehicle for melody, it is also a means of modulation, and this latter function comes more into evidence as music becomes more complex and the need of modulation increases. And, in the second place, it is an essential characteristic of the diatonic scale, that some of its notes should be more nearly related than others, and that composers who found their work upon it should therefore acknowledge some modulations as comparatively easy and natural, some as comparatively remote and recondite. Of course, as time goes on, we become familiarised with effects that once appeared violent and extreme, yet even now we recognise certain relative limitations. Alfio's song inCavalleria, for example, gives us merely the impression of deliberate defiance, it is not construction but demolition, not freedom but revolt.
For obvious historical reasons the growth of this scale system left Bohemia altogether untouched. She did not enter the field until this part of the work was completed, she bore no share in the traditions which its gradual evolutions had established in neighbouringlands. When therefore she came to the making of her own music, she could look upon this scheme from outside, she could treat it dispassionately, she could take it without any of the limitations that had hitherto marked its course. And in doing so, she produced a result to which the whole history of music affords no exact parallel. Dvořák is the one solitary instance of a composer who adopts the chromatic scale as unit, who regards all notes as equally related. His method is totally different from that of chromatic writers like Grieg and Chopin, for Grieg uses the effects as isolated points of colour, and Chopin embroiders them, mainly as appoggiaturas, on a basis of diatonic harmony. His 'equal temperament' is totally different from that of Bach, for Bach only showed that all the keys could be employed, not that they could be arranged in any chance order or sequence. But to Dvořák the chromatic passages are part of the essential texture, and the most extreme modulations follow as simply and easily as the most obvious. In a word, his work, from this standpoint, is truly anuova musica, developed, like all new departures, from the consequences of past achievement, but none the less turning the stream of tendency into a fresh direction.
It may at once be admitted that from this cause the music of Dvořák loses something of strength and massiveness: that it is Corinthian rather than Doric. But, at the same time, it compensates, at any rate in part, by a certain opulence, a certain splendour and luxury to which few other musicians have attained: and, beside this, its very strangeness constitutes an additional claim upon our interest. We rather lose our bearings when, in the second of theLegenden,we find a phrase which has its treble in G and its tenor in D flat; or when, as in the fifth number of the Spectre's Bride, the music passes from one remote key to another with a continuous and facile display of resource that is apparently inexhaustible. Often, too, the devices outmatch the utmost capacity of our recognised symbols. Mendelssohn's famous crux of 'Fes moll' would be plain sailing to a composer who, in his third Pianoforte Trio, writes passages in D flat minor, and B double-flat major, and other keys of a signature equally undecipherable. And though these matters may seem trivial enough when they are submitted to the indignity of our musical nomenclature, we should yet remember that there is nothing trivial in the habit of mind which they imply. It is to them and to their like that we owe all the warmth of colour, all the richness of tone, all the marvellous effects of surprise and crisis that are so eminently characteristic of Dvořák in his best mood. To an imagination so vivid as his, the possession of an extended scale was a priceless opportunity; and he has used it to fill his work with incident and adventure as varied and brilliant as were ever lavished by the hand of Scott or Dumas.
His treatment of the classical forms is much influenced for good by his long and patient study of Beethoven. In the more highly-organised types he certainly falls short of his great master: he lacks the perfect balance that marks the first movement of the Appassionata or the A major Symphony; as we should naturally expect, he tends rather to restlessness of tonality and to a page overcrowded with accessory keys. But, in spite of this, his instinct for structure is real and genuine; it ranks higher thanthat of Chopin—far higher than that of Liszt or Berlioz; and his outline, though not always in complete symmetry, is firmly drawn and filled with interesting detail. Some of his larger forms are pure experiments in construction: such, for instance, as the opening movement of the Violin Concerto, the Finale of the G major Symphony, and the Scherzo Capriccioso for orchestra: sometimes he founds an entire number on a single melodic phrase, as in the slow movement of the Second Pianoforte Trio: more often, as in the F major Symphony and the String Sestett, he takes the established type and modifies it in some important particular. But whatever the result, his structure always gives us the impression of thought and design. He has his own method, and even when he fails of conviction, he can generally command respect.
The two forms in which he is most successful are the two most usually associated with his name—the Dumka and the Furiant. Both of these are real accessions to musical literature: not because they are new in conception, for, like all other structures, they descend in direct evolution from the folk-song, but because they have developed the primitive type in a new way, and have enriched the existing stock with a strain of collateral relationship. The Furiant is one of the national dances of Bohemia, and is frequently employed by Dvořák as a representative of the scherzo. In adopting it he has, to a great extent, altered its character; he has enlarged its range, quickened its tempo, and replaced, with a more vigorous gaiety andabandon, its original tone of half-humorous assurance. If we compare the example in the A major Quintett with the traditionalmelody—either as it appears among theVolkslieder, or, as it is used by Smetana in the Bartered Bride—we shall see at once that Dvořák has done more than borrow from the existing resources of his countrymen; that, as a matter of fact, he has taken nothing but the mould, and has used it for the casting of an entirely different metal. Even more distinctive is his treatment of the Dumka or 'Elegy,' a complex form which, like a sonnet-sequence, holds in combination a series of separate poems. It is here, indeed, that he has brought his constructive power to its highest attainment. The whole scheme is of great interest and value: varied without digression, uniform without monotony, flexible enough to answer all moods and engage all sympathies. The stanzas admit a sharper contrast than is possible to the subjects of a 'sonata movement': the key system, though it would be impracticable on a larger scale, is admirably suited to these brief moments of concentration: the recurrent themes maintain the organism in proper balance and equipoise. There is little need to speculate on the ancestry of the form, though it is worth noting, that a simple instance occurs in the Serenade trio of Beethoven: whatever its origin, it acquires in the hands of Dvořák a special significance which is quite enough to place it among the most notable of his gifts. For illustration, we may turn to the slow movement of the Pianoforte Quintett, or to that of the Third Symphony, or to the six Elegies that have recently been published for pianoforte trio. They are all beautiful, they are all characteristic, and they fill their canvas with a most ingenious diversity of design.
This feeling for colour and movement, whichappears partly in his rhythms, partly in his use of the scale, partly in his preference for lyric and elegiac forms, may also account in some measure for his unquestioned and supreme mastery of orchestration. Here at least there is no counterchange of victory and defeat, no loss in one direction to balance gain in another; here at least every achievement is a triumph and every work a masterpiece. Nor has he alone the lesser gift of writing brilliant dialogue for his instrument, of making each stand out salient and expressive against a background of lower tone; he is even more successful in those combinations oftimbrewhich harmonise the separate voices and give to the full chord its peculiar richness and euphony. When we think of his scoring, it is not to recall a horn passage in one work or a flute solo in another—plenty of these could be found, and in a master of less capacity they would be well worth recording—but it is rather the marvellous interplay and texture of the whole that remains in our memory and compels our admiration. Look, for example, at the Husitska Overture, or the third Slavonic Rhapsody, or the slow movement of the Symphony in D minor. Hardly in all musical literature are the orchestral forces treated with such a warmth of imagination or such unerring certainty of judgment.
Hence it is not surprising that a great part of his finest work should be instrumental, and that even his masterpieces of Hymn and Cantata should be written, more or less, upon instrumental lines. He is always rather hampered than aided by the collaboration of the poet; his chromatic style is better suited to strings and wind than to the peculiar limitations of the human voice; his vigorous rhythms are in somedegree impeded by the slower articulation of the words; his sense of form finds its most natural expression in symphonic and concerted music. Again, so far as the distinction is applicable at the present day, he belongs rather to the classical than to the romantic school; he is more concerned with producing the highest beauty of sound than with following, through all its phases, the emotional import of a poem. His operas are for the most part essentially undramatic, and if they hold the stage, will survive as displays of pure melody. His great choral compositions—the Stabat Mater, the Spectre's Bride, the Requiem—stand in a loose relation to the texts on which they are founded; embodying, no doubt, the general tendency of thought, but always acknowledging the melodic requirements as paramount. Even his songs offer no exception to the rule. It is true that, after theZigeunerlieder, they undergo a remarkable change in treatment and elaboration, but although they lose the shape of the ballad, they are never out of touch with its character. Nothing, in short, is further from Dvořák's ideal than the imposition of a programme. He is essentially what the Germans would call an 'absolute musician;' content to express the broad general types of feeling, and, within their limits, wholly engaged with the special service of his art.
This statement requires a word of qualification. The great masters of pure classical style,—Haydn, for example, and Mozart, and Beethoven, have, as their predominant gift, the sense of outline, and their sense of colour, however keen and vivid, is always kept in subservience to the requisitions of design. As a natural consequence, they are supreme in thestring quartett, which, among all types of composition, demands purity of line as its first essential. But with Dvořák, the relation of these attributes is reversed, in him the sense of colour preponderates, and the demands of pure outline, though never disregarded, are nevertheless relegated to the second place. Thus, in his music for strings alone, the Sestett in A, the Quintett in G minor, the four Quartetts, we feel that he is chafing at the restraints of monochrome, that he wants the whole palette, that he is always held in check by the absence of orchestral resources. The result is not that he writes orchestral music for the strings; he is too true an artist to fall into this error; but that he writes string music under difficulties, that he foregoes all the better part of his equipment, that he is accomplishing a task in which his special gifts have little opportunity of display. No doubt these works contain passages and even numbers of great beauty, but as a whole they do not bear comparison with the Violin Concerto or the Symphonies, or the Carnaval Overture. Here Dvořák obtains his contrast of tone, here he has the whole gamut of colour at his command, here he can win the full measure of success from which he is in part precluded by a severer method. Yet it would be wrong to class him, for this reason, among the romantic composers. He shares with them one of the most important of their qualities, but he uses it for the furtherance of an end that is different from theirs. The fundamental distinction is one of ideals, and in ideal Dvořák is on the side of the classics.
Hence there is no inconsistency in estimating him by the classical standard. For music is not to be summed up in terms of national language or personalidiosyncrasy; these are but the necessary conditions through which is embodied the abstract universal of form. Thus, although a man can only take rank as an artist if he express his own character and that of his people, he is only a great artist in so far as he expresses them in the best possible way. The first spontaneous conception of melody springs from the emotional temperament of the composer, and so marks him at once as a member of his particular nation, its treatment is derived from the intellectual laws of proportion and balance, and so belongs to the general evolution of the art. This distinction appears very clearly in Dvořák's work. His melody, taken by itself, is often as simple and ingenuous as a folk-song, but in polyphony, in thematic development, in all details of contrast and elaboration, his ideal is to organise the rudimentary life, and to advance it into a fuller and more adult maturity. Of course, it cannot be said that he is uniformly successful. He has little sense of economy, little of that fine reticence and control which underlies the most lavish moments of Brahms or Beethoven; his use of wealth is so prodigal that his generosity is sometimes left with inadequate resources. The stream is so rapid that it has not always time for depth, the eloquence so prompt and unfailing that it does not always stop to select the best word. But, for all this, he is a great genius, true in thought, fertile in imagination, warm and sympathetic in temper of mind. He has borne his part in a national cause, and has thereby won for himself a triumph that will endure. He has enriched his people, and, in so doing, has augmented the treasury of the whole world.
The greatest genius is the most indebted man. A poet is no rattlebrain, saying what comes uppermost, and, because he says everything, saying at last something good; but a heart in unison with his time and country. There is nothing whimsical and fantastic in his production, but sweet and sad earnest, freighted with the weightiest convictions, and pointed with the most determined aim which any man or class knows of in his time.—Emerson.
The greatest genius is the most indebted man. A poet is no rattlebrain, saying what comes uppermost, and, because he says everything, saying at last something good; but a heart in unison with his time and country. There is nothing whimsical and fantastic in his production, but sweet and sad earnest, freighted with the weightiest convictions, and pointed with the most determined aim which any man or class knows of in his time.—Emerson.
Among the many types of character which are developed by the pursuit of an artistic profession, two stand out salient and extreme:—the artist militant and the artist contemplative. The former looks upon life as a crusade; he proclaims his doctrines to the sound of the trumpet and proves them at the point of the sword: he treats every critic as a traitor, and every adversary as a Paynim and a miscreant: he invades all lands, he challenges all strongholds: he shakes the round earth with the noise of conflict and the shock of contending creeds. The latter is of a far different temper. To him the service of his cause is occupation enough: he is content to produce the best that he knows, and cares little or nothing that others should accept his standpoint: if the work be good he will let it take its chance of appreciation; if men choose to fight about its merits, he will watch the struggle fromhis study window as a matter in which he has no personal concern. Nothing is farther from his thought than the establishment of a school or the leadership of a party: like Plato's philosopher, he finds his reward in the pleasures of wisdom, and can leave the pleasures of victory to his self-constituted followers.
Yet the second is not less sure of immortality than the first. For a time, no doubt, the din of battle may drown the quieter accents of the recluse, and the pageantry of war distract attention from the shady groves and alleys of Academe. The world attaches itself more readily to persons than to ideas, and rather resents the imputation that it knows nothing of its greatest men. But there is an inherent vitality in the best work which can no more be starved by neglect than it can be crushed by antagonism. Sooner or later the campaign is brought to a successful issue, and the general returns in triumph through the city gates. Sooner or later the silent truths find voice and audience, and disciples come flocking to the feet of the secluded teacher. Wagner, in a word, has cut his way to fame; Brahms has waited until it set out to seek him.
A life so placid and equable affords of necessity but little material to the biographer. True, there is some record of the early years, some reminiscence of studentship or of the first attempts to formulate and deliver an artistic message, but, the power of utterance once admitted, there is little further to narrate beyond the successive occasions of its exercise. Here, then, is a case in which criticism may concentrate itself from the outset upon the direct development of the artistic gift. The career of a great man is only interesting in so far as it gives fresh insight into his power, or throwsfresh light on the influences that have moulded his character: it is with his work that we are primarily concerned, and, except in relation to this, all details of personal joy and sorrow may be dismissed as irrelevant. Incidents of struggle and mastery, alternations of success and defeat, are worth noting when they occur, since they leave their mark for good or ill on the environment, through which the art itself is affected. But where they are absent we stand face to face with the object of our search, and may contemplate it, not as embodied in circumstance, but as manifested in its own pure nature. And further, the unbroken quietude in which Brahms spent his last thirty-five years may itself suggest a standpoint from which his work can be estimated. He was the deepest thinker in the musical history of our generation, and he had no time to bestow on questions of recognition or reward.
Like his two great forerunners, he was the son of a musician, and was brought up from earliest years to the practice of his art. His father, Johann Jacob Brahms, was a contrabassist in the Hamburg Theatre, who, after having fulfilled the office ofMeister der Stadtmusikin his native town of Heide, had come to try his fortunes in the orchestra where Handel had once played second violin. Of his mother nothing is recorded, except that she was a native of Hamburg, and that her maiden name was Johanna Nissen. Shortly after his marriage, Johann Brahms settled down in the Anselar Platz, and there, on May 7th 1833, Johannes was born.
It soon appeared that the boy was possessed of unusual capacity. He learned everything that his father could teach him, he read everything that he could lay his hands on; he practiced with an undeviatingenthusiasm, he covered reams of paper with counterpoint exercises and variations. At an early age he was sent for further instruction to a worthykapellmeisternamed Kossel, and in 1845, having left his master behind him, he was transferred to Eduard Marxsen of Altona, a composer of considerable merit, whose name has been handed down to us by Schumann's articles in theNeue Zeitschrift. There can be no doubt that this was a well-directed choice. In addition to the thorough knowledge of Bach, which had by this time become a staple of musical education in Germany, Marxsen impressed on his pupil the paramount importance of a critical study of Beethoven, and thus laid the foundation of a broader eclecticism than had been attainable by the composers of any previous age. And, as every artist is in some degree influenced by the masterpieces from which he takes his point of departure, it is obvious that the more comprehensive a system of training, the more perfect will be the balance and unity of the ensuing work. Something, of course, must be allowed for temperament and predilection; no course of academic rule would have taught Chopin to write a symphony or make a contrapuntist of Berlioz; but given a mind that is wide enough to be in sympathy with divers methods, we can hardly over-estimate the value of a wise and many-sidedrégime. It is, then, a matter of no small moment that Brahms in his early studies should have followed the historical development of the art: first, thevolksliederand dances which represent its simplest and most unsophisticated utterance; then the choral writing, in which polyphony is brought to its highest perfection; lastly, the culminating majesty of structure which Beethovenhas raised as an imperishable monument. To us at the present day it may seem the most trivial of commonplaces, that a student in music should pay equal attention to all the supreme types of his art; it was not a commonplace half a century ago. And the proof, if proof were needed, is that all the composers of the Romantic period exhibit some imperfection of method: all, no doubt, playing a definite and valuable part in the advancement of their cause, but all leaving untouched some one point of vital importance in the heritage of previous achievement. In saying this, it is not, of course, necessary to set the genius of Brahms in the balance against that of Schumann or Chopin.'Non facultatum inducitur comparatio sed viæ.'But the fact remains, that there are in the earlier Masters certain traces of weakness from which the later is wholly free; and of this fact one reason may be found in a contrast between the system of Marxsen and the system of Kuntzsch and Elsner.
It was in 1847 that Brahms, at the age of fourteen, made his début before a Hamburg audience. His performance, which included a set of original variations on aVolkslied, was received with a good deal of applause, but Marxsen, who had no intention of spoiling a career by premature publicity, withdrew his pupil after a second trial flight, and sent him back to a course of training from which he did not emerge for another five years. This last period of studentship was mainly devoted to composition, and produced among other works the three Pianoforte Sonatas, the Scherzo in E flat minor, and several songs, one of which was the famous'Liebestreu.'They may be said to stand to Brahms later writings as 'Pauline' stands to 'Cleon' or 'Andrea del Sarto.'There is some wilfulness of phraseology, some occasional lapse of expression, but the beauties are real and genuine, and the whole manner astonishingly mature and adult. Already these appear in germ some of Brahms' most notable contributions to structural development, already there is evidence that he understood, as one alone had done before him, the full significance of the Sonata form, and the possibilities of its further extension. Here at last was a composer who could fulfil Berlioz's boast, that he had taken up music where Beethoven laid it down.
So passed away a quiet and uneventful boyhood, a time of novitiate and preparation in which the rules were learned and the discipline endured that should qualify a postulant for the full investiture of his order. The conflicts of 1849 left Hamburg almost entirely untouched, and to the cloistered retirement of the Anselar Platz the year of revolution was chiefly memorable as that in whichHerr IntendantHeinrich Krebs resigned his office in order to succeedHerr HofkapellmeisterRichard Wagner, at Dresden. Of the home-life, meanwhile, we can only say that it was too happy to afford any history. Thanks to the reminiscences of a few friends, we may recall for a moment a brief memory of the household:—Johann Brahms, kindly, genial, humorous, full of droll stories and quaint aphorisms, yet, in more serious mood, inspired with that intense poetic love of nature which was so distinguishing a characteristic in his son; Frau Brahms, gentle and affectionate, proud of her children, yet half afraid of the dangers and temptations to which an artistic career is liable; and with them the two boys, Johannes, standing on the vergeof a noble and laborious manhood, and Fritz, whose brilliant promise was soon to be cut short by an early death. But it is only a glimpse too slight and transitory to do more than intensify the darkness through which it penetrates. All the rest is veiled with a silence which, in the personal record of a great life, is the best of auguries.
About the beginning of 1853[48]Hamburg was visited by the Hungarian violinist, Reményi, an eccentric genius with an insatiable passion for travel, who, in the course of an itinerant life, has carried his national music as far east as China and as far south as Natal. For the time, however, he was contemplating a tour of more moderate dimensions, and being struck with Brahms' playing, suggested that they should undertake the enterprise together. It was, no doubt, a comradeship of rather incongruous elements, and the boy, who had never left home before, must have felt a little strange as he set out beside his eager, restless, impetuous companion, who only lamented that his wanderings were confined to a single planet. But the offer came at so opportune a moment, that there could be no question as to the propriety of accepting it; and in a few days the pair were travelling southward to see whether the towns of Germany would open their gates to the new alliance.
At Göttingen occurred an accident which indirectly altered the whole aspect of Brahms' position. The piano provided for rehearsal was, of a kind, picturesquely described by Dr Schubring as'ein erbärmlicher Klapperkasten,'which had lost all thevoice that it ever possessed by a long course of university dissipation. Accordingly, the impresario was summoned, offered the usual apologies, promised to procure a more adequate substitute for the evening, and returned at the last minute with a new instrument, which, on investigation, proved to be a semitone below concert-pitch. It is easy to picture the consternation of Reményi with an expectant audience, a flat piano, and the 'Kreutzer Sonata' in immediate prospect. To tune his violin down would be little short of a personal outrage, but there seemed no other solution, and he was proceeding with a reluctant hand to slacken his strings when Brahms came to the rescue and offered to transpose the pianoforte part, which he was playing from memory, into the higher key. No doubt similar feats have occasionally been performed by artists of very different calibre, by a Woelffl as well as a Beethoven, but they have not often been hazarded by a boy at the outset of his career, when success might pass unnoticed, and failure would throw back all chances of reputation and livelihood. It is little wonder that Reményi required a vast amount of persuasion before he would allow the attempt to be made, and that he was overwhelmed with astonishment when it ended in a veritable triumph.
As soon as the concert was over, the two artists were informed that a member of the audience wished to speak with them, and, on coming forward, found themselves face to face with Joachim. He had noted the conditions under which the Kreutzer was given, had admired not only thetour de force, but the general breadth and vigour of the rendering, and now, aftera few words of cordial commendation, he offered to lighten the rest of their journey by a letter of introduction to Liszt at Weimar and another to theHofintendantat Hanover. It was a pity that Düsseldorf lay outside their scheme; still if Brahms would come back to Göttingen at the close of the tour, he should have a letter to Schumann which might prove the most serviceable of the three. That Joachim was deeply impressed, is evident from a few words which he wrote on this occasion to his friend Ehrlich. 'Brahms has an altogether exceptional talent for composition,' he says,—'a gift which is further enhanced by the unaffected modesty of his character. His playing, too, gives every presage of a great artistic career—full of fire and energy, yet, if I may say so, inevitable in its precision and certainty of touch. In brief, he is the most considerable musician of his age that I have ever met.' Such an encomium, from such a source, may well have set expectation on the alert. Since Beethoven, there had been no man received into the brotherhood with so sincere and hearty a welcome.