While Brahms was developing the classical heritage in his own way, Liszt and Wagner were boldly staking out claims on the future. With each of these composers the aim was the same—to find a form and an expression that, by their elasticity, would make music more equal to the painting of human life in all its manifold variety. This effort took two lines: the instrumentaland the dramatic. Liszt, anticipated to some extent by Berlioz, tried to adapt the essence of the symphonic form to the new spirit. The problems he set himself have rarely been successfully solved, even to the present day; they block the path of every modern writer of symphonic poems, and of every writer of symphonies the impulse behind which is more or less definitely poetic.
The mere fact of the incessant fluctuation of modern composers between the two forms—the one-movement form of Liszt and the symphonic poem in general, and the four-movement form of the poetic or partly poetic symphony—shows that neither of them is of itself completely adequate. For against each of them strict logic can urge some pointed objection. The four-movement form, growing as it does out of the suite, is and will always be more appropriate to what may be roughly called 'pattern-music' rather than to poetic music; for the mere number of the movements, and the practically invariable order of their succession, implies the forcing of the thought into a preconceived frame, rather than the determining of the frame by the nature of the picture. The one-movement form is in itself more logical, but it is always faced by the problem of conciliating the natural evolution of a poetic idea and the decorative evolution of a musical pattern; and the symphonic poems in which this problem is satisfactorily solved might perhaps be counted on the fingers of one hand. There is a point in Strauss'sTill Eulenspiegel, for example,
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in which we feel acutely that the poetic—or shall we say the novelistic?—scheme that has so far been followed line by line is being put aside for the moment in order that the composer, having stated his thematic material, may subject it, for purely musical reasons, to something in the nature of the ordinary 'working-out.'
The four-movement form obviously allows greater scope to a composer who has a great deal to say upon a fruitful subject, but it labors under an equally obvious disability. The modern sense of psychological unity demands that the symphony of to-day shall justify, in its own being, the casting of it into this or that number of movements. Every work of art must, if challenged, be able to give an answer to what Wagner used to call the question 'Why?' 'Why,' we have a right to say to the composer, 'have you chosen to give your work just this form and these dimensions and no other?' It is because modern composers cannot quite silence the voice that whispers to them that the four-movement form is the form of the suite, in which the charm of the music comes mainly from the delight of the purely musical faculty with itself, rather than a form suited to a music that aims first of all at expressing more definite feelings about life, that they try to vivify the merely formal unity of the suite form with a psychological unity—mainly by means of quasi-leit-motifs that reappear in each of the movements.
But, though this system has given us some of our finest modern works of the symphonic type, it has its limitations. If the composer does not tell us the poetic meaning of his themes and all their reappearances, these reappearances frequently puzzle rather than enlighten us: this is notably the case with César Franck. If the composer works upon a single leit-motif, it is, as a rule, of the 'Fate-and-humanity' type of the Tschaikowsky symphony—a type that in the end becomesrather painfully conventional. This simplicity of plan, however, has the advantage of leaving the composer free to develop his musical material with the minimum of disturbance from the poetic idea. On the other hand, if his poetic scheme is at all copious or extensive, and he allows himself to follow all the vicissitudes of it, he must either give us a written clue to every page of his music—which he is generally unwilling and frequently unable to do—or pay the penalty of our failing to see in his music precisely what he intended to put there; for it is as true now as when Wagner wrote, three-quarters of a century ago, that purely instrumental music cannot permit itself such sudden and frequent changes as dramatic music without running the risk of becoming unintelligible. Always there arises within us, when the composer's thought branches off at an angle that does not seem to us justified by the inner logic of the musicquâmusic, that awkward question, "Why?" and to that question only the stage action, as Wagner says, or a program, as most of us would say to-day, can supply a satisfactory answer. This conflict between form and matter can be seen running through almost all modern German instrumental music of the poetic order; only the genius of Strauss has been able to resolve the antinomy with some success. None of Beethoven's successors has been able, as he was, to fill every bar of a symphonic composition with equal meaning, or to convey, as he did in the third symphony, the fifth and the ninth, the sense of a drama that is implicit in the music itself, and so coherent, so perspicuous, that words cannot add anything to it in the way of definiteness.
The symphonic work of Brahms (by which one means not merely the symphonies but the overtures, the concertos, the chamber music and the piano music)does, indeed, as we have seen, found itself on the middle rather than the later Beethoven (whereas it was from the latest Beethoven that Wagner drewhischief nourishment); but in spite of a certain timidity and a certain rigidity of form, Brahms's profound nature and his consummate workmanship give his work an individuality that enables him to stand by the side of Beethoven, though he never reaches quite to Beethoven's height. The other exploiters of the classical heritage have less individuality. They aim at breaking no new ground; they are content to till afresh the soil that the classical masters have fertilized for them.
Max Bruch may be taken as the type of a whole crowd of these post-classical writers. Their virtues are those that are always characteristic of the epigone. There is in art, as in the animal world, a protective mimicry that enables certain weaker species to assume at any rate the external markings of more vigorous organisms than themselves. In music, minds of this order clothe themselves with the qualities that lie on the surface of the great men's work. Their own art is parasitic (one uses that term, of course, without any offensive intention, with a biological, not a moral, implication). The parasitic organism lives easily in virtue of the fact that the parent organism undertakes all the labor of the chief vital functions. The epigone manipulates again and again the forms of his great predecessors. The substance he pours into these molds is hardly more his own. Yet work of this kind can have undeniable charm; after all, it is better for a man whose strength is not of the first order to live contentedly upon the side of the great mountain than to court destruction by trying to scale its dizziest peaks. The work of these epigones always has the balance and the clarity that come from the complete absence of any sense of a new problem to beat their heads against.
Max Bruch was born in 1838 and evinced the earlyprecocity of genius; he had a symphony performed in his native Cologne at the age of fourteen. As a beneficiary of the Mozart Foundation he became a pupil of Ferdinand Hiller in composition and of Carl Reinecke and Ferdinand Breuning in piano. As executive musician he has had a brilliant career. After teaching in Cologne he became successively musical director in Coblentz, court kapellmeister in Sondershausen, chorus conductor in Berlin (Sternscher Gesangverein), conductor of the Philharmonic Society of Liverpool, England, and theOrchestervereinof Breslau. In 1891 he became head of the 'master school' of composition in the Berlin Academy, was given the title of professor, received in 1893 the honorary degree of Doc. Mus. from Cambridge, and in 1898 became a corresponding member of the French Academy of Fine Arts.
His most important creative work is unquestionably represented by his large choral works with orchestra. Together with Georg Vierling (1820-1901) he may be credited with the modern revival of the secular cantata.Frithjof, op. 23 (1864), written during his stay in Mannheim (1862-64), was the foundation-stone of his reputation, followed soon after by the universally known 'Fair Ellen,' op. 25, and later byOdysseus, op. 41 (1873),Arminius, op. 43, 'The Song of the Bell,' op. 45, 'The Cross of Fire,' op. 52, all for mixed chorus. There is a sacred oratorio, 'Moses,' op. 52, and a secular one 'Gustavus Adolphus,' op. 73, and a large number of other choral works for mixed, male and female chorus. His operas, 'Lorelei' (1863) and 'Hermione' op. 40, had only asuccès d'estime. The first violin concerto, in G minor, op. 26, is perhaps Bruch's most famous composition, and a grateful constituent of every violinist's repertoire. There are two other violin concertos (both in D minor), opera 44 and 45, a Romance, a Fantasia and other violin pieces with orchestra, also works for 'cello and orchestra, including the well-known setting ofKol Nidrei.Three symphonies (E-flat minor, F minor and E major), op. 28, 36 and 51; a few chamber music and piano pieces complete the catalogue of his works. Bruch's idiom is frankly melodic, though his harmonic texture is quite rich and his counterpoint varied. Formally he is conservative and, all in all, he imposes no strain upon the listener's power of comprehension. His music is solid and grateful, but not of striking originality. Through his masters, Reinecke and Hiller, he represents the Schumann-Mendelssohn tradition in a vigorous though inoffensive eclecticism.
The leading members of this order of composers in the Germany of the second half of the nineteenth century besides Bruch, were Hermann Goetz (1840-1876; symphony in F major), Friedrich Gernsheim (born 1839; four symphonies and much chamber music), Heinrich von Herzogenberg (1843-1900; chamber music, church music, symphonies, etc.), Joseph Rheinberger (1839-1901); Wilhelm Berger (1861-1911; works for choir and orchestra, chamber music, two symphonies, etc.); and Georg Schumann (1866; orchestral and choral works, chamber music, etc).
Goetz is best known for his work in the operatic field and may be more appropriately treated in that connection (see p.245). Gernsheim, a native of Worms, was a student in the Leipzig conservatory and broadened his education by a sojourn in Paris (from 1855). The posts of musical director in Saarbrücken (1861), teacher of piano and composition at the Cologne conservatory (1865), conductor of the Maatschappig concerts in Rotterdam (1874) successively engaged his activities. From 1890-97 he taught at the Stern conservatory in Berlin and conducted theSternsche Gesangvereintill 1904, besides theEruditio musicaof Rotterdam. In 1901 he became principal of a master-school for composition. Since 1897 Gernsheim has been a member of the senate of the Royal Academy. Similar to Bruch in his tendencies,Gernsheim has composed, aside from the instrumental works mentioned above, a number of choral works of whichSalamis,Odin's Meeresritt(both for men's chorus, baritone and orchestra) andDas Grab im Busento(men's chorus and orchestra) are especially notable. Overtures and a concerto each for piano, for violin, and for 'cello must be added to complete the list of his works.
Heinrich von Herzogenberg, too, is chiefly identified with the revival of choral song, especially of ecclesiastical character (a Requiem, op. 72; a mass, op. 87;Totenfeier, op. 80; 'The Birth of Christ,' op. 90; a Passion, op. 93, etc.). In this department Herzogenberg is the successor to Friedrich Kiel.
Rheinberger occupies a peculiar position. He is a stanch adherent to classical traditions and generally considered as an academic composer. That his classicism was not inconsistent with a hankering after the methods of the New German School, however, is shown in his Wallenstein symphony (op. 10) and his 'Christophorus' (oratorio). Having received his early training upon the organ, he has shown a preponderant tendency toward organ music and ecclesiastical composition in general. Nevertheless he has written, besides the works already named, a symphonic fantasy, three overtures, and considerable piano and chamber works. Eugen Schmitz[31]calls him a South German Raff, for 'as many-sided as Raff, he, in contrast to this master of North German training, received his musical education in South Germany.' (Born in Vaduz, in Lichtenstein, he continued his training in Feldkirch and during 1851-54 at the Royal School of Music in Munich). In Munich he became the centre of a veritable school of young composers, exerting a very broad influence, first as teacher of theory and later royal professor and inspector of the Royal School. Rheinberger also conductedthe performances of the Royal Chapel choir. He received the honorary degree of Ph.D. from the University of Munich and became a member of the Berlin Academy.
Riemann's judgment of his merit, voiced in the following sentences, may be taken as just on the whole. He says: 'Rheinberger enjoyed a high reputation as composer, in the vocal as well as in the instrumental field. However, the contrapuntal mastery and the æsthetic instinct evident in his workmanship cannot permanently hide his lack of really warm-blooded emotion.' His organ works, of classic perfection, will probably last the longest. HisRequiem,Stabat Mater, and a double-choir Mass stand at the head of his church compositions. He also wrote an opera,Die Sieben Raben. Like Bruch's, his style is eclectic, being a fusion of neo-classical and post-romantic influences.
Wilhelm Berger is a native of America (Boston, 1861), but was educated in Berlin, where he was a pupil of Fr. Kiel at the RoyalHochschule. Later he became teacher at the Klindworth-Scharwenka conservatory and in 1903 succeeded Fritz Steinbach as conductor of the famous Meiningen court orchestra. Some of his songs are widely known, but his choral compositions (Totentanz,Euphorin, etc.) constitute his most important work. Berger is a Brahms disciple without reserve, and so are Hans Kössler (b. 1853, symphonic variations for orchestra, etc.), Friedrich E. Koch (b. 1862, symphonic fugue in C minor, oratorioVon den Tageszeiten, etc.), Gustav Schreck (b. 1849), and Max Zenger (b. 1837). Georg Schumann, the last on our list of important epigones, has had more hearings abroad than most of his contemporary brothers-in-faith, especially with his oratorio 'Ruth' (1908), several times performed by the New York Oratorio Society. As conductor of the BerlinSingakademie(since 1900), he has not lacked incentive to choral writing,hence 'Amor and Psyche,'Preis und Danklied, etc. A symphony in B, a serenade, op. 32, and other orchestral pieces as well as chamber works have come from his pen, all in the Brahms idiom.
The names of the still smaller men are legion. Let us mention but a few of them: Robert Radecke (1830-1911) wrote a symphony, overtures, and choral songs; Johann Herbeck (1831-77), symphonies, etc.; Joseph Abert (b. 1832), besides operas a symphony, a symphonic poem, 'Columbus,' and overtures; Albert Becker (1834-99), a Mass in B minor, a prize-crowned symphony, choral and chamber works; Franz Wüllner (1832-1902), chiefly choral works; Heinrich Hofmann (1842-1902), besides the operasArminandÄnnchen von Tharau, a symphony, orchestral suites, cantatas, chamber music and piano music, much of it for four hands; and Franz Ries (b. 1846), suites for violin and piano, string quartets, etc. Georg Henschel is especially noted for his songs (see Vol. V); Hans Huber, a German Swiss, for his 'Böcklin Symphony' and chamber music; while the Germanized Poles Maurice Moszkowski (b. 1854) and the brothers Scharwenka (Philipp and Xaver, b. 1850) claim attention with pleasing and popular piano pieces. Needless to say, such a list as this can never be complete.
Side by side with the neo-classical school, but always steadily encroaching upon it, is the 'poetic' school that derives from Liszt and Wagner. It is a truism of criticism that in musical history the big men end periods rather than begin them. The composer who inaugurates a movement appears to posterity as a fumbler rather than a master, and even in his own day his methods and his ideals fail to command general respect, so wide a gulf is there in them between intention and achievement. It was so, for example, with Lisztand his immediate school. But in the end there comes a man who, with a greater natural genius than his predecessors, assimilates all they have to teach him either imaginatively or formally, and brings to fulfillment what in them was at its best never more than promise. The tentative work of Liszt comes to full fruition in the work of Strauss. He has a richer musical endowment than any of his predecessors in his own special line, and a technical skill to which none of them could ever pretend. Liszt had imagination, but he never succeeded in making a thoroughly serviceable technique for himself, no doubt because his early career as a pianist made it impossible for him to work seriously at composition until comparatively late in life. Strauss is of the type of musician who readily learns all that the pedagogues can teach him, and utilizes the knowledge thus acquired as the basis for a new technique of his own.
Richard Strauss was born June 11, 1864, in Munich, the son of Franz Strauss, a noted Waldhorn player (royal chamber musician). He studied composition with the local court kapellmeister, W. Meyer, and as early as 1881 gave striking evidence of his talent in a string quartet in A minor (op. 2), which was played by the Walter quartet. A Symphony in D minor, an overture in C minor and a suite for thirteen wind instruments, op. 7, all performed in public, the last by the famous 'Meininger' orchestra, quickly spread his name among musicians and in 1885 he was engaged by Hans von Bülow as musical director to the ducal court at Meiningen. Here Alexander Ritter is said to have influenced him in the direction of ultra-modernity. After another year Strauss returned to Munich as third royal kapellmeister; three years later (1889) he became Lassen's associate as court conductor in Weimar; from 1894 to 1898 he was again in Munich, this time as court conductor, and at the end of that period went to Berlin to occupy a similar post at the Royal Prussian court. In 1904 he became general musical director (Generalmusikdirektor). Since the appearance of his first works mentioned above he has been almost incessantly occupied with composition.
These early works and those immediately following give little hint of the later Strauss, except for the characteristically hard-hitting strength of it almost from the first. Works like the B minor piano sonata (op. 5) and the 'cello sonata (op. 6), for example, have a curious, cubbish demonstrativeness about them; but it is plain enough already that the cub is of the great breed. With the exception of a few songs, and a setting of Goethe'sWanderers Sturmliedfor chorus and orchestra (op. 14), all his music until his twenty-second year was in the traditional instrumental forms; it includes, besides the works already mentioned, a string quartet (op. 2), a violin concerto (op. 8), a symphony (op. 12), a quartet for piano and strings (op. 13), aBurleskefor piano and orchestra, and sundry smaller works for piano solo, etc. According to his own account, he was first set upon the path of poetic music by Alexander Ritter—a man of no great account as a composer, but restlessly alive to the newest musical currents of his time, and with the literary gift of rousing enthusiasm in others for his own ideas. He was an ardent partisan of the 'New German' school of Liszt and Wagner. Of his own essays in the operatic field only two saw completion:Der faule Hans(1885) andWem die Krone?(1890). They were mildly successful in Munich and Weimar. Besides these he wrote symphonic poems that at least partially bridge the gap between Liszt and Strauss; 'Seraphic Phantasy,' 'Erotic Legend,' 'Olaf's Wedding Procession,' and 'Emperor Rudolph's Ride to the Grave' are some of the titles. Ritter was of Russian birth (Narva), but lived in Germany from childhood (Dresden, Leipzig, Weimar, Würzberg, etc). He was a close friend of Bülow and married Wagner's niece, Franziska Wagner.