Graceful, tender, and cheerful is the general tone of the Nocturne in G major. It was written the following summer after Chopin’s return to France, during a visit of some weeks at Nohant, the beautiful country seat of George Sand, where in the midst of a smiling rural landscape, bright and winning, rather than awe-inspiring, breathing the mild but invigorating air of his beloved France, surrounded by cheerful and congenial companions and by every possible physical comfort, our composer’s health and spirits temporarily revived. To this epoch, brief as it was, we owe some of his most genial and attractive compositions.

Again it is evening and Chopin is alone, but this time it is in his own familiar, cozy room, where the perfect appointments and tasteful arrangement tell of loving feminine hands, glad to minister to every fancy of his delicately fastidious nature. The scent of flowers floats in through the open window, and mingled with it the low voices of friends in the garden below. He watches the play of lights and shadows among the swaying branches of a tall, graceful willow tree just outside his casement, the vaguely outlined, fleecy, floating gray clouds, ghosts of dead storms, silently passing on into the infinite unknown spaces of the sky. He listens to the night wind sighing among the tree-tops, to the good-nights of sleepy birds, to the vesper bell of a distant village, and embodies his dreamy impressions in the first movement of this nocturne, with its wavering, undulating murmurous effects, and its faint, intermittent melodic suggestions, like the half-remembered music of a dream.

The second movement, twice alternating with the first, though in different keys, is distinctly a slumber song in rhythm and mood, a restful, gentle, soothing lullaby to the composer’s own weary heart, to his momentarily slumbering griefs, and forebodings; peaceful, tender, pensively sad at times, but entirely free from that ultra-bitterness and gloom which color most of his later works. His Polish biographer calls this the most beautiful melody Chopin ever wrote, and it reminds us strongly of Tennyson’s lines in the same mood:

An extremely light but fluent legato touch, and an ethereal delicacy and grace of conception are demanded for the first movement, and the ever-present curve of beauty should be indicated in each little passage of three measures. Let the player imagine a brightly tinted feather ball, tossed lightly into the air and fluttering softly and slowly to earth again.

For the second movement, a singing lyric tone, a subdued warmth of color, and a steady, reposeful, rocking rhythm are a necessity, and the lullaby mood should be kept in mind.

LISZT
1811	1886

Six of these songs, transcribed for piano, with all Liszt’s wonted skill, render this charming vein of Chopin’s work available to the pianist. I cite two as illustrations:

These Polish songs by Chopin are, comparatively speaking, unknown, even among musicians, overshadowed and hidden as they have always been by the number and magnitude of his pianoforte works, like wood-violets lost in the depths of a forest. Yet, though small and unpretentious as the violets, they are among his most genial and poetic creations. Seventeen of them have been published, as genuine bits of vocal melody as ever were penned or sung; and there are many more which have never been printed, scarcely even written out in full; hasty pastime sketches, the fair daughters of a momentary inspiration, wedded to stray verses of Polish poetry which caught Chopin’s fancy, from the pen of Mickiewicz and other national bards.

The Maiden’s Wish

“The Maiden’s Wish,” the first of the two songs presented, is one of the earliest and most popular, so far as known; a dainty, capricious little mazurka song, half playful, half tender. The words embody the fond wish of a merry, winsome maiden, whose life is touched to seriousness by the shadow of first love upon her pathway, the wish that she were a sunbeam to leave the high vault of Heaven and desert the flowers and streams of earth to shine through her lover’s window and gladden him alone; or that she were a bird to leave the fields and forests and fly on swift pinions to his window at early dawn and wake him with a song of love.

The music accurately and closely reproduces the spirit of the words, in all their warmth, archness, and grace. The short but continually recurring trill, “ever on the self-same note,” in prelude and interlude, suggests the thrill which the maiden feels at heart as she flits singing about the house and garden, unconsciously keeping step to the rhythm of the mazurka, the native dance of her province.

The Ring

The second song selected resembles in form the ordinary folk-song, with its single, reiterated musical strophe, and also in its simplicity, its fresh, unaffected sincerity of mood. But it shows far more perfect workmanship, and is of a much more refined and poetic quality. It is plaintively sad, tenderly pathetic in every phrase, a pale, delicate blossom of sentiment, dropped upon the grave of youth and first love. It describes the early betrothal of a youth, full of faith, hope, and happiness, to his playmate and child-love. On departing into strange lands, the youth gives the maiden a ring and she gives him in exchange a promise to become his bride on his return. After years of weary wandering, during which his heart has been ever faithful to his early love, he returns to find she has forgotten ring and promise and lover. But in spite of her perfidy and the hopelessness of his attachment, his constant thoughts cling ever to the little ring he gave and the little playmate with her childish grace and garb. A very old story and a very simple one, but none the less sad for that.

In addition to its intrinsic charm and artistic merit this little composition possesses a personal interest in its subtle reference to Chopin’s own experience. The great tone-poet knew a love other and earlier than that destructive passion for George Sand which blasted his life and broke his heart. But his beloved Constantia, to whom he was betrothed before leaving Poland, at twenty years of age, to seek his fortune in the great world, forgot her plighted vows and the little ring he gave as their visible token, and married another; and it is the composer’s own grieved and disappointed heart that speaks in this tenderly beautiful song, saddened by the first of the many swiftly gathering clouds which obscured the brightness of his sunny youth, and in a few short years rendered the name of Chopin synonymous to his friends with grief and suffering.

Liszt’s reputation in this country as a pianoforte composer has hitherto rested, in the main, upon his brilliant and popular operatic fantasies, a few of his études, and his unique and world-famous Hungarian rhapsodies; all of which, though effective and by no means to be despised, are, after all, only the bright bubbles tossed off in playful mood from the surface of his genius, like the globules that rise from the sparkling champagne.

That there is a deeper, more serious, and far more important vein of strictly original work of his, which has as yet scarcely been discovered, still less exploited, few persons, even among the musicians themselves, seem to be aware. Of course, in the large cities, his orchestral works—that is to say, some of them—have been occasionally given and his concertos have become fairly well known; but elsewhere he is chiefly known as the leading manufacturer of musical pyrotechnics, the inventor of the best pianistic sky-rockets and the best articles in tonal thunder and lightning thus far put upon the world’s market. But the fact is that his future fame as a creative musician is destined to stand upon a much firmer and more lasting basis—namely, that of the original work referred to; and I believe in a much higher niche in the temple of art than it at present occupies.

Among these original works, and forming an important and distinct division of them, peculiar to itself both in form and subject matter, the “Poetic and Religious Harmonies” claim our attention. These were written under rather singular circumstances.

All through his life, from early boyhood, Liszt was subject to occasional moods of intense religious fervor,—devotional paroxysms, one might almost call them,—sweeping over him like a tidal wave, submerging, for the time, all other thoughts and impulses, and then receding, to leave him about where they found him. Their transitory and spasmodic nature has led many to believe that they were not real, but assumed, simulated hypocritically for effect, or for a purpose; as, for example, to escape the importunate claims of his several mistresses.

But those who knew him best are inclined to make allowance for his impulsive, erratic, unbalanced temperament, his undeveloped oriental nature, half barbaric in spite of its immense and manifold powers, and to concede that, while they lasted, they were very genuine and very profound. Under this impelling force he was several times on the point of giving up his worldly career and devoting himself to a monastic life, and was only restrained by the efforts of his many friends and admirers.

In 1856 came the last and most enduring of these impulses, and, in obedience to it, he abandoned his life as a concert artist, which, for phenomenal success, has never had a parallel before or since, retired into rigorous seclusion in the Vatican at Rome, where he was the guest and pupil of the Pope himself, and devoted nearly five consecutive years to religious study and contemplation, receiving the title of Abbé in the Catholic Church, which he retained till his death, and writing a considerable number of compositions, all of a distinctively religious character, all based upon religious themes, either incidents narrated in the Scriptures, or in the lives of the saints, or subjective experiences connected with his own spiritual life and development.

Among these, his great “Legend of St. Elizabeth” is preëminent, and this series of nine poetic and religious harmonies; each a complete composition, having no connection with the others except in its general character, bearing a special title indicating its nature and subject. Some of them are of very great musical worth and importance, and are among his best productions, notably, the No. 3, Book 2, entitled “The Benediction of God in the Solitude.” It is one of the subjective, emotional compositions referred to, giving us a glimpse into the heart life of the composer during this epoch of profound and intense religious experience.

It opens with a subdued but strongly emotional, ’cello-like theme in the left hand, expressing the first discontent and vague longings of a soul whose best aspirations and highest needs have found no real satisfaction in worldly things, yet which has no certain grasp, no safe reliance on any life beyond and above the present; a soul adrift on the dark ocean of doubt and skepticism, with no guiding star of hope, no beacon-light of promise, not even the compass of faith in things unseen by which to shape its course. This mood grows steadily in intensity, through the successive stages of unrest, agitation, distress, despair, to an overpowering climax. Then it is followed by a short, quiet movement in D major, literally imitating the tranquil strain of the organ and the distant sound of cathedral bells; thus symbolizing the promises and proffered consolations of the Church; then a period of grave pondering, of thoughtful examination and introspection, and then the first theme repeats, but with less vehement treatment, in a gentle though still agitated mood, like a recapitulation of his former state from a newly acquired standpoint, a softened memory of the old, stormy, desperate mood.

The work closes with a tranquil, flowing movement, a complete inundation of the spirit by a flood of that “peace which passeth understanding,” the benediction of God in the solitude. He has found, as he believes, safety, rest, and reconciliation with divine law and will. This closing strain, in its reposeful happiness, forms a fitting and most beautiful ending to this serious, ideally suggestive composition.

Other numbers of this set are almost equally interesting, but I have not space for more of them. This one will serve as a good example, and I may add that it was regarded by Liszt himself as the best of his piano compositions.

A little French poem from Liszt’s own pen, which stands as motto at the head of this music, sums up its significance. I append a nearly literal translation.

While speaking of Liszt’s original compositions, we must not omit his two ballades, which, though musically a little disappointing, are works of considerable magnitude and marked individuality, and possess no small degree of descriptive interest. They are in the same general form and vein as the Chopin ballades, and were evidently suggested by them, though they cannot be compared with them either for beauty or for strength.

First Ballade

The first, in B minor, is decidedly the more vigorous of the two, and the more difficult. It is based upon the pathetically tragic story of the Prisoner of Chillon, so ably told in Byron’s poem, which the player should read with care, so as to familiarize himself thoroughly with its incidents and moods. The poem tells of that nameless captive chained for life to a pillar in a rock-hewn dungeon beneath the castle of Chillon, on Lake Leman, below the surface of the lake, so that he listens day and night to the dull thunder or mournful murmur of the changeful waves above his head, as his only indication of the shifting moods of Nature in the living world, her passing smiles and storms, her slowly circling seasons as they come and go.

Years drag themselves out to eternities. One by one his few companions die of cold and hunger, leaving him alone in that living tomb, with his endless, changeless, unutterable misery.

His only gleam of comfort were the occasional visits of an azure-winged bird that came now and then and perched on the window ledge outside his dungeon bars, a fair and gentle companion symbolizing for him all the beauty and tenderness and sweetness in the life he has lost; and on which he comes to concentrate the love and interest of his famished heart.

The opening movement of the ballade, representing the thunder of the waves reverberating through the gloom of that cavern-like cell, and the later lyric, which might be called the bird theme, suggesting his tender communing with his little friend, are the best movements in the work. The details of the story are not carried out, but its outlines, and especially its moods, are clearly given.

Second Ballade

The second ballade, in D flat major, is more melodious and attractive, but less strong. It is dedicated to Liszt’s life-long friend and powerful patron, the Duke of Weimar, and, out of compliment to him, treats of an episode in the Duke’s family history, back in the days of the second Crusade.

A young and gallant chief of the house of Weimar stands in the rosy light of early dawn, on the highest turret of his castle, with his newly wedded bride, taking a long farewell of her and of their fair domain, for at sunrise he leads his knights and men-at-arms to the crusade, and the return is years distant and uncertain. Their mood is full of sadness and yet of a strong, religious exultation and trust. His mission is a grand and glorious one. Heaven will surely guide and protect its faithful knights, and his lady bids him Godspeed, though with tearful eyes. From the castle court below, sounds of gathering troops and martial preparation rise to their ears, at first faintly, then with growing din and clamor, till a burst of trumpets greets the rising sun; the gates are flung open and, hastily descending, he takes his place at the head of his forces and they march away to the strains of inspiriting military music. The lady still stands alone on her turret, waving her greetings—stands there, as he sees her last, flooded with the glory of the morning, an embodiment of love and hope and promise—a vision to haunt his waking dreams in far-away Palestine, to cheer his lonely camp-fire vigils and lead him to victory on the field of action.

As she still stands dreamily watching the last gleam of the spear-points, the last flutter of the receding banners, the sanguine fancy of youth leaps the intervening years, and she thinks she hears the strains of the martial music at the head of the returning army coming in triumph back from a successful campaign.

The successive moments in the story above sketched are given with realistic distinctness in the music, and can be followed without difficulty.

The peculiar aptitude required for successfully rewriting a song or orchestral composition for the piano, so that it shall become, not a mere bald, literal reproduction of the melodies and harmonies, as in most of the piano-scores of the opera, interesting only to students, but a complete and effective art-work for this instrument, may be a lower order of genius than the original creative faculty, but is certainly more rare and almost as valuable to the musical world. It demands, first, a clear, discriminating perception of the essential musical and dramatic elements of the original work, in their relative proportions and degrees of importance, distinct from the merely idiomatic details of their setting; second, a supreme knowledge of the resources and limitations of the new medium of expression, so as at once to preserve unimpaired the peculiar character and primal force of the original composition, and to make it sound as if expressly written for the piano. It is one thing to write out the notes of an orchestral score so that they are, in the main, playable by a single performer on the piano; but it is quite another thing to readjust all the effects to pianistic possibilities, so as to produce in full measure the intended artistic impression. There is practically the same difference as in poetic translation between the rough, verbal rendering of a Latin exercise by a school-boy, and the finished, artistic English version of a poem from some foreign tongue, by a gifted and scholarly writer like Longfellow.

Whatever may be thought or said of Liszt as an original composer, in his piano transcriptions he has never had an equal, scarcely even a would-be competitor. His work in this line is of inestimable importance to the pianist, both as student and public performer, and forms a rich and extensive department of piano literature. Think what a gap would be left in any artist’s repertoire if Liszt’s transcriptions, including the rhapsodies, were struck out of it; for the rhapsodies are only transcriptions of gipsy music. Practically all of Wagner’s music that is available for the pianist he owes to Liszt’s able intermediation. True, Brassin has done some commendable work in his settings of fragments from the Nibelungen operas, but of these the “Magic Fire” music is the only really usable number; and this, though playable and attractive from its own intrinsic merits, is hardly satisfactory, either as a genuinely pianistic setting or as a reproduction of the artistic effects of the original. One feels that it is an interesting attempt, not a complete success; and the “Ride of the Walkyrie,” which ought to be the most effective of all the Wagner numbers for piano, is wholly unusable for concert purposes. One is practically restricted to Liszt in this direction, but finds in him a mine of highly finished, admirably set gems, accessible, though technically not easy to appropriate.

Wagner-Liszt: Spinning Song, from the “Flying Dutchman”

Take, for example, the familiar and ever-enjoyable “Spinning Song” from the “Flying Dutchman,” definite and symmetrical in form, perfect in every detail as a piano composition, eminently playable and pianistic, yet preserving the original dramatic intention with absolute completeness and integrity. Those who are familiar with the opera will need no explanation of its contents; but for the many piano students who are not, I give a brief synopsis of the scene of which this music is at once an accompaniment and a picture; for Wagner’s music is all intended to intensify, by reduplicating in tone, scenes and moods represented on the stage.

A little company of village maidens, in a seaport town in Holland, is assembled of a winter evening to spin. It is to be a semi-social, semi-useful gathering, much like the old quilting parties of our grandmothers’ time, and they are all in the best of spirits. They start the wheels, but something is wrong apparently; the thread breaks or tangles, and two or three times they are obliged to stop, wait a moment, and recommence, till finally the buzz and hum of the swift-rolling wheels become continuous. This orchestral imitation of the spinning-wheel is a piece of very graphic realism, and in the piano arrangement is given almost equally well in the left-hand accompaniment, while the right hand carries in chords the chorus of the spinning maidens, as they sing at their work, a bright, joyous, rhythmical song, full of gaiety and wit, as shown by an occasional interruption by a burst of merry laughter.

In the very midst of their jollity they are startled into an abrupt silence by the ominous sound of a single horn close by, and they suspend their work to listen. The horn rings out, clear and strong, a peculiar impressive signal, which they know and dread as that of the “Flying Dutchman,” the terror of those shores, the fated commander of a phantom ship, manned by a specter crew, who sails the northern seas eternally, in winter storm and summer fog, condemned forever to this ghastly isolation from his living fellow-men, and striking terror to the hearts of all the simple fisher-folk, whenever the dim outlines of his ship are seen in the misty offing; and especially when his signal horn is heard; for it is known that he does sometimes land. His only possible chance of escape from the awful curse upon him is that once in a hundred years he is permitted to spend a few brief days on shore and mingle with his kind, and if, during that short period, he can win the love of any true maiden so completely that she will voluntarily give her life for him, then the curse is ended and both may rise to the realms of the blessed together. It is a grand opportunity for generous self-sacrifice on the part of some noble girl; but naturally all shrink from it, and are panic-stricken at his approach.

But the horn dies away. Echo repeats the notes and drops them. All is still. They think he is merely passing, as he often does, and has no intention of landing here at present. So, after a little timid hesitation, they resume their work and their song, become as hilarious as before, even more so, going off at last into a perfect gale of laughter, in the midst of which the horn sounds again; this time nearer, louder, more importunate. Surely he is about to land, perhaps is already on shore and approaching; and then there is a frenzy of panic; work is flung aside, wheels are overturned in the confusion, and the girls scatter in mad terror in all directions; and with this flight the scene closes, and this transcription for the piano ends.

I will add, however, for the completion of the story, that one of the girls, the heroine, her woman’s heart touched to pity by the awful destiny of the curse-laden commander, remains, half in eagerness, half in fear, to meet him at his entrance and to become the willing sacrifice for his redemption.

The keynote of the whole opera is found in that sublimest of all facts—human love triumphant over fate.

With this story in mind, even those quite unfamiliar with the music cannot fail to recognize and follow the successive details of the scene described: the whir and hum of the spinning-wheels, the chorus of singing maidens, the entrance of the signal horn, with its echo and the terror that follows; the repetition of these incidents in growing climax, and the mad confusion and scamper at the close.

Wagner-Liszt: Tannhäuser March

Liszt’s brilliant transcription of this fragment of the Tannhäuser music is another of the most popular and grateful Wagner numbers for the piano. It must not be confounded with the “March of the Pilgrims,” or, more properly, the “Pilgrim’s Chorus,” as it often is by those not familiar with the opera. The latter, a chorus of fervently devout pilgrims departing for the Holy Land, is solemn, inspiring, but somber in character, while the march is brilliantly festive in tone, gorgeous in coloring, pompously magnificent in its martial rhythms, its rich major harmonies and its ringing trumpet themes. It appropriately accompanies the entrance of a long and splendidly appareled procession of guests into the old castle known as the Wacht Burg, a famous feudal stronghold in Thuringia during the middle ages. They have assembled in holiday mood and attire to witness one of those prize contests in singing—a sort of musical tournament between the leading Minnesingers of the time, frequently held at the castles of the powerful German nobles of that period. The word Minne is an old German, poetic synonym for Liebe, or love. Hence the Minnesinger was a minstrel whose avowed theme was love.

It was a gala occasion. Excitement and anticipation ran high, for some of the most celebrated names of the time were on the list of competitors. All had their favorites, to whom they were disposed to accord the victory in advance, and all came in the expectation, not only of a rich musical feast, but of a close and sharply contested combat of genius, for the honors of the day. The opening trumpet signal announces that the castle gates are thrown open, and summons the guests to form in marching order, and then the glittering ranks move forward to the rhythmically cadenced measures of the march music. Gallant knights in glistening armor, the pride of race and martial glory in mien and carriage, stately dames in silk and jewels, fair maidens sweet as the blossoms they wear, and old men in the dignity of years and proven wisdom—all are there and are faithfully mirrored in the music as they pass before us. There is an imposing pomp and gorgeous splendor about it; a little wearying, it may be, after a time, but certainly never equaled, if approached, by any other composition, and absolutely in keeping with the mood and setting of the scene. The tempo should be very moderate, the rhythm marked and steady, the contrasts distinct, and the tone, for the most part, full and brilliant, but never harsh.

Wagner-Liszt: Abendstern

Another selection from this same opera, this time in the lyric vein, which Liszt has effectively arranged for the piano, is the “Evening Star Romance,” as it is often called. It is one of the songs of Wolfram, the leading baritone of the opera. The theme is love, and the opening line of the song, “O thou, my gracious evening star,” clearly indicates the bard’s intention. The love of which he sings is to be a modest, distant, respectful devotion, a pure adoration rather than a passionate desire. His lady-fair is to be his light, his guide, his inspiration to lofty vows and noble deeds of chivalry. For her will he be all things, achieve all things, sacrifice all things, asking no reward but her smile of approbation. She is to be his divinity, not his bride; to be worshiped, not possessed.

The mood is one of glowing enthusiasm and ideal unselfishness, but subdued to a dreamy, half intensity, like sunlight through a fleece of summer clouds. The player should strive to produce in the melody the effects of a rich, mellow baritone voice, clearly, smoothly, musically modulated, warm, but never impassioned. The Minnesingers always accompany themselves upon the harp, and the harp effects used by Wagner in the orchestra have been retained, as a matter of course, by Liszt in the piano arrangement, and must be reproduced by the player with the utmost fidelity.

Wagner-Liszt: Isolde’s Love Death

One of the most vividly interesting, to musicians, of all the Wagner-Liszt transcriptions, is the death scene from “Tristan und Isolde,” known as “Isolde’s Love Death.” It is not a number easily grasped, or usually enjoyed by the general audience; and the elemental power and intensity of the passion it so forcefully expresses have been often criticized as morbid, unnatural, and exaggerated, by those, the mildly tempered milk-and-water of whose stormiest passions never exceed the moderate, decorous fury of a tempest in a tea-pot. But to those who can sympathize with and appreciate its irresistible, volcanic outburst of emotion, its overwhelming sweep of life-rending anguish, it is one of the strongest, grandest lyric utterances in all the realm of music, thrilling and overpowering the heart to the degree of pain and terror.

It is a lyric in form, in treatment, and in subject-matter, dealing exclusively with emotion, not action, though its breadth of outline, its somber strength, and its passionate intensity give it a decidedly dramatic effect. Here is no pink-and-white pet of the modern drawing-room, grieving for her missing poodle, or another’s failure to wear the most up-to-date tie; but a glorious primeval woman, with the fire of youth and plenty of good red blood in her veins, a goddess in the unreserved frankness of her feelings, the boundless strength of her devotion, sublime in the might of her passion and the majesty of her doom.

Her life is her love and must end with it. Her hero-lover, Tristan, lies beside her, dying of a mortal wound received in combat for love of her, however dishonorable in the world’s eyes; and he is the more to be cherished because despised and hunted to his death by his king and former comrades for her sake. Further attempt at flight with him is hopeless. Fate and their foes are closing swiftly in around them. The end is inevitable. Their brief, wild dream of stolen happiness is over. The first black, crushing moment of despairing realization, portrayed in the opening measures in sober chords, is followed by a strain of sweet, tender, but plaintive reminiscence of what love was to them and might have been. Then comes a long, steadily growing, tremendously impassioned climax of impotent protest, of desperate love, of vehement, heart-breaking sorrow, all mingled in one glowing lava stream of frenzied anguish, merging at last into a soft, half-delirious vision of reunion and happiness beyond the grave, in which her spirit takes its flight, to realms, we will hope, where hearts, not crowned heads, were the arbiters of her woman’s destiny.

Those who have no sympathy with a really great passion which sweeps all before it, flinging the pretty policies and cut-and-dried conventions of life aside like straw in the path of a cataract, had better let this music alone. It is not for them either to feel or to render. It requires exceptional intensity of treatment, a broad, strong, yet flexible chord-technique, and an absolute mastery of the tonal resources of the piano.

Some of Liszt’s very best though earliest work in the line of pianoforte transcription was done in connection with the Schubert songs; most of it in the thirties. These songs were then first coming into prominence, and their markedly romantic and descriptive character appealed strongly to the dramatic instincts of this master of the piano, understanding and utilizing as no other writer ever had, the resources and possibilities of his instrument. Liszt adapted a large number of these songs to it, rendering them most effectively available as piano solos, selecting mainly those in which the character of the text and original music gave opportunity for suggestively realistic and descriptive treatment.

Der Erlkönig

Most famous and decidedly most dramatic of these is the “Erlkönig.” All German students and most vocalists are familiar with the text of this song, which is its own best explanation; but the piano student may find a sketch of the story helpful. It is a legend of the Black Forest in Baden, brought to the world’s notice by Goethe in one of his most dramatic and perfectly wrought ballads. This ballad Schubert set to music in a moment of highest inspiration; then, in the natural reaction and discouragement following such a supreme effort of genius, he threw the manuscript into the waste-basket as unsuccessful and impracticable. It was rescued a few hours later by a celebrated tenor of the day, who chanced to call, and accidentally discovering this gem among the torn papers, saved it to the world. Liszt recognized its immense possibilities as a piano number and gave the song an instrumental setting which is even more effective than the original vocal composition.

The story is briefly this. A horseman is riding homeward through the depths of the Black Forest at midnight in a raging tempest, bearing in his arms his little boy, wrapped safely against the storm, held close for warmth and safety. The “Erlkönig,” or, as we should say, “Elf King,” is abroad in the dark, storm-racked forest. He espies the boy, takes a freakish fancy to him, determines to possess the child, approaches softly, with coaxing and persuasion, offers flowers, playthings, pretty elf playmates, everything he can think of, to tempt the boy to leave his father, and come with him. But the little one is terrified, shrieks to his father for protection; and the father, while striving to quiet his fears, spurs onward at utmost speed, seeking in vain to distance the pursuing Elf King.

The composition is graphically descriptive and contains many varied, yet blended elements. The swift gallop of the horse over the broken ground is given in rapid triplets as a continuous accompaniment; the rush of the storm-wind through the moaning pine-tops, the roar of the thunder, the chill and gloom and terrors of the wild night, are forcefully depicted in the sweeping crescendos and somber harmonies of the left hand, while the three voices engaged in the flying, intermittent colloquy are rendered the more distinct and easy to follow, by being played in different and suitable registers; the father’s voice in the baritone—grave, stern, impressive; the child’s in the soprano—plaintive and pathetic; and the Elf King’s high in the descant—sweet, seductive, persuasive, impossible to mistake. Three times this colloquy is renewed, with growing agitation, each time ending with the terrified shriek of the child, while the flight and pursuit continue with increasing speed, and the tempest grows apace. Finally the Elf King loses patience, throws off the mask of friendly gentleness, declares that if the child will not come willingly he shall use force, and tries to take him by violence. The child shrieks for the third time in an anguish of fear, for the touch of the elf is death to a mortal.

The father, now himself frantic with terror, spurs on madly for home, with the tempest crashing about him. He reaches his door at last and dismounts in fancied security, only to find the boy dead in his arms; and perhaps the most impressive moment of the whole composition is that at its suddenly subdued, solemnly mournful close, when he stands at the goal of his furious but futile race, and gazes, by the light of his own home fire, into the dead face of his child.

Hark! Hark! the Lark

Among the Schubert-Liszt transcriptions, the one which probably stands next to the “Erlkönig” in general popularity is the song “Hark! Hark! the Lark at Heaven’s Gate Sings!” the words being the well-known, charming little matin song by Shakespeare which Schubert has set to music with all his infallible insight into their exact emotional import, and all his masterly command of musical resources, reproducing in the melody and its harmonic background the effect intended in every line of the text, filling every subtlest shade of feeling to a nicety, realizing once again that ideal union, that perfect marriage of words and music, so difficult and so rare with most song-writers, but which was a distinguishing characteristic of Schubert’s work.

In his piano accompaniment Liszt has displayed even more than his usual skill in preserving all the intrinsic beauty and precise poetic significance of the original, besides giving to it an eminently pianistic form. The music is bright, buoyant, joyous as the summer morning, fresh as its breezes, light as its floating clouds, stirring our hearts with the revivifying call of a new day, breathing hope and happiness in every measure, while the airy rippling embellishments remind us of the exuberant song of the skylark, as he rises exultantly to meet the dawn, shaking the dew from his swift wings and pouring out the plenitude of his glad heart upon the awakening earth in a sparkling shower of music, like the bubbling overflow of some sky fountain of pure delight.

The player and listener will do well to have in mind Shelley’s lines, describing the “clear, keen joyance” of that “scorner of the ground,” the English skylark.

Gretchen am Spinnrad

A striking contrast to the composition just described is afforded by the equally able but intensely mournful transcription entitled “Gretchen am Spinnrad.”

The text of this song is taken from Goethe’s “Faust.” It is the song of Marguerite, sitting at her wheel, in the gathering dusk of evening, spinning mechanically from the force of long habit, but with her thoughts engrossed by memories of her lost happiness, her ruined life, and blighted future. The mood is one of overwhelming melancholy, of crushing despair, whose dark depths are fitfully stirred from time to time by a rebellious surge of passionate but hopeless longing, as her heart throbs to some passing recollection of departed joys and love’s fateful delirium.

Her dashing but faithless lover, Faust, after winning and betraying her affection, robbing her of the innocence and tranquil happiness of girlhood, has abandoned her to face her bitter fate alone; and she moans in her solitary anguish:

The music perfectly voices the piteous sadness of her mood, with the occasional intermittent outbursts of passion; while the monotonous hum of the spinning-wheel, literally imitated in the accompaniment, as in every good spinning song, seems in this case to adapt itself to the song of the maiden, to harmonize with its sadness, to take on a corresponding melancholy, reflecting the emotions expressed in her voice and words, as a stream reflects the somber cloud that shadows it—a good illustration of that universal principle in art, which invests inanimate things with a fancied sympathy with human experiences.

Nothing could be more complete or perfectly appropriate than the musical treatment of this subject; but its unmitigated sadness probably prevents its becoming a popular favorite; and its extreme, though not at first apparent, difficulty places it beyond the reach of most amateur players.

Like many of Liszt’s contributions to piano literature, this dainty and most pleasing little work is not exclusively his own; that is, it is not an original melodic creation, but the admirably clever arrangement or setting of an old Venetian boat-song. The melody has been in existence for many decades, perhaps centuries, and may be heard by any one who visits Venice, as sung by the gondolier in time to the swing of his dextrously handled single oar. It is called “La Biondina in Gondoletta” (“the blond maid in a gondola”), and was originally composed by Pistrucci, to words by Peruchini, and harmonized later by Beethoven, in his folk-songs, entitled “Zwölf verschiedene Volkslieder.”

It is a distinctly Italian melody, with no pretensions to great depth or dramatic intensity, but simple, tender, and sweet, winning rather than commanding—a lyric of the sensuously beautiful type, but not to be despised, as it is a spontaneous product of the sunny-tempered, warm-hearted children of the South. It contains no hint of the Venice of mystery, of secret cruelty, of world-wide powers, of the Council of the Ten, that masked midnight tribunal of former days; but breathes only of Venice the fair, in her moonlit beauty—of Venice, “the Bride of the Sea.”

Liszt’s setting gives us not only the melody enhanced by effective harmonic coloring and delicate embellishment, but a characteristic and picturesque background of accompaniment suggesting the scene, the mood, and the environment; the low murmur of the Adriatic, at the distant water-gate, pleading to be admitted to the presence of his Queen; the soft ripples stealing up the long winding canals, whispering their love secrets under the palaces of Juliette and Desdemona, and creeping fearfully beneath the Bridge of Sighs, and past the dreaded dungeons of the doges; the silvery moonlight gleaming upon marble frieze and column, and touching to soft brilliancy the fadeless tints of glass mosaic; the dip and sway of the graceful gondola as it glides on its silent way along those water streets between rows of stately buildings, every carved stone of which is alive with history or with some romantic legend.

All these are delicately yet graphically depicted, while the boatman’s song rises and falls, seeming now near, now distant, as it is borne to us on the varying breath of the light sea-breeze. The whole picture is one of subdued evening tints, of half-disclosed, half-hinted outlines, with a pervading mood of dreamy fancy, of wistful tenderness. It seems to me one of Liszt’s most perfect and ably sustained efforts in the purely lyric, yet suggestively descriptive vein.

At the close, the great, sonorous bell of St. Mark’s Cathedral strikes midnight, its grave, deep-toned voice majestically commanding the attention. The F sharp here used to produce the bell effect, and at the same time serving as bass in a prolonged organ-point throughout the coda, is the actual keynote of the St. Mark’s bell, ingeniously utilized for this double purpose. Meanwhile, the last notes of the song die away in the distance, and slumber, like a veil of mist floating in from the summer sea, envelops the city.

Liszt, in his able and unique but somewhat prolix work, entitled “The Bohemians and Their Music in Hungary,” which, so far as I can learn, has never been translated into English, gives some most interesting information concerning these much-played and much-discussed Rhapsodies, their origin, character, and artistic importance, their relation to the national music of the gipsies and the racial peculiarities of this strange people, which I believe will be new to most readers.

I present here what seem to me the most valuable facts and ideas in Liszt’s book in connection with these Rhapsodies, using, so far as possible, his own words translated from the French. I have used the word “gipsies” for “Bohemians” in the translation; this being the usual English name for the race, as “Bohemian” is the French.

It should be distinctly borne in mind that, contrary to the generally prevailing impression, these so-called Hungarian Rhapsodies are not in any sense derived from or founded upon national Hungarian music, or the national life and racial traits of the Hungarians. The floating fragments of wild, fantastic melody and strange, weird harmony which Liszt has gathered and utilized in this form, came neither from the Huns nor from the Magyars, whose blended tribes compose the present Hungarian race; but they are of purely gipsy origin. It is distinctly and characteristically gipsy music which Liszt has merely adapted to the piano. His reasons for calling these works Hungarian Rhapsodies he states as follows:

“In publishing a part of the material which we had the opportunity to collect during our long connection with the gipsies of Hungary, in transcribing it for the piano, as the instrument which could best render, in its entirety, the sentiment and the form of the gipsy art, it was necessary to select a generic name which should indicate the doubly national character which we attach to it.

“We have called the collection of these fragments ‘Hungarian Rhapsodies.’ By the word ‘Rhapsody’ we have wished to designate the fantastically epic element which we believe we recognize therein. Each of these productions has always seemed to us to form a part of a poetic series. These fragments narrate no facts, it is true; but ‘those who have ears to hear’ will recognize in them certain states of mind, in which are condensed the ideals of a nation. It may be a nation of Pariahs; but what difference does that make to art? Since they have experienced sentiments capable of being idealized, and have clothed them in a form of undisputed beauty, they have acquired the right to recognition in art.

“Furthermore, we have called these Rhapsodies ‘Hungarian’ because it would not be just to separate in the future what has been united in the past. The Hungarians have adopted the gipsies as their national musicians. They have identified themselves with their proud and warlike enthusiasms, as with their poignant griefs, which they know so well how to depict. They have not only associated themselves in their ‘Frischka’ with their joys and feasts, but have wept with them while listening to their ‘Lassans.’

“The nomadic people of the gipsies, though scattered in many countries, and cultivating elsewhere their music, have nowhere given it a value equivalent to that which it has acquired on Hungarian soil; because in no other place has it met, as there, the popular sympathy which was necessary to its development. The liberal hospitality of the Hungarians toward the gipsies was so necessary to its existence that it belongs as much to the one as to the other. Hungary, then, can with good right claim as its own this art nourished by its cornfields and its vineyards, developed by its sun and its shade, encouraged by its admiration, embellished and ennobled, thanks to its favor and protection.”

These compositions, then, according to Liszt’s own statement, are called “Hungarian” only by courtesy and a sort of national adoption. They are called “Rhapsodies” because of their resemblance, in form, character, and content, to those detached, fragmentary poems sung or recited by the wandering bards, troubadours, and rhapsodists of the olden time—poems embodying the collective sentiments, the heroic deeds, the touching or stirring experiences of a people, which were later collected and welded together, with more or less coherency, by some master mind, to form the national epic of that people. This music, of an authentically gipsy parentage, of which Liszt speaks as “the songs without words” of the gipsies, and to which he has merely stood sponsor at its rechristening and its introduction, in new civilized dress, to the musical world, is the only art form in which this enigmatical race has ever expressed itself—the only channel through which its ill-comprehended but intense inner life of emotion, imagination, and vague idealism has found vent. It is the inarticulate, but none the less expressive, cry of the soul of a race struggling with that universal human longing for self-utterance.

Liszt’s aim, pursued for many years, at great pains and with masterly ability, was to collect and preserve for the world at least certain representative portions of this music, and construct from them a tone epic of the gipsies, possessing, not only from the artistic, but from the historical and anthropological standpoint, an interest and value similar to that of other epics in verse, as, for instance, those of the Greeks, the Persians, the Germans, the Finns, Scandinavians, etc.

Of the actual history of the gipsies little is known, save that they are the strangest and most anomalous people of the globe. Numerous theories as to their origin have been advanced, only to be abandoned. But the best belief of to-day is that they originated in India, being of the lowest Soodra caste or Pariahs there, driven out by the terrible Mongol invasions between the tenth and thirteenth centuries A. D. They first appear to the historical world in Egypt, and their name, “gipsies,” given them in this country and Great Britain, is but a corruption of the word “Egyptian”; and hence they were long erroneously supposed to have originated there. In other countries they have received various names, as Bohemians in France, Gitanos in Spain, Zigeuner in Germany, Zingari in Italy. But they always and everywhere designate themselves as Romani, or Roma Sinte, meaning, “Roma” (men) and “Sinte,” probably from Scind, or the Indus River. They did not appear in Western Europe till the early part of the fifteenth century, first in Bohemia, then in France and Germany, and thence they spread, in wandering bands, from natural increase, and, perhaps, from further immigration, over most of Europe and other large portions of the world, everywhere abused and hated, and by most governments cruelly persecuted. The Austrian government, under Maria Theresa, was the main, modified exception to this harshness. She encouraged and protected them in some localities in Hungary, and, under this more humane care, they have there lived, in very considerable numbers, a more stable and localized life than elsewhere on earth, affording some modifications and improvement of their general habits and character, as nomad, oriental vagabonds.

Liszt, in the book referred to, has eloquently and strikingly characterized this strange people, as follows: “Among the nations of Europe there suddenly appeared one day a people, whence no one could definitely say. It cast itself upon the Continent without showing any desire of conquest, but also without asking any right to a domicile. It did not desire to appropriate to itself an inch of ground, but it declined to give up an hour of time. It had no wish to conquer, but it refused to submit. It avowed neither from what Asiatic or African plateaus it had descended, nor from what necessity it had sought other skies. It brought no memories; it betrayed no hope. Too vain of its sad race to condescend to merge itself in any other, it was content to live repulsing all foreign elements.... This is a strange people, so strange as to resemble no other in any respect. It possesses neither country, nor religion, nor history, nor any law whatever.... It permits no influence, no will, no persecution, no instruction either to modify, dissolve, or extirpate it. It is divided into tribes, hordes, and bands which wander here and there, following each the route dictated by chance, without communication with each other, largely ignoring their collective existence, but each preserving, under the most distant meridian, with a solidarity which is sacred to them, infallible rallying signs, the same physiognomy, the same language, the same manners.... The ages pass. The world progresses. The countries where they sojourn make war or peace, change masters and manners, while they remain impassive and indifferent, living from day to day, profiting by the preoccupations caused by events which decide the fate of nations, to secure their own existence with less difficulty.... This people that shares the joys, the sorrows, the prosperities, and misfortunes of no other; that, like an incarnate sarcasm, laughs at the ambitions, the tears, the combats, and festivals of all others; that knows neither whence it came nor whither it goes; ... that preserves no traditions and registers no annals; that has no faith and no law, no belief and no rule of conduct; that is held together only by gross superstitions, vague customs, constant misery, and deep humiliation; this people, that nevertheless is obstinate, at the price of all degradation and destitution, to preserve its tents and its tatters, its hunger and its liberty; this people, that exercises upon civilized nations an indescribable and indestructible fascination, passing as a mysterious legacy from one age to the next, all defamed as it is, offers nevertheless some striking and charming types to our grandest poets; this people, so heterogeneous, of a character so indomitable, so intractable, so inexplicable, must conceal, in some corner of its heart, some lofty qualities, since, susceptible of idealization, it has idealized itself; for it has poems and songs which, if united, might perhaps form the national epic of the gipsies.”

It is from such a people, so understood and described by him, that Liszt has taken the musical fragments inwrought into his Hungarian Rhapsodies; and he reasons at length and ingeniously as to his right to call these musical cycles parts of what could be enlarged and made to cohere into a national tone epic. This people, being unfitted to express itself nationally in any other mode save through its wonderful, though rude and uncultivated, instinct for music, “as it drew the bow upon the strings of the violin, inspiration taught it, without its seeking, rhythms, cadences, modulations, songs, speech, and discourse. Hegel was not wrong,” says Liszt, “when he gives to the word ‘epic’ more of the signification of the verb ‘to speak,’ or utter, than of the substantive, ‘recital’; and these tone pictures are fragments of an epic, because they speak sentiments which are common to all the race, which form their inner nature, the physiognomy of their soul, the expression of their whole sentient being.” And therefore, in summary conclusion, Liszt says: “Believing that the scattered fragments of the instrumental music of the gipsies, properly arranged, with some understanding of the succession necessary to make them reciprocally valuable, would afford the expression of those collective sentiments which inhere in the entire people, determining their character and customs, one feels himself authorized to give to such a collection the name of National Epic.”

Regarded from a purely musical standpoint, the Rhapsodies have occasioned much controversy and considerable adverse criticism on the part of certain musicians who pride themselves on their loyalty to conservative traditions. They have been decried as trivial, superficial, and sensational; as lacking in depth and dignity, in symmetry of form and nobility of sentiment. These critics seem to forget that the object of all art is primarily, not instruction or elevation, or even abstract beauty, but expression. Its mission is to portray, not exclusively the highest and grandest emotions of humanity, but every experience, every shade of feeling, every psychological possibility of the race, with equally sympathetic fidelity. Humanity is the broad theme; and the various forms of art, on which the specialist is apt to lay undue stress, are only the means of expression, not the supreme end. That form is best, in any given case, which best serves the artist’s purpose.

It should be remembered that the music under discussion does not purport to embody the loftiest or profoundest sentiment which Liszt was personally capable of feeling or portraying, but the life, scenes, and moods of the gipsy camp, presented in the primitive, but spontaneous and vividly graphic, tone imagery of the gipsies themselves. Who shall say that, as a representative racial art, it is not precisely as legitimate, as worthy, and as genuinely artistic as the characteristic national art of the Germans, the Italians, or any other people? Who shall presume to dictate to the artist what subject, or class of subjects, he may or may not select for treatment? I repeat, all art has for its mission the expression of life, all life; not the establishment or maintenance of standards either of morals or emotions; still less of mere forms of expression. Is not the gipsy maid, with her ungoverned caprices, her moments of exuberant gaiety, or passionate grief, just as much alive, hence as legitimate a theme for the artist, and certainly as interesting and romantic a subject for art treatment, as the staid German Hausfrau, or the frivolous American society girl? The beggar boy has been as ably painted, and is considered as artistic a figure as the king. Poets have sung the loves of shepherds and shepherdesses as fondly as those of lords and ladies. Is not, then, a good portrayal of a gipsy camp, whether in words, colors, or tones, just as legitimate a work of art as an equally able picture of an imperial palace, or an imposing cathedral? Will not “Carmen” live as long on the operatic stage as even that paragon of all feminine virtues, “Fidelio”? Is not Don Juan as immortal a personage in art as Lohengrin? Goethe says: “We have only the right to ask three questions of any art work: First, what did the artist intend? Second, was it worth doing? Third, has he succeeded?” Judged from this, the only true standpoint of esthetic criticism, I venture to maintain that the Hungarian Rhapsodies are just as good and just as legitimate music, in their own peculiar way,—that is to say, they fulfil the essential conditions of their special artistic purpose, as well and as completely,—as the Bach fugues, or the Beethoven sonatas.

Granting, if need be, that the Rhapsodies are sensational, heaven protect us from music that produces no sensation! And, in this case, it is the sensation, or startling effect, not of mere brilliancy, but of the unfamiliar contact with the spirit of a race radically differing from our own; not sensuous and superficial, but profoundly temperamental, possessing all the fresh charm of new thought expressed in a novel idiom. Granting again that their melodies are capricious and fantastic, their harmonies strange and half-barbaric, their form incoherent and wholly at variance with our established notions of musical structure, all this but renders them the more characteristic. The picturesque gipsy could not appear to advantage, nor as a typical figure in conventional evening dress, with punctilious drawing-room manners; and the sentiments imputed to him, to be true to life, must not be those of the cultivated modern gentleman, expressed with the stately precision affected by the scholastic world; but primitive, elementary, to some degree chaotic, uttered with the rude force and directness of the undeveloped nature. In brief, he must be represented against the background and amid the surroundings which are his natural environment.

These Rhapsodies are to be taken as rough but faithful self-portraitures of the gipsies, strictly on their own standards of merit, as art works in a department by themselves, with a pronounced individuality and a definite purpose. They are sixteen in number, and all constructed on the same general plan, made up, like mosaics, of widely varying fragments of melody, each expressing some particular mood or phase of life, but combined so as to give a comprehensive impression of the scenes and conditions of gipsy camps, familiar to Liszt for many years, through frequent and lengthy visits, as vividly described by him in the book from which we have so largely quoted.

Roughly speaking, the melodies so interwoven in the Rhapsodies may be divided into three classes, all of which appear in about equal proportions, and with their ever startling sharpness of contrast, in each and all of these works: the “lassan,” a slow, mournfully lugubrious song, expressing the uttermost depths of depression; the “frischka,” a bright, playful, capricious dance movement, full of grace, humor, and witching coquetry, and the “czardas,” a furious, almost demoniac dance portraying the dance delirium at its most intoxicating extreme, resembling somewhat the Tarantelle of Spain and the Dervish dance of the Orient. These three, with an occasional brief strain from a fugitive love-song, shy and elusive as the notes of some timid night bird, or a march-like movement of wild but distinctly martial character, formed the crude material from which Liszt has wrought these always effective and thoroughly pianistic compositions. A brief, special reference to two or three of the best known among them will be sufficient to indicate an intelligent interpretation of them all.

The No. 6, for instance, begins with one of the march movements referred to. It is rhythmic and pompous, with a bold, half-barbaric splendor. Next comes one of the slower forms of the “frischka,” which is often sung in Hungary to the words of a half-tipsy drinking-song. Then follows one of the most doleful of the “lassans,” the words to which, in free translation, run as follows: “My father is dead, my mother is dead, I have no brothers or sisters, and all the money that I have left will just buy a rope to hang myself with.”

The work closes with one of the wildest, most impetuous of the “czardas” dances, which Liszt has wrought up to an irresistible, overwhelming climax.

The No. 12 begins with a slow, gloomy recitative delivered with an impressive dignity so exaggerated as to border on the bombastic; a tale of strange adventures, it may be, narrated by the chief of the tribe at the evening camp-fire, while the flickering firelight plays upon the picturesque figures grouped about against the somber background of the pines, and the thunder mutters sullenly in the distance. Then a quiet bit of lyric, evidently a love-song, gives a touch of softness to the scene, and hints at a covert courtship among the shadows. Later, the crisp, piquant music of the “frischka” calls the young people to the dance, which gradually increases in speed and brilliancy, till it finally merges in the “czardas,” in which all join, and which is given with the greatest possible dash and abandon.

No. 15 is founded upon, and mainly consists of the Rakoczy March, composed by a gipsy musician in honor of Rakoczy, that Hungarian patriot, popular general, and hero, whose daring exploits as leader, in the Hungarian struggle for independence, made him a prominent historical figure of his time, and the idol of his countrymen. This march has been adopted as the national march of Hungary, and Liszt’s setting of it for piano is among his most stupendous works.

These few illustrations may serve as guides in forming a correct conception of all the Rhapsodies. I have given to the foregoing article more space than seems, at first thought, to be warranted; partly, because it gives a somewhat unusual point of view in considering Liszt, not only as a composer, but as a thoughtful and philosophic student of esthetics, and as an eloquent, forceful writer; partly, because I hope it may produce in the minds of some readers a more favorable, because more justly discriminating, attitude of mind toward these Hungarian Rhapsodies as musical art works; but mainly, because it emphasizes, with the powerful support of Liszt’s authority, certain general principles of art which seem to me all-important, but which are too often ignored in considering the special art of music.