A special niche among the works of this wondrously fertile mind must be reserved for the so-called American works, written during his sojourn in New York in the early nineties. These are the Quartet, opus 96, the Quintet, opus 97, and the famous symphony, 'From the New World,' opus 95. The importance of the negro element in these works has perhaps been exaggerated. It is true that we find in them the rhythmic snap of rag-time, the melancholy crooning cadences of the 'spirituals,' and even the scale of five notes ('pentatonic scale'). It is even true that there is a more or less close resemblance between some of their themes and certain well-known songs, as, for instance, between the second theme of the first movement of the symphony and 'Swing Low, Sweet Chariot,' or between the scherzo of the Quintet and 'Old Man Moses, He Sells Roses.' But, after all, the treatment is more important than the theme; and it is because Dvořák is a great musician that the pathos of the largo in the symphony moves us as it does, and that he can make us as merry with a bit of rag-time as with a furiant. He was one of the musicians most richly endowed by nature, and one who knew nothing of national boundaries; he was, indeed, a veritable Schubert in fertility and spontaneity. And, as it was said of Schubert that he 'could set a wall-advertisement to music,' so it might be said of Dvořák that he could have made even Indian tunes interesting—had he tried. It is pleasant to add that he got universal love in response to this more than Midas-like transmuting power of his, and that the poor Bohemian boy, after becoming rich and famous, died full of honors, but as simple at heart as ever, in 1904. He was described in an obituary notice as 'Pan Antonin of the sturdy little figure, the jovial smile, the kindly heart, and the school-girl modesty.'
Of other Bohemian composers contemporary with or earlier than Dvořák none are of sufficient importanceto require more than briefest mention. These are: Joseph Nesvadba (1824-1876), who wrote Bohemian songs and choral works; Franz Skuherský (1830-1892), who wrote Czech operas, chamber music, and theoretical works; Menzel Theodor Bradský (1833-1881), who wrote both German and Czech operas; Joseph Rozkosny (born 1833), who wrote Czech operas, masses, songs, and instrumental music; and Wilhelm Blodek (1834-1874), who wrote Czech operas and instrumental music. A somewhat more important figure is that of Karl Bendl (1838-1897), composer of Czech operas and ballets, who was conductor of the chief choral society in Prague, influential in theInterimstheater, and who 'jointly with Smetana and Dvořák enjoys the distinction of winning general recognition for Czech musical art.' His operasLejla,Bretislav and Jitka,Cernahoreí,Karel Streta, andDite Taboraare all on the standing repertory of the National Theatre at Prague.
Adalbert Hřimalý (1842-1908), who wrote Czech operas, and whose 'Enchanted Prince' (1870) has proved a lasting success, deserves mention in this place.
Between Smetana and Dvořák and the contemporary Bohemians stands Zdenko Fibich, a most prolific composer, well known in Bohemia but little heard of outside it. Fibich was born at Leborschitz in Bohemia, December 21, 1850. Studying at Prague and later at the Leipzig Conservatory, he became in 1876 assistant conductor of the National Theatre in Prague, and in 1878 director of the Russian Church choir. He is said to have written over seven hundred works, but they are more facile than profound. Of his many Czechish operas the most successful was 'Sárka' (1898). He was much interested in the musical form known as 'melodrama' (not to be confused with the stage melodrama).It is a recited action accompanied by music; classic examples are Schumann's 'Manfred' and Bizet'sL'Arlésienne. Fibich wrote six melodramas, three 'scenic melodramas,' and a melodramatic trilogy,Hippodamia(text by Brchliky, 1891). His orchestral works include several symphonic poems, two symphonies, and several overtures, of which 'A Night on Karlstein' is well known. He also wrote chamber music, songs and choruses, piano pieces, and a method for pianoforte. He died in 1900.
A number of minor composers, contemporaries of Fibich, are only of local importance for their Czechish operas, produced in Prague. Such are Heinrich von Káan-Albést (born 1852), director of the Prague Conservatory in 1907; Vása Suk (born 1861), composer of the operaDer Waldkönig(1900); Karl Navrátil (born 1867), who writes symphonic poems and chamber music; and Karl Kovařovic (born 1862), conductor of the Royal BohemianLandes und National-Theater. This theatre was erected in 1883, by subscription from Czechs in Bohemia, Moravia, Silesia, northern Hungary, even the colony in America. The Austrian government is said to be not very favorable to it, vetoing the posting of placards announcing performances in Austrian watering places. The subsidy is raised by the country of Bohemia, not by the government. In August, 1903, a cycle of operas was given here, including Fibich's 'The Fall of Arcana,' Kovařovic'sTêtes de chien, Nedbal'sLe Gros Jean,[24]Dvořák'sRoussalkaand several operas of Smetana.
A better known composer of Czechish operas is Emil Nikolaus von Reznicek, who was, however, born not in Bohemia but at Vienna, May 4, 1861. His comic operaDonna Diana, produced in 1894 at Prague, made so great a success that in a short time it was heard inforty-three European opera-houses. Other operas by him areDie Jungfrau von Orleans(1887),Satanella(1888),Emmerich Fortunat(1889), andTill Eulenspiegel(1901), on the subject made famous by Strauss's witty symphonic poem. For orchestra he has written a 'Tragic Symphony,' an 'Ironic Symphony,' an 'Idyllic Overture,' a 'Comedy Overture,' two symphonic suites, etc., while a string quartet was played by the Dessau Quartet at Berlin in 1906.
Fibich's pupil O. Ostřcil, whose contrapuntal skill and brilliant orchestration testify to his ability, has written the operas 'Kunal's Eyes,' 'The Fall of Wlasta,' and 'Buds' (Knospen), also an Impromptu and a Suite for orchestra. Of the pupils of Dvořák Rudolf Karel has written a symphony in E-flat minor andJugend, a symphonic poem in which he pictures the struggles of a youth of genius; and Alois Reiser is known as the composer of an opera,Gobi, showing melodic and harmonic originality without exaggeration, and of a trio, a 'cello concerto, and solo pieces for violin in which his nationality is reflected. Other contemporaries are Ottokar Jeremiaš (symphonies, overtures, and chamber music) and his brother Jaroslav Jeremiaš, a follower in his two operas of modern French tendencies; K. Krǐcka, W. Stepán, J. Maxner, B. Novotny, and others.
Without doubt the two most important living Bohemian composers are Joseph Suk and Vitešlav Novák. Suk, who was born at Křecovic, January 4, 1874, became a pupil of Dvořák at the Prague Conservatory in 1888, and later married his daughter. He is second violin of the Bohemian Quartet. Among his works may be mentioned a 'Dramatic Overture,' an overture to 'A Winter's Tale,' a Symphony in E, a suite entitled 'A Fairy Tale,' a piano quartet, a piano quintet, and two string quartets. The symphony (in E major, op. 14, published in Berlin) has charm and is most skillfully written, especially for the strings, like everything bythis violinist-composer, but is somewhat prolix and student-like, revealing Dvořák in many places, and in the finale containing a theme too obviously suggested by the overture to Smetana's 'The Bartered Bride.' 'A Fairy Tale,' op. 16, sonorously and brilliantly scored, is of programmistic character, especially the fourth movement. Both of these orchestral works introduce a number of folk-themes. This is also the case in an early string quartet, op. 11 (1896), in B-flat major, the finale of which is built on a polka tune in six-bar phrases.
If one were to judge him by these things one would say that Suk was a skillful violinist who thoroughly understood how to write for his instrument, that he had caught much of the charm of Bohemian folk-melody and especially of Dvořák's way of treating it, but that his musical expression was neither very far-reaching nor very original. He may have felt this himself, for in his second quartet, op. 31, published in 1911, he has thrown over his earlier style completely, and adopted a so-called 'modern idiom.' The work is played in one movement, without pauses. It is full of changes of tempo and of key, extremely complicated in harmony, frightfully difficult for the players as regards intonation, and difficult for the listeners, too, from its spasmodic and constantly changing character. So far as one can tell about such a work from reading the score, it would seem as if the composer had abandoned his natural speech here without gaining real eloquence in exchange. Whether he be misguided or not, however, there can be no doubt of his marked natural talent for the same kind of impulsive, fresh musical expression we find in Smetana and Dvořák.
The music of Novák, on the other hand, if less immediately ingratiating, is much more thoughtful. The influence of Dvořák is less felt in it than those of Schumann and Brahms. Although the Bohemian andalso the allied Moravian and Hungarian-Slovak folk-melodies are to some extent drawn upon for material, the treatment is more intellectual than popular, rhythmic subtleties abound, and the types of construction are often highly complex and ingenious, there being considerable use of those cyclic transformations of a single theme throughout a long composition to which César Franck and his school attribute so high a value. It is worth noting that Novák, who was born December 5, 1870, at Kamenitz, Bohemia, is a man of general as well as technical education, having attended the Bohemian University and the Conservatory of Music at Prague. He has continued to live in Prague as a music teacher, several times receiving a state grant for composition. Among his works are an Overture to a Moravian Popular Drama, op. 18, the symphonic poems 'On the Lofty Tatra,' op. 26, and 'Eternal Longing,' op. 33, a 'Slovak Suite,' op. 32, two piano trios, two string quartets, a piano quartet, a piano quintet, and a piano sonata.
In his early compositions Novák shows the influence of the German romantic school, as in the trio, op. 1, with its somewhat pompous main theme and its contrasting theme for 'cello solo, verging dangerously upon the sentimental. The piano quartet, op. 7 (1900), on a striking and even noble theme, suffers from Brahmsian mannerisms of style and a treatment at times drily academic. On the other hand, the piano quintet, op. 12 (published in 1904, but doubtless written much earlier), on a plaintively poetic folk-theme in A minor, and the first string quartet, op. 22 (1902), show clearly the more native influence of his master Dvořák. He thus shows the impressionability of all really highly-endowed minds, and in his mature works writes with as much flexibility as authority. TheTrio quasi una Ballata, op. 27 (1903), and the second string quartet, op. 35 (1906), are masterpieces.
The trio is dramatic and powerful in expression, original in style and structure. It begins,andante tragico, with a fine bold melody, of folk character, in D minor, given out by the violin, and later powerfully developed by the piano. A secondary section in D-flat, also somewhat 'folkish,' immediately follows, without break. Next, again without pause, comes a 'quasi scherzo, allegro burlesca' in G minor, the 'trio' of which is ingeniously derived from the main theme of the work. Recitative-like passages in the strings and cadenzas for the piano then lead back to the original andante theme, worked out in combination with subsidiary matter and bringing the whole to an impressive soft close.
The string quartet in D major is equally original, though different in mood. Dramatic declamation here gives place to a meditative thoughtfulness especially suited to the four strings. There are but two movements. The first is a fugue,largo misterioso, on a deliberate, impressive theme, in the mood of the later Beethoven—a fugue admirably fresh and spontaneous, with the accepted 'inversions' of the theme and so on, to be sure, but coming less as academic prescriptions than as natural flowerings of the thought. The second movement,Fantasia, is composite, containing first suggestions of the root theme (of the fugue), introducing a sort of sonata-exposition in which the same fugue then figures as first subject and a new melody as second; then, instead of a development, a scherzo section, derived again from the root theme; then the recapitulation of the two themes, completing the suggested sonata; and finally, a literal repetition of the last three pages of the fugue movement, thus binding the two parts into unity. The scheme of construction is thus as original as the music itself is impressive and beautiful.
If Novák can avoid the pitfall of over-intellectualism peculiar to his temperament, he may easily become oneof the most vital forces in contemporary European music.
D. G. M.
It may appear surprising at first that Hungary, a thousand-year-old nation, has not until our own day achieved an independent cultural existence, and more especially an individual musical art. For we know that the Magyar race is inherently musical and recent researches have unearthed unsuspected treasures of folk-song as ancient as they are characteristic. There has indeed been for some time a recognized Hungarian 'flavor' utilized in the manner of an exotic by various composers, notably Brahms and Liszt, and the dance rhythms so utilized have proved no less fascinating than those of the Slavs, for instance. But native Hungarian composers have not until recently developed these artistic germs with sufficient ability to arouse the attention of the musical world.
When we consider the political condition of Hungary during its long history, however, we no longer wonder at the dearth of national culture. Twice the country was utterly desolated, for ages the people possessed no political independence, no constitution, and did not use their own language—indeed their native tongue was suppressed by a tyrannical government until late in the nineteenth century. With the recrudescence of national independence there came, as elsewhere, a revival of nationalistic culture, and it is nothing short of remarkable that within hardly more than a generation Hungary has raised itself, in music especially, to a point where its own sons are capable of brilliant and characteristically native achievement. At any rate it argues eloquently for the profound musical and poetic instincts which were latent in the race.
A brief historical review of early musical endeavorin Hungary may not be without value as an introduction to our treatment of its modern composers. When the Hungarians first occupied their present country (A. D. 896) they found no music whatever in their new home. The musical instinct born in them, however, was very strong, for they sang when praying, when preparing for war, at burials and festivals, and their first Christian king, Stephan I (997-1038), founded a school where singing was taught. In fact, the power of music was respected so much that early musicians were calledhegedös, a word not derived from the Hungarianhegedü(violin), but fromheged—'having healed the wounds.' In the fourteenth century, when the first gypsies migrated to Hungary, they found there a people whose music was already so highly developed that the newcomers themselves learned their melodies from them. It was through the songs of the Hungarians that the gypsies became famous, and we have to bear in mind that the great merit of the gypsies was not in creating melodies, but in making them popularly known from generation to generation.
Under the reign of the great national king, Mathias I (1458-1490), music flourished and was even highly cherished. The king, who made Hungary one of the greatest powers of Europe in that period, possessed an organ with silver pipes, and an orchestra. He also had in his service numerous court singers, who sang of the heroic deeds of national heroes. That musicians were highly esteemed there we infer from the fact that such musicians as Adrian Willaert and Thomas Stolzer were in the service of King Louis II (1516-1526). After the battle of Mohács (1526) the whole country was brought under the yoke of the Turks, and almost every trace of the high culture of the Hungarians was destroyed, so that we possess nothing of the musical treasures of this period. Collections of religious chants (from the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries) show that sacredmusic exerted a notable influence upon Hungarian folk-music. The folk element, however, was already very strong at the time of Sebastian Tinody (1510-1554), whose historical songs displayed genuine and pure Hungarian qualities. Not before the middle of the sixteenth century was the character of Hungarian music reflected outside of Hungary—at first in pieces calledPassamezzoandOngaro, published in various German and Italian collections.
In tracing the further development of Hungarian music we find that in the latter part of the seventeenth century some stage productions included songs. At about the same time the Rákóczyan era of national struggles brought forth many beautiful and impressive melodies. These treasures were of no small influence upon the evolution of national music, brought into still greater prominence by musicians whom we may call the real originators of the Hungarian idiom. They were Lavotta (1764-1820), Csermák (1771-1822), and Bihari (1769-1827). Lavotta's compositions were genuinely characteristic Hungarian products, showing mastery of invention and skill in handling the national rhythms. He possessed a vivid fancy and a wealth of ideas, but no technique. While his most important work had the promising title of 'The Siege of Szigetvár,'[25]it was composed for a solo violin without accompaniment and its musical ideas were not over eight to sixteen measures in length. Lavotta's other compositions, such as his 'Serenade,'[26]in modern arrangements are extremely effective. Some of his 'folk-songs' will live forever.
Lavotta's pupil, the Bohemian Csermák, produced some characteristic dances. He, too, lacked solidity of structure. The compositions of the brilliant gypsyviolinist, Bihari (some of which are preserved in various transcriptions), are the most valuable examples of old national Hungarian music. The famous Rákoczy march, as we know it through the transcriptions of Liszt and Berlioz, is his work, being a remodelled version of the original, plaintive Rákoczy song composed about 1675 by M. Barna.
Summing up, we may distinguish the following six periods in the history of Hungarian music from its beginning: the age of the Pagan Hungarians, those whose songs were so persistent that three centuries after the introduction of Christianity the Councils found it necessary to suppress them; the period from the rise of Christianity to the fifteenth century, when as elsewhere music was wholly in the service of the church, while secular music was cultivated only by wandering minstrels; the three centuries following, when the growing influence of the gypsies is most powerfully felt, when Lutheran and Calvinistic churches spread among the people, and when the folk-songs alive in the mouths of the people to-day were born; the eighteenth century, when Hungarian national music became more independent and individual, Hungarian rhythms especially became strongly pronounced, and the fundamental principles of absolute music were laid down; and the first half of the nineteenth century, which produced the first masters. The last of the six periods is that of the contemporary composers and of 'young Hungary.'
In a few words we have endeavored to give a sketch of the first four divisions. The transition to the next—the period of the first masters—may be marked by the first opera with a Hungarian libretto. This was 'Duke Pikko and Tuttka Perzsi,' performed in 1793 under Lavotta. The work was without any significance whatsoever. The first noteworthy attempt in the direction of national grand opera was 'Béla's Flight' by Ruzicska (1833). That composer preferred the forms of the lightand popular Hungarian folk-songs to a more serious vein. He should be given credit for his ambitious attempt to create a truly national historical opera, Hungarian both in music and in text. He was followed by Franz Erkel (1810-1893), whose operas, with subjects taken from Hungarian history, are still played to-day. His music was genuinely Hungarian in character and had absolute value. The overture to hisHunyady László, with its classical form and poetic content, was made popular in Europe through the efforts of Liszt. Erkel was careful in selecting his dramatic subjects, drawing freely upon Hungarian history. The subject of his most successful work,Bánk-Bán, has also inspired the mediæval German poet Hans Sachs, the eminent Austrian dramatist Grillparzer, and the Hungarian Josef Katona, whose tragedy of the same title represents the best in Hungarian dramatic literature. Contemporary with Erkel but of much less significance was M. Mosonyi (1814-1870), who preserved the Hungarian character in his operas and orchestral compositions as well as in his piano pieces. His 'Studies' were highly esteemed by Wagner.
The further development of Hungarian culture and music in the nineteenth century closely reflects the influence of the French, Germans, and Italians, although the national ambition of the Hungarians to remodel the foreign examples according to their own genius is evident. It is upon this principle that Hungary to-day produces musical works of absolute merit.
The most significant representatives of modern Hungarian music are Ödön Mihálovich, Count Géza Zichy, and Jenö Hubay. The compositions of these men should be considered first as works of absolute merit, regardless of their nationality; second, for the Hungariannational elements which they unconsciously display; and, finally, as noble, though not completely successful, attempts to apply these elements and characteristics to serious modern forms. Though much preoccupied with this problem, they cannot be criticized for the lack of strong individuality, since their personalities almost always overshadow the Hungarian qualities in their works, which, however, are still sufficiently prominent to typify them as Hungarian composers. Each of the three received his training under the most eminent foreign masters, by which fact they were peculiarly fitted to become the teachers of 'young Hungary,' and incidentally the real founders of the modern Hungarian school.
The oldest of the three, Mihálovich, was born in 1842. He studied with Hauptmann in Leipzig, with Bülow in Munich, and was in personal touch with Liszt and Wagner. In his position as the director of the Hungarian Royal National Academy of Music in Budapest he exercises a strong and salutary influence upon present Hungarian musical life. It is due to his efforts that this unique school maintains an extraordinarily high standard. As a composer he is versatile and prolific. He has successfully applied his talent to every form from song to grand opera ('Hagbart and Signe,' 'Toldi's Love,' 'Eliana,' andWieland der Schmied, upon the libretto planned by Wagner). He has written a Symphony in D and several symphonic poems ('Sellö,' 'Pan's Death,' 'The Ship of Ghosts,' 'Hero and Leander,'Ronde du Sabbat, etc.). He is a master of orchestration and displays superior craftsmanship in working out his thematic material. His style shows a fusion of Wagnerian elements and of the principles of nineteenth-century program music with Hungarian national characteristics. His musical ideas are usually lofty and of refined taste.
Count Géza Zichy (born 1849) is an aristocrat in the best sense of the word. The qualities of the man of noble birth and high rank (he is a privy councillor to the king, a member of the House of Lords, the president of the National Music Conservatory, etc.), the fine sensibility of a man endowed with talent and trained under the best masters (he studied with and was a friend of Liszt and Volkmann) are reflected in his works as a poet, an author, a virtuoso, and a composer. A man of wealth, he employs his means in the realization of high artistic ideals. When as a lad of fourteen he lost his right arm he experienced the lesson of physical and spiritual suffering and grew up to be a man of unusually intense energy.[27]Instead of giving up his favorite art of piano playing he developed himself into the greatest of left-arm virtuosos. His remarkable playing, besides displaying an almost incredible technique, reflects the feelings of a truly poetic soul. 'His playing is remarkable in every respect, since it is gentle and full of soul, of enthusiasm, and of incomparablebravour,' wrote Fétis,[28]and Hanslick remarked 'there are many who can play, a few who can charm, but only Zichy can bewitch with his playing.' It is characteristic of him as a man and as an artist that he never accepts any fee for playing; he plays only for charity. 'I am happy,' he wrote to a critic, 'to be in the service of the poor and of the unfortunate and to earn bread for them through my hard work.'
Count Zichy's compositions for the piano—for the left hand alone (études, a sonata, a serenade, arrangements of Bach, Beethoven, Chopin, Liszt, Wagner, etc.)—are unique in pianoforte literature. The climax of his achievement in this field is his Concerto in E-flat. It is distinguished by an energetic first movement, by a deeply felt second movement cast in a Hungarian folk-mood, by the brilliancy of the finale, and, above all, by its terrific technical demands upon the left hand.