In the music of modern Bohemia is one of the most vital utterances of the folk-spirit. The critic may not force a correspondence of politics and art to support his theory. Yet a cause may here be found as in Russia and Finland. (Poland and Hungary had their earlier song). There is a sincerity, an unpremeditated quality in Bohemian music that is not found among its western neighbors. The spirit is its own best proof, without a conscious stress of a national note. Indeed, Bohemian music is striking, not at all in a separate tonal character, like Hungarian, but rather in a subtle emotional intensity, which again differs from the wild abandon of the Magyars. An expression it must be of a national feeling that has for ages been struggling against absorption. Since ancient times Bohemia has been part of a Teutonic empire. The story of its purely native kings is not much more than legendary. Nor has it shared the harder fate of other small nations; for the Teuton rule at least respected its separate unity.
But the long association with the German people has nearly worn away the racial signs and hall-marks of its folk-song. A Bohemian tune thus has a taste much like the native German. Yet a quality of its own lies in the emotional vitality, shown in a school of national drama and, of late, in symphony. It is not necessary to seek in this modern culmination a correspondence with an impending danger of political suppression. Art does not follow history with so instant a reflection.
The intensity of this national feeling appears when Smetana himself, the minstrel of the people, is charged at home with yielding to the foreign influence. Here again is the hardship of the true national poet who feels that for the best utterance of his message he needs the grounding upon a broader art; here is the narrow Chauvinism that has confined the music of many lands within the primitive forms.
Two types we have in Bohemian music of later times: one, Smetana, of pure national celebration; a second, Dvôrák, who with a profound absorption of the German masters, never escaped the thrall of the folk-element and theme.
SMETANA. SYMPHONIC POEM, "THE MOLDAU RIVER"[45]
SMETANA. SYMPHONIC POEM, "THE MOLDAU RIVER"[45]
Simplicity is uppermost in these scores; yet the true essence is almost hidden to the mere reader. With all primitive quality they are more difficult than many a classic symphony. The latent charm of folk humor and sentiment depends more on tradition and sympathy than on notation.
The naïvely graphic impulse (that we find throughout the choral works of Bach) that merely starts a chance themal line, as here of the first branch of the Moldau, does not disturb the emotional expression. And while the feeling is sustained, the art is there, not to stifle but to utter and set free the native spring of song.
It must be yielded that the design is not profound; it smacks of the village fair rather than of grand tragedy. Song is ever supreme, and with all abundance of contrapuntal art does not become sophisticated. The charm is not of complexity, but of a more child-like, sensuous kind.
It must all be approached in a different way from other symphonic music. The minstrel is not even the peasant in court costume, as Dvôrák once was called. He is the peasant in his own village dress, resplendent with color and proud of his rank.
We cannot enjoy the music with furrowed brow. It is a case where music touches Mother Earth and rejuvenates herself. Like fairy lore and proverbs, its virtue lies in some other element than profound design. For any form of song or verse that enshrines the spirit of a people and is tried in the forge of ages of tradition, lives on more surely than the fairest art of individual poet.
The stream is the great figure, rising from small sources in playful flutes, with light spray of harp and
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strings. The first brook is joined by another (in clarinets) from a new direction. Soon grows the number and the rustle of confluent waters. The motion of the strings is wavelike, of a broader flow, though underneath we scan the several lesser currents. Above floats now the simple, happy song, that expands
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with the stream and at last reaches a glad, sunny major.
Still to the sound of flowing waters comes the forest hunt, with all the sport of trumpets and other brass.
It is descriptive music, tonal painting if you will; but the color is local or national. The strokes are not so much of events or scenes as of a popular humor and character, which we must feel with small stress of each event. The blowing of trumpets, the purling of streams, the swaying of trees, in primal figures, all breathe the spirit of Bohemia.
The hunt dies away; emerging from the forest the jolly sounds greet us of a peasant wedding. The
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parade reaches the church in high festivity and slowly vanishes to tinkling bells.
Night has fallen; in shifted scene the stream is sparkling in the moonlight still to the quiet sweet harmonies. But this is all background for a dance of nymphs, while a dulcet, sustained song sounds through the night. At last, to the golden horns a faintest harmony is added of deeper brass. Still very softly, the brass strike a quicker phrase and we seem to hear the hushed chorus of hunt with the call of trumpets, as the other brass lead in a new verse that grows lustier with the livelier song and dance, till—with a flash we are alone with the running stream with which the dance of nymphs has somehow merged.
On it goes, in happy, ever more masterful course, a symbol of the nation's career, surging in bright major and for a moment quieting before the mighty Rapids of St. Johann. Here the song of the stream is nearly lost in the rush of eddies and the strife of big currents, with the high leaps of dashing spray,—ever recurring like unceasing battle with a towering clash at the height of the tempest. At last all meet in overpowering united torrent, suddenly to hush before the stream, at the broadest, rushes majestically along in hymnal song of exalted harmonies and triumphant melody, with joyous after-strains.
As the pilgrim to his Mecca, so the waters are wafted into the climactic motive of the Hradschin, the chant of the holy citadel. The rest is a long jubilation
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on quicker beats of the chant, amid the plash of waters and the shaking of martial brass. Strangely, as the other sounds die away, the melody of the stream emerges clear and strong, then vanishes in the distance before the jubilant Amen.
In the general view we must feel a wonderful contrast here with the sophomoric state of the contemporary art in other lands where the folk-song has lost its savor,—where the natural soil is exhausted and elegant castles are built in the air of empty fantasy, or on the sands of a vain national pride.
DVÔRÁK. SYMPHONY, "FROM THE NEW WORLD."[46]
It is a much-discussed question how far Dvôrák's American symphony is based on characteristic folk-song. Here are included other questions: to what extent the themes are based on an African type, and whether negro music is fairly American folk-song. Many, perhaps most people, will answer with a general negative. But it seems to be true that many of us do not really know the true negro song,—have quite a wrong idea of it.
To be sure, all argument aside, it is a mistake to think that folk-song gets its virtue purely from a distinctive national quality,—because it is Hungarian, Scandinavian, or Slavonic. If all the national modes and rhythms of the world were merged in one republic, there would still be a folk-song of the true type and value. There is a subtle charm and strength in the spontaneous simplicity, all aside from racial color. It is here that, like Antaeus, the musician touches Mother Earth and renews his strength. So, when Dvôrák suddenly shifts in the midst of his New World fantasy into a touch of Bohemian song, there is no real loss. It is all relevant in the broad sense of folk feeling, that does not look too closely at geographical bounds. It is here that music, of all arts, leads to a true state of equal sympathy, regardless of national prejudice. What, therefore, distinguishes Dvôrák's symphony may not be mere negro melody, or even American song, but a genuine folk-feeling, in the widest meaning.
In one way, Dvôrák's work reminds us of Mendelssohn's Scotch Symphony: both exploit foreign national melody in great poetic forms. One could write a Scotch symphony in two ways: one, in Mendelssohn's, the other would be to tell of the outer impression in the terms of your own folk-song. That is clearly the way Mendelssohn wrote most of the Italian Symphony,—which stands on a higher plane than the Scotch. For folk-song is the natural language of its own people. It is interesting to see the exact type that each theme represents; but it is not so important as to catch the distinction, the virtue of folk-songper seand the purely natural utterance of one's own. Of course, every one writes always in his folk-tones. On the other hand, one may explore one's own special treasures of native themes, as Dvôrák himself did so splendidly in his Slavic Dances and in his Legends. So one must, after all, take this grateful, fragrant work as an idea of what American composers might do in full earnest. Dvôrák is of all later masters the most eminent folk-musician. He shows greatest sympathy, freedom and delight in revelling among the simple tones and rhythms of popular utterance, rearing on them, all in poetic spontaneity, a structure of high art. Without strain or show, Dvôrák stood perhaps the most genuine of late composers, with a firm foot on the soil of native melody, yet with the balance and restraint and the clear vision of the trained master.[47]
In a certain view, it would seem that by the fate of servitude the American negro has become the element in our own national life that alone produces true folk-song,—that corresponds to the peasant and serf of Europe, the class that must find in song the refuge and solace for its loss of material joys. So Dvôrák perhaps is right, with a far seeing eye, when he singles the song of the despised race as the national type.
Another consideration fits here. It has been suggested that the imitative sense of the negro has led him to absorb elements of other song. It is very difficult to separate original African elements of song from those that may thus have been borrowed. At any rate, there is no disparagement of the negro's musical genius in this theory. On the contrary, it would be almost impossible to imagine a musical people that would resist the softer tones of surrounding and intermingling races. We know, to be sure, that Stephen Foster, the author of "The Old Folks at Home," "Massa's in the Cold, Cold Ground," and other famous ballads, was a Northerner, though his mother came from the South. We hear, too, that he studied negro music eagerly. It is not at all inconceivable, however, Foster's song may have been devoid of negro elements, that the colored race absorbed, wittingly or unwittingly, something of the vein into their plaints or lullabies,—that, indeed, Foster's songs may have been a true type that stirred their own imitation. From all points of view,—the condition of slavery, the trait of assimilation and the strong gift of musical expression may have conspired to give the negro a position and equipment which would entitle his tunes to stand as the real folk-song of America.
The eccentric accent seems to have struck the composer strongly. And here is a strange similarity with Hungarian song,—though there is, of course, no kinship of race whatever between Bohemians and Magyars. One might be persuaded to find here simply an ebullition of rhythmic impulse,—the desire for a special fillip that starts and suggests a stronger energy of motion than the usual conventional pace. At any rate, the symphony begins with just such strong, nervous phrases that soon gather big force. Hidden is the germ of the first, undoubtedly the chief theme of the whole work.
It is more and more remarkable how a search will show the true foundation of almost all of Dvôrák's themes. Not that one of them is actually borrowed, or lacks an original, independent reason for being.
Whether by imitation or not, the pentatonic scale of the Scotch is an intimate part of negro song. This avoidance of the seventh or leading tone is seen throughout the symphony as well as in the traditional jubilee tunes. It may be that this trait was merely confirmed in the African by foreign musical influence. For it seems that the leading-note, the urgent need for the ascending half-tone in closing, belongs originally to the minstrelsy of the Teuton and of central Europe, that resisted and conquered the sterner modes of the early Church. Ruder nations here agreed with Catholic ritual in preferring the larger interval of the whole tone. But in the quaint jump of the third the Church had no part, clinging closely to a diatonic process.
The five-toned scale is indeed so widespread that it cannot be fastened on any one race or even family of nations. The Scotch have it; it is characteristic of the Chinese and of the American Indian. But, independently of the basic mode or scale, negro songs show here and there a strange feeling for a savage kind of lowering of this last note. The pentatonic scale simply omits it, as well as the fourth step. But the African will now and then rudely and forcibly lower it by a half-tone. In the minor it is more natural; for it can then be thought of as the fifth of the relative major. Moreover, it is familiar to us in the Church chant. This effect we have in the beginning of the Scherzo. Many of us do not know the true African manner, here. But in the major it is much more barbarous. And it is almost a pity that Dvôrák did not strike it beyond an occasional touch (as in the second quoted melody). A fine example is "Roll, Jordan Roll," in E flat (that opens, by the way, much like Dvôrák's first theme), where the beginning of the second line rings out on a savage D flat, out of all key to Caucasian ears.
We soon see stealing out of the beginningAdagioan eccentric pace in motion of the bass, that leads to the burst of main subject,Allegro molto, with a certain
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ragged rhythm that we Americans cannot disclaim as a nation. The working up is spirited, and presently out of the answer grows a charming jingle that somehow strikes home.
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It begins in the minor and has a strange, barbaric touch of cadence. Many would acknowledge it at most as a touch of Indian mode. Yet it is another phase of the lowered seventh. And if we care to search, we find quite a prototype in a song like "Didn't My Lord Deliver Daniel." Soon the phrase has a more familiar ring as it turns into a friendly major. But the real second theme comes in a solo tune on the flute, in the major,
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with a gait something like the first.[48]Less and less we can resist the genuine negro quality of these melodies, and, at the same time, their beauty and the value of the tonal treasure-house in our midst.
The whole of the first Allegro is thus woven of three melodious and characteristic themes in very clear sonata-form. The second, Largo, movement is a lyric of moving pathos, with a central melody that may not have striking traits of strict African song, and yet belongs to the type closely associated with the negro vein of plaint or love-song. The rhythmic
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turns that lead to periods of excitement and climaxes of rapid motion, are absent in the main melody. But
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they appear in the episode that intervenes. Even here, in the midst, is a new contrast of a minor lament that has a strong racial trait in the sudden swing to major and, as quickly, back to the drearier mode. This is followed by a rhapsody or succession of rapid, primitive phrases, that leads to a crisis where, of a sudden, three themes sing at once, the two of the previous Allegro and the main melody of the Largo, in distorted pace with full chorus. This excitement is as suddenly lulled and soothed by the return of the original moving song.
The Scherzo starts in a quick three-beat strum on the chord we have pointed to as a true model trait of negro music, with the lowered leading-note. The
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theme, discussed in close stress of imitation, seems merely to mark the rapid swing in the drone of strange harmony. But what is really a sort of Trio (poco sostenuto) is another sudden, grateful change to major, perfectly true to life, so to speak, in this turn of mode and in the simple lines of the tune. The lyric mood all but suppresses the dance, the melody sounding like a new verse of the Largo. The trip has always lingered, but not too much for the delicious change when it returns to carry us off our feet.
The Scherzo now steals in again, quite a piece, it seems, with the Trio. As the rising volume nears a crisis, the earliest theme (from the first Allegro) is heard in the basses. In the hushed discourse of Scherzo theme that follows, the old melody still intrudes. In mockery of one of its turns comes an enchanting bit of tune, as naïve an utterance as any, much like a children's dancing song. And it returns later with still new enchantment of rhythm. But the whole is too full of folk-melody to trace out, yet is, in its very fibre, true to the idea of an epic of the people.
Presently the whole Scherzo and Trio are rehearsed; but now instead of the phase of latest melodies is a close where the oldest theme (of Allegro) is sung in lusty blasts of the horns and wood, with answers of the Scherzo motive.
In the last movement,Allegro con fuoco, appears early a new kind of march tune that, without special
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trick of rhythm, has the harsh note of lowered leading-note (in the minor, to be sure) in very true keeping with negro song. The march is carried on, with flowing answer, to a high pitch of varied splendor and tonal power. The second theme is utterly opposed in a certain pathetic rhapsody. Yet it rises, at the close, to a fervent burst in rapid motion. We
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may expect in the Finale an orgy of folk-tune and dance, and we are not disappointed. There is, too, a quick rise and fall of mood, that is a mark of the negro as well as of the Hungarian. By a sudden doubling, we are in the midst of a true "hoe-down," in jolliest jingle, with that naïve iteration, true to life; it comes out clearest when the tune of the bass (that sounds like a rapid "Three Blind Mice") is
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put in the treble. A pure idealized negro dance-frolic is here. It is hard to follow all the pranks; lightly as the latest phrase descends in extending melody, a rude blast of the march intrudes in discordant humor. A new jingle of dance comes with a redoubled pace of bits of the march. As this dies down to dimmest bass, the old song from the Largo rings high in the wood. Strangest of all, in a fierce shout of the whole chorus sounds twice this same pathetic strain. Later comes a redoubled speed of the march in the woodwind, above a slower in low strings. Now the original theme of all has a noisy say. Presently the sad second melody has a full verse. Once more the Largo lullaby sings its strain in the minor. In the close the original Allegro theme has a literal, vigorous dispute with the march-phrase for the last word of all.
The work does less to exploit American music than to show a certain community in all true folk-song. Nor is this to deny a strain peculiar to the new world. It seems a poet of distant land at the same time and in the same tones uttered his longing for his own country and expressed the pathos and the romance of the new. Dvôrák, like all true workers, did more than he thought: he taught Americans not so much the power of a song of their own, as their right of heritage in all folk-music. And this is based not merely on an actual physical inheritance from the various older races.
If the matter, in Dvôrák's symphony, is of American negro-song, the manner is Bohemian. A stranger-poet may light more clearly upon the traits of a foreign lore. But his celebration will be more conscious if he endeavor to cling throughout to the special dialect. A true national expression will come from the particular soil and will be unconscious of its own idiom.
The permanent hold that Dvôrák's symphony has gained is due to an intrinsic merit of art and sincere sentiment; it has little to do with the nominal title or purpose.
Whatever be the final answer of the mooted question of the greatness of Bruckner's symphonies, there is no doubt that he had his full share of technical profundity, and a striking mastery of the melodious weaving of a maze of concordant strains. The question inevitably arises with Bruckner as to the value of the world's judgments on its contemporary poets. There can be no doubt that thefuroreof the musical public tends to settle on one or two favorites with a concentration of praise that ignores the work of others, though it be of a finer grain. Thus Schubert's greatest—his one completed—symphony was never acclaimed until ten years after his death. Even his songs somehow brought more glory to the singer than to the composer. Bach's oratorios lay buried for a full century. On the other hand, names great in their day are utterly lost from the horizon. It is hard to conceive theéclatof a Buononcini or a Monteverde,—whose works were once preëminent. There are elements in art, of special, sensational effect, that make a peculiar appeal in their time, and are incompatible with true and permanent greatness. One is tempted to say, the more sudden and vehement the success, the less it will endure. But it would not be true. Such an axiom would condemn an opera like "Don Giovanni," an oratorio like the "Creation," a symphony like Beethoven's Seventh. There is a wonderful difference, an immeasurable gulf between the good and the bad in art; yet the apparent line is of the subtlest. Most street songs may be poor; but some are undoubtedly beautiful in a very high sense. It is a problem of mystic fascination, this question of the value of contemporary art. It makes its appeal to the subjective view of each listener. No rule applies. Every one will perceive in proportion to his capacity, no one beyond it. So, a profound work may easily fail of response, as many works in the various arts have done in the past, because the average calibre of the audience is too shallow, while it may deeply stir an intelligent few. Not the least strange part of it all is the fact that there can, of necessity, be no decision in the lifetime of the poet. Whether it is possible for obscure Miltons never to find their meed of acclaim, is a question that we should all prefer to answer in the negative. There is a certain shudder in thinking of such a chance; it seems a little akin to the danger of being buried alive.
The question of Bruckner's place can hardly be said to be settled, although he has left nine symphonies. He certainly shows a freedom, ease and mastery in the symphonic manner, a limpid flow of melody and a sure control in the interweaving of his themes, so that, in the final verdict, the stress may come mainly on the value of the subjects, in themselves. He is fond of dual themes, where the point lies in neither of two motives, but in the interplay of both; we see it somewhat extended in Richard Strauss, who uses it, however, in a very different spirit. The one evident and perhaps fatal lack is of intrinsic beauty of the melodic ideas, and further, an absence of the strain of pathos that sings from the heart of a true symphony. While we are mainly impressed by the workmanship, there is no denying a special charm of constant tuneful flow. At times this complexity is almost marvellous in the clear simplicity of the concerted whole,—in one view, the main trait or trick of symphonic writing. It is easy to pick out the leading themes as they appear in official order. But it is not so clear which of them constitute the true text. The multiplicity of tunes and motives is amazing.
Of the Wagner influence with which Bruckner is said to be charged, little is perceptible in hissecond symphony. On the contrary, a strong academic tradition pervades. The themes are peculiarly symphonic. Moreover they show so strikingly the dual quality that one might say, as a man may see double, Bruckner sang double. Processes of augmenting and inverting abound, together with the themal song in the bass. Yet there is not the sense of overloaded learning. There is everywhere a clear and melodious polyphony.
But with all masterly architecture, even enchanting changes of harmony and a prodigal play of melody, the vacuity of poetic ideas must preclude a permanent appeal. Bruckner is here the schoolmaster: his symphony is a splendid skeleton, an object lesson for the future poet.
In theFOURTH (ROMANTIC) SYMPHONYthe main light plays throughout on the wind. The text is a call of horns, that begins the work. It is a symphony
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of wood-notes, where the forest-horn is sovereign,—awakening a widening world of echoes, with a murmuring maze of lesser notes. One has again the feeling that in the quiet interweaving of a tapestry of strains lies the individual quality of the composer,—that theforteblasts, the stride of big unison figures are but the interlude.
In the Andante the charm is less of tune than of the delicate changing shades of the harmony and of the colors of tone. We are ever surprised in the gentlest way by a turn of chord or by the mere entrance of a horn among the whispering strings. The shock of a soft modulation may be as sudden as of the loud, sudden blare. But we cannot somehow be consoled for the want of a heart-felt melody.
The Scherzo is a kind of hunting-piece, full of the sparkle, the color and romance of bugles and horns,—a spirited fanfare broken by hushed phrases of strings or wood, or an elf-like mystic dance on the softened call of trumpets. The Trio sings apart, between the gay revels, in soft voices and slower pace, like a simple ballad.
The Finale is conceived in mystical retrospect, beginning in vein of prologue: over mysterious murmuring strings, long sustained notes of the reed and horn in octave descent are mingled with a soft carillon of horns and trumpets in the call of the Scherzo. In broad swing a free fantasy rises to a loud refrain (in the brass) of the first motive of the symphony.
In slower pace and hush of sound sings a madrigal of tender phrases. A pair of melodies recall like figures of the first Allegro. Indeed, a chain of dulcet strains seems to rise from the past.
The fine themal relevance may be pursued in infinite degree, to no end but sheer bewilderment. The truth is that a modern vanity for subtle connection, a purest pedantry, is here evident, and has become a baneful tradition in the modern symphony. It is an utter confusion of the letter with the spirit. Once for all, a themal coherence of symphony must lie in the main lines, not in a maze of unsignificant figures.
Marked is a sharp alternation of mood, tempestuous and tender, of Florestan and Eusebius. The lyric phase yields to the former heroic fantasy and then returns in soothing solace into a prevailing motive that harks back to the second of the beginning movement. The fantasy, vague of melody, comes
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(in more than one sense) as relief from the small tracery. It is just to remember a like oscillation in the first Allegro.
When the prologue recurs, the phrases are in ascent, instead of descent of octaves. A climactic verse of the main dulcet melody breaks out in resonant choir of brass and is followed by a soft rhapsody on the several strains that hark back to the beginning. From the halting pace the lyric episode rises in flight of continuous song to enchanting lilt. Now in the big heroic fantasy sing the first slow phrases as to the manner born and as naturally break into a paean of the full motive, mingled with strains of the original legend of the symphony, that flows on to broad hymnal cadence.
In mystic musing we reach a solemn stillness where the prologue phrase is slowly drawn out into a profoundly moving hymn. Here we must feel is Meister Bruckner's true poetic abode rather than in the passion and ecstasy of romance into which he was vainly lured.[50]
In Bruckner's later works appears the unique instance of a discipline grounded in the best traditions, united to a deft use of ephemeral devices. The basic cause of modern mannerism, mainly in harmonic effects, lies in a want of formal mastery; an impatience of thorough technic; a craving for quick sensation. With Bruckner it was the opposite weakness of original ideas, an organic lack of poetic individuality. It is this the one charge that cannot be brought home to the earlier German group of reaction against the classic idea.
There is melody, almost abundant, in Wagner and Liszt and their German contemporaries. Indeed it was an age of lyricists. The fault was that they failed to recognize their lyric limitation, lengthening and padding their motives abnormally to fit a form that was too large. Hence the symphony of Liszt, with barren stretches, and the impossible plan of the later music-drama. The truest form of such a period was the song, as it blossomed in the works of a Franz.
Nor has this grandiose tendency even yet spent its course. A saving element was the fashioning of a new form, by Liszt himself,—the Symphonic Poem,—far inferior to the symphony, but more adequate to the special poetic intent.
Whatever be the truth of personal gossip, there is no doubt that Bruckner lent himself and his art to a championing of the reactionary cause in the form that was intrinsically at odds with its spirit. Hence in later works of Bruckner these strange episodes of borrowed romance, abruptly stopped by a firm counterpoint of excellent quality,—indeed far the best of his writing. For, if a man have little ideas, at least his good workmanship will count for something.
In truth, one of the strangest types is presented in Bruckner,—a pedant who by persistent ingenuity simulates a master-work almost to perfection. By so much as genius is not an infinite capacity for pains, by so much is Bruckner's Ninth not a true symphony. Sometimes, under the glamor of his art, we are half persuaded that mere persistence may transmute pedantry into poetry.
It seems almost as if the Wagnerians chose their champion in the symphony with a kind of suppressed contempt for learning, associating mere intellectuality with true mastery, pointing to an example of greatest skill and least inspiration as if to say: "Here is your symphonist if you must have one." And it is difficult to avoid a suspicion that his very partisans were laughing up their sleeve at their adopted champion.
We might say all these things, and perhaps we have gone too far in suggesting them. After all we have no business with aught but the music of Bruckner, whatever may have been his musical politics, his vanity, his ill judgment, or even his deliberate partisanship against his betters. But the ideas themselves are unsubstantial; on shadowy foundation they give an illusion by modern touches of harmony and rhythm that are not novel in themselves. The melodic idea is usually divided in two, as by a clever juggler. There is really no one thought, but a plenty of small ones to hide the greater absence.
We have merely to compare this artificial manner with the poetic reaches of Brahms to understand the insolence of extreme Wagnerians and the indignation of a Hanslick. As against the pedantry of Bruckner the style of Strauss is almost welcome in its frank pursuit of effects which are at least grateful in themselves. Strauss makes hardly a pretence at having melodic ideas. They serve but as pawns or puppets for his harmonic and orchestralmise-en-scène. He is like a play-wright constructing his plot around a scenic design.
Just a little common sense is needed,—an unpremeditated attitude. Thus the familiar grouping, "Bach,BeethovenandBrahms" is at least not unnatural. Think of the absurdity of "Bach,BeethovenandBruckner"![51]
The truth is, the Bruckner cult is a striking symptom of a certain decadence in German music; an incapacity to tell the sincere quality of feeling in the dense, brilliant growth of technical virtuosity. In the worship at the Bayreuth shrine, somehow reinforced by a modern national self-importance, has been lost a heed for all but a certain vein of exotic romanticism, long ago run to riotous seed, a blending of hedonism and fatalism. No other poetic message gets a hearing and the former may be rung in endless repetition and reminiscence, provided, to be sure, it be framed with brilliant cunning of workmanship.
Here we feel driven defiantly to enounce the truth: that the highest art, even in a narrow sense, comes only with a true poetic message. Of this Bruckner is a proof; for, if any man by pure knowledge could make a symphony, it was he. But, with almost superhuman skill, there is something wanting in the inner connection, where the main ideas are weak, forced or borrowed. It is only the true poetic rapture that ensures the continuous absorption that drives in perfect sequence to irresistible conclusion.
SYMPHONY NO. 9
SYMPHONY NO. 9
I.—Solenne.Solemn mystery is the mood, amid trembling strings on hollow unison, before the eight
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horns strike a phrase in the minor chord that in higher echoes breaks into a strange harmony and descends into a turn of melodic cadence. In answer is another chain of brief phrases, each beginning
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with a note above the chord (the common mark and manner of the later school of harmonists[52]) and a new ascent on a literal ladder of subtlest progress, while hollow intervals are intermingled in the pinch of close harmonies. The bewildering maze here begins of multitudinous design, enriched with modern devices.
A clash of all the instruments acclaims the climax before the unison stroke of fullest chorus on the solemn note of the beginning. A favorite device of Bruckner, a measured tread ofpizzicatostrings with interspersed themal motives, precedes the romantic episode. Throughout the movement is this alternation of liturgic chorale with tender melody.
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Bruckner's pristine polyphonic manner ever appears in the double strain of melodies, where each complements, though not completes the other. However multiple the plan, we cannot feel more than the quality ofunusualin the motives themselves, of some interval of ascent or descent. Yet as the melody grows to larger utterance, the fulness of polyphonic art brings a beauty of tender sentiment, rising to a moving climax, where the horns lead the song in the heart of the madrigal chorus, and the strings alone sing the expressive answer.
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A third phrase now appears, where lies the main poetry of the movement. Gentle swaying calls of
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soft horns and wood, echoed and answered in close pursuit, lead to a mood of placid, elemental rhythm, with something of "Rheingold," of "Ossian" ballad, of the lapping waves of Cherubini's "Anacreon." In the midst the horns blow a line of sonorous melody, where the cadence has a breath of primal legend. On the song runs, ever mid the elemental motion, to a resonant height and dies away as before. The intimate, romantic melody now returns, but it is rocked on the continuing pelagic pulse; indeed, we hear anon a faint phrase of the legend, in distant trumpet, till we reach a joint rhapsody of both moods; and in the never resting motion, mid vanishing echoes, we dream of some romance of the sea.
Against descending harmonies return the hollow, sombre phrases of the beginning, with the full cadence of chorale in the brass; and beyond, the whole prelude has a full, extended verse. In the alternation of solemn and sweet episode returns the tender melody, with pretty inversions, rising again to an ardent height. The renewed clash of acclaiming chorus ushers again the awful phrase of unison (now in octave descent), in towering majesty. But now it rises in the ever increasing vehemence where the final blast is lit up with a flash of serene sonority.
This motive, of simple octave call, indeed pervades the earlier symphony in big and little. And now, above a steady, sombre melodic tread of strings it rises in a fray of eager retorts, transfigured in wonderful harmony again and again to a brilliant height, pausing on a ringing refrain, in sombre hue of overpowering blast.
A soft interlude of halting and diminishing strings leads to the romantic melody as it first appeared, where the multiple song again deepens and ennobles the theme. It passes straight into the waving, elemental motion, where again the hallowed horn utters its sibyl phrase, again rising to resonant height. And again merges the intimate song with the continuing pulse of the sea, while the trumpet softly sounds the legend and a still greater height of rhapsody.
Dull brooding chords bring a sombre play of the awing phrase, over a faint rocking motion, clashing in bold harmony, while the horns surge in broader melody. The climactic clash ends in a last verse of the opening phrase, as of primal, religious chant.
II.—Scherzo.In the dazzling pace of bright clashing harmonies, the perfect answers of falling and rising phrases, we are again before the semblance, at
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least, of a great poetic idea. To be sure there is a touch of stereotype in the chords and even in the pinch and clash of hostile motives. And there is not the distinctive melody,—final stamp and test of the shaft of inspiration. Yet in the enchantment of motion, sound and form, it seems mean-spirited to cavil at a want of something greater. One stands bewildered before such art and stunned of all judgment.
A delight of delicate gambols follows the first brilliant dance of main motive. Amid a rougher trip of unison sounds the sonorous brass, and to softest jarring murmur of strings a pretty jingle of reed,
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with later a slower counter-song, almost a madrigal of pastoral answers, till we are back in the ruder original dance. The gay cycle leads to a height of rough volume (where the mystic brass sound in the midst) and a revel of echoing chase.
In sudden hush of changed tone on fastest fairy trip, strings and wood play to magic harmonies. In calming motion the violins sing a quieter song, ever
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echoed by the reed. Though there is no gripping force of themal idea, the melodies are all of grateful charm, and in the perfect round of rhythmic design we may well be content. The original dance recurs with a full fine orgy of hostile euphony.
III.—Adagio.Feierlich,—awesomeindeed are these first sounds, and we are struck by the originality
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of Bruckner's technic. After all we must give the benefit at least of the doubt. And there is after this deeply impressiveintroita gorgeous Promethean
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spring of up-leaping harmonies. The whole has certainly more of concrete beauty than many of the labored attempts of the present day.
The prelude dies down with an exquisite touch of precious dissonance,—whether it came from the heart or from the workshop. The strange and tragic part is that with so much art and talent there should not be the strong individual idea,—the flash of new tonal figure that stands fearless upon its own feet. All this pretty machinery seems wasted upon the framing and presenting, at the moment of expectation, of the shadows of another poet's ideas or of mere platitudes.
In the midst of the broad sweeping theme with a
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promise of deep utterance is a phrase of horns with the precise accent and agony of aTristan. The very semblance of whole motives seems to be taken from the warp and woof of Wagnerian drama. And thus the whole symphony is degraded, in its gorgeous capacity, to the reëchoed rhapsody of exotic romanticism. It is all little touches, no big thoughts,—a mosaic of a symphony.
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And so the second theme[53]is almost too heavily laden with fine detail for its own strength, though
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it ends with a gracefully delicate answer. The main melody soon recurs and sings with a stress of warm feeling in the cellos, echoed by glowing strains of the horns. Romantic harmonies bring back the solemn air of the prelude with a new counter melody, in precise opposite figure, as though inverted in a mirror, and again the dim moving chords that seem less of Bruckner than of legendary drama. In big accoutrement the double theme moves with double answers, ever with the sharp pinch of harmonies and heroic mien. Gentlest retorts of the motives sing with fairy clearness (in horns and reeds), rising to tender, expressive dialogue. With growing spirit they ascend once more to the triumphant clash of empyraean chords, that may suffice for justifying beauty.
Instead of the first, the second melody follows with its delicate grace. After a pause recurs the phrase that harks from mediaeval romance, now in a stirring ascent of close chasing voices. The answer, perfect in its timid halting descent, exquisite in accent and in the changing hues of its periods, is robbed of true effect by its direct reflection of Wagnerian ecstasies.
As if in recoil, a firm hymnal phrase sounds in the strings, ending in a more intimate cadence. Another chain of rarest fairy clashes, on the motive of the prelude, leads to the central verse, the song of the first main melody in the midst of soft treading strings, and again descends the fitting answer of poignant accent.
And now, for once forgetting all origin and clinging sense of reminiscence, we may revel in the rich romance, the fathoms of mystic harmony, as the main song sings and rings from the depths of dim legend in lowest brass, amidst a soft humming chorus, in constant shift of fairy tone.
A flight of ascending chords brings the big exaltation of the first prophetic phrase, ever answered by exultant ring of trumpet, ending in sudden awing pause. An eerie train of echoes from the verse of prelude leads to a loveliest last song of the poignant answer of main song, over murmuring strings. It
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is carried on by the mystic choir of sombre brass in shifting steps of enchanting harmony and dies away in tenderest lingering accents.[54]