Symphonies and their meaning : Third series: Modern symphonies

Front matter

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CORNELL- UNIVERSITY LIBRARY

Preface

Criticism of contemporary art is really a kind of prophecy. For the appreciation of the classical past is an act of present perception, not a mere memory of popular verdicts. The classics live only because they still express the vital feeling of to-day. The new art must do mor^, — ^must speak for the morrow. , And as the poet is a kind of seer, the true critic is his prophetic herald.

It is with due humility that we approach a view; of the work of our own tim^ with a dim feeling that our best will be a mere conjecture. But we shall the more cheerfully return to our resolution that our chief business is a positive appreciation. Where we cannot praise, we can generally be silent. Certain truths concerning contemporary art seem firmly grounded in the recorded past. The new Messiah never came with instant wide acclaim. Many false prophets flashed brilliantly on the horizon to fall as suddenly as they rose. In a refracted view we see the figures of the great projected in too large dimension upon their day. And precisely opposite we fail to glimpse the ephemeral lights obscuring the truly great. The lesson seems never to be learned; indeed it can, of course, never be learned. For that would imply an eternal paradox that the present generation must always distrust its own judgment.

PREFACE

Who could possibly imagine in Schuberfs time the sway he holds to-day. Our minds reel to think that by a mere accident were recovered the Passion of Bach and the symphonies of Schubert. Or must we prayerfully believe that a Providence will make the best prevail? And, by the way, the serious nature of this appreciation appears when we see how it was ever by the greatest of his time that the future master was heralded.

The symphony of the present age has perhaps fallen somewhat in estate. It was natural that it should rush to a high perfection in the halcyon days of its growth. It is easy to make mournful predictions of decadence. The truth is the symphony is a great form of art, like a temple or a tragedy. Like them it has had, it will have its special eras of great expression. Like them it will stay as a mode of utterance for new commimities and epochs with varying nationality, or better still, with vanishing nationalism.

The tragedy was not exhausted with Sophocles, nor with Shakespeare nor with Goethe. So the symphony has its fallow periods and it may have a new resurgence under new climes. We are ever impatient to shelve a great form, like vain women afraid of the fashion. It is part of our constant rage for noveliy. The shallower artist ever tinkered with new devices, — ^to some effects, in truth. Such is the empiric course of art that what is bom of vanity may be crowned with highest inspiration.

The national element will fill a large part of our 2

PREFACE

survey. It marks a strange trait of our own age that this revival of the national idea falls in the very time when other barriers are broken. Ancient folk-song grew like the flower on the battle-field of races. But here is an anxious striving for a special dialect in music. Each nation must have its proper school; composers are strictly labelled, each one obedient to his national manner. This state of art can be but of the day. Indeed, the fairest promise of a greater future lies in the morrow's blending of these various elements in the land where each citizen has a mixed inheritance from the older nations.

In the bewildering midst of active spirits comes the irresistible impulse to a somewhat partisan warfare. The critic, if he could view himself from some empyraean perch, remote in time and place, might smile at his own vehemence. In the clash of aims he must, after all, take sides, for it is the tendency that is momentous; and he will be excited to greater heat the stronger the prophet that he deems false. When the strife is over, when currents are finally settled, we may take a more contented joy in the impersonal art that remains.

The choice from the mass of brilliant vital endeavor is a new burden and a source almost of dismay. Why should we omit so melodious a work as Moskowski's Jeanne d'Arc, — ^fuU of perhaps too facile charm? It was, of course, impossible to treat all the wonderful music of the Glazounows and the Kallinikows. And there is the limpid beauty of the

PREFACE

Bohemian Sukj or the heroic vigor of a Volbach. We should like to have mentioned Robert Volkmann as a later Eomantieist; and Gade has ever seemed a true poet of the Scandinavian symphony.

Of the modern French we are loth to omit the symphonies of Chausson and of Dukas. In our own America it is a still harder problem. There is the masterly writing of a Foote; the older Paine has never been fully valued in the mad race for novelty. It would have been a joy to include a symphony of rare charm by Martinus van Gelder.

A critical work on modern art cannot hope to bestow a crown of laurels among living masters; it must be content with a view of active tendencies. The greatest classic has often come into the world amid least expectation. A critic in the year 1850 must need have omitted the Unfinished Symphony, which was then buried in a long oblivion.

The present author prefers to treat the main modem lines, considering the special work mainly as example. After all, throughout the realm of art the idea is greater than the poet, the whole art more than the artist, — ^though the particular enshrinement in enduring design may reflect a rare personality.

Philip H. Goepp.

Note: Especial thanks are owed to the Philadelphia Orchestra for a free use of its library, and to Messrs. 6. Schirmer Company for a like courtesy. — P. H. G.

Chapter I The Symphony During The Nine- Teenth Centuey

AFTER the long dominance of German masters L of the musical art, a reaction could not fail to come with the restless tendencies of other nations, who, having learned the lesson, were yet jealous of foreign models and eager to utter their own message. The later nineteenth century was thus the age of refraction of the classic tradition among the yarious racial groups that sprang up with the rise of the national idea. We can see a kind of beginning in the Napoleonic destruction of feudal dynasties. German authority in music at the beginning of the century was as absolute as Roman rule in the age of Augustus. But the seed was carried by teachers to the various centres of Europe. And, with all the joy we have in the new burst of a nation's song, there is no doubt that it is ever best uttered when it is grounded on the lines of classic art. Here is a paramount reason for the strength of the modem Russian school. With this semi-political cause in mind it is less difficult

SYMPHONIES AND THEIB MEANING

to grasp the paradox that with all the growth of intercommunication the music of Europe moves in more detached grooves to-day than two centuries ago. The suite in the time of Bach is a special type and proof of a blended breadth and unity of musical thought in the various nations of Europe <rf the seventeenth century. In the quaint series of dances of the different peoples, with a certain international quality, one sees a direct effect of the Thirty Years' War, — ^the beneficent side of those ill winds and cruel blasts, when all kinds of nations were jostling on a common battle-ground. And as the folk-dances sprang from the various comers of Europe, so different nations nursed the artistic growth of the form. Each would treat the dances of the other in its own way, and here is the significance of Bach's separate suites, — ^English, French and German.

Nationalism seems thus a prevailing element in the music of to-day, and we may perceive two kinds, one spontaneous and full of charm^ the other a result of conscious effort, sophisticated in spirit and in detail. It may as well be said that there was no compelling call for a separate French school in the nineteenth century as a national utterance. It sprang from a political rather than an artistic motive; it was the itch of jealous pride that sharply stressed the difference of musical style on the two sides of the Rhine. The very influence of Oerman music was needed by the French rather than a bizarre inventitm of national traits. The broader art of a Saint-Safins here fehiues

SYMPHONY DURING NINETEENTH CENTURY

in contrast with the brilliant conceits of his younger compatriots, though it cannot be denied that the latter are grounded in classic counterpoint. With other nations the impulse was more natural : the racial song of the Scandinavians, Czeciis and other Slavs craved a ddiverance as much as the G«rman in the time of Schubert In France, where music had long flourished, there was no stream of suppressed folk-song.

But the sjmphtmy must in the natural course have suffered from the very fulness <rf its own triumph. We know the Bomantic reacti<Hi of Schumann, uttered in smaller cyclic forms ; in Berlios is almost a complete abandonment of pure musi(^ devoid of special description. Lisst was aae of the mighty figures of the century, with all the external qualities of a master-genius, shaking the stage of Eun^ witili the weight of his personality, and, besides, widowed with a creative power that was not understood in his day. With him the restless tendaicy resulted in a new form int^ided to displace the symphony: the s^nnphonic poem, in a single, varied moveoaoit, and always on a definite poetic subject. Hoe was at once a rdief and a recess from the classic rigor. Away with sonata form and all the odious code <^ rules ! In the stxny of the title will lie all the outline of the music.

Yet in this rebdlioiis age — and here is the significance of the term — the symphony did not languish, but blossomed to new and varied flower. Lisst turned b*tk to the symphwy frmn his new-fangled device

B for his two greatest works. It has, indeed, been charged that the symphony was accepted by the Komantic masters in the spirit of a challenge. Mendelssohn and even Schnmaim are not entirely free from such a suspicion. Nevertheless it remains true that all of them confided to the symphony their fairest inspiration. About the middle of the century, at the high point of anti-classical revolt, a wonderful group of symphonies, by Berlioz, Mendelssohn, Schumann, and Liszt, were presented to the world. With the younger Brahms on a returning wave of neoclassicism the form became again distinctively a personal choice. Finally, in the spontaneous utterance of a national spirit on broad liues, as in the later Eussian and Finnish examples, with the various phases of surging resolution, of lyric contemplation and of rollicking humor, the symphony has its best sanction in modem times.

To return to the historical view, the course of the symphony during the century cannot be adequately scanned without a glance at the music-drama of Eichard Wagner. Until the middle of the century, symphony and opera had moved entirely in separate channels. At most the overture was affected, in temper and detail, by the career of the nobler form.

The restless iconoclasm of a Liszt was now united,

in a close personal and poetic league, with the new

ideas of Wagner's later drama. Both men adopted

the symbolic motif as their main melodic means;

SYMPHONY DURING NINETEENTH CtoTURY

with both mere iteration took the place of development; a brilliant and lurid color-scheme (of orchestration) served to hide the vreakness of intrinsic content ; a vehement and hysteric manner east into temporary shade the classic mood of tranquil depth in which alone man's greatest thought is bom.

But a still larger view of the whole temper of art in Europe of the later century is needed. We wander here beyond the fine distinctions of musical forms. A new wave of feeling had come over the world that violently affected all processes of thought. And strangely, it was strongest in the land where the great heights of poetry and music had just been reached. Where the high aim of a Beethoven and a Goethe had beea proclaimed, arose a Wagner to preach tlie gospel of brute fate and nature, where love was the involuntary sequence of mechanical device and ended in inevitable death, all overthrowing the> Jieroic idea that teems throughout the classic scores, crowned in a greatest symphony in praise of " Joy."

Such was the intrinsic content of a " Tristan and Isolde" and the whole " Nibelungen-Eing," and it was uttered with a sensuous wealth of sound and a passionate strain of melody that (without special greatness of its own) dazzled and charmed the world in the dramatic setting of mediaeval legend. The new harmonic style of Wagner, there is good reason to suppose, was in reality first conceived by Liszt, whose larger works, written about the middle of the century, have but lately come to light.* In correspondence with this moral mutiny was the complete revolt from classic art — ^tradition; melody (at least in theory), the vital quality of musical form and the true process of a coherent thread, were cast to the winds with earlier poetic ideals.

If it were ever true that a single personality could change an opposite course of thought, it must be held that Richard Wagner, in his own striking and decadent career, comes nearest to such a type. But he was clearly prompted and reinforced in his philosophy by other men and tendencies of his time. The realism of a Schopenhauer, which Wagner frankly adopted without its full significance (where primal will finds a redemption in euthanasia), led by a natural course of thought to Nietzsche's dreams of an overman, who tramples on his kind.

In itself this philosophy had been more of a passing phase (even as Schopenhauer is lost in the chain of ethical sages) but for its strange coincidence with the Wagnerian music. The accident of this alliance gave it an overwhelming power in Germany, where it soon threatened to corrupt all the arts, banishing idealism

* The " Dante " Symphony of Liszt was written between 1847 and 1855; the "Faust" Symphony between 1854 and 1857. Wagner finished the text of Tristan und Isolde in 1857; the music was not completed until 1859. In 1863 was published the libretto of the Nibehmgen-Bing. In 1864 Wagner was invited by King Ludwig of Bavaria to complete the work in Munich.

SYMPHONY DURING NINETEENTH CENTURY

from the land of its special haunts.* The ultimate weakness of the Wagnerian philosophy is that it finds in fatalism an excuse for the surrender of heroic virtue, — ^not in the spirit of a tragic truth, but in a glorification of the senses; just as in Wagner's final work, the ascetic, sinless type becomes a figure almost of ridicule, devoid of human reality. It is significant that with the revival of a sound art, fraught with resolute aspiration, is imminent a return to an idealistic system of philosophy.

In the musical art even of Germany the triumph was never complete. The famous feud of Brahms and Wagner partisans marked the alignment of the classical and radical traditions. Throughout the second half of the century the banner of a true musical process was upheld; the personal meeting of the youthful Brahms with the declining Schumann is wonderfully significant, viewed as a symbol of this passing of the classic mantle. And the symphonies of Gustav Mahler seem an assurance of present tendencies. The influence of Bach, revived early in the century, grew steadily as a latent leaven.

Nevertheless in the prevailing taste and temper

* In literature this movement is most marked, as may be seen by contrasting the tone of Goethe with that of Sudermann; by noting the decadence from the stories of a Chamisseau and Immermann to those of a Grottf ried Keller ; from the novels of iTeytag to the latest of Frenssen and Arthur Schnitzler; from the poems of Heine to those of Hoffmansthal, author of the text of Strauss' later operas.

Or, contrast merely the two typical dramas of love, Goethe's "Faust" and Wagner's "Tristan and Isolde."

of present German music, in the spirit of the most popular works, as those of Kichard Strauss (who seems to have sold his poetic birthright), the aftermath of this wave is felt, and not least in the acclaim of the barren symphonies of a Bruckner. It is well known that Bruckner, who paid a personal homage to Wagner, became a political figure in the partisan dispute, when he was put forth as the antagonist of Brahms in the symphony. His present vogue is due to this association and to his frank adoption of Wagner idiom in his later works, as well as, more generally, to the lowered taste in Germany.

In all this division of musical dialect, in the shattering of the classic tower among the diverse tongues of many peoples, what is to be the harvest? The full symbol of a Babel does not hold for the tonal art. Music is, in its nature, a single language for the world, as its alphabet rests on ideal elements. It has no national limits, like prose or poetry; its home is the whole world; its idiom the blended song of all nations.

In such a view there is less hope in the older than in the newer world. No single, limited song of one nation cap in the future achieve a second climax of the art. It is by the actual mingling of them all that the fairest flower and fruit must come. The very absence of one prevailing native song, held a reproach to America, is in reality her strength; for hers is the common heritage of all strains of song. And it may be her destiny to lead in the glorious merging of them all,

Chapter II Beelioz And Liszt

THE path of progress of an art has little to do with mere chronology. For here in early days are bold spirits whose influence is not felt until a whole generation has passed of a former tradition. Nor are these patient pioneers always the bestinspired prophets; the mere fate of slow recognition does not imply a highest genius. A radical innovation may provoke a just and natural resistance. Again, a gradual yielding is not always due to the pure force of truth. Strange and oblique ideas may slowly win a triumph that is not wholly merited and may not prove enduring.

To fully grapple with this mystery, we may still hold to the faith that final victory comes only to pure truth, and yet we may find that imperfect truth will often achieve a slow and late acceptance. The victory may then be viewed in either of two ways : the whole spirit of the age yields to the brilliant allurement, or there is an overweighing balance of true beauty that deserves the prize of permanence. Of such a kind were two prinidpal composers of the symphony : Franz Liszt and Hector Berlioz. Long after they had wrought their greatest works, others had come and gone in truer line with the first masters, until it seemed these radical spirits had been quite rejected.

Besides the masters of their own day, Schumann and Mendelssohn, a group of minor poets, like Eaff and Goetz, appeared, and at last Brahms, the latest great builder of the symphony, all following and crowning the classical tradition.

The slow reception of the larger works of Liszt strangely "agrees with the startling resemblance of their manner to the Russian style that captivated a much later age. It seemed as if the spirit of the Hungarian was suddenly revived in a new national group. His humor wonderfully suited the restless and sensational temper of an age that began after his death.

The very harmonies and passionate manner that influence modern audiences evoked a dull indifference in their own day.* They roused the first acclaim when presented in the more popular form of the music-drama. It may well be questioned whether Liszt was not the fountain source of the characteristic harmonies of Wagner's later opera.

Historically considered, that is in their relation to other music preceding and following them, the symphonies of Liszt have striking interest. They are in boldest departure from all other symphonies, save possibly those of Berlioz, and they were prophetic in

* Compare the similarity of the , themes of the Faust Symphony of Liszt and of the PatMHque of Tschaikowsky in the last chapter of vol. ii, " Symphonies and Their Meaning."

BERLIOZ AND LISZT

a degree only apparent a half-centuiy later. If the qiiality of being ahead of his time be proof, instead of a symptom, of genius, then Liszt was in the first raiik of masters. The use of significant motif is in both of his symphonies. But almost all the traits that startled and moved the world in Tschaikowsky's symphonies are revealed in this far earlier music: the tempestuous rage of what might be called an hysterical school, and the same poignant beauty of the lyric episodes ; the sheer contrast, half trick, half natural, of fierce clangor and dulcet harmonies, all painted with the broad strokes of the orchestral palette. Doubly striking it is how Liszt foreshadowed his later followers and how he has really overshadowed them; not one, down to the most modem tonepainters, has equalled him in depth and breadth of design, in the original power of his tonal symbols. It seems that Liszt will endure as the master-spirit in this reactionary phase of the symphony.

Berlioz is another figure of a bold innovator, whose career seemed a series of failures, yet whose music will not down. His art was centred less upon the old essentials, of characteristic melody and soulstirring harmonies, than upon the magic strokes of new instrumental grouping, — a graphic rather than a pure musical purpose. And so he is the father not only of the modem orchestra, but of the fashion of the day that revels in new sensations of startling effects, that are spent in portraying the events of a story.

Berlioz was the first of a line of virtuosi of the 2 17

SYMPHONIES AND THEIE MEANING

orchestra, a pioneer in the art of weaving significant strains, — significant,, that is, apart from the music. He was seized with the passion of making a pictured design with his orchestral colors. Music, it seems, did not exist for Berlioz except for the telling of a story. His symphony is often /rather opera. A symphony,. he forgot, is not a musical drama without the scenery. This is just what is not a symphony. It is not the literal story, but the pure musical utterance. Thus Berlioz's " Eomeo and Juliet " symphony is in its design more the literal story than is Shakespeare's play. And yet there is ever a serious nobility, a heroic reach in the art of Berlioz, where he stands almost alone among the composers of his race. Here, probably, more than in his pictured stories, lies the secret of his endurance. He was, other than his followers, ever an idealist. And so, when we are on the point of condemning him as a scene-painter, we suddenly come upon a stretch of pure musical beauty, that flowed from the unconscious rapture of true poet. As the bee sucks, so may we cull the stray beauty and the more intimate meaning, despite and aside from this outer intent.

Chapter III Beelioz. " Komeo And Juliet." Dramatic Symphony

IN the sub-title we see the growing impulse towards graphic music. A " dramatic symphony " is not promising. For, if music is the most subjective expression of -the arts, why should its highest form be used to dramatize a drama? Without the aid of scene and actors, that were needed by the original poet, the artisan in absolute tones attempts his own theatric rendering. Clearly this symphony is one of those works of art which within an incongruous form (like certain ancient pictures) affords episodes of imperishable beauty.

Passing by the dramatic episodes that are strung on the thread of the story, we dwell, according to our wont, on the stretches where a pure musical utterance rises to a lofty height of pathos or of rarest fantasy.

In the first scene of the Second Part' is the clear intent of a direct tonal expression, and there is a sustained thread of sincere sentiment. The passion of Eomeo shines in the purity rather than in the intensity of feeling. The scene has a delicate series of moods, with subtle melodic touches and dramatic surprises of chord and color. The whole seems a reflection of Borneo's humor, the personal (Allegro)

theme being the symbol as it roams throughout the various phases, — ^the sadness of solitude, the feverish thrill of the ball. Into the first phrase of straying violins wanders the personal motive, sadly meditative.

(Choir of wood, with sustained chords of strings)

it i

3$:

s^

Sweeter dreams now woo the muser, warming into passion, pulsing with a more eager throb of desire, in changed tone and pace. Suddenly in a new quarter amid a quick strum of dance the main motive hurries along. The gay sounds vanish, ominous almost in the distance. The sadness of the lover now sings unrestrained in expressive melody (of oboe), in long swinging pace, while far away rumbles the beat of festive dnirn.

The song rises in surging curves, but dies away 20

BERLIOZ. "ROMEO AND JULIET"

among the quick festal sounds, where the personal motive is still supreme, chasing its own ardent antics, and plunges headlong into the swirl of dance.

II Penseroso (in his personal r61e) has glided into a buoyant, rollicking Allegro with joyous answer. Anon the outer revel breaks in with shock almost of terror. And now in climax of joy, through the festal strum across the never-ceasing thread of transformed meditation resound in slowest, broadest swing the

Larghetioj^euim ^— . ,

(Ob. with fl. and cl. ' and arpeggic cellos)

warm tones of the love-song in triumph of bliss.* As the song dies away, the festal sounds fade.. Grim meditation returns in double figure, — the slower, heavier pace below. Its shadows are all about as in a fugue of fears, flitting still to the tune of the dance and anon yielding before the gaiety. But through the returning festal ring the fateful motive is still straying in the bass. In the concluding revel the hue of meditation is not entirely banned.

The Shakespearian love-drama thus far seems to be celebrated in the manner of a French romance. After all, the treatment remains scenic in the main; the

* in unison of the wind. Berlioz has here noted in the score " RSunion des deum Th4mes, du Larghetto et de L'AUegro," the second and first of our cited phrases.

feeling is diluted, as it were, not intensified by the music.

The stillness of night and the shimmering moonlight are in the delicate harmonies of (Allegretto) strings. A lusty song of departing revellers breaks upon the scene. The former distant sounds of feast are now near and clear in actual words.

(Muted s trings) Adagio

PP apr. I *1 " ^H r (Pizz. basses an 8ve. lower)

There is an intimate charm, a true glamor of love-idyll about the Adagio. On more eager pulse rises a languorous strain of horn and cellos. The flow

(Horn and cellos with murmuring strings)

canto espresa.

of its passionate phrase reaches the climax of prologue where, the type and essence of the story, it plays about the lovers' first meeting. As lower strings hum the burden of desire, higher wood add touches of ecstasy, the melting violins sing the wooing song, and all break into an overwhelming rapture, 22

BERLIOZ. "ROMEO AND JULIET"

as though transfigured in the brightness of its own vehemence, in midst of a trembling mystery.

The restless spirit starts {allegro agitato) in fearsome agitation on quick nervous throb of melody; below, violas sing a soothing answer ; there is a clear dialogue of wistful lovers.

Instead of the classic form of several verses led by one dominant melody to varied paths and views, here almost in reverse we seem to fall from a broader lyric mood to a single note of sad yearning that

(FL with Eng. horn an 8ye. below)

rfi rn ^J

(Muted

lins with s'

toined lower p etpreu.

Btrings)

grows out of the several strains. Upon such a motive a new melody sings. The delicate bliss of early love is all about, and in the lingering close the timid ecstasies of wooing phrase. But this is a mere prelude to the more highly stressed, vehement song of love that follows on the same yearning motive. Here is the crowning, summing phase of the whole poem, without a return to earlier melody, save that, by significant touch, it ends in the same expressive turn as the former languorous song.

The first melody does not reappear, is thus a kind 23 of background of the scene. The whole is a dramatic l3rric that moves from broader tune to a reiterated note of sad desire, driven to a splendid height of crowned bliss. The turbulence of early love is there; pure ardor in flaming tongues of ecstasy ; the quick turn of mood and the note of omen of the original poem: the violence of early love and the fate that hangs over.

Berlioz has drawn the subject of his Scherzo from Mercutio's speech in Scene 4 of the First Act of Shakespeare's tragedy. He has entitled it " Queen Mab, or the Fairy of Dreams," and clearly intends to portray the airy flight of Mab and her fairies. But we must doubt whether this, the musical gem of the symphony, has a plan that is purely graphic, — rather does it seem to soar beyond those concrete limits to an utterance of the sense of dreams themselves in the spirit of Mercutio's conclusion :