Giacomo Meyerbeer.
Meyerbeer.—This composer was Giacomo Meyerbeer (1791-1864), German by birth and early education, Italian by training in more mature years, and finally French by adoption. A juvenile pianist of great promise, he studied with Clementi; he went through a severe course of fugue and counterpoint with Zelter, the teacher of Mendelssohn; in composition he was a fellow-student with Weber under the famous Abbé Vogler. In Vienna he knew Beethoven and was advised by Salieri to study in Italy, where he wrote a number of Italian operas after the style of Rossini. In 1826, he went to Paris, the Mecca of all opera composers, with the design of making himself familiar with the conditions of Grand Opéra.
His First Grand Opera.—The result of his studies was Robert le Diable (Robert the Devil) produced in 1831. This created a veritable sensation. Nothing of so comprehensive a style had been seen or heard before. Meyerbeer’s cosmopolitan education, his receptive rather than original mind, enabled him to combine the outward characteristics at least of the three schools—French, German, Italian—as no one had ever attempted. The story of the arch-enemy of mankind seeking to ensnare a son by an earthly mother into sharing his lost condition, the struggle between the powers of good and evil for the mastery of the tempted soul gave full scope to such an amalgamation of styles. The ballet and spectacular effects of Lully, the supernaturalism of Weber, the roulades of Rossini were all brought together with an art that dazzled and intoxicated an admiring public.
His Other Grand Operas.—Five years later Robert was followed by Les Huguenots (The Huguenots), which achieved a still greater success, and is the one opera of Meyerbeer which continues to hold its own against the encroachments of time. In one or two episodes of Le Prophète (The Prophet), which was produced in 1849, the composer reached the highest level of his creative activity, notwithstanding the manifest artificiality of his scheme. His last work, L’Africaine (The African), was brought out the year after his death and like the others owed its success to a skilful mingling of all the elements, musical, spectacular, and dramatic, which go to make up this type of opera. His L’Étoile du Nord (Star of the North) and Le Pardon de Ploërmel (better known as Dinorah) were composed for the Opéra Comique.
Influence of Meyerbeer.—Meyerbeer so held the public in his grip that other composers of Grand Opéra gained but slight attention during his lifetime. Only Jacques Halévy (1799-1862) was able to meet him on equal terms in this field with La Juive (The Jewess), in which he shows the earnest spirit of his master Cherubini. Though Meyerbeer’s watchword was success at any cost and his aim to assure it by the accumulation of cunningly devised sensations rather than through the innate power of his music, his works had a powerful and, on the whole, a beneficial influence on the course of modern dramatic music. They placed living, palpitating beings on the stage instead of the cold abstractions of mythology and antiquity; the singer was forced to impersonate as well as to sing. His insistence on all means of expression—vocal, instrumental, and scenic—though often exaggerated and fatal to purity of style, led to an extension of technical ability in all these directions, and prepared the way for a master of greater power and higher aims. It must not be overlooked that Richard Wagner frankly modeled his Rienzi (1842) after Les Huguenots, and that Meyerbeer in Le Prophète shows plainly the influence of this work by his German contemporary.
Questions.
What two styles are found in French opera?
Tell about the origin of Opéra Comique.
Tell about the development of Opéra Comique.
Describe the typical opéra comique.
Mention the prominent composers in this form and their work.
Describe Opéra Bouffe.
What composers were prominent in this form?
What was the influence of the Opéra Comique?
What was the established form of Grand Opéra?
Who contributed to a change of style? What were the changes?
Give an account of Meyerbeer and his work in Opera.
Later Italian School.—While Meyerbeer was dominating the French stage and through it exerting a powerful influence on serious opera in all countries, the Italian school was recovering in part from the impulse given it by Rossini. The highly ornamented style which he brought into vogue was modified in the works of several composers who also gave more consideration to truth of expression. With these, melody still reigned supreme, but it was shorn of the excessive ornamentation which overloaded Rossini’s music; in character and rhythm it was also more generally in accord with sentiment and situation. The florid element was by no means suppressed; it had been an integral factor in Italian music for two centuries and was too strongly entrenched in public favor to be banished so completely as it had been in the German romantic opera, but it was kept in subordination and in the main not allowed to dictate the melodic idea. This was a step in advance for the Italian school of that period, which through the fluent warblings of Rossini and his imitators, had approached dangerously near the Scarlatti-Handel type of the previous century.
Donizetti.—This reaction in the direction of greater simplicity and sincerity was led by Gaetano Donizetti (1797-1848). At first a follower of Rossini, he only attained success after the latter had ceased composing and he himself had acquired a style of his own. Donizetti was not without innate force, but his great melodic facility led him to rely upon melody rather than upon musical development or dramatic characterization. Hence his tragic operas, though often admirable in detail, lack the sustained strength demanded by their subjects. Of these, Lucia (founded upon Scott’s “Bride of Lammermoor”) achieved the greatest popularity, while in La Favorita (composed for the Grand Opéra) he shows more dramatic power than in any of his more than three-score operas. In many of his lighter works he is particularly happy; for example, in Don Pasquale, which compares favorably with Rossini’s Il Barbiere, and in L’Elisire d’Amore (The Elixir of Love). La Fille du Régiment (The Daughter of the Regiment—written for the Opéra Comique) has made the tour of the world.
Bellini.—His younger contemporary, Vincenzo Bellini (1801-1835), on the contrary, displays no capacity for humor nor is he much better fitted to cope with the somber or the heroic. Essentially a lyrical temperament, neither broad nor deep but endowed with exquisite sensibility within certain limits, his sphere is the emotional, the tender and the elegiac. For this reason his charming opera, La Sonnambula (The Somnambulist), on account of its idyllic subject, is a more representative work than Norma or I Puritani (The Puritans), though both enjoyed high popularity until within recent years. Much of Bellini’s vogue was due to the admirable singing of a number of Italian artists who were identified with his works—Pasta, Grisi, sopranos; Mario, tenor; Tamburini, baritone; Lablache, basso, not to forget Jenny Lind, who was at her best in his operas. With their passing and the establishment of the modern school of dramatic composition, in which the voice is only one of many factors instead of being the chief element of expression, they have gradually dropped from the repertory.
Verdi.—A far more significant personality than either Donizetti or Bellini is Giuseppe Verdi (1813-1901). Not merely a melodist but a dramatist as well, his long life gave him the opportunity of profiting by the many influences which brought about the mighty musical development of the last hundred years. The fact that he did so without compromising his artistic or national individuality shows the inherent genius which gives to him the distinction of being the great Italian composer of the century. Strong and sturdy from the first, his early works, if somewhat coarse in fiber, seemed doubly powerful in contrast with those of his contemporaries, which were distinguished by sweetness and melody rather than by depth or vigor. From Ernani to Rigoletto, from the much sung Trovatore to Don Carlos, to mention only a few of his thirty operas, Verdi shows a steady growth in largeness of style and command of means which culminated in Aïda, written for the Khedive of Egypt to celebrate the opening of the Suez canal in 1871.
Giuseppe Verdi.
Aïda.—Aïda is the full fruition of the Romantic movement beyond the Alps, manifested, however, in a style and manner thoroughly Italian. Unmistakably influenced by the uncompromising stand taken in Germany by Wagner, Verdi here shows the definite adoption of a new standard, yet by methods which make no decided break with what he had hitherto accomplished. In form, Aïda is closely allied to the Meyerbeer type of Grand Opéra through its succession of dramatic and spectacular features, but these develop naturally in the course of the action and are combined with a sincerity and unity of effect lacking in the more artificial creations of the German composer. The florid style is strictly avoided; without the continuous flow of the music drama, the different movements, recitatives, arias, ensembles, etc., are yet more closely connected and are sustained by a richer, more fluent orchestration than he had hitherto given to his operas, the local color called for by the Egyptian theme receiving adequate consideration.
Significance of Aïda.—Aïda marks the beginning of the new Italian school, one more in sympathy with the original conception of the opera as a drama, while retaining the characteristic Italian grace and charm of vocal treatment. This school was still further enlarged and developed by Verdi, but this extension belongs to a later period and will be considered in its logical connection.
Wagner and the Music Drama.—It is to Richard Wagner (1813-1883) that we owe the renaissance in modern form of the primitive ideal of the opera as embodied in the works of Peri and Caccini. Simple and formless as these now appear, they contain the germ of all that he has accomplished, apart from the question of means, even to the very name of music drama. This he revived because, in his opinion, the term opera had acquired a preponderantly musical signification which made it inappropriate for his later works in view of their dramatic character. An exception to the general rule of precocity among musicians, it was not until his sixteenth year that he resolved to devote himself to music. Like Weber, whom as a child he saw frequently and regarded with the utmost reverence, his early associations were with the theatre and the drama, a fact of no small significance in the careers of both. Der Freischütz was his favorite opera, a liking which bore abundant fruit in later years.
Wagner in 1853.
His Early Operas.—The future master of the music drama, however, began by composing operas—operas, moreover, in which he shows originality in one feature only—that of writing their texts himself, and this remained his invariable practice. In other respects they gave no hint of the startling individuality he was to unfold so unexpectedly in his Flying Dutchman. His first opera was Die Feen (The Fairies). It was based on a fairy tale of but slight worth, and the music was strongly reminiscent of Weber and Marschner. As the work of a youth of twenty, without reputation or influence, it is hardly surprising that he found no manager willing to produce it. He was somewhat more fortunate with his second opera, Das Liebesverbot (The Love Veto), an adaptation of Shakespeare’s “Measure for Measure.” This was performed once, in 1836, at Magdeburg, where he was director of the opera, and had thus come under the influence of the French and Italian composers then popular in Germany. The music is such a palpable imitation of Adam, Auber, Donizetti, and Bellini that it has never been given since. Die Feen was never produced during his lifetime, but a few years after his death received a number of representations in Munich.
His Sojourn in Paris.—In 1839, he determined to go to Paris. Many foreign composers had succeeded in entering the Grand Opéra, among them Meyerbeer, then in the full flush of the renown he had gained with Les Huguenots. What one German had done, another might attempt. Accordingly, with the utmost faith in his star and amid manifold discouragements, Wagner made his way to the French capital, where he hoped through the influence of Meyerbeer to secure the acceptance of his Rienzi at the Grand Opéra. He had prepared it from Bulwer’s novel of the same name with the express intention of utilizing it as a framework for the large spectacular style demanded by the Académie de Musique. His sojourn in Paris brought him nothing but disappointment. Neither Rienzi nor Der Fliegende Holländer (The Flying Dutchman), which he wrote during his stay of two and a half years, was successful in winning a hearing, while he lived the greater part of the time in the most painfully straitened circumstances.
Rienzi.—Before long, he realized the hopelessness of his endeavor and sent Rienzi to Dresden, where it was accepted and after a long delay performed in 1842. The result was a triumphant success and led to the speedy production of The Flying Dutchman. This, however, by no means made a similar impression. Rienzi was an opera of the type made familiar by Meyerbeer, in which effect was secured by the heaping together of every device known to stagecraft. The ballet, the march of the Messengers of Peace, the final catastrophe of the burning of Rome, had as much to do with its enthusiastic reception as the music, which was noisy, showy and brilliant, as befitted a work of such calibre.
The Flying Dutchman. Change of Style.—The Flying Dutchman, however, showed Wagner in an entirely different light. With it, instead of receiving his inspiration from without, as had been the case with the preceding operas, it came from within. On his way to Paris he had made a stormy voyage of several weeks from a port on the Baltic to London. He was familiar with the myth of the Flying Dutchman, and found that the sailors on board his ship believed it implicitly. This in connection with Heine’s version of the legend, which represents the unhappy mariner as doomed to perpetual wandering on stormy seas until he finds a woman faithful unto death, made a strong impression on him, and while in Paris he wrote the poem and composed the music within seven weeks after finishing Rienzi. A more sudden metamorphosis of style is unknown in the history of music. The earlier work was an opera pure and simple, in the ordinary acceptation of the term, characterized by pomp, brilliancy, sonority. Its successor was conceived as a drama in which music served to emphasize the action and to intensify the emotional situations; instead of being master, it was servant; external effects were disregarded save only as they were in harmony with this conception. Not that the composer entirely achieved this ideal; The Flying Dutchman displays not a few lapses into operatic conventionalities, but as a whole it was a startling and radical change which puzzled and displeased the public. They had looked for something in the style of Rienzi and could make nothing of a work so contrary to the popular idea of what an opera should be. Accordingly, after a few performances, it was dropped from the repertory.
Tannhäuser.—Nothing daunted by the lack of favor shown his change of style, Wagner carried it to a still greater extent in his next opera, Tannhäuser (1845), founded on a medieval legend. The dramatic motive of this is much the same as that of The Flying Dutchman, one of which Wagner was particularly fond—the power of love to redeem and save from the consequences of sin and error. Tannhäuser brought about his head the full storm of hostile criticism which with The Flying Dutchman had only begun to lower. He was reproached for its difficulty, for its lack of pleasing melodies, for the audacious harmonies which many critics considered inexcusable dissonances. Singers objected to the broad declamation it required; they complained that it would eventually ruin their voices.
Lohengrin.—This almost general dissatisfaction, however, led to no concessions by the composer in his next opera, Lohengrin, which marked a further advance in the unpopular direction taken by its predecessors, but it interfered with its performance. Though he was conductor of the Opéra at Dresden, he could not secure permission to produce it. Baffled and discouraged in his artistic schemes, a radical in politics, he joined the insurrectionists during the revolution of 1849. The failure of the rebellion necessitated a hasty flight from Germany. He took refuge in Switzerland and remained in exile until a proclamation of amnesty in 1861 allowed him to return. In the meantime he had sent the score of Lohengrin to Liszt, then conductor of the opera at Weimar, and there it was brought out in 1850.
Lohengrin proved the turning-point in his fortunes. The romance of the subject, its dramatic treatment and undeniable beauty gradually reconciled the public to the novelty of its style. Before Wagner was relieved from his sentence of banishment it had become one of the most popular operas in Germany—he once ruefully remarked that he would soon be the only German who had not heard it.
Questions.
Who led in the changes in Italian Opera after Rossini?
Give an account of Donizetti and his work.
Give an account of Bellini and his work.
Give an account of Verdi and his earlier works.
What is the significance of Aïda in the history of Opera?
Tell about the changes that Wagner was to make.
Give an account of his early operas.
Why did he go to Paris?
Describe Rienzi, The Flying Dutchman, Tannhäuser, Lohengrin.
Wagner’s Theory of the Music Drama.—Lohengrin, like The Flying Dutchman, was transitional in character and led into Wagner’s third manner. It was his last opera; all his later works were known as music dramas. In these he pursued unhesitatingly the logical conclusions of the theories which he expounded at great length in his controversial writings, though he was far from being always consistent with himself. Thus he reasoned that since in the spoken drama but one speaker is heard at a time, the same practice should prevail in the music drama, which would naturally do away with all concerted music, choruses, etc. This rule he observed in The Ring of the Nibelungen, but he wisely abandoned it in his later works. In Die Meistersinger he also failed to follow his theory that mythical and legendary subjects were the only suitable material for the music drama. Briefly stated, his ultimate conclusion was as follows: that the art-work of the future, as he called it, should consist of a synthesis of all the arts. Music, poetry, painting, sculpture, architecture, he asserted, had exhausted all that was possible to them as separate arts; a higher plane could be reached hereafter only by a combination which should gain unity by subordination to a single principle. This principle he found in poetry. Beethoven, he argued, had felt the insufficiency of music alone to express his deepest inspiration, and for that reason had incorporated in his last and greatest symphony a choral movement to the words of Schiller’s “Ode to Joy.” In the music drama, therefore, the scene painter replaces the artist and the architect, the actor by plastic poses the sculptor, while the musician must allow his music no form but that dictated by the poet in his verses. He ascribed the thrilling effect of the Greek drama to such a union of the arts and this it was his aim to revive through his own works.
The Leading Motive.—The part assigned by the Greek dramatists to the chorus who expounded and commented on the events of the play was in his scheme transferred to the orchestra. This he did by means of the Leitmotiv (leading motive). A leitmotiv is a characteristic theme or harmonic progression associated with each of the Dramatis Personæ and which appears with such modification of mode, rhythm, or any of its component parts as the dramatic situation demands. It is not confined to personages alone; in The Ring of the Nibelung, for instance, the stolen gold, the ring formed from it, the sword which plays such an important part in Die Walküre and in Siegfried all have their corresponding motives. It is through these motives that Wagner is able to give his orchestra an all but articulate speech and to weld the music drama into an organic whole. By their transformation and development he succeeds in indicating psychological states and changes as well as material conditions and objects. Reminiscent themes of a somewhat similar nature had been used as far back as Mozart and had been employed more freely by composers of the Romantic school, notably by Weber in Der Freischütz and Euryanthe, but they were undeveloped and elementary in character. Berlioz in his Fantastic Symphony was the first to conceive a typical theme and to alter it in logical accordance with the progression of his program, but he did not adopt the practice in his operas.
Wilhelm Richard Wagner.
The Unending Melody.—Beginning with Lohengrin, Wagner abandoned fixed forms and substituted what he called unending melody, a practically continuous flow of tone divided alike between voices and instruments. For the most part he assigned the singer a declamation as far removed from the set aria on the one hand as it was from dry recitative of the early Italian opera on the other. Yet like the latter it was conditioned by principles of speech. Like the early composers, also, his subjects with but two exceptions were mythical or legendary. This, because the supernatural and the unreal correspond more closely with the ideal element introduced by the use of song for speech than material drawn from everyday experience or from the exact chronicles of history.
The Ring of the Nibelung.—In the old Teutonic folk-epic, the Nibelungen Lied (Lay of the Nibelung), Wagner found the inspiration for his next and most extended work. This is the great tetralogy, Der Ring des Nibelung (The Ring of the Nibelung), composed of four dramas designed for continuous representation: Das Rheingold (The Rhine Gold), Die Walküre (The Valkyrie), Siegfried, Die Götterdämmerung (The Twilight of the Gods). It was begun and partially finished during his stay in Switzerland, but his discouragement over what he felt to be the hopeless task of ever securing its performance led him to abandon it and to set to work on another drama which he decided should be lighter in character and less difficult to execute, in order the more readily to find acceptance.
Tristan and Isolde.—The result of this resolution was Tristan und Isolde, but far from being a return to his earlier style, as he had planned, it was and probably still is the most intricate operatic score in existence. It was accepted by the Opera in Vienna, but after fifty-seven rehearsals the singers declared themselves unable to learn it and it was given up as impossible of execution. Three years after his return to Germany an unlooked-for change took place in his fortunes. The young king of Bavaria, Ludwig II, who had just ascended the throne, had been an ardent admirer of Wagner since as a boy of fifteen he had heard Lohengrin. Hardly had he taken his seat before he summoned the discouraged composer to Munich and assured him support and protection. Tristan und Isolde was soon brought out (1865), and Wagner busied himself with the composition of Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg (The Master Singers of Nuremberg), produced in 1868.
Die Meistersinger.—This is his only comic work, full of hitherto unsuspected humor and geniality. The story of the young poet endeavoring to gain admission to the jealously-guarded ranks of the master singers who, notwithstanding the beauty of his song, reject him because he has violated their hide-bound rules has a distinctly autobiographic value. Wagner had endured too much from similar pedants to be lenient with the picture he drew of their prototypes in medieval Nuremberg. As strikingly diatonic in style as Tristan und Isolde is chromatic, these two works are the strongest illustrations of his versatility.
Bayreuth and the Festival Theatre.—Wagner had long cherished the plan of a festival theatre for the performance of his Ring of the Nibelung. Jealousy of his favor with the king led to various intrigues which prevented the building of such a theatre in Munich. The quiet town of Bayreuth, therefore, as being a central point, was chosen, and there in 1876 the Festspielhaus was opened with the first complete performance of the Tetralogy. It made a profound impression, but the expense of the undertaking was so great that it resulted in a heavy loss and the theatre was closed for a number of years. In 1882, however, it reopened with Parsifal and since then its triumphant career has been part of musical history.
Parsifal.—Until 1903, when it was given in this country, Parsifal was heard only in Bayreuth. Its semi-sacred character, its mingling of religious mysticism and sorcery, its unrivaled stage effects, its overwhelming power of climax, the consummate art of its thematic construction have made it the most discussed of Wagner’s works. What place it may eventually hold in respect to the others can be decided only by time. As it is, it stands alone; a second Parsifal is hardly conceivable.
Influence of Wagner.—Unlike Weber, Wagner did not create a school—he belonged to the school which Weber founded. Like Gluck, his influence permeated all schools but to a much greater extent; none has succeeded in escaping it. Thus far in Germany it has been felt more in the development of program music, the symphonic poem, etc., than in the music drama itself. Many have attempted to follow directly in his steps, among them August Bungert (1846———) with a cycle of music dramas, Die Homerische Welt (The World of Homer), founded upon the Iliad and the Odyssey, and Richard Strauss (1864———) with his Guntram, Feuersnoth (Fire Famine) and Salome, but none has yet shown the power to bend the bow of Achilles. Engelbert Humperdinck (1854———) is the only one of Wagner’s successors to develop a new phase of the music drama. This he did by applying it to the fairy tale in his Hänsel und Gretel (1893), which soon found its way to all stages, the first German opera to have such a success since the death of Wagner.
Wagner in France.—In France, Wagner acted at first not so much directly as indirectly, and more in his connection with the Romantic school of Weber than through his individual style as revealed in the music drama. The characteristic conservatism of the French school was shown in holding to forms which had been fixed for generations, but little by little these were filled with the new romantic spirit. This comes to the fore in Charles Gounod (1818-1893), whose Faust (1859) has exercised a strong and lasting influence on the lyric drama in France. Though set forms are not abandoned, they are closely joined by a melodious declamation which approaches the song-speech of Wagner; the orchestration, too, is unmistakably romantic in treatment. Georges Bizet (1838-1875) in Carmen (1875), an opéra comique notwithstanding its tragic denouement, produced a work of great individuality, which shows even more plainly the influence of modern romanticism. Had the composer’s career not been cut short by his untimely death, it is possible that the French school would have maintained a more commanding position. For Paris no longer holds her former preëminence as operatic centre; she has been distanced by Bayreuth. Of late years the works that have had the most pronounced success in the French capital have been Wagner’s music dramas. A little more than a generation ago, in the palmy days of Auber and Meyerbeer, a success at the Grand Opéra or the Opéra Comique had an international import and meant a speedy transference to foreign stages. Now the interest is largely local; but few of the modern French operas are heard outside of France. The influence of Wagner is evident in a new French school, consisting in the main of young composers whose works manifest strongly transitional features. At present this school is in its storm and stress period; it is yet too early to forecast its ultimate effect.
Wagner in Italy.—Italy proved more responsive to Wagner’s influence than France. The performance of Lohengrin (1868), in Bologna, created much enthusiasm among the young musicians of northern Italy, but it was the septuagenarian Verdi who inaugurated the era of the music drama by his Otello (1887) and Falstaff (1893). Strictly speaking, he had been anticipated by Arrigo Boïto (1842———), who, thrown under Wagner’s influence in Germany, had followed his example in being the poet and composer alike of Mefistofele (1868), a version of the Faust legend. But this was Boïto’s only opera, and though he gave the initial impulse to the movement, it was Verdi who carried it to a triumphant issue.
Verdi’s Latest Style.—Aïda had been a grand opera with strong musico-dramatic tendencies. In Otello and Falstaff, Verdi made a definite entrance into the music drama. The latter in particular, founded on Shakespeare’s “Merry Wives of Windsor,” is an astonishing tour de force for a man of four-score years. Full of the sparkle and freshness of youth, yet in every measure revealing the ripeness of matured genius, it is one of an immortal trio of lyric comedies of which the others are Mozart’s Figaro and Wagner’s Meistersinger. The set and traditional forms of the opera here disappear entirely; the music is conditioned by the text and its dramatic requirements; the orchestra supports the voices in a full, melodious, and comprehensive flow, but never overpowers them. Hardly anything can be detached from its context without losing significance and interest; and this, by the way, is one of the most distinctive peculiarities of the music drama and more than anything else points the radical difference between it and the opera. Yet though this change of manner is undoubtedly due to Wagner, Verdi is in no sense an imitator. The style remains his own and is essentially Italian in character—that is, it is based upon vocal rather than instrumental capabilities.
The New Italian School.—The latest development of the music drama in Italy has been in the direction of so-called naturalism. This consists in the choice of brutal phases of life for illustration, told in short, concise forms which concentrate and hasten the dramatic action. A greater contrast to the inordinately long and heroic operas of Meyerbeer and Wagner can hardly be imagined; it is more than probable, indeed, that the reaction against the excessive length of the music drama led to the great and sudden vogue of this school. The first impulse to naturalism was given by Pietro Mascagni (1863———) in his two-act opera, Cavalleria Rusticana (Rustic Chivalry), in 1890. This is a tale of love, jealousy, and revenge told in music admirably adapted to the vivid, crude representation of elemental passions. Two years later followed I Pagliacci (The Clowns) by Ruggiero Leoncavallo (1858———), a work of precisely the same character. Though many others have essayed the same style, these two thus far remain the most representative of their class. Their popularity has been approached only by Giacomo Puccini (1858———) in La Bohême (The Bohemians), produced in 1896. Four years later his Tosca appeared and did much to strengthen the impression given by its predecessor—that in Puccini Italy possesses her most promising dramatic composer.
Schools Compared.—Thus at the beginning of the 20th century we find the principles of the music drama as enunciated by Wagner influencing all the three great schools of dramatic composition. It is worthy of note, however, that these schools, though thus approaching in artistic ideals, still retain the characteristics which distinguished them from the very beginning: the Italian, melody and beauty of tone; the French, clearness of form and logical dramatic development; the German, elevation of subject and harmonic richness.
Younger Schools.—Younger schools having a strongly national character exist in Russia and Bohemia, but as yet they possess only local signification and have produced no practical effect outside of their respective countries. Michael Glinka (1803-1857) with his patriotic opera, Life for the Czar, founded the Russian opera in 1836. The Bohemian opera is of more recent origin and is associated principally with the names of Friedrich Smetana (1824-1884) and Antonin Dvořák (1841-1904).
Resumé.—From its dual nature, the opera is necessarily a compromise. Composed of two elements, the musical and the dramatic, it is peculiarly susceptible to disintegration; its history is a record of almost continuous veering from one to the other of these two phases. We have seen how the immense proportions of the ancient amphitheatres led to the musical declamation on which the opera is founded, from the fact that the tones of the singing voice are far more reaching than those of the voice in speaking. The Florentine experimenters, in seeking to restore this declamation, soon discovered the capabilities for emotional expression latent in the varying timbres and vastly extended range of the former. As for its musical possibilities, these were entirely beyond their ken. The steps taken in that direction they regarded with disfavor as indicating a deviation from the oratorical standards which were their sole aim. After Carissimi and Scarlatti had developed the elements of symmetrical form and melody, music emerged from this dependent condition and dictated to the drama, which sank to an almost negligible factor. The reaction led by Gluck served to restore the balance for a time, but through Rossini and his followers the pendulum again swung in the other direction. The Romantic movement then brought the drama again to the fore; the spirit of the age was behind it and all schools felt its influence, though each manifested it in characteristic fashion.
Influence of the Opera on Music in General.—These alternations have had a powerful effect on the development of music in general, an effect both technical and expressive in nature. From the harpsichord and the few viols used at first merely to support the voice and to give it pitch, the orchestra expanded into a large body of instruments capable in itself of dramatic utterance. From the tiny ritornello of eight measures played by three flutes in Peri’s Euridice, there has grown an independent instrumental art of vast significance. The opera also created a school of singing which though often unworthily used for purposes of purely personal display is the basis of the vocal art of today. In short, it is not too much to say that the little band of scholars and musicians who met three centuries ago with the aim of reviving a lost art practically originated a new one.
Questions.
Give an account of Wagner’s theory of the Music Drama.
What is meant by the term Leading Motive? Unending melody?
What works compose the Ring series?
Tell about “Tristan und Isolde,” “Die Meistersinger.”
In what city was a theatre built for Wagner’s dramas?
Describe “Parsifal.”
What composers has Wagner influenced?
What was his influence on French composers and the names of those most prominent; their works?
What was his influence upon the Young Italian school?
Who are the prominent members of that school?
What changes did Verdi show in his latest works?
What are the characteristics of the various schools?
Give a résumé of the development of opera.
What has been the influence of opera upon music?
Review Suggestions, Lessons XXXVII to XL.
What was the effect of the Romantic movement on the Opera?
Write a sketch of Weber and his work in Opera.
What differences are there between Opéra Comique and Grand Opéra?
Compare the works of Spohr and Marschner with those of Weber.
Describe the typical Opéra Comique and name some notable work in this style.
What changes took place in Grand Opéra through the influence of Auber and Meyerbeer?
State the differences between the German, French and Italian opera styles.
Write a sketch of Verdi and his works.
Give an account of Wagner and the works of his first period. His second period.
What was Wagner’s theory of the music drama?
Explain the two essential principles he used.
Describe Wagner’s later works: “Ring” series, “Tristan und Isolde,” “Die Meistersinger,” “Parsifal.” (Each one may be made the subject of an essay.)
How did Wagner influence opera in Italy and in France?
Give a sketch of the later schools of opera.
During the period after Mozart to the beginning of the Romantic movement, one name alone attains the first rank—that of Beethoven. At the same time there are several epoch-making pianists, whose compositions display talent rather than genius, but who have each rendered indisputable service in accomplishing the transition from the classic to the romantic composers. The landmarks, so to speak, of this period are Clementi, Cramer, Hummel, Czerny, Moscheles and Field.
Muzio Clementi (1752-1832) was born at Rome. His father was quick to perceive his son’s gift for music, and strove to develop it by the best teaching available. While he was still a lad, an Englishman, Bedford or Beckford, took young Clementi with him to England where he lived with his benefactor until 1770, perfecting himself in piano playing and composition. At his first appearances in London he created a furore, and from 1777-1780 he conducted at the piano in the Italian opera there. In 1781, he began his travels as a virtuoso. At Vienna he made the acquaintance of Josef Haydn, and also had a sort of musical combat with Mozart. Each read at sight, played his own compositions and improvised. Opinion was divided as to the outcome. Clementi displayed more virtuosity, while Mozart charmed by his singing-tone, finished phrasing and expressive style. For the following twenty years, Clementi lived in London. He became interested in a piano manufactory and when the firm failed, he established another, which is still carried on. In 1802, Clementi went on a concert-tour with two favorite pupils, J. B. Cramer and John Field. They visited Paris, Vienna and even St. Petersburg, arousing great enthusiasm everywhere. In 1810, he settled in London permanently, devoting himself to composition and business. In 1817, he published his Gradus ad Parnassum, a series of one hundred studies treating every branch of technic and every problem of piano playing then known.
Muzio Clementi.
Clementi as Composer and Pianist.—In addition to his early works, Clementi composed symphonies, more than one hundred sonatas for piano, preludes, toccatas, canons and other piano music and finally the Gradus. As Clementi was a true Italian by temperament, and German in his education, the sonatas show the influence of Domenico Scarlatti, as well as of Haydn and Mozart. They are technically in advance of their day, though inclined to dryness musically. However, Beethoven admired them, and is said to have preferred them to those of Mozart. Clementi’s monumental work, the studies, treats every difficulty and style of piano playing so very comprehensively that it is still indispensable to the student. In his youth Clementi was a bravura-player, pure and simple. “Strong in runs of thirds, but without a pennyworth of feeling” was Mozart’s verdict. But later, when Clementi had become acquainted with the larger tone of the English pianos, he cultivated expressive playing. At his best, his brilliancy and facility were dazzling, and he invariably carried all before him. Considering the fundamental value of his studies, and his preëminent abilities as a pianist, it is just to give him the title of “The Father of Piano Playing.”
Johann Baptist Cramer (1771-1858) was born at Mannheim, Germany. When he was but a year old his father moved to London. As a boy he studied the violin and the piano, as well as the theory of music, but soon showed the greater aptitude for the piano. Later he became a pupil of Clementi. Handel, Bach, Scarlatti, Haydn and Mozart were the objects of his attention, thus establishing a taste for the classics. In 1788, Cramer began a series of tours on the Continent, living at London in the intervals. In 1828, he founded the music publishing firm of J. B. Cramer & Co. He lived in Paris from 1832 to 1845, but returned to London, where he remained until his death.
Cramer as Composer and Pianist.—Of Cramer’s numerous compositions, such as seven concertos and one hundred and five sonatas for the piano, besides variations, rondos, fantasias, etc., a quartet and quintet, little is worth survival. His representative work is a series of seventy-six studies, Op. 50, to which he afterwards added. These studies long enjoyed a reputation second only to those of Clementi. They do not aim primarily at virtuosity, but towards the cultivation of musical style; at the same time they exhibit novelty of technical invention, and demand a decided proficiency. Thus they tend to supplement the studies of Clementi which are chiefly concerned with technic. As a performer, Cramer was greatly admired for his perfect legato, distinctness of phrasing and quiet singing tone. Beethoven is said to have preferred him to all other pianists of his time. While Cramer does not present a technical advance over Clementi, he undoubtedly did much for the cultivation of the more strictly musical qualities and thus stands for a definite progress.