How Music Developed / A Critical and Explanatory Account of the Growth of Modern Music

Chapter VIII

The Evolution of Piano Playing

Work of the organ schools of Venice and Rome—Polyphonic playing and the advent of the singing style—Scale playing and the use of the thumb—Bach's fingering and Mozart's vocal playing—Development of tone-color—Pedalling and variety of touch—Chopin, Schumann, and Liszt technics.

THE origin of piano music, and, indeed, of much of the entire mass of modern instrumental music, was the organ compositions of the early masters. The early clavichords were used almost exclusively for the home practice of organists; and even after it became fashionable for young ladies to learn the art of playing, there was no difference whatever between the style of music written for the organ and of that composed for the clavichord, nor in the manner of playing either instrument. Every musician knows that in our time the kind of touch used for the organ is essentially different from that used for the piano, and that music suitable for one instrument is not suitable for the other. But it was not thus in the earliest days; for the only professional pianists (or clavichordists, to be more precise) were the organists, and instrumental music had not yet reached a state of development high enough to produce a divergence of styles. The fact that the same keyboard was used in both instruments was sufficient to suggest to the early organists that one style of playing was practicable for both. It naturally did not occur to them to write different sorts of music; and it is necessary, therefore, for us to inquire what was the nature of the early organ music.

We have already seen that when the organ was first introduced into the church it was employed simply to play the same notes as the voices sang. This practice naturally suggested to composers a style for their organ music when they began to write for the organ independently of the voices. Just when they began to do that it is not possible to say, because the early compositions have not been preserved as the great masterpieces of church counterpoint have. The first organist of repute whose name has come down to us was Francesco Landini, of Venice. He flourished about 1364. But we do not meet with any definite school of organists in Venice until the third period of the Netherlands school, when the great Adrian Willaert was the leading master. In 1547 was published a collection of music entitled "Ricercari da cantare e sonare," by Jacob Buus. These "ricercari" were compositions in the old ecclesiastical keys and the polyphonic style. "Da cantare e sonare" means that they were to be sung or played. Anything "cantata" was vocal, anything "sonata" was instrumental; and so after a time they began to call a composition for instruments alone a sonata, though it was a very different sort of work from a sonata by Mozart. In 1549 fantasies for three voices, vocal or instrumental, by Willaert were printed. Willaert used original themes in his fantasies, and his style shows a gradual approach to the modern manner. In 1551 was issued a collection by various authors, entitled "A New Collection of Various Kinds of Dances to be Played on the Harpsichord, Clavicimbal, Spinet, or Monochord." The word "dances" is very significant, because it shows the first recorded effort to write instrumental music in purely instrumental form. In this collection there was no polyphony, but the melody of the dance was in the treble, and the bass was a simple chord accompaniment. This is an evidence of the manner in which the music of the people began at that early date to influence compositions for instruments.

But the dominion of church counterpoint was not to be overthrown at once; and so we find that the first clearly defined instrumental form was the "toccata." Those of Claudio Merulo, a Venetian organist, printed in 1598, were the first to be published. They were written for the organ, and resembled Willaert's church vocal music in that they consisted of running or polyphonic passages, followed by successions of broad chords. Giovanni Gabrieli did more, perhaps, than any other of the Venetians to lead instrumental music toward the modern style. He wrote what he called "canzone;" and in these compositions the melody assumed a position of importance. Furthermore, he showed a tendency to make his melodic themes recur at regular intervals, although he had no well-defined system. Still, he made important advances. The Roman school of organists made valuable contributions to the development of instrumental music. Girolamo Frescobaldi (1591-1640) wrote ricercari in which there was something like a systematic employment of clear melodic themes. He wrote canzone in which there were passages slightly resembling the choral hymns of the Reformation; and in his "Capriccio Chromatico" he made a bold use of chromatic harmonies. Indeed, his music shows a general tendency toward the modern major and minor keys. We are not surprised, then, to find in the works of Bernardo Pasquine (1637-1710) arpeggios (running passages composed of the notes of chords, much used in modern piano music), flowing passages for both hands, and repetitions of the thematic ideas. But the manner of composing for the clavichord and harpsichord had been so greatly influenced at this time by the evolution of a distinct method of playing the instruments that we must, before advancing any further, go back and briefly review that topic.

The first systematic method of playing the organ and harpsichord was set forth in 1593 in a book by Girolamo di Ruta, a Venetian, and it contained rules for fingering which were in use for more than a century. A work by Lorenzo Penna, published at Bologna in 1656, shows very clearly what the general principles of clavichord and harpsichord technic were in that day. "In ascending the fingers of the right hand move one after the other,—first the middle, then the ring finger, again the middle, and so on in alternation. Care must be taken that the fingers do not strike against one another. In descending, the middle, followed by the index finger, is used. The left hand simply reverses this process. The rule for the position of the hands is that they shall never lie lower than the fingers, but shall be held high, with the fingers stretched out." This style of fingering held its own until Bach's time. It was in existence as late as 1741, though more fingers were employed. But the fingers were still held straight, and the thumb was not used.

It is difficult to separate the purely musical and the purely technical causes which led to the abandonment of the polyphonic style for the monophonic in piano music, and for that reason I must state them together. The first influence was the introduction of solo singing in vocal music. We shall review the history of that when we take up opera. It is sufficient at present to say that before 1600 all vocal music written by the art composers was in the ecclesiastical polyphonic style, and that the single-voiced song with accompaniment entered vocal music at the end of the sixteenth century. The influence of this new element made itself felt in instrumental music at once. We have noticed already that in Giovanni Gabrieli's works the melody assumed a new importance, and this importance constantly increased. The second cause was the full establishment of the difference between piano and organ technic. This was chiefly due to Domenico Scarlatti (1683-1757). It was in his day that the system of equal temperament was made known, though it may be doubted whether he lived long enough after its publication in those times of slow communication to profit by it. But he certainly did profit by the high state of excellence to which the manufacture of harpsichords had advanced. And he was greatly influenced by the operatic works of his father, Alessandro, in which the simple aria was the chief element of attraction. Domenico naturally endeavored to imitate the general form and melodic fluency of the aria in his sonatas, and in doing this he developed a harpsichord style of much beauty. He introduced many technical features which are purely modern, such as the execution of runs in double notes (thirds and sixths), the rapid repetition of the same note by striking it with different fingers in succession, and running arpeggios with both hands in opposite directions. Such feats were not called for by the polyphonic music, but the new style of writing made a great use of passages built on the successive notes of the scale, and to execute these a new manner of playing had to be evolved. In evolving it the musicians discovered new feats, and these in turn took their place in the compositions of the time.

In fact the development of the instrument itself affected the development of the technics of playing, and these affected the evolution of piano music. Then the music itself reacted on the technic, and this made new demands of the instrument makers. We have seen that when the early pianists set about the formulation of rules for playing their instruments they made poor work of it. Their rules were arbitrary and were not evolved from a study of the natural action of the hand. Smooth running of scale passages with such rules as those of Lorenzo Penna could be accomplished only at a very moderate pace. The old polyphonic compositions for the clavichord and harpsichord demanded of the player a technic which would enable him to bring out clearly the three or four voice parts. The new style, which borrowed so much from vocal music, naturally sought for a smooth, flowing, even performance, in which the instrument should, as nearly as possible, sing like a solo voice with accompaniment. Emmanuel Bach, who wrote an important book on clavichord playing, proclaimed his belief that the singing style was the only true one for the instrument. These early musicians had, indeed, arrived at the heart of the matter, for the highest achievement of piano technic today is the preservation of a pure singing tone throughout the intricacies of modern music.

The discovery of the value of the thumb revolutionized clavichord and harpsichord playing. George Frederick Handel (1685-1759) and François Couperin (1668-1733) both made free use of the thumb, but it was Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750) who systematized its employment. He decided that the old position of the hand with the back flat and the fingers stretched to their full extent was unnatural. He saw that the whole strength of the fingers could not be brought to bear while they were in this position, and that the thumb could not be placed upon the keyboard at all. When he attempted to use his thumb, he had to raise the back of his hand and bend his fingers, and this he saw at once placed the whole hand in a position of command over the keyboard which it had never before possessed. He therefore rearranged the fingering of all the scales, introducing the system which still continues in use. Bach himself discovered that with his new system of fingering he could play polyphonic or monophonic music with equal ease, and hence we find that his compositions abound in both kinds of writing. He himself, being a church composer, naturally clung to the ecclesiastic style, and in his great organ and piano fugues transferred the whole contrapuntal science of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries to instrumental music. But we shall see that better when we come to a consideration of the music apart from the technic and the style.

The singing style of playing was further developed by the immortal Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791). The instrument on which he played was the harpsichord, and the evenness of its tone encouraged his natural predilection for a vocal style. Mozart was a master of writing for singers, as is shown by his operas, and he readily saw his way to preserving the vocal manner in his playing of the harpsichord and his compositions for it. He held that a good pianist should have a perfect legato style (legato means "bound," and legato style is that in which the notes flow smoothly one into the other) a singing touch and a manner without affectation. Mozart did not live long enough to benefit much from the growing acquaintance with the newly invented piano, but one of his contemporaries, who outlived him by more than two-score years did so. This was Muzio Clementi (1752-1832), a man of no genius in composition, but of exceptional capacity for the reception of suggestions from his instrument. Clementi's mind appears to have been largely occupied with the problem of the possibilities of the piano. Yet he was not wholly devoted to the development of power and rapidity, for after a memorable meeting with Mozart he cultivated the singing style more assiduously than he had previously. He lived through a period of vital growth in music, for he was a contemporary of Haydn, Mozart, Weber and Beethoven. It would have been strange had he been insensible to the productions of such an era. In his youth, and indeed through most of his life he lived in England, and there he formed his early style on the English piano, which had thick strings, a heavy touch and a deep hammer fall. The result was that his music abounded in bold and brilliant passages of octaves, thirds, and sixths. He aimed at a sonorous and imposing musical diction, and he demanded of a pianist great physical power. Clementi's piano technic was the first which was clearly differentiated from that of the harpsichord and his "Gradus ad Parnassum" (1817) a series of 100 studies, remains to this day the foundation of solid piano playing. Many things have since been added to piano technic, but Clementi's rules lie at the base of it.

The works of Beethoven, to which more extended attention will be given hereafter, introduced nothing strictly new in the technic of piano playing, but they did compel certain changes in style. Beethoven wrote often in a new kind of polyphony, more free and striking than that of the early composers for the clavichord and harpsichord, and very much more difficult. This new polyphony was made practicable by the technics of Clementi, but it required an attention on the part of the pianist to the enunciation of the several voice parts not required by Clementi's music. Again Beethoven displayed great originality in the treatment of musical rhythms, and the proper accentuation of notes having unexpected emphases required unusual independence of finger. This independence was highly developed by Beethoven's successors, and at the present day is absolutely indispensable to piano playing. But the most important demand of Beethoven's piano music was dramatic style. His music, as we shall see later, was the first outside of opera in which the expression of passion was sought, and this expression required that the pianist should have at his command a great range of force, from the gentlest pianissimo to the most imposing fortissimo, and a wide variety of what is called tone-color. This tone-color means quality of instrumental tone, and in a piano it is capable of many changes, hard or soft, sweet or harsh, melting or icy, as the necessities of the music require.

Beethoven, having departed by reason of the dramatic nature of his music, from the continually smooth legato of Mozart, paved the way for Weber, Chopin, Schumann, and Liszt to develop the highest powers of expression in the piano. To do this they had to carry variety of touch to its present state of progress and to evolve the modern use of the pedals, for tone-color is produced by different combinations of touch and pedalling. Weber imparted a new and joyous brilliancy to piano music, and much of his music requires a luxuriant richness of color. Beethoven had begun to make use of the pedals and in his last piano sonatas explicit directions are given for their use. Weber's music requires still more extended employment of them, but it was Chopin who systematized their use and showed how to get varieties of tone-color by employing them separately or in combination. Again, Chopin remodelled the Bach system of fingering by adapting some of the early methods to modern music. It is quite common now in certain kinds of passages to pass the third finger over the little one of the right hand or the little one under the third. Chopin wrote new kinds of passages of great beauty which cannot be played without resorting to this expedient and to others introduced by him.

Schumann added more to piano playing by writing in a very original style. His rhythms are very much involved, he treats accompaniments in an unusual manner, and he writes "interlocking" passages, in which both hands have to participate. To play Schumann's music well, a pianist must go through a special series of exercises to fit his hands for the work. Finally Liszt, who felt that the piano was as capable an instrument as the orchestra, if rightly treated, gave us the present development of the varieties of touch. He wrote studies designed to give pianists the most complete independence of finger,—a very necessary thing in modern piano music, in which very often two fingers of one hand may be engaged in enunciating a melody while the other three are assisting in the accompaniment. Liszt showed us the immense value of the loose wrist, without which the velvety quality of tone produced, when required, by such pianists as himself, Rubinstein, and Paderewski, is quite unattainable. Liszt taught his pupils to hold the wrist high, but more recent players use either a high or a low position accordingly as they desire sonority and brilliancy or mellowness and gentleness.

The whole development of piano playing has, of course, gone hand in hand with that of piano music, and that has followed the course of music in general. It becomes necessary, then, for us now to review the evolution of piano music. We have seen how it grew out of organ playing and was at first polyphonic. We have seen how the monophonic style—the melody with accompaniment—came in. We must now try to see how the polyphonic style worked itself out in the great compositions of Bach, and how the monophonic style developed itself in a new and highly organized form, the sonata, whose fundamental principles lie at the basis of all modern composition.

Chapter IX

Climax of the Polyphonic Piano Style

The development of the instrumental fugue—What is a fugue?—Its combination of polyphony with development of a theme—Johann Sebastian Bach and his organ and clavichord fugues—Fundamental traits of this music.

WHEN instrumental music began to develop independently it naturally followed the lines already followed by vocal music. That had been wholly contrapuntal, and instrumental music was at first entirely polyphonic. In its development the art of music inevitably fashioned certain forms, for no art can exist without form, which is the external demonstration of design. Without design there is no art. Musicians very soon learned that the first principle of form in music was repetition. A phrase of melody once heard and never repeated is quickly forgotten. A dozen different phrases in succession would not make a recognizable tune. The germinal part of the tune has to be heard often, and there must be a beginning, a middle and an end. For example:—

[|--germinal part--|--middle--|--germinal part--|--end--|]

Now this is a melody in the pure song form, such as the earliest popular music contained. But the church composers, the only scientific musicians of the early day, in ignoring that form, as we have seen, developed a scheme of repetition of the identifying parts of their tunes by making the different voices sing them at different times. And this scheme evolved the art of polyphonic writing, which we have seen developed so beautifully by the Netherlands masters and the early Italian church composers. The reader will remember that the principle which lies at the foundation of polyphonic writing is "imitation." After instrumental music began to develop independently it clung for a time to the forms based on imitation, but when the vocal style became dominant in Italy, owing to the enormous popularity of the opera, imitation and its forms fled into Germany, where they found their highest embodiment in instrumental music in the North German fugue. The fugue is the most complex and highly organized polyphonic form we have, and it is necessary that the reader should know something of its construction.

A fugue has been defined as "a musical composition developed, according to certain rules of imitation, from a short theme or phrase called the subject. This subject is from time to time reproduced by each of the two, three, four, or more parts or voices for which the fugue is written." The subject, then, is a definite theme, of from four to eight measures, from which the fugue is developed. The next essential part is the answer. This is the first appearance of the subject in one of the subsidiary voices. This appearance is always in the dominant key, and usually has its last notes changed so as to make an ending. The counter-subject is that part of the theme of the first voice which forms the accompaniment to the answer. The announcement of these parts of the fugue is called the exposition. After the exposition the composer works up the melodic ideas of his material in passages of double counterpoint, free imitation, and various other polyphonic devices, all distributed so as to give interest and variety to the fugue, until he reaches the stretto, a portion in which by ingenious changes he brings out a climax, after which he may add a coda (tail-piece) and come to an end. Here is an example by Sir Frederic A. Gore-Ouseley:—

The reader will see at once that the exposition part of a fugue is built on the principles of double counterpoint, and that it is in its essentials the same kind of music as that written by the Netherlands masters for voices to sing in church. The distinguishing part of the fugue is the working out of the thematic ideas by devices suitable solely to instrumental music with its freedom from text, the development of a climax, and the restatement of the original ideas before closing. It is in this well ordered discussion of musical ideas which have been laid down as primary propositions, that we find the immense advance of the fugue as an intellectual form over the polyphonic works of Lasso or Palestrina. I have already quoted Dr. Parry's statement that those writers rarely employed the "modern practice of using a definite subject throughout a considerable portion of a movement." This practice is at the foundation of all modern instrumental music, and its first complete systematization was reached in the fugues of Bach. Scarlatti and others were developing the principle in its application to monophonic music, but Bach, clinging to the polyphonic style, which was already far more advanced than the monophonic, and having a singularly deep insight into the soul of his art, attained perfection in the application of the new and vital principle to contrapuntal composition while the monophonic sonata was yet in its infancy.

The authoritative biography of the father of modern music is "The Life of Bach," by Dr. Philip Spitta, of Berlin. An excellent English translation is published. Johann Sebastian Bach, a member of a family devoted to music through several generations, was born at Eisenach, in March, 1685. He received his early instruction from one of his brothers. His life was almost devoid of incident. He served as organist and concert-master in Arnstadt, Mülhausen, Weimar, and Anhalt-Koethen. He became cantor of the Thomas School in Leipsic in 1723, and retained that post till his death, July 28, 1750. In every department of music known to his time Bach demonstrated that he was a genius of the highest order. He is regarded as the most excellent of all models for students of composition because his works combine, in the highest beauty, originality of melodic ideas with profundity of design. His mastery of the formal material of his art enabled him to imbue the severest form, such as the fugue, with grace, beauty, and expressiveness. His melodic diction is not of the kind popular with the masses, and his music today is enjoyed only by those who truly love the best. But it is always played by artists and orchestras of high rank, and will continue to be heard probably for centuries.

Bach was a master of composition for the organ, for the clavichord, for the orchestra, for the solo voice, and for chorus. It is not possible in a book like this to give detailed consideration to his works. His famous settings of "The Passion" will be noticed in their proper place, and so will the influence of his orchestral compositions. At present we are to review briefly his piano compositions, which were written for the clavichord. This, perhaps, is one of the most remarkable features of these great works. Played on a modern piano, with all its power and brilliancy, they seem to be perfectly suited to it. The clavier compositions of Bach consist of "inventions," suites, preludes, fugues, sonatas, concertos, and fantasias. In his "Well-Tempered Clavichord," already mentioned, Bach left us a set of preludes and fugues which have never been surpassed. He also left us a treatise, "The Art of Fugue," in which the laws of the form are illustrated by sixteen fugues and four canons for one piano, and two fugues for two pianos all on the same theme.

Bach's organ toccatas and fugues grew directly out of the old style introduced by Merulo and the Venetian masters. They sought to bring out the power and variety of their instrument by contrasting chord passages of breadth and majesty with scale passages of brilliant character. Bach systematized this style of composition by showing how to produce contrast and variety while developing logically by the devices of counterpoint a definite subject and working up to a climax of great eloquence. In his works for the clavichord he demonstrated the same principle of subject and development, but in a style adapted to the nature of the instrument. His preludes and fugues are amazing not only in the extent of their mastery of the technics of composition, but also in their almost prophetic insight into the possibilities of the piano as a means of expression. All these preludes and fugues have a note of personal intimacy. Some are playful, some are bold, some are sad, some are full of celestial calm, some are passionately pathetic. The higher qualities of these compositions are their consistency, their sense of fitness, their apparent inevitableness. The subject of a Bach piano fugue not only suggests the answer and the logical development, but it fixes the character of the musical mood of the composition. The harmonies, the changes of key, the action and reaction of the imitative passages in double counterpoint, all are not only marvellous in their exhibition of technical skill, but all are of such a nature that they sustain and expound the feeling contained in the subject. It is this mastership of artistic organization that places the music of Sebastian Bach above that of all his contemporaries, all of his predecessors, and most of his successors. He moulded the rigid materials of canonic art, which held earlier composers in its grasp, to his own ends and left us instrumental polyphonic works which have never been equalled and which are still the fountainheads of our musical learning.

It ought to be noted that his own perfection of the system of equal temperament enabled him to do much that his predecessors could not have done, even had they possessed his genius. By making it possible to play in all twenty-four keys, and to modulate from the tonic of a composition into very remote keys, Bach introduced into instrumental polyphony an elasticity, a pliancy, a freedom, which it had never before possessed. He was able to fill his polyphonic writing with the passionate utterance of chromatic harmony; and in his "Chromatic Fantasia and Fugue" he produced a work which was actually a bridge between the style that went before him and the style that followed him. With Bach the development of instrumental polyphony came to an end. Nothing has been added to its technic except the application of the most recent laws of harmony. Bach was ahead of his time, and music was working out simpler problems than his when his work was completed. They were problems in monophonic style, and to these we must now turn our attention.

Chapter X

Monophonic Style and the Sonata

Corelli and his violin style—C. P. E. Bach and his departures from polyphony—General plan and purpose of the early sonata—Haydn and his two principal themes—Mozart and song-melody—Clementi and the influence of his style—Beethoven's improvements in sonata form—His employment of instrumental music for emotional expression.

THE fundamental difference between the sonata and the polyphonic forms is that the sonata is written in the monophonic style. Polyphony is, indeed, occasionally employed, but the reigning style is that in which a melody, song-like in character and sung by a single part, is accompanied by other parts written in chord harmonies. The necessary repetition of the melodic ideas is made, not by the process of imitation, as in the fugue, but by what is called the cyclical method. In this a tune or a composition always returns to a restatement of the original theme from which it started. We have seen how this melodic style entered instrumental music in the days of Giovanni Gabrieli, and how Domenico Scarlatti transferred to the harpsichord the aria of the opera. From this time forward the monophonic style developed gradually from the initial impulse of the vocal solo. Composers who had not Bach's peculiar insight into polyphonic writing and profound genius for it naturally sought a form which would give their melodies coherence and intelligibility. The rapid development of the violin as a solo instrument was one of the influences in directing them along certain lines of construction. The violin naturally lent itself to a flowing, song-like style, yet it is easy to see how easily such a style would fall into monotony. The early violin composers, in their search after a form which would embrace coherency, variety, and contrast, did much toward assisting piano writers to reach the true method of composing.

Arcangelo Corelli (1653-1713) was the most influential of these early violin composers. He endeavored to unite in his works the attractive and popular features of church music, song, and the dances of his time. The attractiveness of making compositions out of different kinds of dance movements in alternation had presented itself to composers at an early date. Morley, in his "Plain and Easy Introduction to Practical Music" (1597), says: "It is effective to alternate pavanes with galliards, because the former are a kind of staid music ordained for grave dancing, and the latter for a lighter and more stirring kind of dancing." This alternation of dances is what first suggested to composers the plan of following a slow movement with a lively one, or vice versa. As these different kinds of dances differed in rhythm,—the pavanes, for instance, being in common and the galliard in triple measure,—composers grasped the idea that changes in rhythm would heighten the contrast between movements. The one thing that did not seem to be settled at the outset—and that was due to the newness of harmonic as opposed to polyphonic style—was the matter of key contrasts. Sometimes these early writers put all their dance movements in one key, making what we now call a "suite," and sometimes they did not.

Corelli wrote his sonatas most frequently in four movements. The composers who immediately succeeded him wrote more often in three movements, but preserved the alternation of rhythm and tempo. Corelli used only one subject in each movement, and the development of it was of a simple nature compared to the developments found in subsequent works. Later composers found that in order to secure the necessary amount of contrast and variety, together with those points of repose which are essential to artistic form in music, it was necessary to have two principal themes of contrasting nature. The development of these themes was confined to the first movement, while the other movements were less complex in design. The Germans were not wholly idle in advancing the sonata, but it is extremely difficult to ascertain how their work and that of the Italians affected one another. We know that a violin sonata by H. J. F. Biber, published in 1681, shows a well ordered sequence of contrasting movements. The first was a very slow one (largo), in contrapuntal style; the second, a passacaglia (theme and variations); the third, rhapsodical and declamatory; and the fourth, a gavotte. Dr. Parry has pointed out that Biber received his suggestions for the first movement from church polyphony, for the second and fourth from dances, and for the third from operatic declamation. This sonata, however, shows nothing of that methodic repetition of subjects and definite distribution of keys now regarded as indispensable; and in some respects Corelli's sonatas were of a distinctly higher type. Following the admirable analysis of Dr. Parry, I may state here that as early composers gradually perceived the possibilities of the sonata form, they evolved this scheme for their alternation of movement:—

1. Summons to attention, followed by appeal to intelligence through display of design.
2. Slow movement—appeal to the emotions.
3. Finale—lively reaction after emotion.

This treatment of the character of the movements grew out of the crude attempts of the earliest writers and was formulated in the concertos of Sebastian Bach, but more clearly in the piano sonatas of his son Carl Philip Emmanuel Bach. Previous to that, however, something had been done toward a definite arrangement of the distribution of keys. To this Domenico Scarlatti, who has already been mentioned, made some important contributions. His compositions called sonatas have a distinct melodic subject, and this is preserved throughout. His first movements foreshadow the shape which the first movements of the classical sonatas subsequently assumed. These movements are divided plainly into two parts, and each part is repeated. Each of them opens with an announcement of the melodic subject in the tonic key of the sonata. After stating his subject Scarlatti passes into a key closely related to that of the sonata, and gives a bit of what is called "passage work;" that is, florid or ornamental piano writing without a complete tune. The second part embarks upon a brief musical development of the subject by means of simple musical changes in its original shape, then modulates back into the original key, restates the beginning of the movement and comes to an end. One of the peculiarities of his works is that sometimes in the musical development ("working out," as it is called) of his theme he introduces a new melody, different from the first. Later writers caught at this idea and raised this second melody to an importance equal to that of the first.

Scarlatti's great contemporary, Johann Sebastian Bach, did not stand in the direct line of development of the piano sonata. As I have tried to show in writing of clavichord works, his sympathies when composing for a keyboard instrument were governed largely by his immense genius for the organ and his profound insight into the nature and scope of polyphonic composition. Nevertheless, his violin sonatas, the result of a close and admiring study of those of Corelli and Vivaldi, show a leaning toward the modern form. He followed the lines laid down by Corelli. All but one of his violin sonatas are in four movements, the first and third slow, and the second and fourth lively. The slow movements, as one would naturally expect from Bach, are intense in their emotional eloquence. But Bach's manner of development was almost always polyphonic, and this was hostile to the sonata method, which was radically monophonic.

Carl Philip Emmanuel Bach (born, Weimar, March 14, 1714; died, Hamburg, Dec. 14, 1788), the third son of Sebastian Bach, was by nature and artistic taste fitted for the work which his father did not attempt. We have already noticed his theory that one should play the clavichord and write for it in the singing style. It was his feeling for this style and his keen insight into the capabilities of his instrument which made him, though not a composer of genius, a powerful agent in the establishment of the modern sonata form,—so powerful, indeed, that he has been called the father of the sonata. We owe something, however, to the demands of public taste. Music-lovers have usually, with the exception of the few, preferred the purely sensuous beauty of music to its intellectual qualities. They grew weary in those days of the severity of the fugue form; and the composers of the time naturally endeavored to supply them with what they desired, something easily, rhythmically pleasing. For years after Emmanuel Bach's day it continued to be the aim of composers to write with elegance and taste.

Emmanuel Bach excluded polyphonic writing from his sonatas, and adopted a style entirely monophonic. He contributed toward the development of the sonata in the direction of clearness and symmetry, and he insisted upon a well-regulated contrast of keys and of the characters of the different movements. In short, he established the outline of the sonata, with the exception of duality of themes, determined the direction in which it was to develop, and gave it a powerful impulse. The first sonatas in which Emmanuel Bach showed his ability were six published in 1742, and dedicated to Frederick the Great. [10.1] The opening movement of each is in the sonata form, as it existed then. The principal theme is properly announced, there is a short section of "working out," and a conclusion with the principal theme in the tonic key. In the working out the composer does not use the principal key, and thus in returning to it in his conclusion gets the effect of repose. In at least one of these sonatas, the second, there is a clearly marked second theme in the first part. There are touches of humor here and there in these sonatas, and some of the slow movements are full of feeling. The finales are all light and lively.

Emmanuel Bach is best known by six collections of sonatas and other compositions published at Leipsic between 1779 and 1787. In these sonatas the composer's resolute and final departure from the old polyphonic style is fully demonstrated. To enter wholly into the monophonic method of writing was no small undertaking, and we meet with many evidences of effort in these works. But the "working out" part of the sonata is always monophonic. The composer takes passages or phrases from his original melody, and treating them with changes of pitch, harmonic modulation, and bits of passage-writing, founded on figures previously used in the statement of the theme, he makes a musical exposition of his original idea. This is precisely what later composers did, but they had better command of the monophonic style, and hence produced better music than Emmanuel Bach.

OPENING OF A MOVEMENT BY E. BACH, SHOWING
CHANGE FROM POLYPHONIC STYLE.

The reader should now be in a position to understand that it is expected that at least one of the three or four contrasting movements of a sonata should be in what is called sonata form. This is almost always the first movement, in accordance with the general design of movements already given. This movement consists of three parts, which may be called proposition, discussion, and conclusion. The propositional part proposes a theme or themes; the discussion subjects the theme or themes to every device of musical treatment; and the conclusion restates the themes in their original form and brings the movement to a restful finish. Up to the point at which we have now arrived composers proposed, as a rule, only one theme for discussion. Occasionally a second was introduced, but it seems to have been merely episodal. We now come to the time when two themes were employed systematically, and from that time dates the establishment of the complete outline of the present sonata form. All the changes since made are in details. The composer by whom this important work was done was Haydn.

Josef Haydn was born April 1, 1732, in Rohrau, Austria. He studied first at home and afterward at Vienna. In 1759 he became conductor of a small orchestra maintained by Count Morzin, and in 1760 he married a wigmaker's daughter, who had been his pupil. In 1761 Haydn became conductor of the orchestra of Prince Esterhazy at Eisenstadt, where he remained thirty years industriously composing. He became acquainted with Mozart, for whom he entertained the highest admiration. In 1790 he visited London and was received with great enthusiasm, so that he made a second visit in 1794. He died May 31, 1809, eighteen years before the death of Beethoven, and four years before the birth of Wagner. His music, therefore, brings us into close connection with the present period. His music is accessible to players of the piano, and there are good editions of his sonatas.

Haydn has been called the father of the symphony and the string quartet, and his most important compositions are in these departments. But a symphony is simply a sonata for orchestra, and a quartet is one for four instruments. Hence we shall find that Haydn's piano sonatas show the same advances in form as his symphonies and quartets. In the first movements of three of his earliest sonatas (op. 22, 24, and 29) he uses in the propositional part two principal themes, wholly different from one another. He did not, however, in the works of his middle life follow this plan, but in his English symphonies he used second themes invariably and in a manner which allows no room for doubt as to his definite purpose. The form of his first movements is clear and symmetrical. It is in three parts, the proposition, discussion, and conclusion being plainly distinguished. The working out part is shorter and simpler than those found in later sonatas, such as Beethoven's. But Haydn's first movements convince the hearer of their claims to consideration as works of art on lines of design carefully planned. The systematic use of the second theme was adopted by all subsequent composers, and was the means of raising the sonata from an experiment to the most satisfactory and convincing of all musical forms.

In Haydn's three-movement sonatas the appeal to the intelligence by the opening allegro is always followed by an appeal to the emotions in a slow movement, with broad melody and harmony and much sentiment. His finales are always bright and lively, and frequently sparkle with gayety. In form the finale is usually a rondo, an early cyclical form in which a single melodic subject is periodically repeated, the repetitions being separated by passages of new matter. When Haydn wrote a sonata in four movements, he introduced as the third the minuet, a piece of music in dance rhythm. Emmanuel Bach had used this form in one or two of his sonatas, but it is easy to see that the idea was originally suggested by the alternation of different kinds of dances in the archaic sonatas of Biber and Corelli. The minuet, being a graceful and elegant dance in triple rhythm, formed a most excellent bridge between an emotional slow movement and a jocund finale. The minuet movement consists, as a rule, of two parts, called minuet and trio. In the old dance it was customary to give relief to the first melody by a second, always written in three-part harmony and hence called "trio." This plan, except the adherence to three-part harmony, was followed by the artistic composers when they adopted the minuet as part of the sonata. In addition to what has been said, two important facts must be noted. Haydn was intimately acquainted with the simple, fluent melody of Italian music, and he was not acquainted with Bach's "Well-Tempered Clavichord." The result was that his themes are all essentially song-like in character. They are more extended and more definite in shape than Emmanuel Bach's, and they helped to fix more firmly the distinctive character of monophonic composition.

After Haydn was born, and before he died, Mozart lived. Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was born at Salzburg, Jan. 27, 1756. He received his early tuition from his father, an excellent musician, and speedily developed into a "wonder child." He made several tours through Europe as a pianist, but finally settled in Vienna, where he married and spent the remainder of his brief life in pouring out operas, quartets, songs, sonatas, and other compositions, some of which were certainly made to sell, but all of which display something of his marvellous genius. It cannot fairly be said of Mozart that he contributed a great deal that was new to the mere technics of sonata writing. Mozart had little of the spirit of the explorer, and less of that of the reformer. He was content to take musical forms as he found them and instil into them a vitality which was inseparable from serious attempts at composition. Some of his works, indeed, show the evil results of that fatal facility which is a menace to art; but nearly all of them display a fecundity of invention, a grace and freedom of style, and a sense of artistic elegance which did much to influence subsequent writers.

Mozart's piano sonatas are worthy of the pianist's attention, but they cannot be said to have done anything toward the advancement of the form which Haydn's did not. Mozart learned the sonata form from Haydn's works. He gave something back to his teacher, but it was chiefly in the shape of suggestions as to instrumental treatment, for Mozart was a master pianist, and Haydn was only a respectable performer. Mozart's sonatas show wonderful cleverness in adapting to the idiom of the piano the vocal style of the contemporaneous Italian opera, of which Mozart was the finest composer. His C minor sonata, written in 1784, is his greatest piano work. It is so fine that, except for the comparative baldness of its instrumental style, it ranks with the works of Beethoven's middle period.

The reader must bear in mind the important fact that instrumental music, pure and simple, was still young, and that composers were chiefly engaged in developing musical beauty. The technics of instrumental writing were not sufficiently advanced to admit of high emotional expression. The reader will remember that in the old schools of church counterpoint the technics of the art were developed by Okeghem, after which Josquin des Prés showed how to write beautifully, and the masters of the last period discovered how to make beauty go hand in hand with expression. So the early writers of the sonata were chiefly engaged in experimenting with the technics of their new form and the instruments for which they wrote, and this paved the way for Haydn and Mozart, when once the former had established the sonata form, to seek for pure beauty. This they found, and Mozart's works in particular abound with it. The time was now at hand when the sonata form was to be made the vehicle for the expression of the most profound human emotion. But before it could achieve that end, something had to be added to its technic and its organization. Part of this addition was made by Clementi.

Muzio Clementi (1752-1832) was born before Beethoven and died after him. His works show that he at first influenced Beethoven but was afterward influenced by him. Clementi's masculine treatment of the piano, which we have already noticed, went far toward leading Beethoven away from the thin style of Haydn and Mozart. There are many passages in Clementi's early sonatas which are similar in construction to passages afterward written by Beethoven. Again, Clementi extended and elaborated the "working out" part, and sometimes introduced into the body of a movement phrases from its introduction. But the works of Beethoven speedily superseded those of Clementi, and it is to these we must now turn our attention. Fortunately they call for only brief discussion, for Beethoven's sonatas are more remarkable for their content than for their form.

Ludwig van Beethoven was born at Bonn, Dec. 16, 1770. He studied music in his native city and in Vienna, receiving a few lessons and much encouragement there from Mozart. He was for a time in the service of the Elector of Cologne, but in 1792 he went to Vienna to study under Haydn, and there he finished his life, dying March 26, 1827. In Beethoven's youth the technics of sonata composition had reached the point of complete beauty, and the young man soon set about making the sonata the vehicle of personal expression. In doing so he introduced some improvements into the form. First of all he leaped to a greater freedom in the use of keys. He not only wandered into more remote keys than his predecessors within the limits of a movement, but he made wider changes of key in passing from one movement to another. He elaborated the slow introduction which preceded many of his first movements (by no means all) and made it of high significance. He constructed the passage work leading from the first theme to the second out of material taken from the first theme, thus making a logical connection. He sometimes introduced in the "working out" part new thoughts, derived from the original matter. He made intentional and highly expressive use of the practice of running one movement into another without a pause, a device which had been employed by Emmanuel Bach for purely musical effect. Beethoven used it for purposes of emotional expression. The complete first movement form, as developed by Beethoven, is as follows:—

Scherzo means joke, and the scherzo was originally a light, genial composition not to be taken seriously. Haydn in writing his minuets took the stateliness out of their movement and imbued them with humor. Beethoven, preserving the form and rhythm of the minuet, so changed its tempo and its melodic style that it became a new kind of writing, which he called scherzo. But from a merely jocular movement this grew in his hands to be one of grim humor, and even, as in the C minor symphony, of mystery and awe.

The slow movement usually follows the first movement. If there are four movements, the scherzo is generally third, and the finale, instead of being merely bright and lively, is raised to an emotional importance nearly as great as that of the first movement, which it frequently follows in form. Beethoven's music has been divided into three styles, that of his earliest works showing distinctly the influence of Haydn and Mozart. Then comes a transition, to which the "Kreuzer" sonata and the "Eroica" symphony belong, and after that comes the second period, containing the works of the master's maturity, such as the piano sonata in D minor, the "Appassionata," and the fifth and seventh symphonies. The third style embodies the sorrow and bitterness of Beethoven's unhappy last years, and includes the ninth symphony and the last five piano sonatas.

In the presence of Beethoven's music I always feel the helplessness of analysis or critical study. It is useless to try to reveal the why and wherefore, but it cannot be denied that Beethoven's sonatas convey to the hearer not only the presence of an imposing personality, but the conviction that the expression of the music is not simply individual, but general. There is a breadth and a depth to the utterance of these works which belong not to one man but to humanity. Beethoven succeeded in introducing into instrumental music that direct, sweeping, overwhelming proclamation of emotion which had previously been regarded as the exclusive property of the singer's voice. Beethoven's music is essentially the dramatization of pure tones. His intense expression was not the result of accident. He hungered for it and studied the means of imparting it to his music. In doing so he solidified the structure of the sonata in such a way that he made it the most symmetrical, highly organized, and yet elastic of all musical forms, and paved the way for the whole school of romantic composers who followed him, and who tried not only to make music express the great elementary emotions, as he did, but also to make it tell complete stories. Their purposes are best exemplified in their orchestral works, and I must defer discussion of them till after the reader has accompanied me in a review of the development of the orchestra and orchestral music.

Chapter XI

Evolution of the Orchestra

Early groupings of instruments without definite plan—Significance of the work of Monteverde—Scarlatti's use of the string quartet—Handel and the foundation of the modern style—The symphonic orchestra of Beethoven—Berlioz, Wagner, and special instrumental coloring—Plan of the contemporaneous orchestra.

THE modern orchestra is about two hundred years old. That is to say, the first skeleton of our present arrangement of instruments is found near the close of the seventeenth century. Earlier than that the distribution of instruments and the manner of writing for them contained none of the essential elements of the present style. Three centuries ago lutes and viols were employed in combination with drums and trumpets in a very confused manner, and even for this assembly of instruments there were no special compositions. An orchestra as such can hardly be said to have made its appearance until the time when the development of music as a part of dramatic entertainments compelled the preparation of some sort of substantial accompaniment to the choruses and dances. In the "Ballet Comique de la Royne" (1581) of Beaujoyeux there was an array of oboes, flutes, cornets, trombones, violas di gamba (precursor of the violoncello), lutes, harps, flageolet, and ten violins. This looks like a tolerable orchestra, but the manner of writing for it prevented it from being one. The performers were separated into ten bands, each designed to accompany some particular character or set of characters. Neptune and his followers, for example, used harps and flutes. The ten violins were employed only in one scene. In those days, as we have already seen, compositions were written "da cantare e sonare," and a canzone for strings was simply a piece of vocal polyphony played instead of sung.

The advent of Italian opera and oratorio ushered in the first organized use of the orchestra. Cavaliere's "Anima e Corpo," an oratorio, had an orchestra consisting of a viola di gamba, a harpsichord, a bass lute, and two flutes. This orchestra, like that of the Bayreuth theatre, was concealed. But it was not used like a modern orchestra. For instance, the composer recommended that a violin be employed to accompany the soprano voice throughout the work. This oratorio was produced in February, 1600, and in December of the same year at the first performance of Peri's opera, "Eurydice," the orchestra consisted of a harpsichord, a viola di gamba, a large guitar, a theorbo (large lute), and three flutes. These last instruments were used only to imitate the sounds of a Pandæan pipe, played by a shepherd in the opera.

A decided advance in the development of the orchestra was made by Claudio Monteverde, whose "Orfeo" (1608) had an accompaniment of two harpsichords, two bass viols, ten tenor viols, two "little French violins," one harp, two large guitars, two organs (small ones), two violas di gamba, four trombones, one regal (a little reed organ), two cornets, one piccolo, one clarion (an instrument of the trumpet family), and three trumpets. But even in this opera Monteverde showed that he had not discovered the true relations of the instruments. The "little French violins" seem to be the first modern violins used in the orchestra, yet they may have been somewhat crude instruments, for the first maker of real violins of whom we know anything was Gasparo di Salo (1542-1610). He was a much better maker of violas than of violins, and it was Giovanni Paolo Maggini (1581-1631) who left us the violin as we have it today. Monteverde may have regarded violins from Salo's Lombardy home, Brescia, as French, because the French and Italians were continually at war there. The violin, having once entered the orchestra, however, speedily began to move toward its proper position as the principal voice, and as soon as composers recognized its sphere, they began to employ the other instruments with due regard for their relative capacities. Monteverde was the first composer who took advantage of the contrasting qualities of tone in the orchestra. His position in regard to the treatment of orchestral music shows a remarkable advance, and had a direct and wide influence upon the development of the orchestra.

Monteverde's operas contain many bits of independent orchestral music, but it was in attempting to illustrate the incidents of his dramas by means of the orchestral part that he divorced the accompaniment from the voice parts and discovered the relative values of some of his instruments. In one of his operas he uses a string quartet, composed of three violas and a bass, and while the voices sing the text to a recitative, these instruments depict the rushing together of horses in combat, the struggle of the opponents, and other actions not described by the text, but performed by the actors. In writing this passage Monteverde invented two well-known effects: the tremolo (a rapid tremulous repetition of a single note), and the pizzicato (plucking the strings with the fingers). The feeling for instrumental description displayed in this score led Monteverde to emphasize the essential utility of the strings, and at the same time it led him to use the other instruments to produce contrasts.

In the opera "Giasone" (1649) of Cavalli we find a song accompanied by two violins and a bass in a style which lasted till Handel's day. Alessandro Stradella in 1676 used a double orchestra in which violins were the principal instruments. About the same time we find Alessandro Scarlatti writing for first and second violins, violas, and basses, distributing the parts in quartet form, in the same way as composers do today. He used his first violin as the soprano of his string quartet, his second violin as the alto, his viola as the tenor, and his bass as the fundamental bass. Wind instruments continued to be used to add color and contrast to the foundation of strings and in tutti passages (passages enlisting all the instruments of an orchestra at once) to strengthen them.

It is hardly necessary to stop to consider the orchestra employed by Sebastian Bach, because his system of writing for orchestra was not in the direct line of development, though modern composers have learned much from it. In his string writing he is an excellent master for the present, but his wood wind parts (flute, oboe, or bassoon) are written usually in such a way that they become separate solo voices. In short, his instrumental scores lean toward the polyphonic, rather than the monophonic style. Handel (1685-1759) employed an orchestra much like that of today, and methods not unlike those of the present in writing for it. In fact Handel's orchestra may be regarded as the foundation of the modern symphonic band. In his big oratorio choruses Handel used a number of oboes to strengthen the violin parts, and a number of bassoons to strengthen the basses, but in other parts of the same works he used the wind instruments to enrich the general score with independent parts. Again, he employed the wind and strings separately, contrasting one with the other just as modern composers do.

In the Hallelujah Chorus of Handel's "Messiah" the orchestra consists of two trumpets, kettle-drums, violins, violas, and basses. In the chorus, "How Excellent," in "Saul," the composer uses three trombones, two trumpets, kettle-drums, three oboes, violins, violas, and basses. For the purpose of comparison, it may be stated that in his mass in B minor Sebastian Bach used three trumpets, tympani (kettle-drums), two flutes, two oboes, two bassoons, violins, violas, basses, and organ. The use of the wooden wind instruments in pairs is noteworthy because subsequent composers followed that practice. Haydn's earlier works are written for two horns, two oboes, two flutes, and the usual array of strings. In his later works Haydn employs nearly the full modern orchestra. In "The Creation" he uses two trumpets, tympani, three trombones, two clarinets, two horns, two oboes, two flutes, two bassoons, a contra-bassoon, violins, violas, and basses. Haydn introduced the violoncello into the orchestra, thus completing the modern list of bowed string instruments; and Mozart demonstrated the value of the clarinet, thus completing the wood wind.

Beethoven's full orchestra consisted of two flutes, two oboes, two clarinets, two bassoons, four horns, two trumpets, three trombones, tympani, and the usual array of strings. These instruments stand in this order in Beethoven's scores, reading from the top of the page downward, and subsequent composers have followed this arrangement. When voices appear in the score, they are placed between the violin and violoncello parts. Contemporaneous composers incline to abandon that custom, and to place the voices just above the first violin part. This will keep the string parts, the foundation of the accompaniment, together below the voices, thus making the score easier for the conductor to read. Beethoven's orchestra was substantially that of Schubert, Spohr, Mendelssohn, Weber, and Schumann.

Later composers began to use various characteristic instruments in their scores in order to obtain special effects of what is called instrumental color. Hector Berlioz (1803-1869) did very much to advance this line of development, and Richard Wagner (1813-1883) carried on the work. Not only are special instruments, such as the English horn (a wooden wind instrument with a pastoral tone, heard, for instance, as the shepherd's pipe in "Tannhäuser" and "Tristan and Isolde"), introduced, but the general mass of instruments is enlarged or diminished according to the composer's design. For instance, in the first scene of Act III., "Die Walküre," in which is the famous "Ride of the Valkyrs," Wagner uses two piccolos (small, high-pitched flutes, with a fife-like tone), two flutes, three oboes, one English horn, three clarinets, one bass clarinet, eight French horns, three bassoons, four trumpets, one bass trumpet, four trombones, one contrabass tuba (a very deep-toned brass instrument), four tympani, cymbals, snare-drums, two harps, and the usual body of strings. Wagner specifies thirty-two violins (sixteen first and sixteen second) as necessary to produce the proper balance of tone. Older composers were content to take their chances in such matters. In "Götterdämmerung" the funeral march is scored for three clarinets, one bass clarinet, four horns, three bassoons, two tenor tubas, two bass tubas, one contrabass tuba, one bass trumpet, four trombones, tympani, and strings. The absence of flutes, oboes and trumpets shows that Wagner was aiming at a gloomy color, to be obtained only by the omission of such instruments and the use of an increased number of those of low pitch.

The orchestra of today consists of four groups of instruments, which can be enlarged or curtailed according to the design of the composer. These are, in the order in which they usually stand in the score, wind instruments of wood (the "wood wind"), wind instruments of brass (called simply "the brass"), instruments of percussion (drums, cymbals, etc.), and strings. The general plan of the orchestra, which has developed from the earliest attempts at instrumental contrast, contemplates such a distribution of instruments in each department as to make that department capable either of independent employment, or of combination with the whole or part of some other department, or of incorporation in the mass of tone produced by the whole orchestra. The wood wind, for example, consists of flutes and oboes, which are purely soprano instruments, clarinets, which extended from upper bass to moderately high soprano, English horn, which has a tenor range, bass clarinet, which runs from deep bass up into treble, and bassoons, which comprise bass, baritone, and tenor registers. That organization of instruments is capable of independent performance, possessing, as it does, all the components of full and extended harmony and a wide variety of color.

The brass choir consists of trumpets, which are soprano instruments, French horns (bass to alto), trombones (bass, baritone, and tenor), and tubas (bass). This band is capable of independent performance, or of being joined in a body with the wood, as in military music, or of combining with the strings on the plan seen in its infancy in Handel's "Hallelujah" chorus. The strings, of course, contain all the elements necessary to independence or combination. The modern orchestra, however, has gained enormously in power from the development of methods of using parts of the separate choirs independently or in combination. For instance, flutes, clarinets, and bass clarinet can produce rich four-part harmony, and so can play alone. Flutes, oboes, and bassoons can do the same thing and produce a wholly different instrumental color. Bassoons and French horns make fine deep-toned harmonies; and four French horns can play alone in full harmony. Any of these little groups can be joined with strings to get a new quality of tone. Thus it is not difficult to see that the modern orchestra offers to the composer a great variety of instrumental combinations, giving him a remarkable range of coloring, and it is equally plain that these conditions have been gradually developed by successive composers since the days of Monteverde.