Chopin and other musical essays

Contents

L Chopin, the Greatest Genius op the Pi-

^«_— -^ ANOPORTE, 1

IL How Composers Work, 59

II

Forty years ago Robert Schumann complained that the musical critics had so much to say about singers and players, while the composer was almost entirely ignored. To-day this reproach could hardly be made, for although vocalists still receive perhaps a disproportionate share of attention, compositions, new and old, are also discussed at great length in the press. Nevertheless, I believe that the vast majority of those who attend an operatic performance in New York, and are delighted with "Siegfried" or "Faust," have but vague and shadowy notions as to the way in which such an opera is composed. My object here is to illustrate the way composers work, and to prove that the creating of an opera is perhaps the most difficult and marvellous achievement of the human intellect.

Professor Langhans notes, in his history of music, that in the Middle Ages, as late as Luther's time, it took two men to compose the simplest piece of music : one who conceived the melody, and the other who added the harmonic accompaniment

The theoretical writer, Glareanus, deliberately expressed his opinion, in 1547, that it might be possible to unite these two functions in one person, but that one would rarely find the inventor of a melody able to work it out artistically. We have made much progress in music within these three hundred years, and to-day every composer is not only expected to invent his own harmonies and accompaniments to his melodies, but, since Wagner set the example, composers are beginning to consider it incumbent on them to write their own librettos ; and, what is more remarkable, if we examine biographies of musicians carefully we find that, even be/ore Wagner, not a few composers assisted in the preparation of their operatic texts ; and this remark applies even to some of the Italian composers, who were proverbially careless regarding their librettos. Rossini was, perhaps, too indolent to devote much attention to his texts, and he was apt to postpone even the musical work to the last moment, so that he sometimes had to be locked up in his room by his friends, to enable him to finish his score by the date named in his contract Yet it is worthy of note that during the composition of what Rossini's admirers commonly regard as his best and most characteristic work — the "Barber of Seville" — he lived in the same house with his librettist. "The admirable unity of the * Barber,' in which a person without previous information on the subject could scarcely say whether the words were written for the music or the music for the words, may doubtless," as Mr. Sutherland Edwards suggests, "in a great measure be accounted for by the fact that poet and musician were always together during the composition of the opera ; ready mutually to suggest and to profit by suggestions."

" Donizetti," the same writer informs us, while at the Bologna Lyceum, "occupied himself not only with music, but also with drawing, architecture, and even poetry ; and that he could turn out fair enough verses for musical purposes was shown when, many years afterward, he wrote — so rapidly that the word 'improvise' might here be used — for the benefit of a manager in distress, both words and music of a little one-act opera, called ■ H Campanello ' founded on the ' Sonnette de Nuit ' of Scribe. Donizetti also arranged the librettos of ' Betty ' and ' The Daughter of the Regiment,' and of the last act of • Lucia ■ he not only wrote the words but designed the scenes."

Concerning Verdi, Arthur Pougin says : " It is not generally known that, virtually, Verdi is himself the author of all his poems. That is to say, not only does he always choose the subject of his operas, but, in addition to that, he draws out the sketch of the libretti, indicates all the situations, constructs them almost entirely as far as regards the general plan, brings his personages and his characters on the stage in such a way that his collaborateur has simply to follow his indications to bring the whole together, and to write the verses."

One of Verdi's poetic assistants was Francesco Piave, who supplied the verses for "La Traviata," " Ernani " and several other of his operas. He was, Pougin informs us, "a tolerably bad poet, quite wanting in invention," but he had the most important quality (from Verdi's point of view) "of effacing himself completely, of putting aside every kind of personal vanity and of following entirely the indications and the desires of the composer, cutting out this, paring down that, shortening or expanding at the will of the latter — giving himself up, in short, to all his exigencies, whatever they might be."

A question having arisen some years ago, as to the origin of the libretto of " Aida," the author of it, M. du Locle, wrote to a Roman paper that the first idea of the poem belongs to the celebrated Egyptologist, Mariette Bey. He adds : "I wrote the libretto, scene by scene, phrase by phrase, in French prose, at Busseto, under the eye of the maestro, who took a large share in the work. The idea of the finale of the last act, with its two stages, one above the other, belongs especially to him."

The libretto for Verdi's last work, " Otello," was prepared by Bo'ito, who had previously assisted him in rearranging his " Simon Boccanegra," and who also wrote the poem of "La Gioconda " for Ponchielli. Bo'ito is a thorough believer in Wagner's doctrine that every composer should write his own opera books, and he followed this rule in his interesting opera " Mefistofele."

Mozart was altogether too careless in accepting librettos unworthy of his genius. Yet occasionally he took the liberty to improve the stuff that was submitted to him. As the learned librarian, Herr Pohl, remarks, " In the ' Entftihrung ' it is interesting to observe the alterations in Bretzner's libretto which Mozart's practical acquaintance with the stage has dictated, to the author's great disgust. Indeed, Osmin, one of the most original characters, is entirely his own creation, at Fischer's suggestion."

Weber resembled Wagner, among other things, in the habit of carrying plans for operas in his head for many years. Thus we read that while on the look out for a subject for an opera he and Dusch hit upon " Der Freischtitz," a story by Apel, then just published. At the time, however, it did not get beyond the beginning ; and not till seven years later did Weber begin the work whicii made his reputation, a work which in Dresden, where it was first produced, has had already more than a thousand performances, and which even in London was at 5 one time played simultaneously at three theatres. When he finally did begin his work on the " Freischiitz " the libretto he used was by another author, Herr Kind, a man of considerable dramatic ability, but who — perhaps for that very reason — was subsequently so mortified by the fact that Weber's superior genius caused his music to receive the lion's share of the public's attention, that he refused to write another libretto for him. This was unfortunate, for, as ill luck would have it, Weber fell into the hands of a Leipsic blue stocking, Wilhelmine von Chezy, whose literary gifts were not of the most brilliant order. She submitted several subjects to him, from which he selected " Euryanthe ; " but her sketch proved so unsatisfactory that he altered it entirely and compelled her to work it over nine times before he was sufficiently satisfied with it to set it to music. The libretto for his last opera, " Oberon," was prepared for him in London, but the subject, as usual, was his own choice and was based on Wieland's famous poem of that name. Weber's rare artistic conscientiousness is indicated by the fact that at this time, although he felt that his end was approaching, he set to work to learn the English language in order to avoid mistakes in adapting his melodies to the accent of the words and the spirit of the text.

Having now caught a glimpse of the manner in

HOW COMPOSERS WOBK 67

which the great composers find subjects for their operas, and elaborate them, with or without the assistance of poets, we may go on to consider the sources of the musical inspiration which provides appropriate melodies and harmonies for these texts. Experience shows conclusively that the most powerful stimulant of the composer's brain is the possession of a really poetic and dramatic text. To take only one instance — it surely cannot be a mere coincidence that the best works of four great composers— Spohr, Berlioz, Gounod, and Schumann, are based on the story of " Faust." And Schumann, in one of his private letters, indicates very clearly why his "Faust" is such an inspired composition. Speaking of a performance of this work he says : "It appeared to make a good impression — better than my ' Paradise and Peri ' — no doubt in consequence of the superior grandeur of the poem which aroused my powers also to a greater effort."

More significant still are the words which Weber wrote to Frau von Chezy when she was writing the libretto f or " Euryanthe ; " which he intended to make better than all his previous works. " When you begin to elaborate the text," he wrote ; " I entreat you by all that is sacred to task me with the most difficult kinds of metre, unexpected rhythms, etc., which will force my thoughts into new paths and draw them out of their hiding-places."

In one of his theoretical essays, Wagner emphasizes the value of a good poem in kindling the spark of inspiration in a composer's mind by exclaiming : "Oh, how I adore and honor Mozart because he found it impossible to compose for his ■ Titus ' as good music as for his ( Don Juan,' or for his • Cosl fan Tutte ' as good music as for ' Figaro.' " Mozart, he adds, always wrote music, but good music he could only write when he was inspired, and when this inspiration was supplied by a subject worthy of being wedded to his muse.

No doubt Wagner was right in maintaining that Mozart's operas contain his best music. Where among all his purely instrumental works is anything to be found as inspired as the music in the scenes where the ghostly statue nods at Don Juan, and subsequently where it enters his room and clutches his hand in its marble grasp ? I venture to add that even Beethoven, although he is not generally regarded as an operatic composer par excellence, and although his fame chiefly rests on his symphonies and other instrumental works, nevertheless composed his most inspired music in connection with his one opera "Fidelio." I refer to the third "Leonora" overture, and to the music in the prison scene, where the digging of the grave is depicted in the orchestra with a realism worthy of Wagner, and where the music when Leonora levels her pistol at the villain reaches a climax as thrilling as is to be found in any dramatic work, musical or literary. Obviously, it was the intensely dramatic situation which here inspired Beethoven to the grandest effort of his genius.

It has often been asserted that the best numbers in " Fidelio " were directly inspired in Beethoven by the emotional exaltation resulting from one of his unhappy love affairs. Mr. Thayer doubts this story, because he could not find anything in Beethoven's sketch-books corroborating it ; but even if it should be a myth, there are many well authenticated facts which show that Beethoven, like other composers, owed many of his best ideas to the magic influence of love in stimulating his mental powers. He dedicated thirty-nine compositions to thirty-six different women, and it is well known that he was constantly falliDg in love, had made up his mind several times to marry, and was twice refused. Female beauty always made a deep impression on him, and Marx relates that " even in his later years he was fond of looking at pretty faces, and used to stand still in the street and gaze after them with his eyeglasses till they were out of sight; if anyone noticed this he smiled and looked confused, but not annoyed. His little Werther romance he had lived at an early age in Bonn. In Vienna, he is said to have had more than one love affair and to have made an occasional conquest which would have been difficult if not impossible to many an Adonis."

Weber's " Freischtltz " doubtless owes much of its beauty to the fact that it was written but a few months before the composer's marriage. In one of his letters to his betrothed he writes, "Yesterday I composed all the forenoon and thought of you very often, for I was at work on a scene of Agatha, in which I still cannot attain all the fire, longing, and passion that vaguely float before me." And his son testifies that Weber's love influenced all his work at the time. " It was the reason," he says, " that Weber took to heart, above everything else, the part of Aennchen, in which he saw an embodiment of his bride's special talent and characteristics, and it was under the fostering stimulus of this warm feeling that he allowed those parts of the opera in which Aennchen appears to ripen first. The first note which he wrote down for the 'Freischtitz' belongs in the duo between Aennchen and Agatha." He adds that his father, while composing, actually saw his bride in his mind's eye, and heard her sing his melodies, and accordingly as this imaginary vocalist nodded approval or shook her head, he was led to retain or reject certain musical ideas.

Schumann's letters contain a superabundance of evidence showing how love suggested to him immortal musical thoughts. "I have discovered," he writes to his bride, "that nothing transports the imagination so readily as expectation and longing for something, ' as was again the case during the last few days, when I was awaiting a letter from you, and meanwhile composed whole volumes — strange, curious, solemn things — how you will open your eyes when you play them. Indeed, I am at present so full of musical ideas that I often feel as if I should explode." This was in 1838, two years before his marriage. " Schumann himself admits," as Professor Spitta remarks, " that his compositions for the piano written during the period of his courtship reveal much of his personal experiences and feelings, and his creative work of 1840 is of a very striking character. In this single year he wrote over a hundred songs, the best he ever gave to the world, and," as Professor Spitta continues, " when we look through the words of his songs, it is clear that here, more than anywhere, love was the prompter — love that had endured so long a struggle, and at last attained the goal of its desires. This is confirmed by the 'Myrthen,' which he dedicated to the lady of his choice, and the twelve songs from Ruckert's ' Springtime of Love ' — which were written conjointly by the two lovers."

The gay and genial Haydn appears to have been as great a favorite of women as Beethoven, and he doubtless owed some of his inspirations to their influence upon his susceptible heart. "He always considered himself an ugly man," Herr Pohl writes, " and could not understand how so many handsome women fell in love with him ; ' at any rate,' he used to say, * they were not tempted by my beauty,' though he admitted that he liked looking at a pretty woman, and was never at a loss for a compliment."

Everybody has heard of the marvellous effect produced on Berlioz's ardent imagination by the Juliet of Miss Smithson. He relates in his memoirs that an English critic said that after seeing Miss Smithson in Juliet he had cried out, "I will marry that woman, and write my grandest symphony on this play." " I did both things," he adds, " but I never said anything of the sort." It is in " Lelio " that the story of his love is embodied ; and other compositions of his might be mentioned which were simply the overflow of his passions.

Poor Schubert, who enjoyed little of the fame and less of the fortune that were due him during his brief life, and who was as unattractive in personal appearance as Haydn and Beethoven, does not seem to have cared as much for women as most other composers. Nevertheless he fell deeply in love with a countess, who, however, was too young to reciprocate his feelings. But one day she asked him why he never dedicated any of his compositions to her, whereupon he replied, "Why should I? Are not

HOW COMPOSEES WOEK 73

all my compositions dedicated to you ? M This was as neat a compliment as Beethoven once made Frau von Arnim — an incident which also gives us a glimpse of his manner of composing. One evening at a party Beethoven repeatedly took his note-book from his pocket and wrote a few lines in it. Subsequently, when he was alone with Frau von Arnim, he looked over what he had written and sang it ; whereupon he exclaimed : " There, how does that sound ? It is yours if you like it ; I made it for you, you inspired me with it ; I saw it written in your eyes"

Many similar cages might be cited, showing that although women may have done little for music from a creative point of view, they are indirectly responsible for many of the most inspired products of the great composers. And the moral of the story is that a young musician, as soon as he has secured a good poetic subject for a song or an opera, should hasten to fall in love, in order to tune his heartstrings and devotions to concert pitch. And a patriotic wag might, perhaps, be allowed to maintain that, as America has more pretty girls than any other country in the world, it is easier to fall in love here than elsewhere, and that there is, therefore, no excuse whatever for American composers if they do not soon lead the world in musical inspiration.

Feminine beauty, however, is not the only kind of beauty that arouses dormant musical ideas and brings them to light. The beauty of nature appeals as strongly to musicians as to poets, and is responsible for many of their inspirations. When Mendelssohn visited Fingal's Cave, he wrote a letter on one of the Hebrides, inclosing twenty bars of music " to show how extraordinarily the place affected me," to use his own words. " These twenty bars," says Sir George Grove, " an actual inspiration, are virtually identical with the opening of the wonderful overture which bears the name of ' Hebrides ' or ' Fingal's Cave.' " And an English admirer of Mendelssohn, who had the honor of entertaining him in the country, notes how deeply he entered into the beauty of the hills and the woods. "His way of representing them," he says, "was not with the pencil ; but in the evenings his improvised music would show what he had observed or felt in the past day. The piece which he called ' The Kivulet,' which he wrote at that time, for my sister Susan, will show what I mean ; it was a recollection of a real, actual rivulet.

" We observed " he continues, " how natural objects seemed to suggest music to him. There was in my sister Honora's garden a pretty creeping plant, new at that time, covered with little trumpetlike flowers. He was struck with it, and played for her the music which (he said) the fairies might play on those trumpets. When he wrote out the piece he drew a little branch of that flower all up the margin of the paper." In another piece, inspired by the sight of carnations, they found that Mendelssohn intended certain arpeggio passages "as a reminder of the sweet scent of the flower rising up."

Mozart, as many witnesses have testified, was especially attuned to composition by the sight of beautiful scenery. Rochlitz relates that when he travelled with his wife through picturesque regions he gazed attentively and in silence at the surrounding sights ; his features, which usually had a reserved and gloomy, rather than a cheerful expression, gradually brightened, and then he began to sing, or rather to hum, till suddenly he exclaimed : "If I only had that theme on paper." He always preferred to live in the country, and wrote the greater part of his two best operas, " Don Juan," and " The Magic Flute," in one of those picturesque little garden houses which are so often seen in Austria and Germany. In one of these airy structures, he confessed, he could write more in ten days than he could in his apartments in two months.

Berlioz relates somewhere that the musical ideas for his " Faust " came to him unbidden during his rambles among Italian hills. Weber's melodies are so much like fragrant forest flowers that one feels sure before being told that he came across them in the woods and fields. His famous pupil, Sir Julius Benedict, relates that Weber took as great delight in taking his friends to see his favorite bits of landscape, as he did in composing a fine piece of music ; and he adds that " this love of nature, and principally of forest life, may explain his predilection, in the majority of his operas, for hunting choruses and romantic scenery."

Eichard Wagner conceived most of his vigorous and eloquent leading melodies during his rambles among the picturesque environs of Bayreuth, or the sublime snowpeaks of Switzerland. How he elaborated them we shall see later on. Of Beethoven's devotion to nature many curious anecdotes are told by his contemporaries, A harp manufacturer named Stumpffmet him in 1823 and wrote an account of his visit in "The Harmonicon," a London journal, in which occurs this passage : " Beethoven is a capital walker and delights in rambling for hours through wild, romantic scenery. I am told, indeed, that he has sometimes been out whole nights on such excursions, and is often absent from home for several days. On the way to the valley [the Hellenenthal, near the Austrian Baden] he often stopped to point out the prettiest views, or to remark on the defects of the new buildings. Then he would go back again to his own thoughts and hum to himself in an incomprehensible fashion; which, I heard, was his fashion of composing."

Professor Klober, a well-known artist of that period, who painted Beethoven's portrait, relates that he often met Beethoven during his walks near Vienna. " It was most interesting to watch him," he writes ; " how he would stand still as if listening, with a piece of music paper in his hands, look up and down and then write something. Dont had told me when I met him thus not to speak or take any notice, as he would be very much embarrassed or very disagreeable. I saw him once, when I was taking a party to the woods, clambering up to an opposite height from the ravine which separated us, with his broad-brimmed felt hat tucked under his arm ; arrived at the top, he threw himself down full length and gazed long into the sky."

Another contemporary of Beethoven, G. F. Treitschke, gives us an interesting glimpse of Beethoven's manner of creating and improvising. Treitschke had been asked to write the text for a new aria that was to be introduced in " Fidelio " when that opera was revived at Vienna in 1814. Beethoven called at seven o'clock in the evening and asked how the text of the aria was getting on. Treitschke had just finished it, and handed it to him. Beethoven read it over, he continues, " walked up and down the room, humming as usual, instead of singing— and opened the piano. My wife had often asked him in vain to play ; but now, putting the text before him, he began a wonderful improvisation, which, unfortunately, there were no magic means of recording. From this fantasy he seemed to conjure the theme of the aria. Hours passed but Beethoven continued to improvise. Supper, which he intended to share with us, was served, but he would not be disturbed. Late in the evening he embraced me and, without having eaten anything, hurried home. The following day the piece was ready in all its beauty."

This anecdote appears to indicate that Beethoven sometimes composed at the piano. Meyerbeer, it is said, always composed at his instrument, and there is a story that he used to jot down the ideas of other composers at the opera and concerts, and, by thinking and playing these over, gradually evolve his own themes. It is rather more surprising to hear, from Herr Pohl, that Haydn sketched all his compositions at the piano. The condition of the instrument, he adds, had its effect upon him, beauty of tone being favorable to inspiration. Thus he wrote to Artaria in 1788 : " I was obliged to buy a new forte-piano, that I might compose your clavier sonatas particularly well." " When an idea struck him he sketched it out in a few notes and figures ; this would be his morning's work; in the afternoon he would enlarge this sketch, elaborating it according to rule, but taking pains to preserve the unity of the idea."

Weber's son relates that it was his father's habit to sit at the window on summer evenings and jot down the ideas that had come to him, during his solitary walks, on small pieces of music paper, of which a large number were usually lying on his table. "No piano," he adds, "was touched on these occasions, for his ears spontaneously heard a full orchestra, played by good spirits, while he wrote down his neat little notes." And Weber himself remarks in one of his essays that, " the tone poet who gets his ideas at the piano is almost always born poor, or in a fair way of delivering his faculties into the hands of the common and commonplace. For these very hands, which, thanks to constant practice and training, finally acquire a sort of independence and will of their own, are unconscious tyrants and masters over the creative power. How very differently does he create whose inner ear is judge of the ideas which he simultaneously conceives and criticises. This mental ear grasps and holds fast the musical visions, and is a divine secret belonging to music alone, incomprehensible to the layman."

Mozart had already learned to compose without a piano when he was only six years old ; and, as Mr.

E. Holmes remarks, " having commenced compost tion without recourse to the clavier, his powers in mental music constantly increased, and he soon imagined effects of which the original types existed only in his brain."

Schumann wrote to a young musician in 1848 : " Above all things, persist in composing mentally, without the aid of the instrument. Turn over your melodic idea in your head until you can say to yourself: 'It is well done.'" Elsewhere he says: " If you can pick out little melodies at the piano, you will be pleased ; but if they come to you spontaneously, away from the piano, you will have more reason to be delighted, for then the inner tone-sense is aroused to activity. The fingers must do what the head wishes, and not vice versa." And again he says : " If you set out to compose, invent everything in your head. If the music has emanated from your soul, if you have felt it, others will feel it too."

Schumann had discovered the superiority of the mental method of composing from experience. In a letter dated 1838 he writes concerning his "Davidstanze : " " If I ever was happy at the piano it was when I composed these pieces ; " and it was well known that up to 1839 " he used to compose sitting at the instrument." We have also just seen how Beethoven practically composed one of his " Fidelio " arias at the piano. Nor was this by any means an isolated instance. To cite only one more case : Kies relates that one afternoon he took a walk with Beethoven, returning at eight o'clock. " While we were walking," he continues, " Beethoven had constantly hummed, or almost howled, up and down the scale, without singing definite notes. When I asked him what it was, he replied that a theme for the last allegro of the sonata had come into his head. As soon as we entered the room, he ran to the piano, without taking off his hat. I sat down in a corner, and he had soon forgotten me. For at least an hour he now improvised impetuously on the new and beautiful finale of the sonata [opus 57]." Another of Beethoven's contemporaries, J. Russell, has left us a vivid description of Beethoven when thus composing at the piano, or improvising : "At first he only struck a few short detached chords, as if he were afraid of being caught doing something foolish ; but he soon forgot his surroundings, and for about half an hour lost himself in an improvisation, the style of which was exceedingly varied, and especially distinguished by sudden transitions. The amateurs were transported, and to the uninitiated it was interesting to observe how his inspirations were reflected in his countenance. He revelled rather in bold, stormy moods than in soft and gentle ones. The muscles of his face swelled, his veins were distended, his eyes rolled 6 wildly, his mouth trembled convulsively, and he had the appearance of an enchanter mastered by the spirit he had himself conjured."