As data regarding Strauss’s life, at the disposal of English readers, are both scant and scattered, it may not be amiss to tell here something of his career. He was born on June 11, 1864, in Munich, where his father, Franz Strauss, played the French-horn in the Royal Orchestra, and was noted for his remarkable proficiency on the instrument. The elder Strauss lived long enough to watch with pride his son’s growing fame. Richard began to play the piano when he was four years old. At the age of six he heard some children singing around a Christmas tree. “I can compose something like that,” he said, and he produced unaided a three-part song. When he went to school, his mother by chance put covers of music paper on his books. As a result, he occupied much of his time composing on this paper, and during a French lesson sketched out the scherzo of a string quartet which has been published as his Opus 2. While he was still at school, he composed a symphony in D minor. This was played by the Royal Orchestra under Levi. When, in response to calls for the composer, Richard came out, some one in the audience asked: “What has that boy to do with the symphony?” “Oh, he’s only the composer,” was the reply. The year before (1880), the Royal Opera prima donna, Meysenheim, had publicly sung three of his songs.
During his advanced school years, his piano lessons continued, he received lessons in the violin, and went through a severe course in composition with the Royal Kapellmeister, Meyer. In 1882, he attended the University 222 of Munich. His “Serenade” for wind instruments, composed at this time, attracted the attention of Hans von Bülow, under whom he studied for a while at Raff’s conservatory in Frankfort. Bülow invited him to Meiningen as co-director of the orchestra, and when in November, 1885, Bülow resigned as conductor, Strauss became his successor, remaining there, however, only till April, 1886. His symphonic fantasia, “Italy,” had its origin through a trip to Rome and Naples during this year. In August, 1886, he was appointed assistant conductor to Levi and Fischer at the Munich Opera, where he remained until July, 1889, when he became conductor at Weimar. In 1892, he almost died from an attack of pneumonia, and on his recovery took a long trip through Greece, Egypt and Sicily. It was on this tour that he wrote and composed “Guntram,” which was brought out at Weimar in May, 1894. After the first performance, he announced his engagement to the singer of Freihild in “Guntram,” Pauline de Ahna, the daughter of a Bavarian general. The same year he returned to Munich as conductor, remaining there until 1899, when he became one of the conductors at the Berlin Opera, which position he still holds. He is one of the “star” conductors of Europe, receiving invitations to conduct concerts in many cities, including Brussels, Moscow, Amsterdam, Barcelona, Madrid, London and Paris; and his American tour was a memorable one. He is a man of untiring industry. It is said that he worked no less than half a year on “Thus Spake Zarathustra,” and that the writing of his scores is a model of beauty.
Strauss occupies a commanding position in the world 223 of music. He has achieved it through a remarkable combination of musical technique and inspiration coupled with rare industry. His ideals are of the highest. His intellectual activity is great. He seems a man of calm and noble poise, of broad horizon. It would be presumption to speak of “expectations” as to one who has accomplished so much. For the great achievements already to his credit, and among these “Salome” surely must be included, are the best promise for the future.
Lovers of chamber music form an extremely refined and cultured class, and, like all highly refined and cultured people, are very conservative. They are the purists among music-lovers, the last people who would care to see the classical forms abandoned, and who would be disturbed, not to say shocked, by any great departure from the sonata form. For the string quartet is to chamber music what the symphony is to orchestra and the sonata to the pianoforte—is, in fact, a sonata for two violins, viola and violoncello, just as the symphony is a sonata for orchestra.
Oddly enough, a pianoforte solo is more effective in a large hall than a string quartet, although the latter employs four times as many instruments; and the same is true of those pieces of chamber music in which the pianoforte is used, such as sonatas for pianoforte and violin or violoncello, pianoforte trios, quartets, quintets, and so on. A fine soloist on the pianoforte will be more at home in a large auditorium like Carnegie Hall or even the Metropolitan Opera House than would a string quartet or any other combination of chamber-music players. Paderewski plays in Carnegie Hall, and, I am sure, would be equally effective in the 225 Opera House. But an organization of chamber-music players would be lost in either place. The Kneisel Quartet plays in New York in Mendelssohn Hall, a small auditorium which is just about correctly proportioned for music of this kind.
Indeed, compared with the opera, the orchestra and even with the pianoforte, chamber music requires a setting like a jewel. For just as its devotees are the purists among music-lovers, so chamber music itself is something very “precious.” It certainly is a most charming and intimate form of musical entertainment and the constituency of a well-established string quartet inevitably consists of the musical élite.
The same opinions that have been expressed regarding the sonatas and the symphonies of the great composers apply in a general way to their chamber music. Haydn’s is naive; Mozart’s more emotional in expression; Beethoven’s, among that of classical composers, the most dramatic. In fact, Beethoven’s last quartets, in which the instruments are employed quite independently and in which rôles practically of equal importance are assigned to each, are regarded by Richard Strauss as having given the cue to Wagner for his polyphonic treatment of the orchestra, and Wagner himself spoke of them as works through which “Music first raised herself to an equal height with the poetry and painting of the greatest periods of the past.” Nevertheless, there are many who hold that in his last quartets Beethoven sought to accomplish more than can be expressed with four stringed instruments, and prefer his earlier works of this class, like the three “Rasumovski” quartets, Opus 59, dedicated by the composer 226 to Count Rasumovski, who maintained a private string quartet in which he played second violin, the others being professionals.
Schubert’s most famous quartet is the one in D minor with the lovely slow movement, a theme with variations, the theme being his own song, “Death and the Maiden.” One of the greatest works in the whole range of chamber music is his string quintet with two violoncellos. His pianoforte trios also are noble contributions to this branch of musical art. “One glance at this trio,” writes Schumann of the Schubert trio in B flat major, “and all the wretchedness of existence is put to flight and the world seems young again.... Many and beautiful as are the things Time brings forth, it will be long ere it produces another Schubert.”
Mendelssohn’s chamber music is as polished, affable and gentlemanly as most of his other productions, and rapidly falling into the same state of unlamented desuetude. Schumann has given us his lovely pianoforte quintet in E flat. Brahms has contributed much that is noteworthy to chamber music, and, as a rule, it is less complex and more intelligently scored than his orchestral music. Dvorak in his E flat major quartet (Opus 51) introduces as the second movement a Dumka or Bohemian elegy, one of the most exquisite of his compositions. Fascinating in his national musical tints, he was genius enough for his music to be universal in its expression; and he who used the folksongs of his native Bohemia so skillfully was no less artistic in the results he accomplished when, during his residence in New York, he wrote his string quartet 227 in F (Opus 96) on Negro themes. Tschaikowsky and neo-Russians like Arensky, and the Frenchmen, César Franck, Saint-Saëns, d’Indy and Debussy, are some of the modern names that figure on chamber-music programs.
Songs either are strophic or “durchcomponirt” (composed through). In the strophic song the melody and accompaniment are repeated unchanged through each stanza or strophe of the poem; while, when a song is composed through, the music, although the principal melody may be repeated more than once, is subjected to changes in accordance with the moods of the poem.
Schubert is the first song composer who requires serious consideration. While not strictly the originator of the Lied, he is universally acknowledged to be the first great song composer and to have lifted song to its proper place of importance in music. Gluck set Klopfstock’s odes to music; Haydn as a song writer is remembered by “Liebes Mädchen hör’ mir Zu”; Mozart by “Das Veilchen”; and Beethoven by “Adelaide” and one or two other songs. Before Schubert’s day this form of composition was regarded as something rather trivial and beneath the dignity of genius. But Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven at least did one thing through which they may possibly have contributed to the development of song-writing. By their freer writing for the pianoforte they prepared the way for the Schubert accompaniments.
Where Schubert got his musical genius from is a mystery. His father was a schoolmaster, whose first wife, Schubert’s mother, was a cook. The couple had fourteen children and an income of $175. If this income is somewhat disproportionate to the size of the family, it yet is fortunate that they had fourteen children instead of only thirteen. Otherwise there would have been one great name less in musical history, for Schubert was the fourteenth.
He was born in Vienna in January, 1797. His thirty-one years—for this genius who so enriched music lived to be only thirty-one—were passed in poverty. His father was wretchedly poor, and his own works, when they could be disposed of at all to publishers, were sold at beggarly prices. Now they are universally recognized as masterpieces and are worth many times their weight in gold.
Shortly before he was twelve years old, Schubert, who had been singing soprano solos and playing violin in the parish choir, was sent to the so-called Convict, the Imperial school for training boys for the Court chapel. During his five years there his progress was so rapid that even before he was fourteen years old he was occasionally asked to substitute for the conductor of the school orchestra. Life, however, was hard. He had no money with which to buy even a few luxuries in the way of food to eke out the wretched fare of the Convict, nor music paper. Had it not been for the kindness of a fellow pupil and friend, named Spaun, he 233 would not have been able to write down and work out his ideas.
When his voice changed, the straitened family circumstances obliged him to become an assistant in his father’s school. He was able to bear poverty with patience, but not the drudgery of teaching, and he is said often to have lost his temper with the boys. Altogether, he taught for three years, 1815 to 1818; and while his work was most distasteful to him, his genius was so spontaneous that during his three years he composed many songs, among them his immortal “Erlking.” Finally a university student, Franz von Schober, who, having heard some of Schubert’s songs, had become an enthusiastic admirer of the composer, offered him one of his rooms as a lodging, whereupon Schubert, straightway accepting the offer, gave up teaching and from that time to the end of his brief life led a Bohemian existence with a clique of friends of varied accomplishments. In this circle he was known as “Canevas,” because whenever some new person joined it, his first question regarding the newcomer was “Kann er wass?” (Can he do anything?)
Outside a small circle of acquaintances, Schubert remained practically unknown until he made the acquaintance of Johann Michael Vogl, an opera singer, to whom his devoted friend, Von Schober, introduced him. Vogl was somewhat reserved in his opinion of the songs which he tried over with Schubert at their first meeting, but they made an impression. He followed up the acquaintance and became the first professional interpreter of Schubert’s lyrics. “The manner in which Vogl sings and I accompany,” wrote Schubert 234 to his brother Ferdinand, “so that we appear like one on such occasions, is something new and unheard of to our listeners.” Publishers, however, held aloof. Five years after the “Erlking” was composed, several of them refused to print it, although Schubert offered to forego royalties on it. Finally, some of Schubert’s friends had the song published at their own expense, and its success led to the issuing of eleven other songs, Schubert unwisely accepting eight hundred florins in lieu of royalty on these and the “Erlking.” Yet from one of these songs alone, “The Wanderer,” the publishers received twenty-seven thousand florins between the years 1822 and 1861.
Schubert being the greatest of song composers, and the “Erlking” his greatest song, the circumstances under which it was written are of especial interest. His friend Spaun, the same who provided him with music paper at the Convict, relates that one afternoon toward the close of the year 1815 he went with the poet Mayrhofer to visit Schubert. They found the composer all aglow, reading the “Erlking” aloud to himself. He walked up and down the room several times, book in hand, then suddenly sat down and as fast as his pen could travel put the music on paper. Having no piano, the three men hurried over to the Convict, where the “Erlking” was sung the same evening and received with enthusiasm. The old Court organist, Ruziczka, afterward played it over himself without the voice, and when some of those present objected to the dissonance 235 which occurs three times in the course of the composition and depicts the child’s terror of the Erlking, the old organist struck these chords and explained how perfectly they reflected the spirit of the poem and how felicitously they were worked out in their musical resolution.
Schubert’s song is almost Wagnerian in its descriptive and dramatic quality. The coaxing voice of the Erlking, the terror of the child, the efforts of the father to allay his boy’s fears, each has its characteristic expression, which yet is different from the narrative portions of the poem, while in the accompaniment the horse gallops along. Schubert was but eighteen years old when he set this ballad of Goethe’s to music; yet there is no more thrilling climax to be found in all song literature than those dissonances which I have mentioned and which with each repeat rise to a higher interval and become each time more shrill with terror. Whoever has heard Lilli Lehmann sing this song should be able to appreciate its real greatness, as Goethe, who had remained utterly indifferent to Schubert’s music, did when the “Erlking” was sung to him by Frau Schroeder-Devrient, to whom he exclaimed: “Thank you a thousand times for this great artistic achievement. When I heard this song before I did not like it at all, but sung in your way it becomes a true picture.”
More than six hundred songs by Schubert have been published, and when we remember that he wrote symphonies, sonatas, shorter pianoforte pieces, chamber 236 music and operas, the fertility of his brief life is astounding. The rapidity with which he composed, however, was not due to carelessness, but to the spontaneity of his genius and the fact that he loved to compose. “He composed as a bird sings in the spring, or as a well gushes from a mountain-side, simply because he could not help it,” says Mr. Finck, in his “Songs and Song Writers.” We have it on the authority of Schubert’s friend, Spaun, that when he went to bed he kept his spectacles on, so that when he woke up he could go right to the table and compose without wasting time looking for his glasses. In the two years 1815-16 he wrote no less than two hundred and fifty-four songs. Six of the songs in the “Winterreise” cycle were composed in one morning, and he had eight songs to his credit in a single day. The charming “Hark, Hark, the Lark” was written at a tavern where he chanced to see the poem in a book the leaves of which he was slowly turning over. “If I only had some music paper!” he exclaimed, whereupon one of his friends promptly ruled lines on the back of his Speise Karte, and Schubert, with the varied noises of the tavern going on about him, jotted down the song then and there.
Of course, it is impossible to touch on all the aspects of such a genius as his. In his songs clear and beautiful melody is, as a rule, combined with a descriptive accompaniment. Sometimes the description is given by means of only a few chords, like the preluding ones in “Am Meer.” At other times the description runs through the entire accompaniment, like the waves that flash and dance around the melody of “Auf dem Wasser zu Singen”; the galloping horse in the “Erlking”; 237 the veiled mist that seems to hang over the scenes in the wonderfully dramatic poem, “Die Stadt”; the flutter of the bird in “Hark, Hark, the Lark”; the brook that flows like a leitmotif through the “Maid of the Mill” cycle—these are a few of the examples that with Schubert could be cited by the dozen.
And the range of his work—here again space forbids the multiplication of examples. It extends from the naive “Haiden Röslein” to the tragic “Doppelgänger”; from the whispering foliage of the “Linden Tree” to the pathetic drone of the “Hurdy-Gurdy Man”; from the “Serenade” to “Todt und das Mädchen.” Schubert is the greatest genius among song composers. Compare the growing reputation of him who of all musicians was perhaps the most neglected during his life, with that of Mendelssohn, the most fêted of composers, but now rapidly dropping to the position of a minor tone poet, and who, although he wrote eighty-three songs, is as a song writer remembered outside of Germany by barely more than one Lied, the familiar “On the Wings of Song.”
In Schumann’s songs the piano part is more closely knit and interwoven with the vocal melody than with Schubert’s, and, as a result, the voice does not stand out so clearly. While his songs are not what they have been called by a German critic, “pianoforte pieces with accidental vocal accompaniments,” at times, in his vocal compositions, the pianoforte gains too great an ascendancy over the voice. If asked to draw a distinction between 238 Schubert and Schumann, I should say that there is a twofold interest in most of Schubert’s songs. He reproduces the feeling of the poem in his vocal melody; then, if the poem contains a descriptive suggestion, he produces that phase of it in his accompaniment, without, however, allowing the pianoforte part to encroach on the vocal melody. The melody gives the feeling, the accompaniment the description or mood picture. Schumann, on the other hand, rarely is descriptive. Nearly always he produces a mood picture in tone, but requires both voice and pianoforte to effect his purpose. As this, however, is Schumann’s method of composition, and as it is better that each composer should leave the seal of his individuality on everything he does, and not be an imitator, it is not cause for regret that while Schubert is Schubert, Schumann is Schumann.
The proportion of fine songs among the two hundred and forty-five composed by Schumann is, however, much smaller than in the heritage left us by Schubert; and while Schubert, from the time he wrote his first great vocal compositions, added many equally great ones every year, Schumann’s songs, on the whole, show a decided falling off after he had wooed and won Clara Wieck. It was during his courtship that he produced his best songs. Separated from her by the command of her stern father, he made love to her in music.
“I am now writing nothing but songs, great and small,” we find him saying in a letter to a friend in the summer of 1840. “Hardly can I tell you how delicious it is to write for voice instead of for instruments, and what a turmoil and tumult I feel within 239 me when I sit down to it.” While he was composing his song cycle, “Die Myrthen,” he wrote to Clara: “Since yesterday morning I have written twenty-seven pages of music, all new, concerning which the best I can tell you is that I laughed and wept for joy while composing them.” A month later he writes her, in sending her his first printed songs: “When I composed them my soul was within yours; without such a love, indeed, no one could write such music—and this I intend as a special compliment.” ... “I could sing myself to death, like a nightingale,” he writes to her again, on May 15th. Never was there such a musical wooing, and those who wish to participate in it can do so by singing or listening to such songs as “Dedication,” “The Almond Tree,” “The Lotos Flower,” “In the Forest” (Waldesgespräch), “Spring Night,” “He, the Noblest of the Noble,” “Thou Ring upon My Finger,” “’Twas in the Lovely Month of May,” “Where’er My Tears Are Falling,” “I’ll Not Complain,” and “Nightly in My Dreaming.” Among his songs not inspired by love should be mentioned the “Two Grenadiers,” which Plançon sings so inimitably.
Robert Franz (1815-1892) had his life embittered by neglect and physical ills. His family name originally was Knauth, his father having been Christoph Knauth. But in order to distinguish him from his brother, who was engaged in the same business, he was addressed as Christoph Franz, a name which he subsequently had legalized. Yet critics insisted that 240 Robert Franz was a pseudonym which the composer had adopted from vanity in order to indicate that he was as great as Robert Schumann and Franz Schubert put together.
Franz was strongly influenced by Bach and Händel, many of whose scores he supplied with what are known as “additional accompaniments,” filling out gaps which these composers left in their scores according to the custom of their day. His songs show this influence in their polyphony, and the German critic, Ambros, said that Franz’s song, “Der Schwere Abend,” looked as if Bach had sat down and composed a Franz song out of thanks for all that Franz was to do for him through his additional accompaniments. Besides their polyphony derived from Bach, Franz’s songs are interesting for their modulations, which are employed not simply for the sake of showing cleverness or originality, but for their appropriateness in expressing the mood of the poem. He also was extremely careful in regard to the choice of key and decidedly objected to transpositions of his songs, in order to make them singable for higher or lower voices than could use the original key. “When I am dead,” he wrote to his publisher, “I cannot prevent these transpositions, but so long as I am alive I shall fight them.”
Franz did not endeavor to reproduce visible things in his pianoforte parts, and the voice in his songs often is declamatory, merging into melody only in the more deeply emotional passages. He is a reflective rather than a dramatic composer, disliked opera, and himself said that any one who had penetrated deeply into his songs well knew that the dramatic element was not to 241 be found in them, nor was it intended to be. Composers, however, have many theories regarding their music which, in practice, come to naught; and whether Franz thought his songs dramatic or not, the fact remains that when Lilli Lehmann sang his “Im Herbst” it was as thrillingly dramatic as anything could be.
Franz was extremely self-critical. He kept his productions in his desk for years, working over them again and again, until in many cases the song in its final shape bore slight resemblance to what it had been at first. He declared his Opus 1 to be no worse than his latest work, because it had been composed with equal care and had had the benefit of his ripening judgment and experience. He admired Wagner and dedicated one of his song volumes to him; but when some critics fancied that they discovered Wagnerian traits in several songs in his last collection, Op. 51-52, he was able to prove that these very songs were among the first he had written, and were published so late in his career simply because he had kept them back for revision.
His physical disabilities were pitiable. When he was about thirty-three years old and shortly after his marriage, he was standing in the Halle railway station when a locomotive close by sounded its shrill whistle. The effect upon him was like the piercing of his ears. For several days afterward he heard nothing but confused buzzing, and from that time on his hearing became worse and worse, until finally his ears pained 242 him even when he composed. In 1876 he became totally deaf, and a few years later his right arm was paralyzed from shoulder to thumb. He was a poor man, and right at the worst time in his life, when he was totally deaf, a small pension which he had received from the Bach Society was taken away from him. But his admirers, many of them Americans, came to his rescue and raised a fund for his support.
Among his finest songs are “Widmung,” “Leise Zieht durch mein Gemuht,” “Bitte,” “Die Lotos Blume,” “Es Ragt der Alte Eborus,” “Meerfahrt,” “Das is ein Brausen und Heulen,” “Ich Hab’ in Deinem Auge,” “Ich Will meine seele Taugen,” and “Es Hat’ Die Rose sich Beklagt.”
Brahms was a profound thinker in music—not a philosopher, but a reflective poet, whose musicianship, however, was so great that he cared too little for the practical side of his art as compared with the theoretical. If what he wrote looked all right on paper he was indifferent as to whether it sounded right or not; consequently, if he started out with a certain rhythmical figuration or a certain scheme of harmonic progression, he carried it through rigidly to its logical conclusion, utterly oblivious to, or at least utterly regardless of, any tonal blemishes that might result, although by slightly altering his scheme here and there he might have obviated these. This is the reason why some people find passages in his music which to them sound repellant. But those who have not allowed this 243 aspect of Brahms’s work to prejudice them and have familiarized themselves with his music, well know that he is one of the loftiest souls that ever put pen to staff. He never is drastic, never sensational, never superficial; and the climaxes of his songs, as in his other music, are produced not by great outbursts of sound, but by sudden modulations or change of rhythm, which give a wonderful “lift” to voice and accompaniment.
Among his best known songs (and each of these is a masterpiece) are: “Wie Bist du meine Königin,” “Ruhe, Süss Liebschen,” “Von ewiger Liebe,” “Wiegenlied,” “Minnelied,” “Feldeinsamkeit,” “Wie Melodien zeiht es mir,” “Immer leiser wird mein Schlummer,” “Meine Lieder,” “Wir wandelten, wir Swei, zusammen.”
One of the most impassioned modern lyrical outbursts is Jensen’s setting of Heine’s “Lehn deine Wang’ an Meine Wang’,” and his “Frühlingsnacht” also is a very beautiful song, although the popularity of Schumann’s setting of the same poem has cast it unduly into the shade. Rubinstein will be found considerably less prolix in his songs than in his music in other branches, and those which he wrote to the Persian poems of Von Bodenstedt (“Mirza Schaffy”) are fascinating in their Oriental coloring. The “Asra,” and “Yellow Rolls at my Feet,” (Gold Rollt mir zu Füssen) are among the best known of these; while “Es blink’t der Thau,” “Du Bist wie eine Blume,” and “Der Traum” are among Rubinstein’s songs which are or should be in the repertoire of every singer. Tschaikowsky and 244 Dvorak are not noteworthy as song writers, but the former’s setting of “Nur wer die Sehnsucht kennt” and the latter’s “Gypsy Songs” are highly successful.
One of the most fascinating among modern song writers is the Norwegian, Grieg. He has been unusually fortunate in having a fine singer as a wife. Mr. Finck relates that Ibsen, after hearing her sing his poems as set to music by Grieg, whispered as he shook the hands of this musical couple, the one word, “Understood.”
Grieg’s originality has not been thoroughly appreciated, because much of the beauty of his music has been attributed to what is supposed to be its Norwegian origin. Grieg is national, it is true, but not in a cramped or narrow sense. His music is the product of his individual genius, and his genius has made him so popular that what is his has come to be wrongly considered Norwegian, whereas it is Norway interpreted through the genius of Grieg. His music is not a dialect, but music of universal significance, fortunately tinged with his individuality. “I Love You,” Ibsen’s “The Swan,” “By the Riverside,” “Springtide,” “Wounded Heart,” “The Mother Sings” (a mother mourning her dead child), “At the Bier of a Young Woman,” and “From Monte Pincio,” are among his finest Lieder.
Chopin is much too little known as a song writer. His genius as a composer for the pianoforte has overshadowed his songs, and the public is familiar with 245 little else save “The Maiden’s Wish,” which is one of Madame Sembrich’s favorite encores and to which she plays her own accompaniment so delightfully. But there is plenty of national color in the “Lithuanina” song, plenty of pathos in “Poland’s Dirge,” and plenty of lyrical passion in “My Delights.” Finck says that in all music, lyric or dramatic, the thrill of a kiss has never been expressed so ecstatically as in the twelve bars of this song marked “crescendo sempre piu accellerando.” Certainly sempre (always) and accellerando (faster) are capital words when applied to a kiss!
Richard Wagner, when twenty-six years old, in Paris, tried to relieve his poverty by composing a few songs, among which is a very charming setting of Ronsard’s “Dors mon enfant.” He also set Heine’s “The Two Grenadiers” to music, utilizing the “Marsellaise” in the accompaniment; but, as a whole, the Wagner version of this poem is not as effective as Schumann’s. In 1862 he composed music to five poems written by Mathilde Wesendonck, among which is the famous “Träume,” which utilizes the theme of the love duet that later on appeared in “Tristan.”
Liszt’s songs are a complete musical exposition of the poems to which they are composed. Thus while, by way of comparison, Rubinstein’s setting of “Du Bist wie eine Blume” gives through its simplicity a rare impression of purity, Liszt in his setting of the same poem adds to that purity the sense of sacredness 246 with which the contemplation of a pure woman fills a man’s heart and causes him to worship her. His “Lorelei” is a beautiful lyric scene. We view the flowing river, seem to hear the seductive voice of the temptress, and watch the treacherous and stormy current that hurries the ensnared boatman to his doom. And what song has more of that valuable quality we call “atmosphere” than Liszt’s version of “Kennst du das Land?” As will be the case with Liszt in other branches of music, he will be recognized some day as one of the greatest of song composers.
Richard Strauss’s songs, from having been regarded as so bristling with difficulties as to be impossible, have become favorites in the song repertoire. When it is a genius who creates difficulties these are sure to be overcome by ambitious players and singers, and music advances technically by just so much. Strauss’s “Ständchen,” with its deliciously delicate accompaniment, so difficult to play with the requisite grace, was the first of Strauss’s songs to become popular here, and it was the art of our great singer, Madame Nordica, that made it so. Now we hear “Die Nacht,” “Traum durch die Dämmerung,” “Heimliche Aufforderung,” “Allerseelem,” “Breit über mein Haupt Dein schwarzes Haar,” and many of his other songs with growing frequency. There are few song composers with whom the pianoforte accompaniment is so entirely distinct from the melody (or so difficult to play), as often is the case with Strauss. As with Schubert, every descriptive suggestion contained in the poem is carried into the accompaniment, but the vocal part is more declamatory and more varied. Even now it seems certain 247 that Strauss’s songs are permanent acquisitions to the repertoire. It still is too soon, however, to affirm the same thing of the unfortunate Hugo Wolf’s songs, although I find myself strongly attracted by “Er ists,” “Frühling übers Jahr,” “Fussteise,” “Der König bei der Kröning,” “Gesang Weyla’s,” “Elfenlied” and “Der Tambour.”
Saint-Saëns, Delibes, Godard, Massenet, Chaminade and the late Augusta Holmès are among French song writers whose work is clever, but who seem to me more concerned with manner than with matter. Gounod’s rank as a song composer is much below his reputation as the composer of “Faust” and “Romeo et Juliette.” Oddly enough, however, the idea that came to him of placing a melody above a prelude from Bach’s “Well Tempered Clavichord” did more than anything he had accomplished up to that time to make him famous. Originally he scored it for violin with a small female chorus off stage. Then he replaced the chorus with a harmonium. Finally he seems to have been struck with the fact that the melody fitted the words of the “Ave Maria,” substituted a single voice for the violin, which, however, still can supplement the vocal melody with an obbligato, did away with the harmonium, and the result was the Gounod-Bach “Ave Maria.” The Bach prelude, of course, sinks to the level of a mere accompaniment, for it has to be taken much slower than Bach intended.
American composers who have produced noteworthy songs are Edward A. MacDowell, G. W. Chadwick, Arthur Foote, Clayton Johns, Homer N. Bartlett, Margaret Ruthven Lang, and the late Ethelbert Nevin.
Oratorio had its origin in an attempt by a sixteenth century Italian monk to make divine service more interesting—to draw to church people who might not be attracted by the opportunity to hear a sermon, but could be persuaded to come if music a trifle more entertaining to the common mind than the unaccompanied (à capella) ecclesiastical compositions of Palestrina and other masters of the polyphonic school, were thrown in with them. Music still is regarded as a prime drawing card in churches, and when nowadays a fine basso rises after the sermon and sings “It is enough,” we can paraphrase it as meaning, “It is enough so far as the sermon is concerned, and now to make up for it you are going to have a chance to listen to some music.” When the announcement is made that such-and-such a well-known singer has been engaged for a church it means that the Reverend —— is doing just what the monk, Neri, did, about four hundred years ago—fishing for a congregation with music.
As it exists to-day, however, oratorio has little to do with religious worship, and usually is practiced amid secular surroundings, with a female chorus in variegated evening attire and a male chorus in claw-hammers, 249 the singers hanging more or less anxiously on the baton of the conductor. This living picture which, so far as this country is concerned, I have, I believe, drawn in correct perspective, is so much out of keeping with the religious subjects which usually underlie the texts of oratorios that it may account for the comparative lack of interest shown by Americans for this form of musical entertainment.
It also is true, however, that in this country oratorio never has had more than half a chance. This is due to the fact that the American man is not as sensitive to music nor musically as well educated as the American woman, the result being that the male contingent of the average American oratorio chorus is less competent than the women singers. Tenors are “rare birds” in any land, and rarer here apparently than elsewhere, so that in this division of our mixed choruses there is a lack of brilliancy in tone and of precision in attack. These several circumstances combine to prevent that well-balanced ensemble necessary to a satisfactory performance.
Even at its best, however, oratorio is an incongruous art-form, neither an opera nor a church service, but rather an attempt to design something that shall not shock people who consider it “wicked” to go to the opera, nor afflict with ennui those who would consider an invitation to listen to sacred music during the week an imposition. It seems peculiarly adapted to the idea of entertainment which prevails in England, where apparently 250 any diversion in order to be considered legal must be more or less of a bore. Fortunately, however, there be many men of many minds; so that while, for example, one could not well draw a gloomier picture of the hereafter for a critic like Mr. Henry T. Finck than as a place where he would be obliged to hear, let me suggest, semi-weekly performances of “The Messiah,” the annual Christmas auditions of that work have been the financial salvation of oratorio in America.
San Filippo Neri, who was born in Florence in 1515, and was the founder of the Congregation of the Fathers of the Oratory, was the originator of oratorio. In order to attract people to church, he instituted before and after the sermon dramatic and musical renderings of scenes from Scripture. It is not unlikely that the suggestion for the underlying dramatic text came from the old Mystery and Miracle plays, which, to say the least, were naive. In one of these, representing Noah and his family about to embark in the ark, Mrs. Noah declares that she prefers to stay behind with her worldly friends, and when at last her son Shem seizes and forces her into the ark, she retaliates by giving the worthy Noah a box on the ear. In another play of this kind which represented the Creation, a horse, pigs with rings in their noses, and a mastiff with a brass collar were brought up to Adam to name. But in one performance the mastiff spied a cow’s rib-bone which had been provided for the formation of Eve, grabbed it and carried it off, in spite of the efforts of the Angel to whistle him back, and Eve had to be created without the aid of the rib.
It is not likely that any such contretemps accompanied the performances of San Filippo’s primitive oratorios, and yet it is probable that they were not only sung, but also acted with some kind of scenic setting and costumes; for Emelio del Cavaliere, a Roman composer, whose oratorio, “La Rappresentazione dell’ Anima e del Corpo” (The Soul and the Body), was performed in February, 1600, in the Church of Santa Maria della Vallicella, but who died before the production, left minute directions regarding the scenery and action. In this oratorio, as in some of the other early ones, there was a ballet, which, according to its composer’s directions, was to enliven certain scenes “with capers” and to execute others “sedately and reverentially.”
It was the composer, Giovanni Carissimi, who first introduced the narrator in oratorio, this function being to continue the action with explanatory recitatives between the numbers. In his oratorio, “Jephtha,” there is a solo for Jephtha’s daughter, “Plorate colles, dolate montes” (Weep, ye hills; mourn, ye mountains), which has an echo for two sopranos at the end of each phrase of the melody. Alessandro Scarlatti, who developed the aria in opera, also gave more definite form to the solos in oratorio and a more dramatic accompaniment to the recitatives which related to action, leaving the narrative recitals unaccompanied.
Up to this point, in fact, oratorio and opera may be said to have developed hand in hand, but now, through the influence of German composers and especially 252 through their Passion Music, it assumed a more distinct form. “Die Auferstehung Christi” (The Resurrection), by Heinrich Schütz, produced in Dresden in 1623, and his “Sieben Worte Christi” (The Seven Words of Christ), subjects which have been reverentially set by many German composers, are regarded as pioneer works of their kind. In the development of Passion Music much use was made of church chorales, the grand sacred melodies of the German people, which have had incalculable influence in forming the stability of character that is a distinguishing mark of the race. They are conspicuous in the “Tod Jesu,” a famous work by Karl Heinrich Graun, a contemporary of Bach, whose own “Passion According to St. Matthew” is regarded by advanced lovers of music as the greatest of all works in oratorio or quasi-oratorio style, although the English still cling to Händel.
“However close the imitation or complicated the involutions of the several voices,” says Rockstro, in writing of Händel, “we never meet with an inharmonious collision. He (Händel) seems always to have aimed at making his parts run on velvet; whereas Bach, writing on a totally different principle, evidently delighted in bringing harmony out of discord and made a point of introducing hard passing notes in order to avail himself of the pleasant effect of their ultimate resolution.” The “inharmonious collisions,” the “hard passing notes” are among the very things which make Bach so modern; since modern ears do not set much store by music that “runs on velvet.”
It is interesting to note that this “Passion According to St. Matthew” is in two parts, and that, as was the case with the oratorios of San Filippo Neri, the sermon came between. The text was prepared by Christian Friedrichs Henrici, writing under the pseudonym of Picander, and is partly dramatic, partly epic in form, with an Evangelist to relate the various events in the story, but with the Lord, St. Peter and others using their own words according to the sacred text. A double chorus is employed, sometimes representing the Disciples, sometimes the infuriated populace; but always treated in dramatic fashion.
At the time the “Passion” was written, the arias and certain of the choruses which contained meditations on the events narrated were called “Soliloquiæ”; and in singing the beautiful chorales, the congregation was expected to join. The recitatives assigned to the Saviour are accompanied by string orchestra only, and are, as Rockstro says, full of gentle dignity, while the choruses are marked by an amount of dramatic power which is remarkable when one considers that Bach never paid any attention to the most dramatic of all musical forms, the opera. The “Passion According to St. Matthew,” by Johann Sebastian Bach, was his greatest work and one of the greatest works of all times. It was produced for the first time at the afternoon service in the Church of St. Thomas, Leipzig, where Bach was Cantor, on Good Friday, 1729, and it was one hundred years before it was heard again, when it was revived by Mendelssohn, 254 in Berlin, on March 12th, 1829—an epoch-making performance.
Strictly speaking, Passion Music is not an oratorio, but a church service, and Bach actually designed his to serve as a counter-attraction to the Mass as performed in the Roman Church. What we understand under oratorio derived its vitality from George Frederick Händel, who was born at Halle in Lower Saxony, 1685, but whose most important work was accomplished in London, where he died in 1759 and was buried in Westminster Abbey. Before Händel wrote his two greatest oratorios, “Israel in Egypt” and “The Messiah,” he had, through the composition of numerous operas, mastered the principles of dramatic writing, and in his oratorios he aims, whenever the text makes it permissible, at dramatic expression. It is only necessary to recall the “Plague Choruses” in “Israel in Egypt,” especially the “Hail-Stone Chorus” and the chorus of rejoicing (“The horse and his rider hath He thrown into the sea”); or by way of contrast, the tenderly expressive melody of “As for His people, He led them forth like sheep,” to realize what an adept Händel was in dramatic expression.
Händel may in fact be called the founder of variety and freedom in writing for chorus. While I must confess that I do not share Rockstro’s intense enthusiasm for Händel and for “The Messiah,” nevertheless he expresses so well the general feeling in England and the feeling on the part of those in this country who crowd 255 the annual Christmas performances of “The Messiah,” toward that work, that the best means of conveying an idea of what oratorio signifies to those who like it, is to quote him. Referring to Händel’s free and varied treatment of chorus writing, he says:
“He bids us ‘Behold the Lamb of God’ and we feel that he has helped us to do so. He tells us that ‘With His stripes we are healed,’ and we are sensible not of the healing only, but of the cruel price at which it was purchased. And we yield him equal obedience when he calls upon us to join in his hymns of praise. Who hearing the noble subject of ‘I will sing unto the Lord,’ led off by the tenors and altos, does not long to reinforce their voices with his own? Who does not feel a choking in his throat before the first bar of the ‘Hallelujah Chorus’ is completed, though he may be listening to it for the hundredth time? Hard indeed must his heart be who can refuse to hear when Händel preaches through the voice of his chorus.” The “Messiah” also contains two of Händel’s most famous solos, “He shall feed His flock” and “I know that my Redeemer liveth.”
This work was performed for the first time on April 13, 1742, at the Music Hall, Dublin, when Händel was on a visit to the Duke of Devonshire, then Lord Lieutenant of Ireland. The rehearsals, at which many people were present by invitation, had aroused so much enthusiasm, that those who were interested in the charitable object for which it was given, requested “as a favor that the ladies who honor this performance with their presence would be pleased to come without hoops, as it would greatly increase the charity by making room 256 for more company.” Gentlemen also were requested to come without swords, for the same reason. It is said that at the first London performance, when the “Hallelujah Chorus” rang out, the King rose in his place and, followed by the entire audience, stood during the singing of the chorus, and that thus the custom, which still is observed, originated.
Following Händel, Haydn in 1798, when nearly seventy years old, wrote “The Creation,” founded on passages from Milton’s “Paradise Lost,” and after it “The Seasons,” for which Thomson’s familiar poem supplied the text. In both of these there is much purely descriptive music, especially in the earlier oratorio, when the creation of various animals is related. In “The Creation,” too, after the passages for muted strings, is the famous outburst of orchestra and chorus, “And there was light.” Haydn was a far greater master of orchestration than Händel. He also was one of the early composers of the homophonic school, and there is a freer, more spontaneous flow of melody in his oratorios. But they undoubtedly lack the grandeur of Händel’s.
Between Haydn and Mendelssohn, in the development of oratorio, nothing need be mentioned, excepting Beethoven’s “Mount of Olives” and Spohr’s “The Last Judgment” (Die Letzten Dinge). Mendelssohn, in his “St. Paul,” followed the example of the old passionists, and introduced chorales, but in his greater oratorio, “Elijah,” which is purely an Hebraic subject, he discarded these. The dramatic quality of “Elijah” 257 is so apparent that it has been said more than once to be capable of stage representation with scenery, costumes and action. This is especially true of the prophet himself, whose personality is so definitely developed that he stands before us almost like a character behind the footlights. This dramatic value is felt at the very beginning, when, after four solemn chords on the brass, the work, instead of opening with an overture, is ushered in by Elijah’s prophecy of the drought. Then comes the overture, which is descriptive of the effects of the prophecy.
Next to “The Messiah,” “Elijah” probably is the most popular of oratorios, and I think this is due to its dramatic value, and to the fact that its descriptive music, instead of being somewhat naive, not to say childish, as is the case with some passages in Haydn’s “Creation,” is extremely effective. It is necessary only to remind the reader of the descent of the fire and the destruction of the prophets of Baal; of the description of the gradual approach of the rain-storm, as Elijah, standing on Mount Carmel and watching for the coming of the rain, is informed of the little cloud, “out of the sea, like a man’s hand”—a little cloud which we seem to see in the music, and which grows in size and blackness until it bursts like a deluge over the scene. Then there are the famous bass solo, “It is enough”; the unaccompanied “Trio of Angels”; the Angel’s song, “Oh, rest in the Lord”; and the tenderly expressive chorus, “He, watching over Israel.” I once heard a performance of “Elijah” during which the Angel carried on such a lively flirtation with the Prophet that she almost missed the cue for her most 258 important solo; in fact would have missed it, had not the conductor sharply called her attention to the fact that it was time for her to begin.
I think that oratorio reached its successive climaxes with “The Messiah” and “Elijah.” Gounod’s “Redemption” and “Mors et Vita,” in spite of passages of undeniable beauty, seem to me, as a whole, rather spineless. Edward Elgar’s “Dream of Gerontius” and “The Apostles” have created much excitement in England and considerable interest here, but while it is too soon to hazard a definite opinion of this composer, he appears to be lacking in individuality—to derive from Wagner whatever is interesting in his scores, while what is original with him is unimportant.
There are certain sacred, semi-sacred and even secular works that are apt to figure on the programs of oratorio and allied societies. Mr. Frank Damrosch’s Society of Musical Art sings very beautifully some of the unaccompanied choruses of the early Italian polyphonic school, such as Palestrina’s “Papae Marcelli Mass,” “Stabat Mater” and “Requiem”; the “Miserere” of Allegri (sought to be retained exclusively by the choir of the Sistine Chapel, but which Mozart wrote out from memory after hearing it twice); and the “Stabat Mater” of Pergolesi. There are also the Bach cantatas, Mozart’s “Requiem,” with its tragic associations; Beethoven’s “Mass in D;” Schumann’s “Paradise and the Peri” and his music to Byron’s “Manfred” (with recitation); Liszt’s “Graner Mass,” “Legend of St. Elizabeth” and “Christus”; Rubinstein’s “Tower of Babel” and “Paradise Lost”; Brahms’s “German Requiem,” a noble but difficult work; Dvorak’s “Stabat 259 Mater”; Rossini’s “Moses in Egypt” and “Stabat Mater”; Berlioz’s “Requiem” and “Damnation de Faust,” the American production of which latter was one of the late Dr. Leopold Damrosch’s finest achievements; and Verdi’s “Manzoni Requiem.”