Strictly speaking, the “barcarolle” is an Italian boat-song—“barca” being the Italian word for boat. But in musical terminology it has been localized and signifies distinctly a Neapolitan boat-song associated as exclusively with the Vesuvian bay as is the gondoliera with the lagoons and canals of Venice. In each case it is the song of the local boatman, sung to the rhythmical accompaniment of the swinging oar, and enhanced in poetic charm by the beauty and romantic atmosphere of the surroundings. In each case also it has served as a suggestive and grateful artistic subject for musical treatment, used by nearly all the modern composers, great and small, and one which is particularly suited to the pianoforte and facilely adapted to its characteristic resources.

In many respects the barcarolle, in this its idealized form as a musical art work, closely resembles the gondoliera, similarly developed; for instance, in its graceful six-eight rhythm, its gliding, swaying boat-like movement, its suggestions of dipping oar and rippling water, and in its sustained song-like melody which we may easily consider as representing the voice of the boatman.

These descriptive elements are common to all works of both classes, but the characteristic mood of the typical barcarolle is less tender and passionate, more cheery and fanciful than that of the gondoliera. It has less of the human element, more of the sea and its slumbering mystery; less of the lover’s sigh, and more of the half-seen witchery of sea-sprites and mermaids in the clear depths of inverted sky beneath. To appreciate this mood to the full, one must have drifted, with suspended oars, in a small boat, upon the far-famed bay of Naples, just as evening fell, with the lofty banner of blue-black smoke waving majestically above the summit of Vesuvius, in the distance, like the pennon of some mighty earth giant, an ominous reminder of his terrible, through slumbrous, power; with the city rising in the background, terrace on terrace, from the water’s edge to the stern old ducal castle, which crowns the height and looms dark and forbiddingly against the sky, a memory in stone, with the fairy island of Capri lying to seaward and the cool breath of the Mediterranean filling the sails of the countless fishing-boats gliding shoreward, while the boatmen sing to the subdued accompaniment of the evening chimes softened by distance. Seen at midday from the height, under the glare and scorch of the noonday sun, with the discordant, jangling sounds of busy life rising harshly to one, like the cries from some pit of torment, Naples seems a hell; but at the evening hour, viewed from the bay, it is a veritable dream of heaven.

No one has caught and embodied in music the mood and scene of this hour, with its caressing coolness, its murmuring ripples, whispering secrets of other days, like Rubinstein, though many have attempted it with more or less success. Of his five barcarolles, all beautiful and characteristic, the most faultlessly typical seems to me the one in G major which I have selected for special mention.

This is not only one of the most graceful and characteristic, as well as most perfect in form and finish, but also decidedly the most realistic of the five. The rhythmic play of the oars, the undulating movement of the boat, and the constant plash of the water, are all vividly suggested, and the melody of the boatman’s song, original with Rubinstein, is very appropriate and typical, heard in intermittent fragments as if sung fitfully in broken snatches. The chords accompanying the melody should be given lightly, though in nearly strict time, in regular, rhythmic pulsations, but with a broken arpeggio effect, that may well coincide with the representation of rippling water, which idea is to be kept in mind.

The passages in double-thirds, which form the principal difficulty of the work, must be rendered with the utmost smoothness and delicacy. It is a good plan to begin each passage with a very low and extremely loose wrist, raising it gradually till quite high toward the middle of the run and then lowering it as gradually and easily to the end. This insures absolute flexibility and enhances the undulating effect. The following little verses, by T. Buchanan Read, express exactly in words the mood of this barcarolle, and I never play it without thinking of them:

Kamennoi-Ostrow is the name of one of a group of islands situated in the Neva River, some miles below St. Petersburg, “Ostrow” being the Russian word for island, and “Kamennoi” the specific name for this particular island, signifying at once small and rocky. This island is a favorite pleasure resort, both winter and summer, for the wealthy and aristocratic classes of St. Petersburg; one of the imperial palaces is situated upon it, besides many cafés, dance halls, summer and winter concert gardens, and the like. In winter it is the objective point for countless gay sleighing parties, in which the lavish Russian nobles vie with each other in the display of elaborately decorated sledges, fine blooded horses in glittering harness, and piles of almost priceless furs. At this time the highway to and from the island is the smooth, solid ice of the frozen river. In summer the transit is made by boat, and the gaiety is higher during those gorgeous summer nights, when the midnight sun, never quite vanishing below the southern horizon, floods the scene with its wondrous, mystical light, unlike either moonlight or the ordinary light of day, but described by enthusiastic beholders as possessing a peculiar, magical charm wholly its own and scarcely to be imagined by those who have never witnessed it.

Rubinstein, who spent many years of his later life at St. Petersburg, was naturally a frequent visitor at Kamennoi-Ostrow. In fact, on several occasions he spent a number of weeks consecutively at one of its summer hotels and became very familiar with all phases of gaiety at this festive resort and well acquainted with most of its habitués. His set of twenty-four pieces for the piano, entitled “Kamennoi-Ostrow,” is a series of tone sketches suggested by and representing various scenes and personages which his sojourn there brought within his experience. The No. 22, which is probably the best of the set and certainly the most widely known, is intended as the musical portrait of a lady, Mademoiselle Anna de Friedebourg, a personal acquaintance of Rubinstein, to whom the composition is dedicated. It is a portrait drawn in tender yet glowing tints against the soft background of the summer night, outlining, however, the spiritual rather than the physical charms and characteristics of the lady, affording us a conception of her individuality as well as the mood of the surroundings. The first and principal subject, a slow and song-like lyric melody, enunciated by the left hand, with its peculiarly warm and mellow character, reminding one, in color and quality, of the tone of the G string on the violin, is intended to suggest the personality of the lady, or perhaps, more strictly, the emotional impression which this personality produced upon the composer; while the delicate, vibratory accompaniment of the right hand indicates the poetic setting or background, the luminous midsummer night, in one of those island pleasure gardens, the weird light quivering down through tremulous leaves, the mingled scent of flowers and faint sea-breezes, the hum of summer insects, and the whisper of the reeds stirred by the lazily flowing river.

Upon the dreamful hush of this audible silence sounds clear, but sweet and silvery, the little bell of a Greek Catholic chapel, not far distant, calling to midnight mass and ringing out at regular intervals, with soft persistency, through the whole of the second strain or movement. Below and subordinate to it is heard a curious series of colloquial phrases of melody, subdued and fitful, like the fragments of a murmured conversation, as if a low and interrupted dialogue were taking place. Then the full, rich chords of the organ roll out upon the quiet night, flooding it at once with ample waves of grave, solemn harmony. This is followed by a brief passage of recitative in single notes, suggesting the voice of the priest intoning the service within the chapel. It is said to be an exact reproduction, note for note, of a fragment of very ancient Hebrew music, once forming a part of the religious exercises of the Jews and long ago incorporated into the Greek Catholic service.

Then comes an effective, but seemingly irrelevant, cadenza in double arpeggios which, though pleasing, has no apparent connection either with the subject or the mood of the rest of the composition, but which serves indifferently well as a means of leading back to the first theme, presented this time with full, flowing accompaniment in a more impassioned guise, as if to indicate the deeper, more intensified emotions developed by the romantic scene and poetic surroundings.

The composition closes with a momentary return of the little conversational strain, merely suggested and only just audible this time, like whispered words of farewell; and then a few quiet chords of the organ, lingering and slowly fading into the silence, as a pleasant memory reluctantly dissolves into slumber.

Grieg is the chief living exponent of Norwegian music, as Ibsen is of its literature. “Peer Gynt” is a versified drama by Henrik Ibsen, to which Grieg has written an orchestral suite of that name, from which arrangements for piano have been transcribed, both for two and four hands.

The scenes, incidents, moods, and characters of Ibsen’s drama are essentially Scandinavian; wild, gloomy, fantastic, often vague and incoherent to the reader of more classic and polished literature. Peer Gynt, the hero, is a lawless adventurer, of wild and uncouth personality, undisciplined instincts and passions, and most chaotic career.

The various parts of the Grieg suite are founded upon various scenes of the drama, but the numbering of the different movements will mislead the player, as the chronological progression of the drama is not always adhered to in the music. The following is the order in which the numbers should be presented to fit the scenes which they represent in the life and adventures of Peer Gynt: (1) Peer Gynt and Ingrid; (2) Troll Dance; (3) Death of Ase; (4) Arabian Dance; (5) Anitra’s Dance; (6) Solveig’s Song; (7) Morning; (8) Storm; (9) Cradle Song. I have included in their proper places two of the songs of Solveig, the principal heroine of the drama, which Grieg has also set to music and which should be rendered by soprano voice.

1. Peer Gynt and Ingrid

This is also called “Ingrid’s Complaint” and “Brautraub,” or the robbery of the bride. It is the first of the scenes in the drama which Grieg has rendered into music, and represents one of the earliest escapades in the life of the hero, when he attended the rustic festivities of a wedding in the neighborhood, and, seized with a sudden infatuation for the bride, Ingrid, ran away with her to the mountains, in the face of the assembled company. The first four measures, marked “allegro furioso,” suggest the furious movement and delirious excitement of the flight and pursuit, contrasting ludicrously with the dazed, helpless astonishment of the disappointed bridegroom.

The following protracted plaintive minor strains embody the complainings and reproaches of Ingrid, grieving for a life ruined and happiness destroyed, from which Peer suddenly makes his escape, brutally leaving her to her fate in the hills; and the first four measures are repeated at the close, to indicate that the only lasting impression made upon him by the whole affair was that of the exciting and triumphant moment of his success.

2. Troll Dance

This is the most graphic of all the numbers, and is sometimes called “In the Hall of the Mountain King.” The troll seems to be the Scandinavian mountain spirit, but more of the nature of gnomes, kobolds, and goblins than of the gentle elves and fairies of English lore. After deserting the unfortunate Ingrid in the forest, Peer fled still deeper into the rugged fastnesses, where he was surrounded at nightfall by a pack of trolls, who alternately teased and entertained him with their pranks and antics, until scattered at dawn by the sound of church-bells in the distance.

The grotesque character of this movement admirably depicts the uncanny mood and nature of the trolls. The opening measures are light and weird, fantastically suggesting the stealthy footsteps of the gathering pack of trolls, emerging on tiptoe from the mists and shadows of the night, and cautiously surrounding their uninvited guest. Little by little the movement becomes more impetuous, as the hilarity and excitement increase, until toward the close it grows to an incoherent whirl and rush, above which ring out sharply the gruesome shrieks of the infuriated goblins, balked of the continuance of their vindictive delight in tormenting their victim, by the approach of dawn.

3. Death of Ase

On returning to his mother’s hut in his native village, after these and many other adventures, Peer finds her on her death-bed, and remains with her through the night, during which she passes away, enlivening her last hours with the most preposterous tales and pantomimes. This scene of the drama, in spite of its solemnity and sadness, carries the fantastic to the extreme verge of the grotesque.

The illustrative music is cast in the mold of a “funeral march,” without trio and with but one well-developed theme. In it Grieg has emphasized only the somber and tragical aspect of the situation, ignoring entirely its touches of ghastly humor. The utter and crushing despair of a wrecked and disappointed life, of shattered hopes and unrequited and unappreciated maternal affection, sobs through its strains, enhancing the pangs of approaching dissolution. Its mood is that of unqualified gloom, unrelieved by a single vibration of hope or consolation.

4. Arabian Dance

In the interval which has elapsed since the death of Ase, our hero, now in the prime of life, driven by his erratic spirit and love of adventure, has landed upon the coast of Africa, after being fairly hounded out of his own country by the ridicule and contempt of his neighbors. This scene takes place in an oasis of the Great Desert, where an Arab chief has pitched his tent, and where Peer, mounted on a stolen white charger and clad in stolen silk and jeweled robes, has arrived in the rôle of the prophet to the Bedouins. A bevy of Arabian girls are dancing before him in oriental costume, pausing to render homage at intervals to the supposed prophet, who reclines among cushions, drinking coffee and smoking a long pipe. The music begins with a monotonous rhythmical figure in the accompaniment, suggesting the beat of tambourines and castanets, and the melody of the opening strain is weird rather than bright, stealthily playful rather than openly gay, rising soon to a considerable degree of excited movement. The trio, with its double melody and its languorous warmth of cadence, tells of increasingly involved figures in the dance and a more voluptuous, seductive grace of motion among the dancers. Then the opening strain is repeated, with its clash of tambourines, its tinkle of silver bangles and anklets, and its mood of repressed, but jocose, humor, beneath a flimsy veil of fictitious gravity.

5. Anitra’s Dance

Anitra, the light-limbed and dark-eyed daughter of the chief, has won the especial favor of the prophet, and dances alone before him after her companions have retired. Peer is enraptured and promises to make her an houri in paradise, and to give her a soul, a very little one, in return for her love and service. She is not much tempted by the soul, but finally consents to fly to the desert with him for the gift of the large opal from his turban. Anitra’s dance is more warmly subjective, more distinctly personal in character than the preceding, at once lighter and more rapid, more tender and winningly graceful, full of arch defiance, playful witcheries, and the coquettish confidence of the high-born maiden and practised solo-danseuse, certain of her power and bent on using it to the full, for the complete subjugation of their prophet guest. We can almost feel her smoothly undulating movements, her swift, but seductive, changes of pose, and those sharp, stolen side-glances, skilfully blended of shyness and fire, flashing from beneath her drooping black lashes, fascinating, but dangerous, like lightning gleams from a fringe of somber cloud.

6. Solveig’s Song

Solveig, a Norwegian maiden of Peer’s own village, the earliest and only worthy love of his life, whom he has deserted in a spasm of virtue, feeling himself unfit to remain with her, sits spinning at the door of a log hut, in a forest far up in the North. She is now a middle-aged woman, fair and comely, and as she spins she sings of her unfailing faith in Peer’s return, her own ever-constant love, and her prayers to God to strengthen and gladden her lover on earth or in heaven. In the music to this song Grieg has admirably depicted the character of Solveig: beautiful, tender, joyous, and full of hope. The English translation of the words, which is but a poor and inadequate representation of the original, runs as follows:

7. Morning

This, the most musical and sensuously beautiful movement of the whole suite, represents daybreak in Egypt, with the desert in the distance and the great pyramids, with groups of acacias and palms in the foreground, against a rosy eastern sky. Peer stands before the statue of Memnon in the first hush of the dawn, and watches the rays of the rising sun strike upon it, when, true to the ancient tradition, the statue sings. Soft and mysterious strains of music, monotonous and prolonged, are drawn by the sunbeams from the venerable stone.

The melody of this movement is of extreme simplicity and lyric beauty, pure and fresh as the dawn. Its cadences swell in power and volume as the sun rises higher; and the full flood of light is transmitted into a full flood of song, as the statue thrills and vibrates with the first kisses of the ardent Egyptian sun.

After the climax, which is full and joyous, but never passionate, the music diminishes and dies away in broken snatches, as the statue, now thoroughly impregnated with light and warmth, ceases to emit those sounds with which it has been said to salute the daybreak for four thousand years.

8. Storm

Peer Gynt, now a vigorous old man, is on board a ship on the North Sea off the Norwegian coast, trying to discern the familiar outline of mountains and glaciers through the growing twilight and gathering storm. The wind rises to a gale; it grows dark; the sea increases; the ship labors and plunges; breakers are ahead; the sails are torn away; the ship strikes and goes to pieces, a shattered wreck, and the waves swallow all. Peer, true to his nature, saves his life and adds to the list of his sins by pushing a fellow-passenger from an upturned boat which will not support both, and floating to shore.

This, the final instrumental number of the suite, is by far the most difficult, important, and pretentious of them all; and whether regarded from a musical or descriptive standpoint, is unquestionably the crowning effort of the whole work. It portrays the mood and the might of the tempest with startling vividness, the blackness of the storm-racked clouds, the rage of the wind-lashed waters, the shrieking of the gale through snapping cordage, the almost human complaining of the noble ship, struggling hopelessly with her doom. In brief, the strength, the power, and the manifold phantom voices of the storm are simultaneously and graphically expressed, and the mood and movement, both in duration and completeness of development, exceed those in any of the other numbers. At length, however, after the catastrophe, the force of the storm is broken, the fury of wind and waves subsides, and the receding thunder clouds mutter their baffled rage and threats of deferred destruction more and more faintly as they disappear, and the light of morning breaks upon the scene. Then softly, like the audible voice of the sunlight, comes an instrumental transcription of Solveig’s song of love, previously sung, whose familiar strains symbolically express the idea that her sleepless affection, her guardian thoughts and prayers have watched over her loved one and brought him at last safely through danger and tempest to his native shore. This symbolic use of Solveig’s song, with its suggestive significance, is in my opinion the happiest and most poetic touch in the whole composition.

9. Solveig’s Cradle Song

Solveig, the guardian angel of Peer’s life, represents and appeals to all that is good in his nature. Her influence, even in the midst of his maddest escapades, has never wholly deserted him, and serves at last as the magnet to draw him back to her and home. The last scene in the drama represents Solveig, now a serene-faced, silver-haired old lady, stepping forth from the door of the forest hut, on her way to church. Peer, who in his chaotic fashion has become a prey to disappointment, to remorse, and to fear of death, appears suddenly before her, calling himself a sinner and crying for condemnation from the lips of the woman whom he has most sinned against. Solveig sinks upon a bench at the door of the hut. Peer drops upon his knees at her feet and buries his face in her lap. The sun rises and the curtain falls as she sings her lullaby song of peace and happiness. Grieg has set these last stanzas of the drama to music under the title of Solveig’s Wiegenlied, or Cradle Song. They are translated as follows:

These lines seem to indicate a transition from wifely love to maternal love in the affection of Solveig, with the advent of age.

The moral of the drama, not a very ethical one, but one which has possessed the minds of many devoted women since the world began, appears to be that in love alone is salvation. Whatever the errors and sins and follies of the man, he is won at last and saved, even at the eleventh hour, by the faith, the hope, and the love of one devoted woman.

Among the very few strictly lyric compositions for the piano by Grieg,—a vein in which he was singularly unproductive for so eminent a genius,—this spring song must unquestionably take rank as the best, the most evenly sustained throughout, the most perfect in form and finish, and decidedly the finest as well as most emotional in quality.

The opening notes of the right hand accompaniment fall light and silvery as the soft drops of the April shower upon the waiting woods, when the first faint shimmer of tender green begins to tint the tips of the waving boughs. Then the melody enters in the left hand with subdued, repressed intensity, warmly, sweetly vibrant, like the upper register of that most passionate of instruments, the ’cello, a melody telling of mild, languorous days and soft, dream-haunted nights, thrilled through by the mysterious throbbing of a new life in the earth’s long-frozen veins; telling of Nature, surprised but radiantly happy, awakening at the touch of her ardent lover, the sudden spring, from her ice-locked sleep, like the slumbering, frost-fettered bride in the old legend of Siegfried and Brünnhilde; telling of summer joys and brightness begotten of their union, of bird songs, sweeter for the long silence, of many-tinted flowers springing in fragrant profusion where the cold white drifts of winter lay but yesterday, as if the snowflakes had all been transformed to blossoms by the magic kiss of the sun; of love as sudden as the spring, as tenderly sweet as its violets, strong as its rushing torrents, but alas! too often as transient as its fleeting glories. This sudden, startling thought of pain and disillusion strikes sharply across the mellow, golden current of the stream with a somber threatening note of danger and distress rising to a swift, strong climax of indignant protest or fierce defiance, a contrasting reactionary mood common to certain minds, like those, for instance, of Byron and Heine, aptly illustrated by the following lines, translated from the German of Amentor:

But this dark mood is of but brief duration; it is soon exorcised by the plenitude of sunshine and the exuberance of springtime happiness, and the first melody returns with all its glowing beauty and seductive sweetness, and with a fuller, more fluent, voluptuous accompaniment, suggesting the mingled voices of many streams exulting in their new freedom, or the irregular, intermittent sighs of May breezes, impatient with having to rock all the baby leaves at once.

This composition is technically of only moderate difficulty, but requires for its proper delivery a fine taste, great warmth of feeling, and a telling, sensuous quality of tone for the melody, while the right hand accompaniment in the first movement is kept almost infinitely light and delicate. The sudden burst of passionate pain and resentment in the climax should be given with extreme intensity and a decided acceleration of tempo, as well as increase in power; followed by an abrupt fall to a caressing pianissimo, and a long lingering hold on the final chord just preceding the return of the first melody, to accentuate the renewal of the softer, sunnier mood.

A charming and effective supplementary companion piece to the spring song is that exquisitely, daintily fanciful, yet exceedingly brief piece of descriptive tone painting, called “The Little Birds,” published in the same volume of lyrics with the preceding number. It may be played as an added and appropriate coda to the spring song. It is one of those graphically realistic productions which tell their own story. It portrays very literally, by more than suggestive imitation, the blithe twitter of the spring birds fluttering amid the dancing leaves and sunlight, engaged in their delightful occupation of nest-building. Notice, too, the sudden touch of facetious drollery, so characteristic of Grieg, where the delicate little bird motive is abruptly transferred to the bass register, producing a peculiarly comical, grotesque effect, reminding one of the gutteral hilarity of the spring-awakened frogs in some neighboring pool.

Exceeding lightness and delicacy, combined with a certain playful staccato effect, are the chief technical requisites for the correct performance of this work, which, though small, will well repay careful study. The tone produced should be crisp and bright, though never rising above piano, and the tempo not exceedingly rapid.

One of Grieg’s most charming lyrics is this thoroughly unique and characteristic Cradle Song. This has always been a most attractive and facilely treated subject for piano-compositions, on account of the way in which it lends itself to realistic handling.

The general plan of these compositions is always substantially the same: a simple, swinging accompaniment in the left hand, symbolizing the rocking cradle, and a soft, soothing melody in the right, more or less elaborately ornamented, suggesting the song of the nurse or mother lulling the child to rest.

An almost infinite variety of effect is possible, however, within these seemingly narrow limits, dependent upon the differing ability and personality of the composer, the diversity in melodic and harmonic coloring, and especially upon the environment and conditions conceived of by the writer as the setting or background of the picture. The range of legitimate suggestion in this regard by means of such works is as broad as that of human experience itself. For instance, the child imagined may be the idolized prince of a royal line, rocked in a golden cradle with a jeweled crown embossed upon its satin canopy, and guarded by the loyalty, the hopes and pride of a mighty nation; or it may be the sickly offspring of want and suffering, doomed from its birth to sorrow and struggle and disappointment, to a crown of toil and a heritage of tears; or perhaps it may be a fairy changeling, stolen by Titania in some wayward caprice, rocked to sleep in a lily-cup upon crystal waves, or watching, with large, wondering human eyes, the pranks of the forest elves as they trace with swiftly circling feet their magic rings upon the moss, or awaken the morning-glories upon the lawn with a shower-bath of dew.

The lullaby song of the mother may thrill with the sweet content and rapturous joy of a life of love and brightness but just begun, and seemingly endless in its forward vista of ever new and ever glad surprises. Her fancies may be winged by hope and happiness to airy flights in which no sky-piercing height seems impossible; or her voice may vibrate with the songs of a broken-hearted widow, who guards the little sleeper in an agony of loving fear, as the last treasure saved from the wreck of her world. As the smallest plot of garden ground possesses the capacity to receive and develop the germs of the most diverse forms of vegetation, from the violet to the oak, from the fragrant rose to the deadly poppy, so these modest little musical forms are replete with an almost boundless potentiality of suggestion.

In the case of this particular work by Grieg, the child portrayed is no delicate rose-tinted girl-baby, downily cushioned upon silken pillows, peeping timidly from a drift of dainty laces like the first crocuses from the feathery snow of April, but the lusty son of a Viking stock, with the blood of a sturdy race of fighters coursing red through his veins, and with a will and a voice of his own, cradled in the hollow trunk of a pine or the hide-lashed blade-bones of the elk, wrapped in the skin of wolf or bear, and lulled to sleep by the rough, but kindly, crooning of a peasant nurse. May we not fancy the refrain of her song somewhat after the fashion of the following lines?

One of the best known and most popular of Grieg’s compositions is the second movement of his piano suite entitled “Aus dem Volksleben” (sketches of Norwegian country life), a work which portrays, with all his graphic power and good-natured humor, a number of unique and characteristic phases of the peasant life in Norway. This second movement, at once the easiest and most pleasing number of the suite, is intended as a realistic representation of the music of a primitive peasant band, which leads a rural bridal procession, made up of Norwegian countrypeople, on its way to the church.

We may fancy ourselves seated on a bank by the roadside, with a jolly company of villagers in picturesque holiday costume, listening to their jests and gaiety as we await the rustic pageant. Soon our attention is caught by the sound of distant music, gradually approaching, strange, weird, uncanny music, as if the gnomes and trolls had left their work in the secret mines and caverns of the mountains, where they are ever forging new chains for the fettered earth-giants as their prisoned strength increases, and had turned musicians for a frolic and come forth into the light of day to join the festival. The rhythmic beat of drums and cymbals, the shrill, strident notes of the fife, the quaint, quavering tones of the pipe and clarinet, mingle in a strain jocosely mirthful, rather than truly gay, and becoming more insistent as it advances.

There is no trace of tenderness, no hint of sweet anticipation, no suggestive undertone of sacred solemnity, in this music. We miss the warm color and tremulous, sustained effects of the violins, which with us are always symbolic of love. It seems almost like a musical satire on the tender passion; as if the divine but dethroned Balder (the God of Love in Norse mythology), disgusted by the infidelity and ingratitude of mankind, were employing all his wondrous power as a minstrel to depreciate and deride this his best gift to humanity. But perhaps we do not rightly appreciate the significance of the music. As it draws nearer and nearer, growing stronger with every moment, we begin to suspect that perhaps its very rudeness and primitive energy express more truthfully than more delicate, dreamy, finely shaded cadences could do, the idea that human love is one of the elemental forces of nature, underlying and antedating all the subtilizing refinements of civilization, and destined to outlast them, as the rugged granite of the northern mountains antedates and will outlast all the crystal palaces of taste and luxury.

On comes the procession, the music swelling and growing with every step, till as it passes immediately before us it becomes an almost deafening crash of dissonant instruments, each player with lusty good-will doing his utmost to honor the occasion, outvie his comrades, and earn his share in the wedding feast, by making his part most prominent in the general din. First comes the band, then the bride and groom and the bridesmaids in white, with wands and wreaths, a troop of children with baskets of flowers, then a company of the immediate friends and relatives of the bridal pair, with the older neighbors and acquaintances soberly bringing up the rear. So they defile before us, and pass on their way down the sunlit country road to the church, the music gradually diminishing as it recedes into the distance, growing fainter and fainter till only occasional shriller notes or louder fragments reach us, and at last even these are sunk in the summer silence.

This movement is in march time and form, and the strict, unvarying march rhythm should be preserved throughout, absolutely without variation. The tone should be crisp and clear, with but little singing quality, to represent that of wooden wind instruments, but varying in degree from the softest possible pp to the most tremendous fff which the performer is capable of producing. The player is here afforded an opportunity of testing his powers in that most difficult of all elements in pianism—a long-sustained, evenly-graded crescendo and diminuendo. To produce its true realistic effect, the music should emerge almost imperceptibly out of silence, increase steadily, but by infinitesimal degrees, to the greatest quantity of tone power which the instrument will produce; then diminish as gradually and steadily till it dissolves into silence again at the close; not stopping at a given point, but simply ceasing to sound. Those who have heard Rubinstein render the Turkish march from “The Ruins of Athens” will remember it as a masterly model for this effect.

Saint-Saëns, though himself a first-rate concert pianist and the composer of some excellent things for the piano, notably in concerto form, is, nevertheless, chiefly gifted and principally celebrated as a writer for orchestra, having done his best, most original, and most interesting work in this line. Among his many important compositions for full orchestra, there are perhaps none which better represent his individuality and peculiar style than his four “Symphonic Poems,” of which two have been selected for illustration here. This form of composition, as well as its name, originated with Franz Liszt, whose twelve “Symphonic Poems” are his most important contributions to orchestra literature. In musical structure the symphonic poem corresponds to the modern overture and to the pianoforte ballade, as exemplified by Chopin, much more nearly than to the symphony proper. It consists of a single movement, without different divisions and pronounced differentiated parts, such as are to be found in the regulation symphony, though it often expresses a wide variety of moods, merging into one another without pause or interruption.

Its only radical point of similarity to the symphony lies in the fact that its first principal theme is subjected to an elaborate and logical development in most cases, as in the symphonic allegro. It is distinctly an outgrowth of modern romanticism and deals always with the somewhat definite poetic thought, or some real or imaginary episode from life. It is, in fact, program music of the most pronounced and uncompromising type, and the special thought or episode is always indicated by its descriptive title.

The four Symphonic Poems of Saint-Saëns are: (1) Le Rouet d’Omphale; (2) Phaeton; (3) Danse Macabre; (4) La Jeunesse d’Hercule.

I have selected for consideration here the first and third, entitled respectively the “Rouet d’Omphale” and the “Danse Macabre”; the one descriptive of a classic, the other of a medieval scene and tradition.

The first, the “Wheel of Omphale,” was suggested by the Greek myth of Hercules and Omphale. The story of the pair is familiar to all readers of classic mythology, and represents perhaps the most singular episode in the checkered career of this hero and demigod. The legend runs as follows: Hercules, having killed his friend Iphitus in a fit of madness, to which he was occasionally subject, fell a prey to a severe malady, sent upon him by the gods in punishment for this murder. He consulted the Delphic oracle with a view to learning the means of escaping from this disease. He was informed by the oracle that he could only be cured by allowing himself to be sold as a slave for three years, and giving the purchase money to the father of Iphitus as recompense for the loss of his son. Accordingly Hercules was sold by Mercury as a slave to Omphale, the Queen of Lydia, then reigning in that country, who had long been desirous to see this strongest of men and greatest hero of his age. He remained with her the allotted three years, and during this period of slavery, by the wish of the queen, the warrior-hero assumed female attire and sat spinning among the women, where his royal mistress often chastised him with her sandal for his awkward manner of holding the distaff, while she paraded in his lion’s skin, armed with his famous war-club. But if awkward at the distaff this son of Jupiter understood other arts which he practised upon the Lydian queen; for in the intervals of spinning he made love to her so successfully that from their union sprang the race of Crœsus, famous in antiquity. Some authorities regard this legend of Hercules and Omphale as of astronomical significance, while others give it a moral interpretation, saying it illustrates how even the strongest and bravest of men is demeaned and belittled when subjugated by a woman.

The music opens with a playfully realistic introduction, consisting of a series of light, rapid-running figures and graceful embellishments, imitatively suggesting the roll and buzz of the spinning-wheels. A series of delicate turns, each an audible circle, add their quota of pertinent symbolism to the general effect. Soon the melody enters, joyous, musical, yet with a certain arch mockery, enhanced by its odd, piquant rhythm. It is the song of the spinning maidens, cheerfully speeding their hours of toil with music and mirth, with occasional irrepressible touches of gay raillery at the expense of the clumsy captive warrior, whose long face and futile attempts at their handicraft afford them vast amusement. Now and then a distinct burst of silvery laughter is heard above the boom of the wheels, interrupting the strain. Omphale, too, is there, admonishing, chiding, ridiculing the hero, as he moodily pursues his unwonted and unwilling task with many a blunder and comical mistake; yet we can fancy a half-tender smile softening her reprimands and sweetening her playful chastisements.

Then with a radical change of mood and movement comes the second important theme, a broad, impressive, strikingly original melody in the bass, half gloomy, half indignant, the mighty manly voice of Hercules, uplifted in grave lament and dignified protest, deploring his hard lot, defying its humiliations, reproaching his gay tormentors, rebelling at his menial duties and unworthy surroundings, yet with a stern, proud gravity, a grand fortitude which scorns alike weak complainings and impotent petulance. It subsides at last into philosophic resignation and sorrowful self-repression, as if consoled by the thought that his punishment is after all just and his submission voluntary.

Then the spinning movement is resumed and the first song virtually repeated, though in a materially modified rhythm; and the work ends playfully, as it begins, with a wonderfully realistic imitation of the gradual stopping of the wheels, as their momentum exhausts itself and little by little their speed slackens and they finally come to a complete rest when abandoned by the girls, as sunset ends the day’s work.

This composition is one of Saint-Saëns’ most genial and melodious productions, as well as an excellent piece of descriptive work. It may be rendered on the piano either in the four-hand arrangement by Guiraud, or as transcribed for two hands by the composer himself. It is about equally feasible and effective in either of these forms.

For the significance of the French word macabre we must turn to the Arabic makabir, signifying a burial place or cemetery. The “Danse Macabre,” therefore, is simply a “cemetery dance” or “Dance of Death.”

One of the most prevalent superstitions during the middle ages throughout Europe, and especially France, was that of the “Danse Macabre,”—a belief that once a year, on Hallowe’en, the dead of the churchyards rose for one wild, hideous carnival, one bacchanalian revel, in which old King Death acted as master of ceremonies. This gruesome idea appears frequently in the literature of the period, and also in its painting, particularly in church decoration, and a more or less graphic portrayal of the “Danse Macabre” may still be seen on the walls of some old cathedrals and monasteries.

This composition, belonging as it does to the ultra-realistic French school of the present day, is a vivid tone picture of the same “Danse Macabre.” At the head of the original composition, serving as motto and undoubtedly as direct inspiration for the music, stands a curious ancient French poem in well-nigh obsolete fourteenth century idiom. I have made a free translation of these verses into English, as follows:

The composition opens with twelve weird strokes indicating the arrival of midnight, struck out upon a vibrant tombstone by the impatient hand of Death himself. There follows a light, staccato passage, suggesting the moment when, in obedience to this awesome signal, the specters appear from their graves and come tiptoeing forward to take their places in the fantastic circle. Then comes a strikingly realistic passage where Death attempts to tune up his fiddle, as he is to furnish the music for the dance. It has been lying disused since the last annual festival, is very much out of tune, and refuses to come up to pitch. In spite of his best endeavors, the E string obstinately remains at E flat. The repetition of this passage at intervals throughout the composition suggests occasional hasty and ill-timed efforts to tune up.

Now comes the first theme of the dance itself, light, fantastic, suggestive of purely physical excitement and ghastly pleasure, and graphically representing the imagery of the corresponding verse of the poem.

The second theme is slower, heavier, more gloomily impressive, with its weird minor harmonies and its strongly marked rhythms, suggesting the darkness and terror of that midnight scene, the gruesome gravity of old King Death, as master of ceremonies, and the increasingly ponderous tread of that ghostly multitude, to which the gray walls of the abbey and the very ground itself seem to reel in unison. This is the moment when “the sod turns black where each skeleton whirls with a ghost.”

Death again attempts to tune up his fiddle, with frenzied haste, and the dance grows in speed and impetuous power. Later it is interrupted by a lyric intermezzo, brief but pathetically sweet. It seems to be a plaintive lament played in a momentary pause of the dancing, expressing the sad memories and hopeless longings of the dancers, the real mood which underlies the forced gaiety of this wild revel. It is appropriately accompanied by the Æolian-like effect of the night wind sighing among the cypress boughs. An onward rush follows, more furiously impetuous than before, for just as in the small hours the boisterous and frenzied merriment of the witches in “Walpurgis Night” grew apace, so does this skeleton dance gradually reach an almost demoniac climax of hilarity, as all unite in a grand finale, a thunderous whirl of hideous merriment. Here the first and second dance themes are very ingeniously woven together, appearing simultaneously in a piece of most grotesque but effective counterpoint.

Then comes a sudden hush, in which the distant crow of the morning cock is distinctly heard, a signal that daylight is approaching and the revel must end. With a wild hurry and scurry the specters betake themselves to their graves once more, a final lugubrious wail from the fiddle closing the composition, as Death is the last to leave the field.