DESCRIPTIVE ANALYSES
OF PIANO WORKS

FOR THE USE OF TEACHERS,
PLAYERS, AND MUSIC CLUBS

BY

EDWARD BAXTER PERRY

PHILADELPHIA

THEODORE PRESSER CO.

LONDON, WEEKES & CO.

Copyright, 1902, by Theodore Presser

International Copyright

Printed in the United States of America

DESCRIPTIVE
ANALYSES OF
PIANO WORKS

Introduction

The material comprised in the following pages has been collected for use in book form by the advice and at the earnest request of the publisher, as well as of many musical friends, who express the belief that it is of sufficient value and interest to merit a certain degree of permanency, and will prove of practical aid to teachers and students of music. A portion of it has already appeared in print in the program books of the Derthick Musical Literary Society and in different musical journals; and nearly all of it has been used at various times in my own Lecture Recitals.

The book is merely a compilation of what have seemed the most interesting and valuable results of my thought, reading, and research in connection with my Lecture Recital work during the past twenty years.

In the intensely busy life of a concert pianist a systematic and exhaustive study of the whole broad field of piano literature has been utterly impossible. That would require the exclusive devotion of a lifetime at least. My efforts have been necessarily confined strictly to such compositions as came under my immediate attention in connection with my own work as player.

The effect is a seemingly desultory and haphazard method in the study, and an inadequacy and incoherency in the collective result, which no one can possibly realize or deplore so fully as myself. Still the work is a beginning, a first pioneer venture into a realm which I believe to be not only new, but rich and important. I can only hope that the example may prompt others, with more leisure and ability, to follow in the path I have blazed, to more extensive explorations and more complete results.

Well-read musicians will find in these pages much that they have learned before from various scattered sources. Naturally so. I have not originated my facts or invented my legends. They are common property for all who will but seek. I have merely collected, arranged, and, in many instances, translated them into English. I claim no monopoly. On the other hand, they may find some things they have not previously known. In such cases I venture to suggest to the critically and incredulously inclined, that this does not prove their inaccuracy, though some have seemed to fancy that it did. Not to know a thing does not always conclusively demonstrate that it is not so.

To the general reader let me say that this book represents the best thought and effort of my professionally unoccupied hours during the past twenty years. It comes to you with my heart in it, bringing the wish that the material here collected may be to you as interesting and helpful as it has been to me in the gathering. The actual writing has mainly been done on trains, or in lonely hotel rooms far from books of reference, or aids of any kind; so occasional inexactitudes of data or detail are by no means improbable, when my only resource was the memory of something read, or of personal conversation often years before. With the limited time at my disposal, a detailed revision is not practicable, and I therefore present the articles as originally written. Take and use what seems of value, and the rest pass by.

The plan and purpose of the book rest simply upon the theory that the true interpretation of music depends not only on the player’s possession of a correct insight into the form and harmonic structure of a given composition, but also on the fullest obtainable knowledge concerning the circumstances and environment of its origin, and the conditions governing the composer’s life at the time, as well as any historical or legendary matter which may have served him as inspiration or suggestion.

My reason for now presenting it to the public is the same as that which has caused me to devote my professional life exclusively to the Lecture Recital—namely, because experience has proved to me that a knowledge of the poetic and dramatic content of a musical work is of immense value to the player in interpretation, and to the listener in comprehension and enjoyment of any composition, and because, except in scattered fragments, no information of just this character exists elsewhere in print.

It being, as explained, impossible to make this collection of analyses complete, or even approximately so, it has seemed wise to limit the number here included to just fifty, so as to keep the book to a convenient size. I have endeavored to select those covering as large a range and variety as possible, with the view of making them as broadly helpful and suggestive as may be.

It is my intention to continue my labors along this line so far as strength and opportunity permit, in the faith that I can devote my efforts to no more useful end.

Edward Baxter Perry.

It has been, and still is, the general custom among most musicians, when called upon to analyze a composition for the enlightenment of students or the public, or in the effort to broaden the interest in their art, to think and speak solely of the form, the structure of the work, to treat it scientifically, anatomically—to dwell with sonorous unction upon the technical names for its various divisions, to lay bare and delightedly call attention to its neatly fashioned joints, to dilate upon the beauty of its symmetrical proportions, and show how one part fits into or is developed out of another—in brief, to explain more or less intelligently the details of its mechanical construction, without a hint or a thought as to why it was made at all, or why it should be allowed to exist. With the specialist’s engrossing absorption in the technicalities of his vocation, they expect others to share their interest, and are surprised and indignant to find that they do not. They forget that to the average hearer this learned dissertation upon primary and secondary subjects, episodical passages, modulation to related and unrelated keys, cadences, return of the first theme, etc., has about as much meaning and importance as so much Sanskrit. It is well enough, so far as it goes, in the classroom, where students are being trained for specialists, and need that kind of information; but it is only one side,—the mechanical side,—and the general public needs something else; and even the student, however gifted, if he is to become more than a mere technician, must have something else; for composition and interpretation both have their mere technic, as much as keyboard manipulation, which is, however, only the means, not the end.

Knowledge of and insight into musical form are necessary to the player, but not to the listener, even for the highest artistic appreciation and enjoyment, just as the knowledge of colors and their combination is essential to the painter, but not to the beholder. The poet must understand syntax and prosody, the technic of rhyme-making and verse-formation; but how many of his readers could analyze correctly from that standpoint the poem they so much enjoy, or give the scientific names for the literary devices employed? Or how many of them would care to hear it done, or be the better for it if they did? The public expects results, not rules or formulas; effects, not explanations of stage machinery; food and stimulus for the intellect, the emotions, the imagination, not recipes of how they are prepared.

The value of esthetic analysis is undeniably great in rendering this food and stimulus, contained in every good composition, more easily accessible and more readily assimilated, by a judicious selection and partial predigestion, so to speak, of the different artistic elements in a given work, and a certain preparation of the listener to receive them. This is, of course, especially true in the case of the young, and those of more advanced years, to whom, owing to lack of training and opportunity, musical forms of expression are somewhat unfamiliar; or, in other words, those to whom the musical idiom is still more or less strange. But there are also very many musicians of established position who are sorely in need of something of the kind to awaken them to a perception of other factors in musical art besides sensuous beauty and the display of skill; to develop their imaginative and poetic faculties, in which both their playing and theories prove them to be deficient; and the more loudly they cry against it as useless and illegitimate, the more palpably self-evident becomes their own crying need of it.

Esthetic analysis consists in grasping clearly the essential artistic significance of a composition, its emotional or descriptive content, either with or without the aid of definite knowledge concerning the circumstances of its origin, and expressing it plainly in a few simple, well-chosen words, comprehensible by the veriest child in music, whether young or old in years, conveying in a direct, unmistakable, and concrete form the same general impressions which the composition, through all its elaborations and embellishments, all its manifold collateral suggestions, is intended to convey, giving a skeleton, not of its form, but of its subject-matter, so distinctly articulated that the most untrained perceptions shall be able to recognize to what genus it belongs.

Of course, when it is possible, as it is in many cases, to obtain and give reliable data concerning the conception and birth of a musical work, the actual historical or traditional material, or the personal experience, which furnished its inspiration, the impulse which led to its creation, it is of great assistance and value; and this is especially so when the work is distinctly descriptive of external scenes or human actions. For example, take the Schubert-Liszt “Erlkönig.” Here the elements embodied are those of tempest and gloom, of shuddering terror, of eager pursuit and panic-stricken flight, ending in sudden, surprised despair. These may be vaguely felt by the listener when the piece is played, with varying intensity according to his musical susceptibility; but if the legend of the “Erlkönig,” or “Elf-king,” is narrated and attention directly called to the various descriptive features of the work,—the gallop of the horse, the rush and roar of the tempest through the depths of the Black Forest, the seductive insistence and relentless pursuit of the elf-king, the father’s mad flight, the shriek of the child, and the final tragic ending, all so distinctly suggested in the music,—the impression is intensified tenfold, rendered more precise and definite; and the undefined sensations produced by the music are focused at once into a positive, complete, artistic effect.

Who can doubt that this is an infinite gain to the listener and to art? Again, take an instance selected from a large number of compositions which are purely emotional, with no kind of realistic reference to nature or action, the Revolutionary Etude, by Chopin, Opus 10, No. 12. The emotional elements here expressed are fierce indignation, vain but desperate struggle, wrathful despair. These are easily recognized by the trained esthetic sense. Indeed, the work cannot be properly rendered by one who does not feel them in playing it; and they can be eloquently described in a general way by one possessing a little gift of language and some imagination; but many persons find it hard to grasp abstract emotions without a definite assignable cause for them, and are incalculably aided if told that the study was written as the expression of Chopin’s feelings, and those of every Polish patriot, on receipt of the news that Warsaw had been taken and sacked by the Russians.

Where such data cannot be found concerning a composition, one can make the content of a work fairly clear by means of description, of analogy and comparison, by the use of poetic metaphor and simile, by little imaginative word-pictures, embodying the same general impression; by any means, in short,—any and all are legitimate,—which will produce the desired result, namely: to concentrate the attention of the student or the listener on the most important elements in a composition, to show him what to listen for and what to expect; to prepare him fully to receive and respond to the proper impression, to tune up his esthetic nature to the required key, so it may re-echo the harmonious soul-utterances of the Master, as the horn-player breathes through his instrument before using it, to warm it, to bring it up to pitch, to put it in the right vibratory condition.

The plan of esthetic analysis, in more or less complete form, was used by nearly all of the great teachers, such as Liszt, Kullak, Frau Schumann, and others, and was a very important factor in their instruction. It was used by all the great writers on music who were at the same time eminent musicians, like Liszt, Schumann, Mendelssohn, Mozart, Wagner, Berlioz, Ehrlich, and many more. Surely, with such examples as precedents, not to mention other good and sufficient grounds, we may feel safe in pursuing it to the best of our ability, in print, in the teaching-room, in the concert-hall, whenever and wherever it will contribute to the increase of general musical interest and intelligence, in spite of the outcries of the so-called “purists,” who see and would have us see in musical art only sensuous beauty and the perfection of form, with possibly the addition of, as they might put it, a certain ethereal, spiritual, indefinable something, too sacred to be talked about, too transcendental to be expressed in language, too lofty and pure to be degraded to the level of human speech.

Who, I ask, are the sentimentalists—they, or we who believe that music, like every other art, is expression, the embodying of human experiences, than which there is no grander or loftier theme on this earth? Trust me, it is not music nor its subject-matter that is nebulous, indistinct, hazy; but the mental conceptions of too many who deal with it.

If art is expression, as estheticians agree, and music is an art, as we claim, then it must express something; and, given sufficient intelligence, training, and insight, that something—the vital essence of every good composition—can be stated in words. Not always adequately, I grant, but at least intelligibly, as a key to the fuller, more complex expression of the music; serving precisely like the synopsis to an opera, or the descriptive catalogue in a picture gallery. This is the aim and substance of esthetic analysis.

During my professional career I have received scores of letters from musical persons all over the country, asking for the name of the book or books from which I derive the information, anecdote, and poetic suggestion, concerning the compositions used in my Lecture Recitals, particularly the points bearing upon the descriptive and emotional significance of such compositions. All realize the importance and value of this phase of interpretative work, and many are anxious to introduce it in their teaching or public performances; but all alike, myself not excepted, find the sources of such information scanty and difficult of access.

First, let me say frankly that there is no such book, or collection of books. My own meager stock of available material in this line has been laboriously collected, without definite method, and at first without distinct purpose, during many years of extensive miscellaneous reading in English, French, and German; supplemented by a rather wide acquaintance among musicians and composers, and the life-long habit of seizing and magnifying the poetic or dramatic bearing and import of every scene, situation, and anecdote. If asked to enumerate the sources from which points of value concerning musical works can be derived, I should answer that they are three, not all equally promising, but from each of which I myself have obtained help, and all of which I should try before deserting the field. These are:

First, and perhaps the most important, reading. Second, a large acquaintance among musicians, and frequent conversations with them on musical subjects. Third, an intuitive perception, partly inborn and partly acquired, of the analogies between musical ideas, on the one hand, and the experiences of life and the emotions of the human soul, on the other. I will now elaborate each of these a little, to make my meaning more clear.

While there is no book in which information concerning the meaning of musical compositions is collected and classified for convenient reference, such information is scattered thinly and unevenly throughout all literatures,—a grain here, a nugget there, like gold through the secret veins of the earth,—and can be had only by much digging and careful sifting. Now and again you come upon a single volume, like a rich though limited pocket of precious ore, and rejoice with exceeding gladness at the discovery of a treasure. But unfortunately, there is usually nothing in the appearance or nature of such a book to indicate to the seeker before perusal that this treasure is within, or to distinguish it from scores of barren volumes. And the very item of which he may be in search is very likely not here to be found; so he must turn again to the quest, which is much like seeking a needle in a hay-mow, or a pearl somewhere at the bottom of the Indian Ocean.

Musical histories, biographies, and essays—what is usually termed distinctly musical literature—by no means exhibit the only productive soil, though they are certainly the most fruitful, and should be first turned to, because nearest at hand. Poetry, fiction, travels, personal reminiscences, in short every department of literature, from the philosophy of Schopenhauer to the novels of George Sand, must be made to contribute what it can to the stock of general and comprehensive knowledge, which is our ambition. I instance these two authors, because, while neither of them wrote a single work which would be found embraced in a catalogue of musical literature, the metaphysical speculations of Schopenhauer are known to have had great influence upon Wagner’s personality, and through that, of course, upon his music; while in some of the characteristics of George Sand will be found the key to certain of Chopin’s moods, and their musical expression. But even where no such relation between author and composer can be traced, I deem one could rarely read a good literary work, chosen at random, without chancing upon some item of interest or information, which would prove directly or indirectly of value to the professional musician in his life-work. And this is entirely apart from the general broadening, developing, and maturing influence of good reading upon the mind and imagination, which may be added to the more direct benefit sought, forming a background of esthetic suggestion and perception, against which the beauties of tone-pictures stand forth with enhanced power and heightened color.

I know of no better plan to suggest to those striving for an intelligent comprehension of the composer’s meaning in his great works than much and careful reading of the best books in all departments, and the more varied and comprehensive their scope the better. In the search for enlightenment concerning any one particular composition, I should advise the student to begin with works, if such exist, from the pen of the composer himself, followed by biographies and all essays, criticisms, and dissertations upon his compositions which are in print. If these fail to give information, he should proceed to read as much as possible regarding the composer’s country and contemporaries, and concerning any and all subjects in which he has become aware, by the study of his life, that the master was interested. The chances are that he will come upon something of aid or value before finishing this task. Still very often the quest will and must be in vain, because about many musical works there exists absolutely no information in print.

I can perhaps better indicate the course to be pursued by giving some illustrations in my own experience. The following will serve: During a trip in New York State I was asked whether Grieg’s “Peer Gynt” suite was founded upon any legend or story, and if so, what. Though familiar with the composition in question, I had never played it myself, nor given it any particular attention, and in point of fact was as ignorant on the subject as my interrogator, and obliged to confess as much. This was before the composition had become familiar in this country and before the drama on which it is founded had been translated into English. Being, however, convinced, from the names attached to different parts of the suite, of the probability of its foundation upon some literary or historic subject, I determined to investigate. I first read several biographical sketches of Grieg, but found no special mention of the “Peer Gynt” suite; then everything I could secure on the subject of Norwegian music in general and Grieg’s compositions in particular, without avail. As I knew Grieg to be, with the possible exception of Chopin, the most intensely national and patriotic of all composers, I inferred that if he had taken any legend or story as the basis of this work, it was undoubtedly Norwegian in character. I read, therefore, several articles on the history of Norway, the Norsemen, and the Norwegian language and literature, watching carefully for the name of Peer Gynt, but in vain. I next undertook some of the sagas or ancient Norse traditions, with the same result. Having exhausted my resources in this direction, I began to investigate modern Norwegian literature. Here, of course, I encountered, in large type, the names of Björnson and Ibsen, and almost at the outset I found among the works of the latter the versified drama of “Peer Gynt,” and my search was at an end. Having procured a German translation of this drama, I found scenes and characters to correspond exactly with those which figure in Grieg’s music, and a reference in the preface to an orchestral suite, by this composer, founded upon “Peer Gynt.”

Now had I been as well informed as I recommend all my readers to be, I should have known at the outset of this Norwegian drama, and been at once upon the right track. But being only familiar with those prose dramas of Ibsen which have been translated into English, I was obliged to undertake all this extra labor, to ascertain a single fact; which only proves once again, that the more the musician’s memory is stored with miscellaneous facts and ideas, even such as do not seem to have any connection with music, the lighter and more successful will be his labors in his profession.

The second main source of information concerning musical works is found among musicians themselves. There is a vast amount of tradition, suggestion, and knowledge appertaining to the masterpieces in this art, which has never got into print, and lives only by passing from mouth to mouth, much as the early legends of all countries were orally handed down among minstrels and skalds from generation to generation. Every great interpreter and every great composer becomes, with the passage of years of a long and active life, a vast and valuable storehouse of all sorts of hints, facts, and ideas on the subject of various compositions, which usually die with him, except such portions as have been orally transmitted to pupils and associates. In this respect the late Theodor Kullak was worth any three men I have ever known, and those of his pupils who had tastes and interests similar to his own, and were of retentive memory, have all derived from him no mean portion of their material. To cull from every musician and musically informed person all the odds and ends of information in his possession is a valuable, though perhaps selfish habit. And here let me emphasize to all students the importance of not allowing the memory to get into that very prevalent bad habit of refusing to retain anything which is not presented in print to the organ of vision. The ear is as good a road to the brain as the eye, and every one should possess the faculty of acquiring information from conversations, lessons, and lectures, as readily as from books.

The third resource of the seeker after truth of this nature is to be found within himself. The musician should early accustom himself to grasp clearly the essential essence, the vital principle, of an artistic moment, a dramatic situation. For some such moment, mood, or situation, however vague or veiled, underlies every true art work; and unless the performer can perceive and comprehend this inner germ of meaning clearly enough to express it intelligibly, though it may be crudely, in his own words, he will find that many a hint has been lost upon him, and many a bit of knowledge, that might have been his, has escaped him. This is not a musical faculty merely; it is a mental peculiarity. Every person, whatever his profession, should train himself to catch, as quickly and clearly as may be, the real drift of a book, of an argument, of a chain of circumstances, of a political situation, of history, of character, and to place his finger instinctively upon the germ upon which all else centers.

The power to feel instinctively the real mood and meaning of a musical composition is by no means confined to the musical profession; indeed, is often strongly marked in those ignorant of the very rudiments of the art. I remember once playing to a rough old trapper, of the early pioneer days in Wisconsin, who had drifted back to civilization to “die in camp,” as he expressed it, the Revolutionary Etude of Chopin, Op. 10, No. 12, already cited in illustration, written on receipt of the knowledge that Warsaw had been taken and sacked by the Russians. “What does it mean?” I asked when it was finished. He sprang from his chair in great excitement. “Mean?” he said; “it means cyclone in the big woods! Indian onslaught! White men all killed, but die hard!” His interpretation, I need not say, was not historically correct, but for all artistic purposes it was just as good, though expressed in the rough backwoods imagery familiar to him. He caught the tone of rage and conflict, of desperate struggle and dark despair, which sounds in every line, and he had truly understood the composition, to the shame of many a well-educated musician, whose comment would probably have been, “How difficult that left hand part is! De Pachmann plays it much faster, and with such a beautiful pianissimo!”

This particular study is simply a vivid mood picture. It is not in any sense what is called descriptive or program music; yet it has a distinct meaning which can be more or less adequately expressed in words, for the aid of those who do not readily grasp its expression. I wish to reiterate here what I have before stated, that I would not be understood to hold that all music has or should have some story connected with it. I merely believe that every worthy composition is the musical setting of some scene, incident, mood, idea, or emotion. Long practice in perceiving and grasping what may be termed the “internal evidence” of the music itself will develop, in the musician, a susceptibility to such impressions, which will often lead him to a knowledge elsewhere sought in vain, and greatly lessen his labors in arriving at knowledge elsewhere to be found.

I have now thrown all the light in my power upon the modus operandi of obtaining information and ideas relating to musical compositions, and have, I think, demonstrated the difficulty of such an undertaking. For my own Lecture Recital programs I often select works about which I happen to be well informed, and have more than once spent an entire summer in reading and research concerning others which I wished to include. It will be seen from the nature of the case, that because one possesses full information in regard to a certain ballade or polonaise, it by no means establishes a certainty, as is sometimes inferred, that he will be equally enlightened concerning all others. There never was and never will be any one man who can furnish information on the subject of all compositions, and it is equally impossible that any glossary or cyclopedia will ever be compiled which can refer the student to books containing points in regard to any musical work one may chance to be practising, or wish to perform.