| CHOPIN | ||
| 1810 | 1849 | |
Whether regarded from the standpoint of musical form, of intrinsic beauty, or of dramatic intensity, this work may safely be pronounced Chopin’s masterpiece; and in the present writer’s opinion it ranks as the greatest composition in all piano literature. Chopin’s ability to handle the strict sonata form successfully has been sometimes called in question; but whatever may be said of his other two sonatas, this one will certainly bear comparison with the most perfect models of symmetry, finish, and architectural completeness, by the best known and most universally recognized classic masters. In the allegro movement, upon which the distinguishing character of the sonata form always depends, the first and second subjects are well contrasted and admirably balanced, the development is logical, ingenious, and forceful, and the statement of the dramatic content is clear, concise, and strong, without a single irrelevant phrase or superfluous measure.
The work is founded upon an ancient Polish poem of a semi-legendary, semi-allegorical significance, by a once prominent, now well-nigh forgotten Polish writer. It consists of four movements, corresponding to the four cantos of the poem, of which it is, in a sense, a musical translation, treating successively the principal moods and situations in the story. The fact that in the first two movements the incidents are treated symbolically, emotionally, in accordance with the composer’s usual subjective mode of expression, rather than with the descriptive or imitative devices of the modern school, does not in the least detract from the poetic impression or suggestive power of the music.
In the last two movements he has recourse, for obvious reasons, to the direct method of definite realism. The first movement pictures the life and feelings of the hero, a Polish knight of the middle ages, facing storm and conflict, danger and hardship, in camp and field, fighting for king and country, cheered now and then, in lonely hours of vigil at the camp-fire, by waking visions of his distant home and his waiting bride.
The opening measures of the brief introduction tell of stern courage and inflexible resolve. Then the first subject enters, stirring, impetuous, fiery, full of the ring of trumpets, the clash of steel, the fierce exultation of desperate combat. The tranquil second subject suggests memories of the happy days of youth in his quiet home—dreams of a future brightened by the light of promised love, but still enveloped in the softening haze of distance and uncertainty. The development, with its complex, conflicting rhythms, its resistless, tempestuous sweep, thrills with the excitement of sudden onset, the rush of charging squadrons, the battle cry of struggling hosts. The closing chords express a somber triumph, the proud but sorrow-shadowed elation of a hard-won victory, purchased by the blood of many a patriot comrade.
The second movement, the scherzo, gives us the triumphant return of our hero crowned with laurel, accompanied by the jubilant strains of martial music, and the glad acclamations of the crowd. Yet, in the midst of his pride and well-earned glory, he finds time to dream again; this time more tenderly, sweetly, hopefully; to dream of his home-coming, and the fond greeting that awaits him in his own native village, where, through the difficulties and dangers of the campaign, his promised bride has been watching, and hoping, and praying for his return in faithful but anxious affection.
Here again we find two contrasting and strongly characteristic themes: The first, full of martial pride and exultation, the thoughts of victory, the glad tribute of applause to a nation’s hero; the second, tender, dreamy, pulsing with love’s anticipation. After this soulful trio melody, the first martial strains are repeated; but in the coda, a brief recurrence of the trio theme seems to emphasize the idea that with him the love thought dominates. This brings us to the third movement, the Funeral March, unquestionably the best funeral march ever written for the piano, the most intrinsically beautiful, the most touchingly, intensely sad, and the most complete, finely finished, and perfectly sustained, from first measure to last; the strongest, noblest, deepest expression of heart-crushing sorrow to be found in all piano literature.
As it is published and most often heard by itself, many who have played and listened to it have not even been aware that it affords the third chapter, so to speak, in a great tone epic, for as such this sonata must be considered.
As our hero approaches home, his heart swelling with anticipation, he is greeted by the distant, solemn tolling of cathedral bells, too evidently funeral bells, and soon is met by a slowly moving, somber procession of black-robed monks and mourners, bearing to her last resting-place in the church-yard the very bride to whose fond greeting he has so ardently looked forward. The music, soft and muffled at first, like the toll of far-off bells, gradually grows in power and intensity as the procession advances, assuming more and more the heavy, measured, inflexible rhythm of a funeral march, and swelling at last to an overwhelming climax of passionate pain.
Then the procession comes to a stand by the open grave. After a brief pause, the sweet, plaintive trio melody enters, pure and tender as a prayer, touched and thrilled to warmth and pathos by memories of happier days; after which the march movement is resumed, as the procession slowly and sadly returns to the village; the music, heavy, crushing, inexorable at first as the voice of fate, gradually recedes, diminishes, dies in the distance; and then follows the last movement, the presto, in some respects the most original and most impressive of all, the lament of the autumn night-wind over a forsaken grave, one of the few cases in which Chopin chose to be distinctly realistic, a literal and graphic imitation of wind effects; yet woven through it is an unmistakable suggestion of the mood of the hour and situation, the chill, the gloom, the wild despair, and a hint of that ever darker thought that will arise at such moments; after death, formless void, chaos.
There is an important vein of allegory underlying this whole story, like a deep substratum. The hero is a personification of the typical Polish patriot, struggling, in a forlorn hope, for his native land; the bride is Poland, and the mighty, overwhelming grief expressed is more than a personal sorrow: it is for the death and burial of a nation.
The authority for connecting the poem referred to with this sonata has been frequently questioned. I wish to state here that the poetic background to this great work is by no means hypothetically sketched in by my own imagination, however fully justified by the inherent character of the music. I have my data in full from Kullak and Liszt, the latter having been a personal friend of Chopin, as is well known, and having first presented the sonata in public to the musical world. We may safely assume, therefore, that he was correctly informed with regard to it, and that this interpretation is authentic and authoritative.
Probably no class of musical compositions ever presented to the world by any master has been so little understood, and consequently so much misrepresented as the ballades by Frederic Chopin. Even so standard an authority as Grove, in his “Dictionary of Music and Musicians,” writes as follows: “Ballade, a name adopted by Chopin for four pieces of pianoforte music, which have no peculiar form or character of their own, beyond being written in triple time, and to which the name seems to be no more applicable than that of sonnet to the pieces which others have written under that title”—a statement which proves that he had little information and less interest in regard to the subject.
The French word ballade, which Chopin used as title for these compositions, is derived from the Provencal ballata, a dancing song, which in turn comes from bellare, to dance; and our modern English words ballad, ball, ballet, all descend to us from the same source. In Italian, ballata meant a dancing piece, in distinction from sonata, a sounding piece, and cantata, a singing piece; and the ballade and ballata originally meant a piece of music to be sung while dancing or accompanied by dancing. The dance element, however, was early lost, and ballade in French, like ballad in English, came to mean a short and popular narrative poem adapted for singing or recitation. The ballad is a tale in verse. It differs from the epic in being briefer, less dignified in tone, and in concerning itself with actual practical events in the lives of individuals, instead of with historic and mythological subjects, which form the main province of the epic. The true ballad treats of some knightly exploit, some national episode, or some tale of love and adventure; and, as we shall see, Chopin, in adopting this title for instrumental compositions, adhered strictly to its definition and its literary characteristics and significance.
The Chopin ballades, four in number and ranking among his most strikingly original and effective contributions to pianoforte music, introduced an entirely new and distinctly unique musical form, well-nigh limitless in its possibilities of expression and application, its facile adaptability to every phase of emotional and descriptive writing. As was natural, they opened the way for a host of more or less worthy followers, bold, independent free lances, heedless of the forms and rules which bind in rank and file the more orderly conservative compositions; all bearing a strong racial resemblance, but variously designated by such special clan cognomens as ballade, novelette, legend, fable, fairy-tale, and the like. They now constitute a complete and markedly individual school of composition, of which Chopin in his ballades was the originator, and which is differentiated from all others by its distinctly declamatory, narrative style.
Chopin used the name ballade in the sense in which it is employed in modern literature—to designate a short, poetic narrative, a miniature epic, as distinguished from the lyric, didactic, and dramatic forms of poetry. He intended the ballade in music to be a counterpart of the ballad in poetry, and his inventive genius and unerring taste supplied and perfected a form precisely adapted to the end in view; a form which is strictly akin neither to the rondo, the sonata allegro, nor the free fantasia, though having certain points of resemblance to all three, still less to any of the dance forms. It reminds us more of some of the larger, more complex song forms, as, for instance, the musical settings by Schubert and others of the more pretentious German ballads by Goethe, Berger, and Uhland; but its development is broader and ampler, at once more extended and more logical, evincing a greater degree of constructive musicianship.
Chopin’s able biographer, Karasowski, says of the ballades: “Some regarded them as a variety of the rondo; others, with more accuracy, called them poetical stories. Indeed, there is about them a narrative tone (Märchenton) which is particularly well rendered by the six-four and six-eight time, and which makes them differ essentially from the existing forms.” In view of these facts, patent even to the superficial student of Chopin’s life and works, it seems very strange that we should so often hear and even see in print sneering insinuations to the effect that the composer christened these works ballades for lack of any better or more appropriate name; that the title has in reality nothing of significance or distinctness, which is justified either by the form or the content of the works.
As a matter of fact, all four of these ballades, according to Chopin’s own statement to Schumann during an interview at Leipsic, are founded directly upon Polish poems by the greatest poet of that nation, Adam Mickiewicz, the father of the romantic school in Poland, a contemporary and personal friend of the composer, a man whose fervent patriotism and unswerving fidelity to national themes, as well as the warmth, tenderness, and power of his creative genius, specially endeared him to the heart of his compatriot and brother artist, the tone-poet Chopin. It is difficult, not to say impossible, to estimate the stimulating influence of Mickiewicz and his works upon the creative activity of Chopin. That the music of the latter has attained world-wide celebrity, while the poems of the former are scarcely heard of outside of the small and cultured circle of his own countrymen and women, is due perhaps not so much to the superiority of the composer’s genius over that of the poet, as to the more universal intelligibility of his chosen idiom, his medium of expression, Polish being a language understood by few persons even of cosmopolitan tendencies, and one which is ill adapted for translation into non-Slavonic tongues. Certain it is that Chopin himself was quick to acknowledge his deep indebtedness to his gifted countryman, and rose to some of his loftiest flights of creative effort when translating into his own beloved language of tone ideas, experiences, incidents, and situations which had already been molded and vivified into artistic life and beauty by the hand of the poet, as in the case of the four ballades under consideration.
Though the origin of these ballades as musical transcripts of certain poems by Mickiewicz is indisputable, it has always been a mooted question, and one fraught with the keenest interest, at least to some of us, upon what particular poem any given ballade is founded; what special experience or incident, national, personal, or imaginary, found its first embodiment in the verses of the Slavic poet, to thrill with its power and beauty a limited circle of Polish readers, and was later reincarnated by Chopin, to find a far wider sphere of influence throughout the musical world; and what may be the peculiar subtle karma of romantic or dramatic association which this vital art germ has brought with it in its transmigration from a former existence; in a word, whence and what is the essential artistic essence of each ballade?
If we could trace it to its fountain head and familiarize ourselves with the sources of Chopin’s own inspiration, the task of rightly comprehending and interpreting any one of these compositions would be vastly facilitated. This no one has hitherto done successfully. Few among English-speaking musicians are able to read Mickiewicz in the original Polish; translations of his works are meager, imperfect, and very difficult to obtain. It is therefore not without a certain glow of satisfaction that the present writer is able, after diligent, unwearying inquiry and voluminous reading, covering a period of some fifteen years, confidently to affirm that he has at last traced back to their inspirational sources three at least of the four ballades; and he submits to the reader the results of his research, in the hope that some degree of the interest and pleasure he has himself derived from this line of investigation may be shared by others.
Should any question arise with regard to the accuracy of the statements and conclusions here advanced, I would say that the authority on which they are based is derived partly from definite historical data, existing, though widely diffused, in print; partly from direct traditions gathered from those who enjoyed the personal acquaintance of the composer; and partly from the carefully considered internal evidence of the works themselves, when critically compared with the poems to which they presumably had reference. I will say further that concerning the fourth ballade, in F minor, I am still as completely in the dark as any of my readers, and would gratefully welcome any information or suggestion which might tend to throw the smallest light upon the subject.
The first ballade, Op. 23, in G minor, was published in June, 1836, perhaps written a year or two earlier. It was suggested by and is founded upon one of the most able and forceful, as well as extended, patriotic historical poems by Mickiewicz, often called the Lithuanian Epic, entitled “Konrad Wallenrod,” and published in 1828. The following is a brief synopsis of its plot:
During the latter half of the fourteenth century, the Red Cross knights, a powerful religious, political, and military order, controlling large dominions on the Baltic, in territory now included in modern Russia, were at fierce feud with Lithuania, then an independent principality, later united with Poland by a marriage of its reigning prince, Jagiello, to the heiress of the Polish throne, thus founding the dynasty of the Jagiellos, the most illustrious of the royal houses of Poland. Long and desperate was the struggle. The Lithuanians, though vastly outnumbered and frequently outgeneraled and defeated, defended every inch of their beloved fatherland, now absorbed in western Russia, with heroic valor. At last their ruling prince and idolized leader fell in battle, their army was routed and cut to pieces, the scanty remnant taking refuge from their merciless pursuers among the fastnesses of the mountains; and the country was for a time practically subjugated and forced to submit to the most cruel and tyrannical oppression. The conquerors, being Crusaders and Christian knights, considered every species of atrocious spoliation and barbaric violence, when practised against the infidel Lithuanians, as justifiable, even laudable, and for some years the sufferings of the conquered knew no limit.
Among the prisoners taken and carried into virtual slavery by the Teutonic Order, was the little seven-year-old son of the fallen prince—a bright, precocious, winsome lad, who, after serving for some time as page in the household of the grand master of the Order, so completely won the heart of the old knight, that he adopted the boy and educated him with his own children, in all the courtly and martial accomplishments of the time. Years passed. Young Konrad grew in manly power and promise, and came to be ranked among the flower of Teutonic chivalry, first in the tourney, first in the field, and first in the ladies’ hall. But ever at his side, as strange friend and secret counselor, was seen the somber figure of the aged Wajdelote, or bard, a venerable minstrel, who had come none knew whence, and, despite his proud and gloomy bearing, had won high favor at the court by the magic of his voice and lute. Ostensibly a wandering singer, he was in reality a Lithuanian noble of high degree, a former friend of Konrad’s father, the fallen prince, and stood high in the confidence of the Lithuanian people and nobility as an able, devoted patriot. He came as an emissary from them to find and win back their lost prince Konrad to his own true flag and his native land. They were still hoping and fitfully struggling to throw off the tyranny of the Red Cross knights and wanted Konrad for their leader.
Under the cloak of his minstrelsy, the Wajdelote plied this secret mission. With all the fiery eloquence of his poet’s genius, he wrought upon the spirit of the young man, rousing it to duty and action, to honor, ambition, and patriotism, to sympathy with the wrongs of his oppressed fellow-countrymen, to vengeance for the death of his slaughtered father, stirring its latent heroism, steeling it to steadfast purpose. And as his influence strengthened day by day, the open brow of the young prince grew clouded, the smile vanished from his lips, and his sunny eyes grew deeper and darker with stern resolve.
At last the occasion came. In a foray against a band of insurgent Lithuanians, Konrad and his mentor detached themselves from their companions, and feigning to be taken captive, joined the forces of their own countrymen, where they were welcomed with the wildest enthusiasm. The two years that followed were the happiest of Konrad’s life. He threw himself heart and soul into the fierce joy of combat for his native land, devoting to her service all his personal courage and ability, and all the military skill so carefully acquired at the court and camp of the Red Cross knights; yet found time in the brief pauses of activity to woo and win as wife the fairest and truest of the Lithuanian maids. For a time the pulses of his life throbbed with a full but fluctuating tide, in the swift interchange of love’s delights and the thrill of gallant deeds. Caressing whispers alternated with the clash of swords, and the tender light of the honeymoon with the lurid gleam of the camp-fire; but his happiness was destined to be as transient as his valor was vain. A sterner duty, a more self-sacrificing devotion claimed him, and his veteran mentor was still at his side to mature the plan and urge its execution. His beloved Lithuania, enfeebled, broken, disorganized for so long, was wholly unable to cope in open field with her powerful, disciplined, and well-equipped antagonist. Some daring, subtle, and far-sighted stratagem alone might save her; and such a one had formed itself in the mind of the old minstrel. Again his eloquence rang in the ears of Konrad, like the voice of fate, “Behold, this is to do! Thou art the man!”
A heart-breaking farewell to his bride, and Konrad disappears utterly from the scene for ten years; then returns irrecognizably altered in appearance, under an assumed name, with wealth and fame and following, acquired in wars with the Saracens of Spain. The old grand master of the Red Cross knights is dead, and Konrad with little difficulty secures his own election to that office; and then begins the work of vengeance. By his absolute power as grand master, and his cunning diplomacy, he involved the order in bitter internal dissensions, depleted its treasury, wasted its resources, weakened its garrisons, and in every possible way sapped its strength, and finally led the flower of its army to complete annihilation in a winter campaign against the Lithuanians, into whose snares and ambuscades the Red Cross knights were mercilessly thrown by secret and preconcerted arrangement with his countrymen.
Thus by a course of treachery, which for daring, subtlety, and sustained purpose, both in conception and execution, has hardly a parallel in history, was accomplished what could not have been done by force. The power of the order was effectually broken and Lithuania set free. But Konrad’s life, as well as his happiness, paid the price of his patriotism. His beloved bride he never saw but once again, and that only for a moment of agonized parting through dungeon bars, just before his execution. And it is said he never smiled from the hour when the voice of the stern old minstrel first stirred his heart with the trumpet call of inexorable duty, till the hour when its proud pulses were stilled forever by the daggers of the secret tribunal. For his identity was discovered; he was, of course, tried and condemned as a traitor to the order, and died in disgrace by the hands of his former comrades.
Such is the story, sad but stirring, which Mickiewicz handles in his poem, and which Chopin reëmbodied in the G minor ballade, not following literally its successive steps, but emphasizing to his utmost its spirit, character, and moral. I think no one ever played this composition, or listened to it attentively, without feeling that its mood was not of our day and land. The time it represents is the middle ages, its scene is laid in stern and rugged Lithuania, among warlike knights and resentful rebels, and its whole spirit is therefore medieval and military.
It opens with a brief but scornfully defiant introduction, a call to arms, reminding one of the first lines of that familiar address to the Roman gladiators: “Friends, I come not here to talk; ye all do know the story of our thraldom.” Then the first and principal theme enters, symbolizing the forceful personality and stern mentor voice of the old minstrel, in its somber yet resolute phrases, solemn, inflexible, relentless as fate; telling of wrongs to be avenged, of a nation in bondage awaiting its deliverer; of the imperative call of duty and patriotism; and it constantly recurs all through the composition as its leading motive, whenever, as is vividly suggested by the other contrasting, conflicting themes and passages, continually introduced, the young prince wavers in his purpose, deterred by doubts and forebodings, lured by seductive temptations from pursuance of the desperate and soul-trying venture; whenever his mind wanders, as it must at times, to regretful memories of happier days, to the splendors of feast and tournament, to the pomp and pride of a martial career under the adopted flag of the order, to the blithe hunting-horns of his gay companions in youth, and tender dreams of the first great love of his manhood, all sacrificed to a grand but pitiless cause. He is ever recalled to the heroic mood, to the proud but rugged path of duty, by this mentor voice—gravely insistent, quietly determined, which will not be gainsaid; and which finally triumphs over all other considerations. The impetuous presto which closes the work portrays the fierce excitement and fiery rush of conflict, the utter self-abandon that hurls itself jubilantly into the arms of an ignominious death for a cherished ideal; and it ends with the savage but triumphant shout of a blood-bought victory.
This ballade, though comparatively an early work, is one of Chopin’s most darkly grand and dramatically powerful efforts; and the subjective personal moods of the exiled Polish patriot are voiced in its gloomy indignation, its desperate courage, and its fierce defiance.
There is an undercurrent of political meaning in “Konrad Wallenrod,” which fortunately escaped the notice of the Russians, who allowed its publication at St. Petersburg, but which appeals to every native and friend of Poland and has had no small share in making its popularity. Lithuania in the fourteenth century, broken and crushed, represents Poland in the nineteenth, and the tyrannical Teutonic Order stands for Russian oppression. The Wajdelote’s recitals of the wrongs of a dear but downtrodden land, the indignation and resentment under a foreign yoke, and the appeal to arms for freedom and revenge, are all spoken in the cause of Poland, and are so felt by the native reader. Konrad’s dire vengeance on the conqueror is a picture of the secret hope of all Polish patriots of the final overthrow and punishment of the tyrant and the reëstablishment of Polish independence.
The second ballade, in F major, is, of the three under consideration, the least of a favorite and the least played; probably because the radical extremes of mood which it presents, in abrupt, almost painful contrast, its apparent incoherency, and its sudden, startling, seemingly causeless changes of movement, render it difficult to comprehend and still more so to interpret, and difficult to follow with intelligent sympathy even when well rendered.
It opens with an exceedingly simple, undemonstrative theme, in the major key, almost too lucid and childlike in the naïve directness of its utterance, and singularly devoid of the glowing warmth and color which usually characterize the melodies by this writer. Cool, pure, and passionless, yet velvet-soft and delicately sweet, it floats upon the gentle pulsations of the simple accompaniment, like a snow-white, freshly fragrant water-lily, upon the crystal ripples of some glacier-fed mountain lake. Then suddenly, without warning or apparent reason, there bursts a furious tempest of rage, pain, and conflict, as if some vast Titanic embodiment in bronze of lurid war had been melted by a world-conflagration into a stream of fluid destruction, and poured out upon some fair scene of pastoral peace and happiness.
Almost as suddenly the storm of fury abates, or rather seems to recede into distance, sounding still for a time, but far and faint, as if its tumult reached us muffled by intervening walls. Then the first simple theme returns, sweetly calm in its pristine innocence, but soon merged into a series of plaintive minor cadences, as of pathetic pleading, of earnest, insistent supplication, interrupted by a brief and startlingly abrupt climax, in full massive chords, like the confident defiance hurled by the children of light at the hosts of darkness, certain of victory, in their reliance on the omnipotent arm of the God of battles. Once more the gentle first theme, followed by those imploring minor cadences and a repetition of the strong, courageous climax, and then the tempest breaks again with renewed intensity, the stress of desperate strife, the agony of terror, a seething, surging, rushing torrent of tone, as if men and demons were struggling for life in a swirling vortex, where the elemental forces of ocean and fire had met in a death-grapple.
The finale, in presto movement, an impetuous sweep of gloomy, exultant harmonies, suggests the mood of a brave but sorely tried spirit, dominating distress, rising superior to disaster, and proudly triumphant in spite of seeming defeat. At the close, in form of a coda, a few measures of the first melody return, saddened, but still gentle, ending plaintively in the minor, as if to say, “There have been great wrong and suffering and bitterness, but now is peace.”
Unquestionably this work presents two radically opposing elements in sharpest contrast; the one, reposeful purity; the other, infuriate passion. Of this much we are sure in simply listening to the music, without searching for historical origin or collateral information. It is interesting to note Rubinstein’s words with regard to it, and to see how near his art instinct led him to the discovery of its realistic significance, presumably without the aid of any definite knowledge as to its actual origin. He writes of it:
“Is it possible that the interpreter does not feel the necessity of representing to his hearers a field flower caught by a gust of wind, a caressing of the flower by the wind, the resistance of the flower, the stormy struggle of the wind, the entreaty of the flower, which at last lies broken there? This may be paraphrased: the field flower, a rustic maiden; the wind, a knight.”
Let us now examine the substance at least of the poetic material from which Chopin derived the mood and suggestion of this musical work. Again it is a ballad upon a Lithuanian theme, from the pen of Mickiewicz. But this time it is a legendary and not a historical subject which is treated. The Polish ballad is entitled “The Switez Lake,” and its substance is here given in a somewhat abbreviated and simplified form:
In the heart of Lithuania lies the beautiful, sequestered Lake Switez, its forest-mantled shores rarely visited by the foot of a stranger, but peopled by the peasant fancy with wild legends, shadowy traditions, and wraith-like memories of bygone days. Its blue waves murmur, at the foot of giant oaks, their strange tales of nymphs and sprites and water-kelpies, while through the long and still summer nights the sleepy branches make answer, in dreamy whisperings, of elves and gnomes and the uncanny doings of the little people of the forest. At least so the belated countryman affirms, overtaken by nightfall in this haunted region; and many are the tales of that awesome place and hour with which he terrifies his companions around the winter fire.
Once, many years ago, a gallant knight, of a most ancient and lofty lineage, with dauntless courage and a pious heart, whose castle crowned a neighboring height, resolved to sound and solve the mystery hid in its depths; and, taking with him a mammoth net of stoutest cords, a score of brawny henchmen to draw its meshes, and a venerable priest, to bless the catch and exorcise spirits, he proceeded to the shore. Prayer was said, the net was flung and sank, and mighty was the struggle that ensued. The tightened meshes strained to bursting, the taut ropes writhed and moaned like things alive, and dragged upon the arms that strained to draw them shoreward. The water raved and churned against the trembling banks, and black clouds, thunder-voiced, concealed the sky. The pious father’s constant prayers at last prevailed, and the net, with its strange burden, was safely landed. A pale but exquisitely lovely maid, with sweet, calm dignity in face and mien, a wreath of snow-white water-lilies on her shining hair, arose from out the tangles of the net, and in a voice like the low murmur of soft waves at twilight, thus she spoke:
“Rash knight! Thy lineage and piety combined protect thee, else hadst thou found a grave, with all thy following, in this adventure. But as thou art of godly mind and as we are akin by blood, through long descent, it is vouchsafed to me this once to break the mystic silence of the centuries, and to reveal to thee the secret of the lake, and mine, its lily queen.
“Know then, where now is forest dark and dense, a noble city reared its lofty battlements in former years. My sire, its ruling prince, held all but regal sway; and I, his child, a princess well beloved by all, counted my sunny years beside the Switez waves, as blithe as they. One morning, in that ne’er-to-be-forgotten spring, the trumpet voice of war through all our streets rang out the call to arms. Our royal master, Mindog, Lithuania’s king, had summoned all who wielded lance, to join him in the field, against a horde of merciless Russian barbarians, wasting all the land. And forth my father hastened, with him all his goodly company of knights and men at arms, and left us women, trembling and defenseless, in the town, trusting in God and in our innocence, till their return. That very night, by a circuitous route, evading Mindog’s might and my stout father’s sword, the Russians came, many as the sands upon the shore, ruthless as wolves in winter’s dearth. Our gates unguarded proved an easy prize, and in they poured, thronging our streets, demoniac in their lust for blood, exulting in the havoc of our homes. My maidens, wild with terror, crowded round, imploring succor; while I, as weak as they, saw our dishonor, worse than death, stalking upon us from the barbarian ranks.
“Then, in the frenzied panic, some one cried, ‘Our only hope is mutual destruction! Let us slay each other, cursed be she who falters!’ Like sudden inspiration, the mad purpose seized us all. And then was seen a sight to set red war atremble with affright, and blanch the lurid sun to sickly pallor. Fair hands, used only to the lute and broidery frame, unsheathed the dagger and made bare the breast. With clinging arms and lips together pressed, and sad eyes beaming love-light through their tears, each sought to find her sister’s heart and still its throbbing with her poniard’s point. Yet strength and courage faltered at the fatal stroke. In my great agony I raised my voice in prayer to Him who guides the storm-clouds’ wrath and curbs the tempest in its wild career. ‘Prevent,’ I cried, ‘this awful crime, and save us in this hour of direst need! Send us in mercy the swift death we needs must find, but let not maiden blood by maiden hands be shed!’
“The prayer was heard. An earthquake shook our city, until it rocked and reeled, crumbling and sinking like the snow-drifts in a springtime rain; while from the lake a mighty wall of water rose and rushed upon us, whelming alike pursuer and pursued, foeman and friend; hushing the din of war and shriek of victim in one common flood of cool, safe silence.
“So our city fell. My maidens, all transformed to water-lilies, blossom here in happy purity through long summers, and palsy-withered is the impious hand that strives to drag them from the friendly shelter of the waves; while I, their lily queen, within my crystal realm hold quiet sway, safe from the rude approach of man’s destructive passions. Now thou knowest the story, all save this. My father fell by Russian spears. My princely brother, on returning from the wars, found all his realm a waste, his capital destroyed, found home and sister vanished in the flood; and wandering in other lands, when years had passed, he wedded a stranger bride. From this their union, through a long, illustrious line of heroes, thou art sprung. Hence thou art safe upon these shores, despite this day’s temerity, so long as with a pure heart and noble mind, thou dost guard our name and honor in the world. Remember this. But seek no more to pierce the kindly veil of mysteries, not meant for mortal eyes; and never hope or strive to see again the lily queen of Switez.”
So speaking, with a smile of saddest sweetness, she turned slowly to the lake, and vanished in its whelming waters, which closed with laughing ripples round her.
No one familiar with Chopin’s ballade in F can fail to perceive the close and accurate application of the music to this romantic tale. It begins at and deals with the appearance and story of the lily queen, and her gentle, pure, and winning personality, and soft-voiced narration, figure symbolically in the opening melody. The sudden burst of the terrific war cloud, the maiden’s trust in and confident appeal to a higher power, the final whelming of the city in the friendly flood, follow successively in almost literal portrayal, the work closing in the mood of the maiden’s final farewell and warning to the adventurous knight who had disturbed her repose.
Viewed from the standpoint of the subject-matter, the startling, almost drastic, contrasts of the work seem not only intelligible, but legitimate and artistic.
This is the best known, the most played, and most popular of all the Chopin ballades. Its warm, lyric opening theme, its strikingly original rhythmic effects, its piquant, bewitching second subject, full of playful grace, as well as its magnificently developed climax, one of the finest in the piano literature, have all endeared it to the hearts of Chopin lovers and rendered it one of the most effective of concert solos.
Like the second ballade in F major, this composition is founded upon an ancient legend of Lake Switez, which seems to be a center about which cluster many of the Lithuanian myths. The one in question had been previously treated by Chopin’s friend and compatriot, Adam Mickiewicz, in the form of a ballad in Polish verse, and the substance of the story, briefly and simply told, is as follows:
A young and fearless knight, whose ancestral castle crowned a forest-covered eminence above the beautiful blue lake, was wont to wander on its lone and wooded shores at evening and to meet there clandestinely his radiant, beautiful, mysterious lady-love, whose name, home, and origin he was unable to discover, and which she persistently refused to disclose. She always appeared to him suddenly, without warning or visible approach, as if born anew each night of the filtering moonlight and shifting forest shadows, or as if drawing her ethereal substance at will from the floating mist wreaths above the lake. And she vanished as miraculously, when she chose to end their interview, dissolving from his very arms into mist once more. Perhaps the very mystery which enveloped her enhanced her charms. In any case, her power grew upon the knight till he became most desperately enamoured, pressing his suit with growing ardor. At first she coquetted with his passion, laughing at his fervor and meeting his fiery protestations with playful, incredulous mockery; but, finally touched by his fiery eloquence, she made him a conditional promise. If he would prove his fidelity, would remain true to her and her memory during her absence, no matter what temptations might arise, for the space of just one little passing moon, she would then return, reveal her identity, and become his bride, if he still desired it.
Of course, he swore eternal fidelity, and she, with a little half-sad, half-incredulous smile, vanished into the night mist. For several evenings he wandered, lonely and disconsolate, on the shores of the lake, longing and vainly seeking for his absent love and cursing the tardy hours of his probation. Then, when his patience was about exhausted, he was met there, on the selfsame spot, in the same mystic moonlight and with the same suddenness and mystery, by another maiden, even more beautiful than the first, and not inclined to be so distant. She jeered at him for his depression, for his useless and stupid fidelity to an absent prude, while with many lures and graces she beckoned him on to join her in the moonlit mazes of the dance.
At first, remembering his promise, he made some show of resistance, but very soon he yielded completely to her seductions, declaring his admiration for this new beauty in ardent terms, and followed her with extended arms, as she flitted on before him, keeping always just a little out of reach; followed, heedless where his steps might lead, reckless of consequences, conscious only of her tender glances and her beckoning hand, till, borne up and on by the spell of her enchantment, she had led him far out upon the treacherous surface of the lake, whose placid ripples seemed magically to sustain both pursuer and pursued. Then, when midway across the lake, she turned upon him, indignation blazing in her eyes. With a single impatient gesture she flung off her disguise and faced him, poised upon a curling wave, in all the airy grace and winsomeness of his first abandoned love. “False lover!” she cried, “where is now thy true love, thy sworn love? Forgotten, forsaken, ere the moon that witnessed thy plighted vows hath run one-quarter of its little circle. Behold thy doom! So perish the faithless!” Her white arms waved in mystic incantation, a sudden storm-wind swept the lake, the billows heaved and swirled beneath him, and a yawning chasm opened at his feet. With a last passionate appeal he sank to its chilly depths, while she, laughing in mocking derision, vanished in a shower of silver spray.
The peasants declare that to this day, on quiet moonlit nights, one may still see the white form of the Switez maid wandering, as if in search, among the shadows of the forest-mantled shores or gliding over the surface of the lake; while mingling with the whisper of the wind among the trees and the murmurs of the waves upon the strand, one still hears the echo of her words: “Forsaken, forsworn. So perish the faithless.”
Such is the story of the Switez maid, as told by Mickiewicz in inimitable Polish verse, and translated into the symbolic language of music by the Polish tone-poet, Chopin, in the A flat ballade.
The first warmly emotional theme of the composition, with its tender, persuasive cadences, its ever-growing passionateness, symbolizes the ardent and impulsive hero of the legend; while the bright, piquant second theme admirably portrays the arch, coquettish heroine, with her airy witcheries and playful grace. It cannot be mistaken, for it compels attention as it enters, after a moment of suspense, in radical contrast to what precedes, with the dainty rhythmic effect, so difficult to render for most players. Its introduction later in a different key, with different accompaniment and embellishments, represents the disguise with which the maid attempts to cloak her identity, but the same melody is distinctly traceable through all changes. The superb climax near the close of the work forcibly depicts at once the swift approach and resistless sweep of the tempest upon the lake and the intensity of the emotional situation at the moment of the final catastrophe. Here, too, is heard again the first melody, the hero theme, in a brief return, as he makes his last, vain appeal, and we even catch the vanishing ripple of the maiden’s mocking laughter.
The details of the story are not so literally worked out in the music, or followed with so much realistic fidelity, as would have been the case with Liszt or Wagner, or with some other more recent writers. Chopin’s art is always rather suggestive than descriptive, dealing directly with the moods evoked by a given situation or event, rather than with the physical aspect of the events themselves; with the awe and terror produced by the tempest, for instance, rather than with the audible or visible phenomena of the tempest. In this particular case he deals mainly with the general emotional and mental elements which underlie the legend and the characteristics of the two personages who figure in it, instead of treating its successive incidents in detail, or in definite chronological order. The work is therefore sketched on broad, fundamental lines, and leaves the setting and filling in in large measure to the imagination of the hearer. This must always be the ideal method in an art so ethereal and, in one sense, so vague as that of music. Still, the connection between the music of this ballade and the actual scenes and development of the legend is distinct enough to be easily traced by those familiar with the story, and players or listeners will find, as always, that the purely musical interest of this and all the Chopin ballades is materially deepened and increased by the background of relevant facts—by an acquaintance with the material on which they are based and which gave to the composer the impulse for their creation.
Interesting from a historic as well as a musical standpoint is the origin of the polonaise. In the year 1573, when the Polish throne became vacant on the extinction of the royal dynasty of Jagiello, a national assembly of electors was convened at the then capital, Cracow, to decide upon a new sovereign. The candidates for the throne were all of royal blood—Ernest of Austria, Henry of Anjou of the house of Valois, brother to the ruling king of France, a Swedish prince, and Ivan the Terrible of Russia. But the real struggle lay between the Austrian and French princes. The choice fell at last on Henry of Anjou, later himself king of France as Henry III.
In the following autumn he ascended the Polish throne, and among the many gorgeous ceremonials attending his coronation, was one quite natural and proper under the circumstances—a formal presentation to the new monarch, of the leading dignitaries and personages of his realm. It took place in the vast and magnificent throne hall of the royal castle at Cracow. The nobles and officials, each with his lady on his arm, defiled before the throne where the monarch was seated, in a stately procession, and as they passed before the king were presented by the master of ceremonies. This formal march was accompanied by suitable music, written expressly for the occasion and performed by the royal band. Whether this embryonic polonaise is still in existence, no one knows; probably not; but two distinct ideas were, or should have been, before the composer’s mind in penning the harmonies for this solemn ceremonial.
First, of course, to write music eminently suited to the occasion, to embody, and, if possible, enhance all the pomp and splendor of the magnificent, august assembly; second, to portray through the music, so far as might be, something of the national characteristics of this Polish race which the Frenchman came as a stranger to rule over. The music in its own way was to serve as a species of introduction.
Little by little, from this crude but characteristic beginning was developed through the centuries the peculiar national dance, or, more strictly speaking, march of the Poles; and the music performed during its progress came to have among dance forms the same title. It partook of the various stages of evolution to which all music was subject at different epochs, and within the last hundred years has been modified to keep pace with the general development of musical resources. But however it may vary in minor details of form and treatment, every polonaise which is true to itself must express the original ideas upon which the form was primarily based—on the one hand a splendid ceremonial, on the other Polish national life.
In the present day the polonaise is a universally accepted musical form, common property with the composers of all nations. But Chopin, Polish by birth, education, and sympathies, found it strictly within his scope, and has easily surpassed all other writers in number, quality, and characteristic force as a polonaise writer.
Of his many works in this vein, the Op. 53, in A flat, is in my opinion decidedly the best, both as regards virile power and direct, forceful expression of the original polonaise idea. It begins with a wild, impetuous introduction, brief but stirring, a sort of fanfare of drums and trumpets, intended to call the people to order and to establish at the outset the tonality of the mood, so to speak. Then follows the swinging, pompous measure of the polonaise proper, readily suggesting by its splendid martial harmonies the proud military bearing, the gorgeous armor, and the stately tread of those steel-clad feudal heroes, as they defiled before the throne.
In place of the trio, usually of a more quiet nature in works of this kind, Chopin has introduced a very singular passage, the most strikingly original portion of the whole composition—a long-sustained, stupendous octave climax of the left hand, consisting of a little rhythmic figure of four notes, constantly reiterated with growing power, against a sort of trumpet obligato in brilliant measured chords for the right. The movement vividly suggests the tramp of cavalry. The composer had in mind the Polish light-horse of medieval fame, a very aristocratic body of picked horsemen, composed of the flower of Polish chivalry and disciplined in constant warfare with the Turks. A number of the brilliant officers of this division were necessarily present at the coronation ceremony when the polonaise form originated, and these with their exploits Chopin endeavors to introduce by means of this singular passage.
There is a curious anecdote afloat concerning the effect of this movement on the composer himself. On one occasion, when playing the nearly completed work, his nervous organism enfeebled by illness and his imagination intensely excited by the fever-glow of composition, he was seized by a peculiar hallucination. He fancied that a band of the knights he had been attempting to portray, came riding in from the gloom of the outer night, in through the opening walls of his apartment, arrayed in their antique war panoply, horse and rider just as they might have arisen from their century-old graves in Poland. He was so overcome by this self-invoked apparition that he actually fled from the room, and it was some days before he could be induced to re-enter it or resume work on the mighty polonaise.
Immediately following the great octave climax referred to is a subdued, vague, fearsome little passage in light running figures, totally foreign in movement, mood, and even key to the remainder of the work, for which we would be at a loss to account if unacquainted with the circumstances narrated, but which, with the light just thrown upon it, is readily understood. The author seems to have lost for the time the thread of the composition, to have drifted far from its martial mood and swinging rhythm, but after a period of groping indecision, through which we hear the trepidation and reluctant fascination with which he again approaches this monster of his own creation, with a sudden boldness of attack he regains the clew, resumes with energy the march movement, and the work sweeps to its close with even more than its original power and splendor.