II
Meanwhile two truly great musicians availed themselves of what was being everywhere around them brought to light. These are Carl Maria von Weber and Franz Peter Schubert. Both are perhaps most closely associated with developments outside the sphere of the pianoforte; the one with the growth of the national, romantic German opera, the other with the first glorious burst of artistic song. Yet the pianoforte works of both were destined to exert a powerful influence upon the subsequent work of the great German composers of later generations, upon Mendelssohn, Schumann and Brahms; and besides these upon Franz Liszt as well.
Weber died in London, whither he had gone to superintend the first performances of his operaOberon, in 1826, about forty years of age. Schubert died in Vienna in 1828, only thirty-one years old. Both were much younger than Beethoven, but both were his contemporaries, and both, moreover, owed much to his influence. The expanded form and warm feeling of their sonatas show this unmistakably. On the other hand, neither was truly at his best in this long form. The cast of their genius led them to new paths, put themin sympathy with other forms, affiliated them more with the new than with the old. Their sonatas are a breaking down, a crumbling; measures and pages in them, however, stand out amid the ruins like foundation stones for the music to come. Their shorter pieces seem not at all related to the classical music of the Viennese period, to have nothing in common with the music of Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven.
Of the two, Weber is far more the virtuoso. There are many pages of his music which are little more than effect. Furthermore, in his combination of pianistic effect and genuine musical feeling, he composed pieces which even today are in the repertory of most pianists, and which this permanence of their worth has led historians and critics to judge as the prototype of much of the pianoforte music of the nineteenth century, chiefly of concert music. Yet in the expansion of pianoforte technique Weber invented little. To him belongs the credit of employing what was generally common property in his day for the expression of fanciful and delightful ideas.
The list of his pianoforte works is not very long. It includes several sets of variations, some dances, four big sonatas, two concertos, and the still renownedKonzertstückin F minor, and several pieces in brilliant style, of which thePolaccain E major, thePolonaisein E flat, and the famous ‘Invitation to the Dance’ are the best known.
Let us look over the variations. In such a form composers have usually shown the limits and the variety of their technique. The resources which Weber can call upon to vary his theme are not very numerous, not very original. His plan is almost invariably to announce his theme simply and then dress it up in a number of figures. The theme itself undergoes no metamorphosis, as we have seen it do in the variations of Bach and of Beethoven. It is unmistakable in all thevariations. It is always clearly a groundwork upon which garlands are hung, which is never for long concealed.
Of the nature of these figures and garlands little need be said. Opus 6 is a set of variations on a theme from the opera ‘Castor and Pollux,’ written by his friend and teacher, the famous Abbé Vogler. The first five variations are hardly in advance of the work of Handel. The sixth, however, presents an interesting use of broken octaves and is very difficult. The seventh presents the theme in octaves in the bass, and the eighth is the theme unmistakable, in the form of a mazurka.
Opus 7 is a set of seven variations on a theme in C major. The fourth of these presents some difficulties in wide chords for the left hand. Weber’s fingers were very long and slender and broad stretches were easy for him. The fifth is built up of sweeping figures that mount from the low registers to the high in brilliant effect. This sort of climbingcrescendois to be found again and again in Weber’s work. It is undoubtedly effective, but points to no intensive development of pianoforte technique. The sixth variation presents the theme in form of a chorale, a presentation which may still delight those who ever, conversely, find something marvellous in the rendering of ‘Nearer, My God, to Thee’ in rag-time. The seventh is aPolacca, very brilliant and full of thirds and arpeggios in contrary motion.
Seven variations on a popular Romanza were published as opus 28. The fifth has some interesting passages of broken sixths which are modern enough in sound, but which can be found in other music of the time. Then there is a Funeral March, in which upper and lower registers of the instrument are contrasted in a series of imaginary orchestral effects. The seventh demands a light, active wrist. It is a series of rapid double notes, sometimes for both hands, in anexcellent ‘étude’ manner, of which Weber had already made use in the delightfulCaprice, opus 12. In such work we have perhaps the model for most studies in the special technique of the wrist, perhaps also of the fifth number of Schumann’s ‘Symphonic Variations.’
There is, in addition, a set of variations on a Bohemian melody, opus 55, equally ordinary. A set published as opus 40 is perhaps the most pretentious and likewise the most varied. Here we have in the first variation some open, flowing counterpoint in which the theme is pretty well disguised; in the second some effective whirring figures for the left hand; in the third some brilliant broken octaves and double notes. The fourth is in the style of a fugue,pianissimo. The fifth furnishes sharp contrast. The eighth is very brilliant and the last is in Spanish style, which seems to depend upon a lavish use of triplet turns.
What one can hardly fail to observe is the great similarity in all his passage work. Two styles of runs he uses in nearly all his pieces. One is as follows:
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The other is what one might call an over-reaching figure, in this manner:
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Sometimes, as well as over-reaching the chordal harmony at the top, he anticipates it by a chromatic step at the beginning, thus:
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With such and similar figures, with scant variety, page after page of his music is filled. His passage work seldom makes demands upon more than the simplest harmonies. Long runs are generally clearly founded on the simple scale. In rhythms he shows little subtlety.
This general stock in trade of pianoforte technique has become hopelessly old-fashioned. Thus the once blindingly brilliantPolaccain E major, the grand polonaise, the rondo, and such pieces, now sound almost laughable. In thePolaccaone hears the thumping tum-tum figures, this time heavy chords monotonously repeated, that we have spoken of in the concerto of Hummel. However, the brief section in B major must give us pause. There the genius Weber speaks, the composer ofDer Freischütz, the man who prepared the orchestra for Mendelssohn and Wagner. The longcrescendoleading back to the main theme foreshadows Schumann.
In the sonatas there is a great deal of very good music.The quality of the ideas in them is often golden. Moreover, there are many passages of startlingly good writing for the pianoforte. The first, in C major, was published in 1812, as opus 42. The first theme is announcedmezza voce, after two preliminary measures of highly dramatic character. The theme itself has something of the quality of a folk-song, a touch of the martial, as well, a theme that at once endears itself to the hearer as the melodies ofDer Freischützendeared themselves to all Germany. But, then, note the over-reaching figure which now appears in the transitional section, and later, clamped to a definite harmonic sequence, does for the second theme in G major. One cannot but enjoy it, yet Hummel is not more mediocre. The theme and variations which constitute the slow movement are not conspicuous; but the syncopations in the minuet, the perverse avoidance of the measure accent, cast a shadow forward upon Schumann and Brahms. The effect of the hushed triplets in the trio is orchestral. The famous rondo, in perpetual motion, scarcely calls for comment.
The second sonata, in A-flat major, must become precious to one who troubles, in these days, to study it. The quality of the themes in the first movement is rare and beautiful. The mysterious tremolo which alone accompanies the announcement of the first theme, points to that imagination in Weber which later developed the orchestra so richly. There is something orchestral about the whole work, not only about this sonata either. But his orchestral treatment of the piano is as different from Beethoven’s as the scoring of his overtures is different from that of Beethoven’s symphonies. There is a sensuous element in the beauty of sounds which is lacking in Beethoven; a quality which stirs the imagination to picture strange lands and countries, dim, mysterious forests, strange moods of moonlight. It is romantic music, it is picture music. Thepassage work at the end of the first section, which really serves in place of a second theme, is superb. It is in the main nothing but a series of arpeggios, sometimes with anticipatory notes in his conventional and elsewhere often tiresome manner, sometimes over-reaching; but the full chords in the left hand, a sort of rich strumming, gives it all a buoyancy, anessor, which can hardly be paralleled. The return to the first theme at the end of the development is again orchestral. So is the whole treatment of the andante and variations; orchestral in the sense that it suggests instruments of various tone-colors, or rather that it almost brings the colors out of the piano itself. The minuet is wonderfully gay, suggesting Schumann again. The sonata may be taken as a whole as the best of Weber’s works for the piano.
The last two sonatas, published in 1816 and 1822, contain very beautiful passages. The final rondo of the former, in D major, is astonishingly modern. The wide spacing of the figure work which constitutes the main theme, its sharp accents, the broad sweep of its plunges and soarings, the happy waltz swing of the second episode, the irresistible charm with which two melodies are combined, above all, the unflagging vigor of the whole movement, these must give joy to all pianists and all listeners. The minuet of the last sonata must have been well known to Brahms.
The four sonatas are all very long works. They all consist of four movements, all but the last in the conventional order of allegro, andante, minuet, and rondo. In the last the minuet follows the opening allegro. It might well have been called a scherzo. The breadth of plan suggests Beethoven. There have not been lacking critics who judged the sonatas greater than those of Beethoven. No one today would be likely to make such a misjudgment. They lack the splendid compactness, the logical balance of the sonatasof Beethoven. The treatment of the triplex form is rambling and loose. There is hardly a suggestion of organic unity in the group. But there is splendid music in them, a fine healthy vigor, an infusion of spontaneous, genuine folk-spirit. And what they possess that is almost unique in pianoforte music is a sort of narrative quality, difficult if not impossible to analyze. They suggest romantic tales of chivalry, of love and adventure. To say they are dramatic implies an organic life which they have not. They are perhaps histrionic. They suggest the illusions of the stage. Yet there is withal a free, out-of-doors spirit in them, something wholly objective and healthy. They are not the outpourings of perfervid emotions. They are not the lyrical outburst of a mood. They are like brilliant tapestries, like ancient chronicles and cycles of romantic legends.
For at least two of his most famous works in another field we have been furnished tales. To be sure, there is not much to be said of the popular ‘Invitation to the Dance.’ The introduction and the end alone are program music; but they put the waltz into a frame which adds much to its charm. Here is a romanticist at work, a teller of stories in music. No composer for the pianoforte has had just his skill. The old narrative stories of Kuhnau, Bach’s lively littleCapriccio, Beethoven’s sonata opus 81, afford no prototype. Neither do the little pieces of Couperin. What Weber gives us is something different. It is not a picture, not a representation, it is somehow the thing itself.
As for the waltz, it is too well known to need comment. The technical art of which it makes use is surprisingly small. A few runs, a few skips, a few variations in the steady waltz-accompaniment, these are all. But the work has always been and always will be captivating, from the charming, delicate conversational interchange between the gallant and his selected partner,which forms the introduction, to the same polite dialogue which tells us we have come to the end.
TheKonzertstückin F minor is a much bigger work. We quote from Grove’s Dictionary the translation of the story which it tells: ‘The Châtelaine sits all alone on her balcony, gazing far away into the distance. Her knight has gone to the Holy Land. Years have passed by, battles have been fought. Is he still alive—will she see him again? Her excited imagination calls up a vision of her husband lying wounded and forsaken on the battlefield. Can she not fly to him and die by his side? She falls back unconscious. But Hark! what notes are those in the distance? Over there in the forest, something flashes in the sunlight; nearer and nearer, Knights and Squires with the cross of the Crusaders, banners waving, acclamations of the people, and there—it is he! She sinks into his arms. Love is triumphant. Happiness without end. The very woods and waves sing the song of love. A thousand voices proclaim his victory.’
Probably the music which Weber wrote to this story of olden days has had as great a measure of popular admiration and acclaim as any piece that has ever been written for the pianoforte. Much of it is beautiful. The opening measures for the orchestra are equal to any of the pages fromDer Freischützor fromEuryanthe; the solo passages for the pianoforte which follow have a fine breadth; the march theme, which,pianissimo, announces the return of the Crusaders is effective, rather in the manner of Meyerbeer, a fellow-student with Weber at the feet of the Abbé Vogler. On the other hand, much of the display work given to the pianoforte is hopelessly old-fashioned. We have the Weber staples again, the tum-tum bass, the close-rolling arpeggios repeated endlessly, the busy little figure before mentioned, which here, as in the famous Rondo in C, scampers from low to high. The final motives,which represent universal joy, are trivial, banal. Even theglissandooctaves have now only the shine of tinsel, and much is sadly tarnished. But on the whole there is a fresh spirit in the work, an enjoyment, frank and manly, in the brilliancy of the pianoforte; an abandonment to the story, that still may carry a listener along.
Weber’s pianoforte works have astonishing individuality in spite of the commonplaceness of the stuff which he often brings in, either to fill them up or to add brilliancy. There is an effusion in most of them of manly vigor that never becomes weakened into sentimentality, and there is a great deal of romance in the chivalric strain. His harmonies are simple, though often richly scored, and he is a master of the art of suggestion by silence. His melodies have the stamp of the Teutonic folk-song. Though some years of his youth and manhood were spent in Prague and in Vienna, he assimilated practically nothing of the Slavic characteristics which can be found in the music of Haydn and Schubert, even in that of Brahms. He made use of the entire keyboard in relatively huge dynamic effects, and he had, as we have said, an almost unique power to bring forth suggestions of orchestral coloring.
His compositions are not architectural as Beethoven’s are. They suggest great canvases, full of color and movement. Thus the pianoforte sonatas seem to manifest the same quality of imagination which was able to make of the overtures to his operas brilliantly colored fantasies, after which Mendelssohn and Wagner shaped their art. And it is worthy of note that the same stereotyped figure work which plays such a part in his keyboard music is abundantly evident in these overtures. The figures out of which the allegro sections of the overture toOberonare made are just such figures as one will find in the pianoforte sonatas, variations and concertos.
No subsequent composer down to the present day has procured from the pianoforte the special kind of mysterious, colorful effects which Weber was able to procure therefrom; but both Schumann and Brahms are clearly indebted to him for more general and more technical procedures. In connection with this it may be mentioned that by comparison with Chopin, the perfect, the pianoforte music of both Schumann and Brahms often appears orchestral. And it may be added that Chopin was not especially familiar with Weber’s work.
If the certain chivalric romanticism of Weber’s music is hard to analyze, the special charm of Schubert’s is wholly elusive. We have to do with an utterly different nature. Weber was an aristocrat, a rover among wild companions, a hanger-on at the theatre for a while, if you will, but none the less of distinguished birth, of polished manners and of fine wit. Schubert was more than any other of the composers, even more than Haydn, a man of the people. He was happy to mingle with the peasants, happy to play hours at a time for their dancing. Beethoven is said to have modelled the music of the country people’s dance in the ‘Pastoral Symphony’ upon the music he heard played in a certain country tavern to which at one time he delighted to go. Brahms in his impoverished boyhood used to earn a few pence by playing for the sailors’ dancing in the taverns along the waterfront of Hamburg. But Beethoven regarded himself, as we have said, as the high priest of an exalted art; and Brahms was hardly less imperious. Yet Schubert, for all his ideals which rose ever and ever higher, for all the fact that he numbered acquaintances in the same aristocratic families which had seen Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven comeand go, remained a man of the people, a singer in the sway of his art, a loveable, reckless, sentimental and affectionate boy.
All his music is lyrical. The song is never absent from his pianoforte works, no matter how instrumental parts of them may be. He is essentially a melodist. His rhythms have the lilt of a dance. These two elements are not disguised. They undergo no intellectual transformations. They are as obvious as in the folk-songs and dances of the country people with whom he loved to associate. Hence the almost complete lack of sophistication in his music, the naturalness which distinguishes it from all other music.
His harmonies are strange and warm. They lack the subtlety of Mozart on the one hand, the frankness of Weber on the other. They have not the expressive significance of Beethoven. They seem rather to go beside his music than to go under it. One listens through them, so to speak, as one might look upon a procession through a colored mist that now conceals, now discloses, that always plays magic tricks with the sight. Two harmonic procedures appear more or less regularly in his music. One is the interchange of major and minor, the other the bodily shifting of the harmonic fabric up and down the scale. The latter are changes rather than modulations. By reason of these unexpected, unaccountable harmonies, his music sounds now near, now far. One moment it is with us and familiar, the next it is aloof and strange.
Schubert’s hands were thick, his fingers short and fat. Though he was not an elegant or a polished player, he had great beauty of touch and a natural, easy fluency, especially in the rapid passages of his own works. Richard Heuberger, in his excellent book on Schubert, points to the fact that most of Schubert’s pianoforte music is written in keys that require the use of many black notes on the keyboard; and suggests,as one reason for this, that Schubert found it easier to play in such keys. It is generally admitted that the key of G major is the most difficult for the pianist.
Schubert’s pianoforte music comprises many long sonatas, two sets of impromptus, a set of short pieces called ‘Musical Moments’ and a number of waltzes and other dances. The sonatas are for the most part unsatisfactory as such. In such extended forms there is need of an intellectual command of the science of music, and a sense of great proportions, both of which Schubert lacked. Hence the separate movements, the first and even more often the last, are loose and rambling in structure, and too long for the work as a whole. There is so little cohesion in the group that one may in most cases take the individual movements quite out of it and play them with perfect satisfaction.
Not all the movements are over-long, and some of the sonatas can be enjoyed in their entirety. Perhaps the most satisfactory from the point of view of structure is that in A minor, opus 42. In this the first movement is admirably constructed, firmly knit, full of distinct contrast, and in the middle section well developed. The andante and variations is undeniably long, but the formal preciseness of the following movement and of the rondo succeeds in giving to the group a definiteness and balance which will pass muster.
A sonata in D major, opus 120, is considerably shorter, but is even from the point of view of form less satisfactory. The first movement reveals one of Schubert’s great weaknesses. It happens here to be almost inconsiderable, but it is none the less evident. This is the lack of ideas in the treatment of the development section. There are nine measures which give the impression that Schubert was content to keep his music going with makeshifts. We have nothing of any significance, a series of octaves in the left hand answeredby a series in the right, and a full chord at the beginning of each measure, whereby a desired modulation from the key of C-sharp minor to that of A major is accomplished.
This is bare music. The passage is so short that it hardly mars the movement seriously, but unhappily other movements are nearly destroyed by the weakness at which this one hints. For example, the first movement of a sonata in A minor, opus 143, which contains themes that are truly inspired, breaks hopelessly adrift in the development section. The section is fatally long, too. And what does it offer to hold our interest? Only measure after measure of an unvaried dotted rhythm, for the most part in the right hand over chords which may be beautiful but are seemingly without any aim. Schubert either does not know what to do or he is utterly lost in dreaming.
This is real tragedy in music, the ruin of most beautiful ideas by a fatal weakness. The opening theme promises even more than that of the earlier sonata in the same key. It is most mysterious, most suggestive, the very best of Schubert. And the second theme is of unearthly beauty. But in this weak movement both are lost, both thrown away. The whole sonata suffers in consequence. The andante is not especially noteworthy, but the scherzo is a masterpiece, not only of expression, but of workmanship; and so is the final rondo.
Similarly, the sonata in B-flat major, written not long before he died, falls into a heap of ruins. The first theme of the first movement is matchless in beauty. Schubert is loth to leave it, we are loth to have it go. A strange melody in F-sharp minor does for a second theme, and this simply rambles on through sudden changes of harmony until it reaches the key of F major, only to give way to measure after measure of equally aimless wandering, with only figures to save the musicfrom amorphousness. Note then a closing theme of perfect beauty! Play it with all tenderness, with all the delicate suggestion you can put into it, and still even this first section of the music is long and overbalanced. There is a wealth of poetry in it, even a great depth of feeling and a heart-moving sadness. It seems a sacrilege to decry it; yet there it stands, frustrate.
The development section is what one would expect, weak in structure. Yet the second part of it is strangely moving, from the establishment of the key of D minor to the return of the first theme. The life of the music seems held in suspense. There is only a steady hushed tapping of triads, measure after measure, swaying from D minor to F major and ever back again, with reminiscences of the rambling measures in F major of the first section, floating here and there like mist in a dull rain. Strains of the first theme drift by, there are low muffled trills on D. Finally, the tapping ceases, as rain might cease; a quiet scale, like drops from the branches of some wet tree, falls to a low trill, and, after a silence, the first theme comes back into the music.
One can hardly find sadder or more beautiful music than these measures, or than the lovely first theme; and yet the movement is strangely without form and void. The andante which follows it is overdrawn. The repetitions of the sections in A major might have been omitted to better effect; but there is no looseness of structure. The music is unspeakably sad, with the sadness of the songs of theWinterreise. The scherzo is flawless, the final rondo long but well sustained. Yet, by reason of the aimlessness of long measures in the first movement, the sonata as a whole is like a condemned building. And in this sonata, too, there is an intensity of mood that, except for the last movement, should succeed in welding the whole group together. Even the last movement is not entirely independent.
What is most lamentable in all this is that Schubert poured much of his most inspired music into the sonatas. Little of his music presents more intrinsically beautiful material. In no other of his pianoforte pieces did he show such a wide and varied control of the technical possibilities of the instrument. Yet all would seem to be of little or no avail. Many of the most precious of his poetic fancies lie buried in these imperfect works.
Though Schubert was not a virtuoso, he displayed instinct for and ingenuity in devising pianoforte effects. In the huge ‘Wanderer Fantasy,’ opus 15, he seems to have set himself the task of awakening the greatest possible resonance of the instrument. The big chords and arpeggios in the first movement are not, however, overpoweringly effective. The variations in the second are more successful. They certainly look impressive on the printed page, and the sound of the climax is gigantic. But the stupendous is not natural to Schubert on the whole. He is more of a poet than a virtuoso. The first movement and the scherzo of the sonata in D major, opus 53, are big in effect. The spacing and rhythm in thepiu lentosection of the first movement has been pointed out by Heuberger as significant. The vigorous first subject of the scherzo can make the piano ring. But in general Schubert shows at his best as regards pianoforte writing in more delicate measures, and in brilliant rather than massive and sonorous effects. The last movement of the sonata in A major, opus 120, is a good example of a piquant style of which he was master. Here the long scales terminating in chords high up on the keyboard are quite dazzling.
He was not especially original in accompaniment figures. One finds a great deal of mediocre Alberti-bass stuff. On the other hand, he is a master in weaving a more subtle sort of arabesque about his melodies, or over or below them. One sees this not far from thebeginning of the adagio movement of the big fantasy opus 15, in the ornamentation of the Fantasia, opus 27, and in the Trio of the Scherzo in opus 147. The closing measures of the first section of the first movement of this sonata are very like Chopin. There are many passages of excellent free writing for the instrument, such as the C major section of the allegretto in opus 164. This, and, in another way, the second section of the minuet in opus 122, are very like passages in the SchumannCarnaval. On the whole his treatment of the pianoforte is more delicate and more distinguished than Weber’s.
Dr. Oskar Bie has remarked wisely in his history of pianoforte music that to one who has not a soft touch the beauties of Schubert’s music will not be revealed. It is particularly in lovely, veiled passages that he excels. Except for the final rondo almost all of the sonata in B-flat major to which we have referred is to be played very nearlypianissimo. The poetic and generous Schumann felt that in certain parts of the andante of the great C major symphony, a spirit from heaven might be walking through the orchestra, to which the instruments would seem to be listening. There are many passages in the pianoforte music which suggest such ghostly visitations, which whisper far more than speak. And in such places Schubert’s scoring will be found to be matchless, as delicate as Chopin’s, though less complicated.
In spite of the many inspired themes in the sonatas, and of the variety and richness of pianoforte effects with which they are often presented, the works are, as we have already said, too faulty or too weak in structure to hold a secure and honored place in pianoforte literature. It is vain to speculate on what Schubert might have done with the form had he lived longer. The last sonata is discouraging.
But in shorter forms there is no doubt that he was asupreme and perfect artist. The two sets of impromptus and the set of shorter pieces called theMoments Musicalsare masterpieces. It is hardly an exaggeration to say that in them lie concealed the root and flower of the finest pianoforte literature produced during the next half century or more in Germany. Mendelssohn, Schumann, and Brahms owe immensely to them.
Each set of Impromptus consists of four pieces. The title was not given to them by Schubert, but was added by the publishers of the first editions, the Haslingers of Vienna. Schumann suggested that the first, second, and fourth of the second set might be taken as three movements of a sonata in F minor. The first of these is very much after the manner of the first movements of Schubert’s sonatas; but the first section is not repeated, and the section which at first might suggest a real development section is repeated entirely at the end of the piece.
The first impromptu of the first set is built on a single phrase. The quality of the music is legendary. A sharp preliminary G claims our attention, and then the story begins,pianissimo, a single voice, answered, as it were, by a chorus; and what this voice sings, or rather chants, is the burden of the rest. One might fancy the piece a series of variations but that there seems to be some story progressing with it. At times the theme is smooth and serene, as in the A-flat major section near the beginning, where it floats along over a rolling accompaniment. Later on it is passing through dark, wild forests. The agitated triplet octaves, inexorably on G, suggest the ‘Erl King.’ And so ever on, the same phrase, as if it were a lone soldier on his way through a land now wild and dreary, now sunny. During the last two pages the restless triplet figures are never still, and always they come back to beat on G. Just before the end the agitation stops, but still the G persists, in long octaves, and still the tramp of thesoldier keeps on. What it may mean no one can tell. The impression is that the strange music continues on, long after our ears have heard it die away.
The second impromptu is for the most part in a light and happy vein. There is a constant flow of triplet figures, wonderfully graceful and sinuous, over the simplest of accompaniments. A sudden change of mood, an abrupt modulation, usher in a section in the nature of a trio. There is a bold melody, greatly impassioned, very much after the manner of Schumann; a breadth of style and a power wholly different from the light figure-work which has preceded it. But back to the lighter mood the music comes again, back to the flow of exquisite, light sound, only to be brought once more to a sudden check. There is a short coda of greatest vehemence and brilliance.
Here is salon music of a wholly new variety. It has nothing in common with the showy polonaises and rondos of Weber, nor yet with the sentimental nocturnes of Field. In fact, one would find it difficult to find its parallel elsewhere in the literature of pianoforte music, its strange combination of ingenuousness and grace and wild passion.
The third is in G-flat major, though it is perhaps better known in the key of G, to which Haslinger took the liberty of transposing it, much to the harm of its effect. It is in the nature of a reverie, akin to the nocturnes of Field in spirit, but far broader in plan and more healthy in sentiment.
Something of the airiness of the second impromptu is to be found in the fourth; but here the runs have an harmonic significance rather than a melodic. They are flowing chords, successive light showers of harmonies. The very sameness of the figuration adds to the charm, and does not, it may be added, take away from the difficulty. Only twice is the gentle vibration so produced interrupted for long; once to give way to a short melody,once during the long, impassioned middle-section in C-sharp minor.
What stands out in this group of pieces as a whole is the restraint in form, so lacking in the sonatas, and the fineness of pianoforte style. There is a great economy of writing. The piano is left to speak for itself; it is not often taxed to make music grand enough for the orchestra. In the second and fourth of the series an accompaniment is hardly more than suggested, except in the impassioned middle sections; yet the passage work is in no way of the virtuoso type. It has a refinement that is, apart from Bach, Mozart, and Chopin, unusual in pianoforte music. And what is ever worthy of notice in all the work of Schubert is the prevalentpianissimo. The spiritual visitor is ever present. One feels that Schubert was wholly lost in his music, that he surrendered himself utterly to the delight of sound, of softest sound. The four works are equally inspired. They are full of ecstasy, full of rapture.
The impromptus of the second set are not so invariably fine, yet as a whole they are a momentous contribution. The first and the fourth are longer and more elaborate than any in the first set, and consequently one feels in them the lack of proportion and control which weakened the sonatas. The third is, as a matter of fact, a series of variations; and they can hardly be said to suffer from any weakness. Rather they are exceedingly well done. However, better variations have been written—not, it may be remarked, by Weber—and the form is dangerously likely to prove stupid except in the hands of a man who has a special skill in it. There is necessarily lacking a chance for that spontaneity and freedom which one associates more with Schubert than with any other composer.
The last impromptu is conspicuous for a gay brilliance, perhaps a better brilliance than Weber revealed,but a less effective one. It suggests Liszt. Passages remind one of theGnomenreigen. There can be no mistaking the Hungarian quality of the melodies, the mad, rhapsodical, Gypsy style.
The first impromptu contains more of the quality of the extraordinary Schubert; is perhaps too long, but is full of fine inspiration and romantic fancy. The opening theme is in ballade style, with a rather incongruous touch of conventionality here and there. The second theme is purely lyrical, though the persistent eighth-note rhythm in which it is presented gives it a spirit of restlessness. It is thrice repeated, and the figure-work in the high registers which adorns the third statement of it is effective and beautiful. The theme itself is silenced unexpectedly and the figure-work leads down again into the deep registers, where it flows in a hushed arpeggio figure. Over this a third theme is suggested, which, with its answer woven in the accompaniment, constitutes a distinct second section of the piece, releases a different mood. It is for the most part soft, yet it is strangely impassioned. It leads back again to the first theme and the whole is repeated, with a change only of key. At the end, the first theme once more adds a touch of the ballade. The two measures before the final chords have all the strange power of suggestion which one associates with Schubert, leaving one with the impression that the music has rather passed on than ended, as if the song, like that of the ‘Solitary Reaper,’ could have no ending.
There is no contemporary music with which one may compare these impromptus. They are not sentimental idylls like the nocturnes of Field, nor show pieces like the shorter works of Weber. They have nothing in common with the music of the contemporary virtuosi, nor with that of any virtuosi. They are extraordinarily rich in genuine musical worth, and, like all of Schubert’s music, in form or out of form, inspired. Evenmore remarkable are the six short pieces called ‘Musical Moments.’ Three of these are but two pages long; only one more than four. Each is wholly different from the others in mood. In all of them thepianissimoprevails. Schubert is whispering, not speaking. They are essentially pianoforte music, too. Though there is nothing elaborate in the style of them, not the slightest trace of a striving for new effects, yet it may be questioned if any German pianoforte music shows greater understanding of what one might call the secret and intimate qualities of the instrument.
There is practically no thickness of scoring. Only the trio sections of the first and last are open to even suspicion in this regard. There is no commonplaceness or makeshift in the accompaniments. The monotonous tum-tum of the third is necessary in the expression of the mood of dance and song which the piece embodies, of wild dancing and intensely emotional song, more than half sad. The workmanship of all is delicate, whether it be deliberate or instinctive. There is in all a great appreciation of effects of contrast, of loud and soft, which are the very first of the peculiarities of the instrument; an appreciation of the sonority, rich but not noisy, which the pedal allows; of the charm of soft and distinct passage notes, of vigorous, percussive rhythm. All is perhaps in miniature; but the six pieces are the essence of German pianoforte music, both in quality and style; the very root and stock of the short pieces of Schumann and Brahms by which they are distinguished.
As to the nature of the separate pieces, little need be said. They are pure music, perfect art. In the sound of them are their completeness and their justification. The first may suggest dreams. The figure out of which it is made is of the woodland. It suggests the horns of elf-land faintly blowing. It is now near, now far. As the notes of the bugle will blend in echoes till the air isfull of a soft chord, so does this phrase weave a harmony out of its own echo that, like the sounds of a harp blown by the wind, is more of spirit than of flesh. Even in the trio something of this echo persists.
The remaining five keep us closer to earth, are of more substantial and more human stuff. Yet note in the second, in the second statement of the first theme after the first episode, how a persistent E-flat suggests again the ghostly visitor to which the music itself seems to listen. The third is, as has been suggested, a dance, soft yet half barbaric. Is the melody sad or gay? It is blended of both, like the folk-songs of the Slavs and the Celts, the character of which it breathes. One is tempted to ask if there ever wassoftermusic than Schubert’s. The music enters its coda here thricepiano, and twice on its way to the end it grows still softer.
The fourth suggests a prelude of Bach, except for the trio, which again has the character of a folk-song and again is softer than soft. The fifth is a study in grotesque. Even here there are fine effects, such as the echo of the first phrases; but the general impression is of almost savage accents and harsh dissonances. The last has a touch of Beethoven, though the melodies are of the kind that Schubert alone has ever heard, and the harmonies here and there rise, as it were, like shifting, colored mist across the line of the music.
It cannot be said that the melodies and harmonies of either the Impromptus or the ‘Musical Moments’ are more inspired than those of the sonatas. Indeed, there are passages in the latter of more profound and more intense emotion than finds expression in the shorter pieces. But most of the sonatas are in ruins. Their beauties are fragmentary and isolated; whereas nearly all the Impromptus and all the ‘Musical Moments’ have a beauty and firmness of line and design as well as of content. For this reason they stand as the best of hispianoforte works; and of their kind they are unexcelled in music. They are genuinely beautiful music; they are perfectly suited to the piano, drawing upon its various qualities without showing them off; they are finished in detail, balanced and well-knit in structure. A new epoch in the art begins with them.
It should be mentioned that Schubert’s waltzes and other dances bear very clearly the stamp of his great genius. They are not elaborate. Much of their beauty is in their naïve simplicity. They gain nothing by being dressed up in the gaudy raiment which Liszt chose to hang upon many of them. They should be known and played as Schubert wrote them, not as profound or as brilliant music, but as spontaneous melodies in undisguised dance rhythms. They are, in fact, dance music, full of the spirit of merry-making, not in the least elegant or sophisticated. To our knowledge there is no other music of equal merit and charm composed in this spirit expressly for the piano. Schubert is unique among the great composers in having treated dance forms and rhythms thus strictly as dances.
All the work of Weber and most of that of Schubert fall within the lifetime of Beethoven. The three great men constitute the foundation of the pianoforte music of the great German composers of the next generation. But Beethoven’s influence is largely spiritual, as Bach’s. There was nothing more to be done with the sonata after he finished, and long before his death the progress of pianoforte music had taken a new turn. It is not inconceivable that before very long Beethoven’s sonatas will be regarded as the culmination and end of a period of growth, just as the music of Bach is already regarded; that he will appear materially related onlyto what came before him, and to have died without musical heir. The last sonatas rested many years generally unknown. His peculiar and varied treatment of the pianoforte in them found few or no imitators. The technique of the instrument that Schumann and Chopin employed was not descended from him; rather from Weber on the one hand and from Mozart and Hummel on the other.
Even in the matter of form he exercised hardly more than a spiritual influence, as regards pianoforte music alone. Schumann and Chopin both wrote sonatas, but the sonatas of neither show kinship to those of Beethoven. The Brahms sonatas are more closely related to Weber than to Beethoven. The Liszt sonata in B minor and the Liszt concertos are constructed on a wholly new plan that was suggested by Berlioz; and the two long works of César Franck are not even called sonatas. The sonata in pianoforte music alone had had its day. The form remained but the spirit had fled. If music came back to it at all, it came back to sit as it were among ruins.
The change which came over music was but the counterpart of the change which came over men and over society. It was evident in literature long before it affected music. It might in many ways be said to have reached music through literature. The whole movement of change and reformation has been given the name Romantic. It was accompanied in society by violent revolutions, prolonged restlessness, the awakening of national and popular feeling. It is marked in literature and in music by intensely self-conscious emotion, by an appeal to the senses rather than to the intellect, by a proud and undisguised assertion of individuality.
Most great music is romantic music. The preludes of Bach, the little pieces of Couperin, a great deal of Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven have a personal warmthwhich is essentially romantic. Music draws its life more directly from emotions than the other arts. But there are signs in the music of these men of an objective, an external ideal, to which they have conformed the expression of their emotions. They do not work upon the spur of emotional excitement alone. That is but the germ from which their music starts. They have a power to sustain. They work with music; and the ideas which they choose to work with are chosen from a thousand others for the possibilities they contain of expansion, of alteration, of adaptability to the need of the work as a whole. Within the limits of this work emotional inspiration plays its part, adding here and there a bit of harmony, a new phrase. These are romantic touches. These reveal the quick or the inert nature back of the music. But back of it all the architectural brain presides, building a structure of broad design, or of exquisite proportions. The ideal is commonly known as classical; and these composers are properly called classical.
The Romantic composers, on the other hand, treasure their moods. They enshrine their separate inspirations. It is the manner of their time. They are, as we have said, emotionally self-conscious. This is one of the marks by which we may know them. The architectural ideal loses their devotion. They lack, in the first place, the prime desire to sustain, in the second place, the power. The change shows itself distinctly in the works of Weber and Schubert, both of whom are recognized as the first of the Romantic composers.
Take, for example, the sonatas of Weber. The movements are, as we have ventured to suggest, like broad pictures. They are a series of figures, of colors and shadows, like tapestries. They conform to the rules of form, but they have little or nothing of the spirit of it. They seem to cover the outlines of a story. They suggest the theatre. So little is their form all-sufficingthat we are tempted to fit each with a chronicle taken from olden days of knighthood. At last Weber does so himself—gives us stories for two of his compositions.
And the sonatas of Schubert, what a ruin are they! Moments of hot inspiration, of matchless beauty; well-nigh hours of fatal indifference and ignorance. On the other hand, he has left us short pieces which the publishers must needs call impromptus for lack of any other name; ‘Musical Moments,’ each the full and perfect expression of a single, swift inspiration. His muse whispers in his ear and before she has flown away he has written down what she prompted. She makes short visits, this muse. So much the worse for him if she starts him upon a sonata. He is soon left with nothing but a pen in his hand.
Weber with his stories, Schubert with his short forms, are the prototypes of most of the Romantic composers to come. We shall find everywhere signs of the supremacy of the transient mood. Stories will be lacking, at least in pianoforte music; but there will be titles, both vague and specific, labelling the mood so that the music may exert an added charm. There will be something feverish, something not entirely healthy in it all. As we shall see, composers will expend their all in a single page. Yet there will come a warmth and a now sad, now wild poetry.
The virtuosi, and Weber among them with his showy polaccas and rondos, speak of the change. They appeal to the general public. They are sensationalists. The aristocratic amateurs will no longer hold musicians in dependence. There is a mass of people waking into life. The crowd makes money, it buys pianos; it will pay to hear a man, or a woman, perform on the household instrument. It will submit to the intoxicating, swift fingers, to the display of technique. Not that the aristocratic amateurs were always less open to such oratorical persuasion; but the public now holds themoney bags, and it will pay to hear fingers, to see flying arms and streaming hair. Who will care to hear a man improvise a fugue in five parts? How will they judge virtue but by virtuosity?
On the other hand, men will begin to write about their art, to defend their new ideals, to criticize and appreciate the outpourings of each genius as he comes along, to denounce the virtuosi who have nothing to show but empty show. A musician holds a place now as a man, a man of the world and of affairs. He makes a name for himself as a poet, a critic, a satirist. And on the verge of all this new development stand Weber and Schubert; the brilliant, witty patriot, the man who spent his energy that a national opera might be established in the land of his birth; and the man who had no thoughts but the joy of his art, the warmth of music, no love but the love of song, the singer of his race and his companions.