6. Loure.—Similar to the bourrée, but slower. (In French the verb lourer means “to hold,” which may have been a characteristic of the loure bass).
7. Tambourin.—[C/2] allegro. In form and rhythm like the gavotte, but faster. Usually founded on a rhythmic pedal note imitating a tambourine.
8. Corrente, Courante.—[3/4] allegretto. Rhythm [3/4: 8 8 8 | 8 8 8 8 8 8] or [3/4: 8 | 8 8 8 8 8 8] (does not usually commence on the beat). Form 1, sometimes Form 2. The rhythm is usually uniform, a kind of perpetual motion, though not in one voice.
9. Minuet.—[3/4] generally a little slower than moderato, although in later minuets the tempo became allegretto. Rhythm, generally, [3/4: >(4 | 4) 4 4 | 4 8 8 8 8] etc. Old minuets often began on the first beat. Form 4; the third and fourth periods being generally in a different mode from the first and second periods, and called Trio or Minuet 2. Minuets exist also without the Trio, and are in Form 1 or 2.
10. Chaconne.—[3/4] moderato. Form undecided; has sometimes even only one period, sometimes three or two. It is generally accompanied by doubles or variations, and is invariably written on a ground bass or basso ostinato. The rhythm is often syncopated.
Passacaille, [3/4], resembles a chaconne but is more stately.
11. Waltz (old German).—[3/4] andante moderato. Generally Form 6. Rhythm [3/4: 4. 8 8. 16 | 8 8 4 8 8] approximately.
12. March.—[4/4] allegro moderato. Rhythm [4/4: 8. 16 | 4 8. 16 4 4 | 2. 3(8 8 8)] etc., or [4 | 4 8. 16 4 4] etc. Form 6. Generally all the periods are repeated and consist of eight measures each; third and fourth periods change the key and rhythm.
13. Allemande.—[4/4] moderato. Rhythm generally uniform sixteenth notes. Form 1.
14. Passepied.—Quick minuet.
15. Pavane, Padvana, or Pavo (peacock).—[4/4] andante moderato. Rhythm [4/4: 4 8. 16 4. 8 | 8 8 8 8 2]. Form 2 or 6. Sometimes [2/4]; third and fourth periods in different keys.
16. Gigue.—[2/4] [6/8] [3/4] [3/8] [9/8] [12/8] presto. Rhythm generally uniform eighth notes. Forms 1 and 2.
17. Polonaise.—[3/4]. Rhythm [3/4: 8 16 16 8 16 16 4] or [16 16 8 16 16 8 4] allegro. Form 1, generally with short coda.
1. Mazurka.—[3/4] allegretto. Form 6. Rhythm [3/4: 4 | 8. 16 4 4].
2. Polonaise (also Polacca).—[3/4] allegro maestoso. Rhythm [3/4: 8. 16 8. 16 16 16 16 16] or [8 4 16 16 8 8]. The bass is generally [8 16 16 8 8 8 8]. Form 7.
3. Bolero (Cachucha) (Spanish).—Like the polonaise but livelier, and generally containing counter-rhythms in triplets.
4. Habanera.—[2/4]. Rhythm [2/4: 8 8 16 8 16 | 8 8 16 8 16 | 8 8 3(8 8 8) | 8 8 4]. The characteristic element is the mixture of triplets and eighth notes. Time, andante. Form undecided, generally No. 1. Very often repeated with slight changes.
5. Czardas (Hungarian).—First part [C/2] (lassan, lento); second part [2/4] (friska, presto and prestissimo). For form and rhythm see Liszt's rhapsodies, Nos. 2, 4, and 6.
6. Tarantella.—Rhythm [6/8: 8 8 8 8 8 8 | 8 8 8 8 8 8] or [8 8 8 8 8 8 | 4 8 4 8]. Time, molto allegro to prestissimo. Forms 4 and 6, sometimes 7. In the Trio the movement is often quieter although not necessarily slower. It almost invariably has a Coda. The Finale is usually prestissimo.
7. Saltarello.—Similar to the tarantella, with the exception of having more jumps (salti).
8. Polka (about 1840).—[2/4] allegretto. Rhythm [2/4: 8 8 4 | 8 16 16 4]. Form 6. Accent is on the second beat. Cuban dances (sometimes called habaneros) are often in polka form and rhythm, with the one exception of the triplets peculiar to almost all Spanish music [2/4: 8 8 >4 | 8 8 >4 | 16 8 16 >8 8 | 16 8 16 3(16 16 16) 8]
9. Waltz.—[3/4]. Rhythm (bass) [3/4: >4 4 4 | >4 4 4]. Faster than the old waltz. Form 2 with a coda. Modern waltzes are often written in sets, or many different waltzes joined together by short modulations or codas, preceded by an introduction, generally in one period, lento, and ending with a brilliant coda containing reminiscences of the principal themes.
10. Galop.—[2/4]. Rhythm [2/4: 16 16 16 16 8 8 | 8 8 8 8] or [16 16 8 8 8 | 16 16 8 16 16 8]. Form 6. Time, presto.
11. March.—Same as the old march, but modified in character and movement according to its title—funeral march, military march, cortege, festival march, etc. In funeral marches, the third and fourth periods are generally in major.
The modernizing of dance forms has been undertaken by almost every writer from Scarlatti (d. 1757) down to our day. Scarlatti joined sections together with isolated measures, repeated sections and phrases before completing the period, and added short codas to periods indiscriminately. Since his time, everyone has added to or curtailed the accepted forms by putting two forms together; hence the fantaisie-mazurka, etc. Wagner represents the culminating point of the modern tendency to disregard forms which were interpreted differently by every composer, and which had their origin in dances.
The attempt to emancipate music from the dance commenced very early; in fact, most of the earliest secular music we know already shows the tendency towards programme music, for, from an emotional standpoint, secular music began at the very bottom of the ladder. It was made to express things at first, just as in learning any new language we naturally first acquire a vocabulary of nouns to express things we see, such as table, chair, etc., in the same way that in written language the symbols first take the shape of animals or other things they are meant to represent. This same characteristic naturally showed itself in music before the words for emotion came, the common, everyday nouns were sought for in this new language. The madrigals of Weelkes and their word painting show this, and the same occur in instrumental music, as in Byrd's “Carman's Whistle,” one of the earliest English instrumental works contemporaneous to the madrigals of Morley and others. In France, many of the earliest clavichord pieces were of the programme type, and even in Germany, where instrumental music ran practically in the same groove with church music, the same tendency showed itself.
I have given the forms of most of the old dances, and also the elements of melodic structure (motive, phrase, etc.). I must, however, add the caution that this material is to be accepted in a general way, and as representing the rhythms and forms most frequently used. A French courante differed from the Italian, and certain dances were taken at different tempi in different countries. Poor, or at least careless construction, is often the cause of much confusion. Scarlatti, for instance, is especially loose in melodic structure.
It was only with Beethoven that the art of musical design showed anything like complete comprehension by the composer. Until then, with occasional almost haphazard successes, the art of pushing a thought to its logical conclusion was seemingly unknown. An emotional passage now and then would often betray deep feeling, but the thought would almost invariably be lost in the telling, for the simple reason that the musical sentences were put together almost at random, mere stress of momentary emotion being seemingly the only guiding influence. Bach stands alone; his sense of design was inherent, but, owing to the contrapuntal tendency of his time, his feeling for melodic design is often overshadowed, and even rendered impossible by the complex web of his music. With a number of melodies sounding together, their individual emotional development becomes necessarily difficult to emphasize.
Bach's art has something akin to that of Palestrina. They both stand alone in the history of the world, but the latter belongs to the Middle Ages. He is the direct descendant of Ambrose, Gregory, Notker, Tutilo, etc., the crowning monument of the Roman Church in music, and represents what may be termed unemotional music. His art was untouched by the strange, suggestive colours of modern harmony; it was pure, unemotional, and serene. One instinctively thinks of Bach, on the other hand, as a kind of musical reflection of Protestantism. His was not a secluded art which lifted its head high above the multitude; it was rather the palpable outpouring of a great heart. Bach also represents all the pent-up feeling which until then had longed in vain for utterance, and had there been any canvas for him to paint on (to use a poor simile), the result would have been still more marvellous. As it was, the material at his disposal was a poor set of dance forms, with the one exception of the fugue, the involved utterance of which precluded spontaneity and confined emotional design to very restricted limits. It is exactly as if Wagner had been obliged to put his thoughts in quadrille form with the possible alternative of some mathematical device of musical double bookkeeping. As it is, Bach's innovations were very considerable. In the first place, owing to the lack of the system of equal temperament, composers had been limited to the use of only two or three sharps and flats; in all the harpsichord music of the pre-Bach period we rarely find compositions in sharp keys beyond G, or flat keys beyond A♭. To be sure, Rameau, in France, began at the same time to see the necessity for equal temperament, but it was Bach who, by his forty-eight “Preludes and Fugues,” written in all the keys, first settled the matter definitely.
In the fugue form itself, he made many innovations consisting mainly of the casting aside of formalism. With Bach a fugue consists of what is called the “exposition,” that is to say, the enunciation of the theme (subject), its answer by another voice or part, recurrence of the subject in another part which, in turn, is again answered, and so on according to the number of voices or parts. After the exposition the fugue consists of a kind of free contrapuntal fantasy on the subject and its answer. By throwing aside the restraint of form Bach often gave his fugues an emotional significance in spite of the complexity of the material he worked with.
13 Pier Luigi, born in Palestrina, near Rome.
In the previous chapter it was stated that the various dances, such as the minuet, sarabande, allemande, etc., led up to our modern sonata form, or, perhaps, to put it more clearly, they led up to what we call sonata form. As a matter of fact, already in the seventeenth century, we find the word sonata applied to musical compositions; generally to pieces for the violin, but rarely for the harpsichord. The word sonata was derived originally from the Italian word suonare, “to sound,” and the term was used to distinguish instrumental from vocal music. The latter was sung (cantata), the former was sounded (suonata) by instruments. Thus many pieces were called suonatas; the distinguishing point being that they were played and not sung. Organ sonatas existed as far back as 1600 and even earlier, but the earliest application of the word seems to have been made in connection with pieces for the violin.
Dances were often grouped together, especially when they had some slight intrinsic musical value. Probably the term sonata first designated a composition in one of these dance forms not intended for dancing. Gradually groups of dances were called suites; then, little by little, the dance titles of the separate numbers were dropped, and the suite was called sonata. These different numbers, however, retained their dance characteristics, as we shall see later. The arrangement of the pieces composing the suites differed in various countries. There were French, Italian, German, and English suites, generally, however, retaining the same grouping of the different movements. The first movement consisted of an allemande; then came a courante; then a minuet; then a sarabande; and last of all a gigue; all in the same key. Sometimes the minuet and sarabande changed places, just as in modern times do the andante and scherzo.
Already in 1685, when Corelli's sonatas for strings appeared, the custom of decreasing the number of movements to three began to obtain, and a century later this custom was universal. The allemande, overture, or preludio formed the first movement; the second consisted of the sarabande, the ancestor of our adagio; and the last part was generally a gigue. Even when the dance titles were no more used (the music having long outgrown its original purpose), the distinctive characteristics of these different movements were retained; the sarabande rhythm was still adhered to for the adagio (even by Haydn) and the triple time and rhythm of the gigue were given to the last part. In addition to this, these three movements were often kept in one key. In his first sonatas Beethoven added a movement, generally a minuet, to this scheme; but returned to the three-movement structure later. His Op. 111 has only two movements, in a way returning to a still earlier general form of the sonata. Now, as has already been said, some of the earliest examples of instrumental music were mainly descriptive in character, that is to say, consisting of imitations of things, thus marking the most elementary stage of programme music. Little by little composers became more ambitious and began to attempt to give expression to the emotions by means of music; and at last, with Beethoven, “programme music” may be said, in one sense, to have reached its climax. For although it is not generally realized, he wrote every one of his sonatas with definite subjects, and, at one time, was on the point of publishing mottoes to them, in order to give the public a hint of what was in his mind when he wrote them.
Analysis may be considered as the reducing of a musical composition to its various elements—harmony, rhythm, melody—and power of expression. Just as melody may be analyzed down to the motives and phrases of which it consists, so may the expressiveness of music be analyzed; and this latter study is most valuable, for it brings us to a closer understanding of the power of music as a language.
For the sake of clearness we will group music as follows:
- Dance forms.
- Programme music. (Things. Feelings.)
- The gathering together of dances in suites.
- The beginnings of design.
- The merging of the suite into the sonata.
The dance tunes I need hardly quote; they consist of a mere play of sound to keep the dancers in step, for which purpose any more or less agreeable rhythmical succession of sounds will serve.
If we take the next step in advance of instrumental music we come to the giving of meanings to these dances, and, as I have explained, these meanings will at first have reference to things; for instance, Couperin imitates an alarm clock; Rameau tries to make the music sound as if three hands were playing instead of two (Les trois mains); he imitates sighing (Les soupirs); the scolding voice; he even tries to express a mood musically (L'indifferente). In Germany, these attempts to make instrumental music expressive of something beyond rhythmic time-keeping continued, and we find Carl Philip Emanuel Bach attempting to express light-hearted amiability (La complaisance) and even languor (Les tendres langueurs). The suite, while it combined several dances in one general form, shows only a trace of design. There was more design in one of the small programme pieces already quoted than in most of the suites of this period (see, for example, Loeilly's “Suite”).
Bach possessed instinctively the feeling for musical speech which seemed denied to his contemporaries whenever they had no actual story to guide their expression; and even in his dance music we find coherent musical sentences as, for instance, in the Courante in A.
In art our opinions must, in all cases, rest directly on the thing under consideration and not on what is written about it. In my beliefs I am no respecter of the written word, that is to say, the mere fact that a statement is made by a well-known man, is printed in a well-known work, or is endorsed by many prominent names, means nothing to me if the thing itself is available for examination. Without a thorough knowledge of music, including its history and development, and, above all, musical “sympathy,” individual criticism is, of course, valueless; at the same time the acquirement of this knowledge and sympathy is not difficult, and I hope that we may yet have a public in America that shall be capable of forming its own ideas, and not be influenced by tradition, criticism, or fashion.
We need to open our eyes and see for ourselves instead of trusting the direction of our steps to the guidance of others. Even an opinion based on ignorance, frankly given, is of more value to art than a platitude gathered from some outside source. If it is not a platitude but the echo of some fine thought, it only makes it worse, for it is not sincere, unless of course it is quoted understandingly. We need freshness and sincerity in forming our judgments in art, for it is upon these that art lives. All over the world we find audiences listening suavely to long concerts, and yet we do not see one person with the frankness of the little boy in Andersen's story of the “New Clothes of the Emperor.” It is the same with the other arts. I have never heard anyone say that part of the foreground of Millet's “Angelus” is “muddy” or that the Fornarina's mysterious smile is anything but “hauntingly beautiful.” People do not dare admire the London Law Courts; all things must be measured by the straight lines of Grecian architecture. Frankness! Let us have frankness, and if we have no feelings on a subject, let us remain silent rather than echo that drone in the hive of modern thought, the “authority in art.”
Every person with even the very smallest love and sympathy for art possesses ideas which are valuable to that art. From the tiniest seeds sometimes the greatest trees are grown. Why, therefore, allow these tender germs of individualism to be smothered by that flourishing, arrogant bay tree of tradition—fashion, authority, convention, etc.
My reason for insisting on the importance of all lovers of art being able to form their own opinions is obvious, when we consider that our musical public is obliged to take everything on trust. For instance, if we read on one page of some history (every history of music has such a page) that Mozart's sonatas are sublime, that they do not contain one note of mere filigree work, and that they far transcend anything written for the harpsichord or clavichord by Haydn or his contemporaries, we echo the saying, and, if necessary, quote the “authorities.” Now if one had occasion to read over some of the clavichord music of the period, possibly it might seem strange that Mozart's sonatas did not impress with their magnificence. One might even harbour a lurking doubt as to the value of the many seemingly bare runs and unmeaning passages. Then one would probably turn back to the authorities for an explanation and find perhaps the following: “The inexpressible charm of Mozart's music leads us to forget the marvellous learning bestowed upon its construction. Later composers have sought to conceal the constructional points of the sonata which Mozart never cared to disguise, so that incautious students have sometimes failed to discern in them the veritable ‘pillars of the house,’ and have accused Mozart of poverty of style because he left them boldly exposed to view, as a great architect delights to expose the piers upon which the tower of his cathedral depends for its support.” (Rockstro, “History of Music,” p. 269.) Now this is all very fine, but it is nonsense, for Mozart's sonatas are anything but cathedrals. It is time to cast aside this shibboleth of printer's ink and paper and look the thing itself straight in the face. It is a fact that Mozart's sonatas are compositions entirely unworthy of the author of the “Magic Flute,” or of any composer with pretensions to anything beyond mediocrity. They are written in a style of flashy harpsichord virtuosity such as Liszt never descended to, even in those of his works at which so many persons are accustomed to sneer.
Such a statement as I have just made may be cried down as rank heresy, first by the book readers and then by the general public; but I doubt if anyone among that public would or could actually turn to the music itself and analyze it intelligently, from both an æsthetic and technical standpoint, in order to verify or disprove the assertion.
Once a statement is made it seems to be exceedingly difficult to keep it from obtaining the universal acceptance which it gains by unthinking reiteration in other works. One of the strangest cases of this repetition of a careless statement may be found in the majority of histories of music, where we are told that musical expression (that is to say, the increasing and diminishing of a tone, crescendo and diminuendo) was first discovered at Mannheim, in Germany, about 1760. This statement may be found in the works of Burney, Schubart, Reichardt, Sittard, Wasielewski, and even in Jahn's celebrated “Life of Mozart.” The story is that Jommelli, an Italian, first “invented” the crescendo and diminuendo, and that when they were first used, the people in the audience gradually rose from their seats at the crescendo, and as the music “diminuendoed” they sat down again. The story is absurd, for the simple reason that even in 1705, Sperling, in his “Principæ Musicæ,” describes crescendos from ppp to fff, and we read in Plutarch of the same thing.
Shedlock, in his work “The Pianoforte Sonata,” quotes as the first sonatas for the clavier those of Kuhnau, and cites especially the six Bible sonatas. Now Kuhnau, although he was Bach's predecessor at St. Thomas' Church in Leipzig, was certainly a composer of the very lowest rank. The Bible sonatas, which Shedlock paints to us in such glowing colours, are the merest trash, and not to be compared with the works of his contemporaries. I do not think that they have any place whatsoever in the history or development either of music or of that form called the sonata.
The development of the suite from dance forms has already been shown, and we will now trace the development of the sonata from the suite in Italy, Germany, and France. As an example of this development in Italy, a so-called sonata by G.B. Pescetti will serve (the sonatas by Domenico Scarlatti were not originally so named, and the sonatas before that were simply short pieces, so designated to distinguish them from dance music). This sonata was published about 1730, and was one of nine. The first movement is practically of the allemande type, and its first period ends in the dominant key. There is but the slightest trace of a second theme in the first part; yet the improvement in contrapuntal design over the suites is evident. The second movement is in the same key, and retains the characteristic rhythm of the sarabande; at the end, the improvement, so far as design is concerned, is very noticeable. The last movement, still in the same key, is a gigue, thus keeping well in the shadow of the suite.
A sonata by the German Rolle (1718–1785) is valuable in that it shows a very decided second theme in the first period, thus tending toward the development of the original simple dance form into the more complex sonata form. The adagio, however, still has the sarabande characteristics, and foreshadows many things. It contains many words that later were shaped into great poems by others. “The Erlking” of Schubert is especially hinted at, just as the first movement was prophetic of Beethoven. In the last movement we have the gigue rhythm again.
In France, music had become merely a court appendage, as was the case with the other arts, and had long served as a means for showing the divine grace with which Louis XIV or XV could turn out his toes in the minuet. In addition to this, the arranging of a scientific system of harmonization by Rameau (1683–1764) (which, by the way, is the basis of most of the treatises of harmony of the present century), caused the few French composers who could make headway against the prevailing Italian opera after Lully to turn their attention away from polyphonic writing; and having, after all, but little to express in other than the long-accustomed dance rhythms and tunes, their music cannot be said to have made any mark in the world. In order to show the poverty of this style, let us take a sonata by Méhul (1763–1817). The first movement has already a well-defined second theme, but otherwise is a mere collection of more or less commonplace progressions. The second part is a dance tune, pure and simple; indeed the first part had all the characteristics of the farandole (see Bizet's “l'Arlesienne”). The last part is entitled rondo, “a round dance,” and is evidently one in the literal sense of the word. In all these sonatas the increasing use of what is called the Alberti bass is noticeable.
To show the last link between the suite and the sonata, reference may be made to the well-known sonata in D major by Haydn. In this, as in those analyzed above, all the movements are in the same key. The adagio is a sarabande, and the last movement has the characteristics of the gigue. This, however, is only the starting point with Haydn; later we will consider the development of this form into what is practically our modern sonata, which, of course, includes the symphony, quartet, quintet, concerto, etc.
Our path of study in tracing the development of the sonata from the suite leads us through a sterile tract of seemingly bare desert. The compositions referred to are full of fragments, sometimes fine in themselves, but lying wherever they happened to fall, their sculptors having no perception of their value one with another. Disconnected phrases, ideas never completed; to quote Hamlet, “Words, words!” Later we find Beethoven and Schubert constructing wonderful temples out of these same fragments, and shaping these same words into marvellous tone poems.
The music of the period we have been considering is well described by Browning in “A Toccata of Galuppi's”:
Yes you, like a ghostly cricket,
Creaking where a house was burned:
Dust and ashes, dead and done with,
Venice spent what Venice earned.
Up to the time of Beethoven, music for the pianoforte consisted mainly of programme music of the purely descriptive order, that is to say, it was generally imitative of natural or artificial externals. To be sure, if we go back to the old clavecinists, and examine the sonatas of Kuhnau, sundry pieces by Couperin, Rameau, and the Germans, Froberger, C.P.E. Bach and others, we find the beginnings of that higher order of programme music which deals directly with the emotions; and not only that, but which aims at causing the hearer to go beyond the actual sounds heard, in pursuance of a train of thought primarily suggested by this music.
To find this art of programme music, as we may call it, brought to a full flower, we must seek in the mystic utterances of Robert Schumann. It is wise to keep in mind, however, that although Schumann's piano music certainly answers to our definition of the higher programme music, it also marks the dividing line between emotional programme music without a well-defined object and that dramatically emotional art which we have every reason to believe was aimed at by Beethoven in many of his sonatas, and which, in its logical development and broadened out by orchestral colours and other resources, is championed by Richard Strauss at the present day.
We have already learned that C.P.E. Bach had entirely broken with the contrapuntal style of his father and his age in order to gain freer utterance, and that the word “colour” began to be used in his time in connection with music for even one instrument. It is, perhaps, needless to say that the vastly enlarged possibilities, both technical and tonal, of the newly invented forte-piano were largely the outcome of this seeking for colour in music. In addition to this, the new art of harmonic dissonances was already beginning to stretch out in the direction of new and strange tonal combinations, thus giving to the music written for the instrument many new possibilities in the way of causing and depicting emotions. That the first experiments were puerile, we know, as, for example, Haydn's attempts, in one of his pianoforte sonatas, to suggest the conversion of an obdurate sinner.
When we consider Mozart, it is impossible to forget the fact that in his piano works he was first and foremost a piano virtuoso, a child prodigy, of whom filigree work was expected by the public for which he wrote his sonatas. (We cannot call this orientalism, for it was more or less of German pattern, traced from the fioriture of the Italian opera singer.) Therefore, emotional utterance or even new or poetic colouring was not to be expected of him.
As has been said before, it remained for Beethoven to weld these new words and strange colours into poems, which, notwithstanding the many barnacles hanging to them (remnants of a past of timid adhesion to forms and fashions), are, in truth, the first lofty and dignified musical utterances with an object which we possess. I mean by this statement that his art was the first to cast aside the iron fetters of what then formed the canons of art. The latter may be described (even in reference to modern days) as constituting the shadow of a great man. And, although this is a digression, I may add that all students of piano music no doubt realize the weighty shadow that Beethoven cast over the first half of the nineteenth century, just as Wagner is doing at the present time.
Our purists are unable to realize that the shadows are the least vital part of the great men who cast them. We remember that the only wish expressed by Diogenes when Alexander came to see him was that the king should stand aside so that he could enjoy the light of the sun.
To return: We find that Beethoven was the first exponent of our modern art. Every revolution is bound to bring with it a reaction which seeks to consolidate and put in safe keeping, as it were, results attained by it. Certainly Beethoven alone can hardly be said to have furthered this end; for his revolt led him into still more remote and involved trains of thought, as in his later sonatas and quartets. Even the Ninth Symphony, hampered as it is by actual words for which declamation and a more or less well-defined form of musical speech are necessary, suffers from the same involved utterance that characterizes his last period.
Schubert, in his instrumental work, was too ardent a seeker and lover of the purely beautiful to build upon the forms of past generations, and thus his piano music, neither restrained nor supported by poetic declamation, was never held within the bounds of formalism.
It was Mendelssohn who first invested old and seemingly worn-out forms of instrumental music (especially for the pianoforte) with the new poetic license of speech, which was essentially the spirit of the age of revolution in which he lived.
In holding up Mendelssohn as a formalist against Beethoven, and at the same time presenting him as the composer directly responsible for our modern symphonic poem, there is a seeming contradiction, which, however, is more apparent than real. While Beethoven never hesitated to overturn form (harmonic or otherwise) to suit the exigencies of his inspiration, Mendelssohn cast all his pictures into well-defined and orthodox forms. Thus his symphonic poems, for example, the overtures to “The Lovely Melusina,” “Fingal's Cave,” “Ruy Blas,” etc., are really overtures in form; whereas, the so-called “Moonlight” sonata of Beethoven, as well as many others, are sonatas only in name. The emotional and problematic significance given by Mendelssohn to many of his shorter piano pieces, including even such works as preludes and fugues, is familiar to us all. These works, however, but rarely departed from the orthodox forms represented by their names. His “Songs without Words” have been so often quoted as constituting a new art form that it is well to remember that they are practically all cast in the same mould, that of the most simple song form, with one, and sometimes two more or less similar verses, preceded by a short introduction and ending with a coda.
We may say then, broadly, that Beethoven invested instrumental music with a wonderful poignancy and power of expression, elevating it to the point of being the medium of expressing some of the greatest thoughts we possess. In so doing, however, he shattered many of the great idols of formalism by the sheer violence of his expression.
Schubert, let me say again, seemed indifferent to symmetry, or never thought of it in his piano music. Mendelssohn, possibly influenced by his early severe training with Zelter, accepted symmetry of form as the cornerstone of his musical edifice; although he was one of the first in the realms of avowed programme music, he never carried it beyond the boundary of good form. And, as in speaking a moment ago of the so-called canons of musical art, we compared them with the shadows that great men have cast upon their times, it may be as well to remember that just this formalism of Mendelssohn overshadowed and still overshadows England to the present day. On the other hand, Beethoven's last style still shows itself in Brahms, and even in Richard Strauss. Schumann was different from these three. His music is not avowed programme music; neither is it, as is much of Schubert's, pure delight in beautiful melodies and sounds. It did not break through formalism by sheer violence of emotion, as did Beethoven's; least of all has it Mendelssohn's orthodox dress. It represents, as well as I can put it, the rhapsodical reverie of a great poet to whom nothing seems strange, and who has the faculty of relating his visions, never attempting to give them coherence, until, perhaps, when awakened from his dream, he naïvely wonders what they may have meant. It will be remembered that Schumann added titles to his music after it was composed.
To all of this new, strange music, Liszt and Chopin added the wonderful tracery of orientalism. As I have said before, the difference between these two is that with Chopin this tracery enveloped poetic thought as with a thin gauze; whereas with Liszt, the embellishment itself made the starting point for almost a new art in tonal combination, the effects of which are seen on every hand to-day. To realize its influence, one need only compare the graceful arabesques of the most simple piano piece of to-day with the awkward and gargoyle-like figuration of Beethoven and his predecessors. We may justly attribute this to Liszt rather than to Chopin, whose nocturne embellishments are but first cousins to those of the Englishman, John Field, though naturally Chopin's Polish temperament gave his work that grace and profusion of design which we have called orientalism.
It is interesting to recall the origin of our words “treble” and “discant.” The latter was derived from the first attempts to break away from the monotony of several persons singing the same melody in unison, octaves, fifths, or fourths. In such cases the original melody was called cantus firmus (a term still generally used in counterpoint to designate the given melody of an exercise to which the student is to write other parts), the new melody that was sung with it was called the discant, and when a third part was added, it received the name triplum or treble. As Ambros remarks, this forcible welding together of different melodies, often well-known old tunes, secular or derived from the church chants, was on a direct line with the contemporary condition of the other arts. For instance, on the portal to the left of the Cathedral of Saint Mark, at Venice, is a relief, representing some Biblical scene, which is entirely made up of fragments of some older sculptured figures, placed together without regard to anatomy in much the same brutal fashion that the melodies of the time were sung together. The traces of this clumsy music-making extended down to Palestrina's time, and became the germ of counterpoint, canon, and fugue, constituting (apart from the folk song) the only music known at that time.
This music, however, very soon developed into two styles, one adopted by the church, the other, a secular style, furnishing the musical texture both of opera and other secular music. The opera, or rather the art form we know under that name (for the name itself conveys nothing, for which reason Wagner coined the term “music drama”) broke away from the church in the guise of Mysteries, as they were called in mediæval times. A Mystery (of which our modern oratorio is the direct descendant) was a kind of drama illustrating some sacred subject, and the earliest specimens laid the foundation for the Greek tragedy and comedy. We still see a relic of this primitive art form in the Oberammergau Passion Play.
We read of the efforts made, as early as the fifth century, to hold the people to the church; among other devices employed was that of illustrating the subjects of the services by the priests performing the offices being dressed in an appropriate costume. Little by little the popular songs of the people crept into the church service among the regular ecclesiastical chants, thus foreshadowing the beginnings of modern opera; for after a while, special Latin texts were substituted for the regular service, the mimetic part of which degenerated into the most extraordinary license as, for instance, in the “Feast of Asses” (January 14) which may be called a burlesque of the mass, and which has been described in a former chapter.
With this mixture of the vernacular and the official Latin, 14 these Miracle and Passion Plays, as well as the Mysteries and Moralities (as different forms of this ecclesiastical mumming were called) began to be given in other places besides the churches.
In addition to this combination of singing and acting, the tenson or poetic debate (which was one form of the troubadour songs, and one very often acted by the jongleurs) probably also did its part towards giving stability to this new art form. The earliest specimen of it, in its purely secular aspect, is a small work entitled “Robin et Marian,” by Adam de la Hale, a well-known troubadour (called “the humpback,” born at Arras in the south of France in 1240), who followed in the train of that ferocious Duke Charles of Anjou, who beheaded Konradin, the last of the Hohenstaufens, in 1268, and Manfred, both of them minnesingers.
As the Mystery was the direct ancestor of our oratorio, so was the little pastoral of Adam de la Hale the germ of the modern French vaudeville. One of its melodies is said to be sung to this day in some parts of southern France.
The entire object in this little play being that both words and action should be perfectly understood, it is obvious that as little as possible should be going on during the singing. Thus, such melodies as we find in these old pastoral plays would be accompanied by short notes, serving merely to give the pitch and tonality, which would gradually develop into chords, thus laying the foundation for harmony.
If, on the other hand, we look at the “church play” of the same period, the Mystery, and remember that it was sung by men accustomed to singing the organum of Hucbald, we have a clue as to what it was and what it led up to. For while one part or voice of the music would give a melody (copied from or at any rate resembling the Gregorian chant or the sequences of Notker of Tubilo), the other voices would sing songs in the vernacular, and, strangest of all, one voice would repeat some Latin word, or even a “nonsense word” (to use Edward Lear's term) but much more slowly than the other voices. Thus the needs of the Mystery were as well met by incipient counterpoint on the one hand, as, on the other, the secular song-play engendered the sense of harmony.
That the early secular forerunner of opera, as represented by “Robin et Marian,” was still, to a certain degree, controlled by the church is clear if we remember that at that time the only methods of noting music were entirely in the hands of the clergy. The notation for the lute, for instance, was invented about 1460 to 1500. Thus, we can say that the recording of secular music was not free from church influence until some time after the sixteenth century.
This primitive “opera” music was thus fettered by difficulty of notation and the influence of the ecclesiastical rules until perhaps about 1600, when the first real opera began to find a place in Italy. Jacopo Peri and Caccini were among the first workers in the comparatively new form, and they both took the same subject, Eurydice. Of the former the following two short excerpts will suffice; the first is where Orpheus bewails his fate; in the second he expresses his joy at bringing Eurydice back to earth. Caccini's opera was perhaps the first to introduce the many useless ornaments that, up to the middle of this century, were characteristic of Italian opera.
14 It is interesting to note as to the prevalence of Latin, that Dante's “Divina Commedia” was the first important poem in Italian. Latin was used on the stage in Italy up to the sixteenth century; the stationary chorus stationed on the stage remained until the seventeenth century and was not entirely discontinued until the first half of the eighteenth century.
No art form is so fleeting and so subject to the dictates of fashion as opera. It has always been the plaything of fashion, and suffers from its changes. To-day the stilted figures of Hasse, Pergolesi, Rameau, and even Gluck, seem as grotesque to us as the wigs and buckles of their contemporaries. To Palestrina's masses and madrigals, Rameau's and Couperin's claveçin pieces, and all of Bach, we can still listen without this sense of incongruity. On the other hand, operas of Alessandro Scarlatti, Matheson, and Porpora would bore us unmitigatedly. They have gone out of fashion. Even the modern successors of these men, Bellini, Donizetti, and Verdi, in his earlier years, have become dead letters musically, although only as late as 1845, Donizetti was at the very zenith of his fame.
Of all the operas of the past century, our present public has not seen or even heard of one, with the exception of “The Magic Flute,” and less probably “Don Juan.” This is bad enough; but if we look at works belonging to the first part of the nineteenth century, we find the same state of affairs. The operas of Spontini, Rossini, most of Meyerbeer's, even Weber's “Freischütz,” have passed away, seemingly never to return. Even “Cavalleria Rusticana,” of recent creation, is falling rapidly into oblivion. Thus the opéra comique early disappeared in favour of the romantic opera and the operetta. The former has already nearly ended its career, and the latter has descended to the level of mere farce. In the course of time, these opera forms become more and more evanescent; for the one-act opera of miniature tragedy, which is practically only a few years old, is already almost extinct.
And yet this art form has vastly more hold on the public than other music destined to outlive it. The fact is, that music which is tied down to the conventionalities and moods of its time and place can never appeal but to the particular time and mood which gave it birth. (Incidentally, I may say the same of music having its roots in the other peculiarities of folk song.)
Now the writers of these operas were great men who put their best into their work; the cause of the failure of these operas was not on account of the music, but the ideas and thoughts with which this music was saddled. What were the books which people read and loved in those days (1750–1800), that is, books upon which operas might be built? In England we find “The Castle of Otranto,” “The Mysterious Mother,” etc., by Horace Walpole. Now Macaulay says that Horace Walpole's works rank as high among the delicacies of intellectual epicures as the Strasburg pie among the dishes described in the Almanach des Gourmands. None but an unhealthy and disorganized mind could have produced such literary luxuries as the works of Walpole.
France had not yet recovered from the empty formalism of the preceding century, Bernardin de St. Pierre was a kind of colonial Mlle. Scudery, and Jean Jacques Rousseau, one of the sparks which were to ignite the French Revolution, writes his popular opera to the silly story of “The Village Soothsayer.” Had not Gluck written to the classics he would have had to write “à la Watteau.”
In Germany, conditions were better; for the so-called Romantic school had just begun to make headway. In opera, however, this school of Romanticism only commenced to make itself felt later, when we have a crop of operas on Fouque's “Undine” as well as “Hofmann's Tales.”
It is as though opera had to dress according to the prevailing fashion of the day. The very large sleeves of one year look strange to us a little later. Just so is it with opera; for those old operas by Méhul, Spontini, Salieri, and others all wear enormous crinolines, while the contemporary instrumental works of the same period, unfettered by fashion, still possess all the freedom which their limited speech permitted them to have. Thus we see that opera is necessarily a child of the times in which it is written, in contrast to other music which echoes but the thought of the composer, thought that is not necessarily bound down to any time, place, or peculiarity of diction.
In Germany, Italian opera was never accepted by the people as it was in France. In the latter country, opera had to be in the vernacular and practically to become French. Lully's operas were written to libretti by Quinault and Corneille; and while, as early as 1645, Paris imported its opera from Italy, this art form was rapidly modified to suit the public for which it was secured. Even with Piccini and Gluck, and down to Rossini and Meyerbeer, this nationalism was infused into the foreign product. In Germany the case was entirely different, for up to the very last, Italian opera was a thing apart. Although German composers, such as Mozart and Paër, wrote Italian opera, the “Singspiel” (a kind of opéra comique), found its culminating point in Weber's “Freischütz,” which fought against Rossini's operas for supremacy in Germany.
Gluck's victory over the Piccinists gave to the French form of Italian opera an impetus that caused Cherubini to proceed on almost the same lines in his operas, the “Water Carrier,” etc. Cherubini was a pupil of Andreas Sarti, a celebrated contrapuntist and a disciple of the last of the Italian church composers who looked back to Palestrina for inspiration. Thus the infusion of a certain soberness of diction, which we call German, fitted in with the man's training and predilections.
The first names we meet with in French opera after Cherubini are those of Grétry, Méhul, and Spontini. The former was a Frenchman whose works are now obsolete, although Macfarren, in the “Encyclopedia Brittanica,” says that he is the only French composer of symphonies that are known and enjoy popularity in France.
Grétry was born in Liége, about 1740. He walked to Italy, studied in Rome, and returned to France about 1770. None of his works have come down to us, but his name is interesting by reason of a certain contradiction in his operas. This contradiction consists in his being one of the first to revive the idea of the hidden orchestra; it is interesting also to note that in his “Richard Cœur de Lion,” he anticipated Wagner's use of the leitmotiv. His words on the hidden orchestra sound strangely modern:
Plan for a New Theatre.—I should like the auditorium of my theatre to be small, holding at the most one thousand persons and consisting of a sort of open space, without boxes, small or great; for these nooks only encourage talking and scandal. I would like the orchestra to be concealed, so that neither the musicians nor the lights on their music stands could be visible to the spectators.
Méhul was born about 1763 in the south of France, and is celebrated, among other things, as being a pupil of Gluck, in Paris. He was also noted for having, at the request of Napoleon, brought out an opera based on Macpherson's “Ossian,” in which no violins were used in the orchestra. “Joseph,” another opera of his, is occasionally given in small German towns. Méhul died in 1817.
Spontini, the next representative of opera in France, was an Italian, born in 1774. He went to Paris in 1803, where, through the influence of the Empress Josephine, he was enabled to have several small operas performed; finally in 1807 his “Vestal,” written to a French text, was given with great success. In this, his greatest work, he followed Gluck's footsteps, not only in the music, but also in the choice of a classic subject. In 1809, he branched out into a more romantic vein with the opera of “Fernando Cortez.” His other works never attained popularity. After the Restoration in France, he was named director of the court music in Berlin by the King of Prussia, at an annual salary of ten thousand thalers (about $7,500), a position he held from 1820 to 1840. He died in Italy in 1851. Spontini may be said to have been the last representative of the Gluck opera; but he also brought into it all the magnificence in scenery, etc., that would naturally be expected by the fashion of the First Empire. He made no innovations, and merely served to keep alive the traditions of Grand Opera in France.
The next powerful influence in France, and indeed in all Europe, was that of Rossini. He may be said to have built on Gluck's ideas in many ways. Born in 1792, at Pesaro, in Italy, he wrote many operas of the flimsy Italian style while still a boy. At twenty-one he had already written his “Tancredi” and the opera buffa, “The Italians in Algiers.” His best work (besides “William Tell”) was “The Barber of Seville.” Other works are “Cinderella” (La Cenerentola), “The Thieving Blackbird” (La Gazza Ladra), “Moses,” and “The Lady of the Lake.” These operas were mostly made up of parts of others that were failures, à la Hasse. An engagement being offered him in London, he went there with his wife, and in one season they earned about two hundred thousand francs, which laid the foundation for his future prosperity.
The next year he went to Paris, where, after a few unimportant works, he, produced “William Tell” with tremendous success (1829). Although he lived until 1868, he never wrote for the operatic stage again, his other works being mainly the well-known “Stabat Mater” and some choruses. He was essentially a writer of light opera, although “William Tell” has many elevated moments. His style was so entirely warped by his love for show and the virtuoso side of singing that the many real beauties of his music are hardly recognizable. His music is so overladen with fioriture that often its very considerable value is obscured. He had absolutely no influence upon German music, for the Germans, from Beethoven down, despised the flimsy style and aims of this man, who, by appealing to the most unmusical side of the fashionable audiences of Europe, did so much to discourage the production of operas with a lofty aim. In France, however, his influence was unchallenged, and we may almost say that, with few exceptions, the overture to “William Tell” served as a model for all other operatic overtures which have been written there up to the present day. We have only to look at the many overtures by Hérold, Boieldieu, Auber, and others, to see the influence exerted by this style of overture, which consisted of a slow introduction, followed by a more or less sentimental melody, followed in turn by a galop as a coda.
So fashionable had this kind of thing become that even Weber was slightly touched by it. In the meanwhile, the French composers were producing operas of a smaller kind, but, in many ways, of a better character than the larger works of Rossini, Spontini, and their followers. Had this flimsy Italian influence been lacking, doubtless French opera to-day would be a different thing from what it actually is. For these smaller operas by Hérold, Auber, and Boieldieu had many points in common with the German Singspiel, which may be said to have saved German musical art for Wagner.
What might have developed under better conditions is shown in a work by Halévy entitled, “La juive,” in which is to be found promise of a great school of opera, a promise unhappily stifled by the advent of an eclectic, the German Meyerbeer, who blinded the public with unheard of magnificence of staging, just as Rossini before him had blinded it by novel technical feats. Meyerbeer thus drew the art into a new channel, and, unluckily, this new tendency was not so much in the direction of elevation of style as in sensationalism.
To return to the French composers. Hérold was born in 1791, in Paris, and his principal works were “Zampa” and the “Pré aux clercs.” The first was produced in 1831, the latter in 1832. He died in 1833. Boieldieu was born in 1775, in Rouen; died 1834. His principal works were “La dame blanche” and “Jean de Paris.”
Halévy (Levy) was born in 1799, in Paris, and died in 1862; his father was a Bavarian and his mother from Lorraine. He wrote innumerable operas. His most famous work, “La juive,” written in 1835, was killed by Meyerbeer's “Huguenots,” and produced a year later. He was professor of counterpoint at the Conservatoire from 1831, among his pupils being Gounod, Massé, Bazin, and Bizet.
Auber was born in 1782, and died in May, 1871. He was practically the last of the essentially French composers. His operas may be summed up as being the perfect translation into music of the witty plays of Scribe, with whom he was associated all his life. To read a comedy by Scribe is to imagine Auber's music to it. No one has excelled Auber in the expression of all the finesse of wit and lightness of touch. What the union between the two men was may be inferred from the fact that Scribe wrote many of his librettos to Auber's music, the latter being written first, Scribe then adding the words. His principal works are “Masaniello” or “The Mute,” and “Fra Diavolo.” He was appointed director of the Paris Conservatoire, in 1842, in succession to Cherubini.
In speaking of Grétry, I quoted his opinion (given in one of his essays on music) as to what opera should be and cited his use of the leitmotiv in his “Richard Cœur de Lion” (which contains the air, une fièvre brûlante). If with this we quote his reasons for writing opéra comique rather than grand opera, we have one of the reasons why French opera has, as yet, never developed beyond Massenet's “Roi de Lahore” on one side, and Delibes' “Lakmé” on the other.
Grétry writes that he introduced lyric comedy on the stage because the public was tired of tragedy, and because he had heard so many lovers of dancing complain that their favourite art played only a subordinate rôle in grand opera. Also the public loved to hear short songs; therefore he introduced many such into his operas.
Even nowadays, this seeming contradiction between theory and practice is to be found, I think, in the French successors of Meyerbeer. The public needed dancing, and all theories must bend to that wish. Even Wagner succumbed to this influence in Paris; and when Weber's “Freischütz” was first given at the grand opera, Berlioz was commissioned to arrange ballet music from Weber's piano works to supply the deficiency.
In France, even to-day, everything gives way to the public, a public whose intelligence from a poetic standpoint is, in my opinion, lower than that of any other country. The French composer is dependent on his country (Paris) as is no musician of other nationality. Berlioz' life was embittered by the want of recognition in Paris. Although he had been acclaimed as a great musician all over Europe, yet he returned again and again to Paris, preferring (as he admits) the approbation of its musically worthless public to his otherwise world-wide fame.
We remember that Auber never stirred out of Paris throughout his long life. It was an article in the Gazette Musicale of Paris which was instrumental in calling Gounod back into the world from his intended priestly vocation. And this influence of the admittedly ignorant and superficial French public is the more remarkable when one considers the fact that it was always the last to admit the value of the best work of its composers. Thus Berlioz' fame was gained in Russia and Germany while he was still derided and comparatively unknown in Paris.
The failure of Bizet's “Carmen” is said to have hastened the composer's death, which took place within three months after the first performance of the opera. As Saint-Saëns wrote at the time, in his disgust at the French public: “The fat, ugly bourgeois ruminates in his padded stall, regretting separation from his kind. He half opens a glassy eye, munches a bonbon, then sleeps again, thinking that the orchestra is a-tuning.” And yet, even Saint-Saëns, whose name became known chiefly through Liszt's help, and whose operas and symphonies were given in Germany before they were known in France, even he is one of the most ardent adherents to the “anti-foreigner” cry in France. In my opinion, this respect for and attempt to please this grossly ignorant French public is and has been one of the great devitalizing influences which hamper the French composer.
Charles Gounod was born in 1818, in Paris. His father was an engraver and died when Gounod was very young. The boy received his first music lessons from his mother. He was admitted to the Conservatoire at sixteen, and studied with Halévy and Lesueur. In 1839 he gained the Prix de Rome, and spent three years in Rome, studying ecclesiastical music. In 1846 he contemplated becoming a priest, and wrote a number of religious vocal works, published under the name Abbé C. Gounod. In 1851 the article I referred to appeared, and such was its effect on Gounod, that within four months his first opera “Sapho” was given (April, 1851). A year later this was followed by some music for a tragedy (Poussard's “Ulysse” at the Comédie Française), and in 1854 by the five-act opera “La nonne sanglante.” These were only very moderately successful; and so Gounod turned to the opéra comique, and wrote music to an adaptation of Molière's “Medecin malgré lui.” This became very popular, and paved the way for his “Faust,” which was produced at the Opéra Comique in 1859. In the opéra comique, as we know, the singing was always interspersed with spoken dialogue. Thus, this opera, as we know it, dates from its preparation for the Grand Opera ten years later, 1869. Ten months after “Faust” was given he used a fable of Lafontaine for a short light opera, “Philemon and Baucis.”
In the meantime, “Faust” began to bring him encouragement, and his next opera was on the subject of the “Queen of Sheba” (1862). This being unsuccessful, he wrote two more light operas, “Mireille” and “La colombe” (1866). The next was “Romeo et Juliette” (1867). This was very successful, and marks the culmination of Gounod's success as an opera composer. In 1870 he went to London, where he made his home for a number of years. His later operas, “Cinq-Mars” (1877), “Polyeucte” (1878), and “Le tribut de Zamora” (1881), met with small success, and have rarely been given.
In his later years, as we know, he showed his early predilection for religious music; and his oratorios “The Redemption,” “Mors et Vita,” and several masses have been given with varying success. Perhaps one of the greatest points ever made in Gounod's favour by a critic was that by Pougin, who asks what other composer could have written two such operas as “Faust” and “Romeo et Juliette” and still have them essentially different musically. The “Garden Scene” in the one and the “Balcony Scene” in the other are identical, so far as the feeling of the play is concerned; also the duel of Faust and Valentine and Romeo and Tybalt.
Ambroise Thomas's better works, “Mignon” and “Hamlet,” may be said to be more or less echoes of Gounod; and while his “Francesca da Rimini,” which was brought out in 1882, was by far his most ambitious work, it never became known outside of Paris. Ambroise Thomas was born in 1811, and died within a year of Gounod. His chief merit was in his successful direction of the Conservatoire, to which he succeeded Auber in 1871.
Georges Bizet (his name was Alexander César Leopold) was born in 1838, in Paris. His father was a poor singing teacher, and his mother a sister-in-law of Delsarte; she was a first-prize piano pupil of the Conservatoire. As a boy, Bizet was very precocious, and entered the Conservatoire as a pupil of Marmontel when he was ten. He took successively the first prizes for solfége, piano, organ, and fugue, and finally the Prix de Rome in 1857, when he was nineteen years old. The latter kept him in Rome until 1861, when he returned to Paris and gave piano and harmony lessons and arranged dance music for brass bands, a métier not unknown to either Wagner or Raff.
Until 1872, Bizet wrote but small and unimportant works, such as “The Pearl Fisher,” “The Fair Maid of Perth,” and several vaudeville operettas, some of which he wrote to order and anonymously. He married a daughter of Halévy, the composer, and in 1871–72 served in the National Guard. His first important work was the incidental music to Alphonse Daudet's “L'Arlesienne” and finally his “Carmen” was given (but without success), at the Opéra Comique, in March, 1875. He died June 3, 1875.
Camille Saint-Saëns was born in Paris, in 1835; he commenced studying piano when only three years old. I believe it is mostly through his piano concertos and his symphonic poems that his name will live; for his operas have never attained popularity, with perhaps the one exception of “Samson and Delilah.” His other operas are: “The Yellow Princess,” “Proserpina,” “Etienne Marcel,” “Henry VIII,” “Ascanio.”
Jules Massenet was born in 1842, and at the age of twelve became a pupil of Bezit at the Conservatoire, was rejected by Bezit for want of talent, and afterward studied with Reber and Thomas, and won the Prix de Rome in 1863. Upon his return, in 1866, he wrote a number of small orchestral works, including two suites and several sacred dramas, “Marie Magdalen” and “Eve and the Virgin,” in which the general Meyerbeerian style militated against any suggestion of religious feeling. His first grand opera, “Le roi de Lahore,” was given in 1881. The second was “Herodiade,” which was followed by “Manon,” “The Cid,” “Esclarmonde,” “Le mage.”