Muck and Music
Alfred A. Knopf
(We disagree with Mr. Knopf in too many respects not to be eager to print his interesting article.)
Dr.Karl Muck resumed charge of the Boston Symphony Orchestra in the fall of 1912. Looking over the twenty-two programs which he has given since then one is forced to admit that his tastes are, to say the least, peculiar. There have been frequent performances of Beethoven and Brahms and occasional classical programs. These, perhaps, serve to keep his feet on solid earth, but at other times he soars into the realm of incomprehensible novelty and one can tell in advance where he will land just about as easily as if he were a German Zeppelin headed for Paris. One thing only seems certain—he cannot resist the virtuoso that is in him; he gluts us with what can only be called virtuosity for its own sake. If he offers a novelty (and when Brahms and Beethoven are taken care of he chooses, for the most part, to offer little else) it is sure to be some outrageously difficult affair—difficult both to play and to listen to. One cannot reasonably object to music merely because it is difficult to understand. The test is whether there is sufficient real beauty in it to repay careful and painstaking attention. And my point is simply that many of us feel that the beauty in Sibelius, Holbrooke, Reger, Lendvai, Mraczek, Loeffler, Mahler, Schmitt and others is disproportionately small.
The reasons for the New Yorker’s peculiar bitterness against Dr. Muck are not difficult to discover. He makes only ten appearances each season:the Philharmonic and the New York Symphony each gives many more concerts. From our point of view, would it not be better if we relied on Stransky and Damrosch (the merits of the one and the fripperies of the other are too apparent to call for comment here) for our first hearings of novelties? Then, if a particular composition seemed to warrant it, the Boston Orchestra could play it for us in its usual masterly manner. Just so long as New York worships the men from Boston in the mad feminine way it does, just that long will it resent Dr. Muck’s playing what it doesn’t want to hear. It was Theodore Thomas, I think, who, discovering that people cared very little for Wagner’s music, played it until they changed their minds. That is all very well when you have a Wagner, but I wonder just how heartily Dr. Muck admires the music he has recently served up to his New York audiences.
To begin with there was Sibelius’s Fourth Symphony. Now Sibelius is one of the great living composers. He is a genuine musician—by which I mean that you do not suffer all the agonies of stage fright when you hear a composition of his for the first time. He knows the business of his craft and you usually feel safe in his hands, thanks to three Symphonies and Finlandia. But how rudely this fourth symphony shakes your confidence! Call it musicianly: show how consistently-planned and executed it is: you won’t like it any the more. To be sure, Sibelius is a Finn and an intensely feeling one. He gives expression to the emotions of that curiously unhappy race. But music to appeal must be more universal than this angry symphony of ugly moods. You can’t explain it on cubist grounds—unless the Finns also call it disagreeable. But one ventures the guess that they, perchance, find it richly agreeable, in which case its performance should, by International law (or what is left of it) be confined to Finland.
Then there wasSchlemihl—a symphonic biography by one Emil Nikolaus vonReznicek. This was the pièce de resistance at the evening concert. It is scored for one piccolo, three flutes, three oboes, English horn, three clarinets, bass clarinet, three bassoons, double bassoon, four horns, four trumpets, three trombones, contra bass tuba, two trumpets off the stage, kettle drums, snare drums, bass drum and tambourine, Glockenspiel, Cuckoo, Xylophone, cymbals, triangle, tam-tam, two harps, celesta, organ, sixteen first violins, sixteen second violins, twelve violas, tenvioloncellos, eight double basses, and a tenor voice. This huge orchestra, plus the detailed analysis of his work furnished by the composer, explainsSchlemihl. It is an attempt to out-Richard Richard Strauss, and, like almost all such attempts, it fails. Reznicek recounts the life and fate of a modern man pursued by misfortune who goes to destruction in the conflict between his ideal and his material existence. A compound essentially ofTod undVerklärung,Tyll EulenspiegelandEin Heldenleben, but at no time reaching the heights attained by Strauss in all three of these tone poems. Imitators somehow almost always fall down in two ways—they devote far too little attention to whatthey want to say and far too much to their manner of saying it. And as a not unnatural result of this, they forget, or appear to forget at any rate, that melody is the prime essential in great music. Wagner had melodic genius, as we all realize today, and that Strauss has it is no longer open to very serious questioning. Reznicek hasn’t. His music is all rather good, but none of it good enough to grip you as the finest music does. It has no great moments but only moments of very great sound. The house fairly quaked at some of the fortissimos. And yetSchlemihlwould be pleasant enough were it not so pretentiously bombastic and did it not last twice too long. But the mere existence ofEin Heldenleben,Tyll EulenspiegelandTod und VerklärungdeprivesSchlemihlof any greater claim than that.
After these two pieces Scheinpflug’sOverture to a Comedy of Shakespeareproved quite simple and enjoyable. It is a musicianly piece of work lacking neither in melodic invention nor in skilful orchestration. The Allegretto Graziosa, in which an old English tune from the Fitz William Virginal Book is introduced, is wholly delightful. And having said that much, one really has said all. The overture can have no possible chance of immortality; it is not great music, it is not intensely interesting or unusually delectable: one feels rather that such compositions as this are the by-products of the daily practice of the art of music by men of no little talent but very little genius. As such, they demand an occasional hearing—today Scheinpflug has the stage: tomorrow someone else—what matter who, since none are really masters.
An occasional performance of Strauss’s early Symphonic Suite,Aus Italien, is probably quite justifiable because of his imposing importance among the composers of today. When a musician attains greatness almost everything he ever wrote becomes of interest to his disciples.Aus Italiencalls for little comment. First performed in 1887, it is difficult today to realize the great uproar and rage it evoked. Now it seems quite tame. It was indeed Strauss’s “first step towards independence,” and it is interesting as the connecting link between his very early work andDon Juanand its successors. Its first movement “On The Campagna” is probably the most successful, reaching as it does gravely grey and tragic heights. A sense of oppressiveness fairly overwhelms the listener and there are chords that are exquisite. “Amid Rome’s Ruins” is not nearly so sustained and well-knit. The opening of the third movement, “On the Shore of Sorrento,” depicts with wonderful effectiveness the brilliance of an Italian sea under a dazzling sun—a brilliance that no one who has seen it is likely ever to forget. Strauss, for all his reputed blare and noise, handles his orchestra pianissimo in a manner immeasurably more impressive than anyone else of his time. (The opening bars ofTod und Verklärungand the love scene inDon Juanimmediately come to mind). And you can measure a generation’s progress in orchestration by the unruffled placidity with which peoplenowadays listen to the at-one-time “brilliant, tumultuous, audacious, unusual, and bold” finale—“Neapolitan Folk-Life.”
Even the casual concert-goer must notice the amazing duplications that are being offered this season. For two or three seasons a particular composition is neglected; then suddenly it is played five times in half as many weeks. Stransky playsDon Juan; a week later Muck, as it were, shows us how it ought to be played. The Symphony Society plays Brahms’s Second Symphony and shortly thereafter Muck administers his reproach to Damrosch. Is there any reason why conductors shouldn’t meet occasionally and plan to avoid such ways? Muck appears the chief offender. His program stated that he was playing Ropartz’s Fourth Symphony for the first time in New York, but Stransky had played it only eight days earlier. When will we hear it again?
For this Symphony deserves another hearing. The only work by a Frenchman that Dr. Muck has offered this season, it is far more satisfying than any of his other novelties. The restless swing of the opening theme grips you at once—and your curiosity is piqued as the violins sing against the “Kernel” in the horns. The Adagio is not so successful—the theme sung by the English horn is not sufficiently melodious. You need only compare it with the heart-breaking Largo of Dvorak’sAus Der Neuen Welt. But there are the most engaging rhythms—many of them typically Scotch in their snap. In fact did Ropartz’s gift for melody (it is far from negligible) approach his rhythmic talent, he might produce really great music. As it is, this Fourth Symphony interests and gratifies. But it is too long. Its three movements are played without a pause and one’s attention flags at times. It seems likely that this is inevitable in absolute music: only a program can really hold one’s attention for almost forty minutes. Strauss does it inEin Heldenleben; butDon Juan,Tyll EulenspiegelandTod und Verklärunglast only about twenty minutes each, despite the fascinating explanations that the program notes always give of their musical contents. Ropartz’s Fourth Symphony would be much better if played with pauses, and the sections are so clearly indicated that this could be done without great difficulty. But, on the whole, a hearing of his work makes one wish for more French music, with its charming, clear-cut rhythms so typical of the Gaul. (To my mind Ropartz’s indebtedness to César Franck is a matter of comparative unimportance. Disciple or not, he has brought to his task of writing music freshness and charm, a fund of melody and a quite adequate technique).
After listening to these five compositions, what effect would Beethoven’sEgmontOverture naturally have? Relief,—pure unalloyed relief. And it confirms one in the feeling that relief is ever going to be one of the prime functions thrust by the musicians of today upon the greatest master of them all. Invariably he brings us back to earth, and as we sit listening to him in smug contentment, we can say over, without fear of contradiction: “This after all is music.”