After a painting by Giacometti.
Georges Bizet.
Vincent d’Indy.
Camille Saint-Saëns.
Jules Massenet.
Gustave Charpentier.
It seems quite reasonable that after all the experiences France has been through in the early and middle 19th century she should now blossom out, not with remodelled Italian opera, but with her own opera and her own ways of writing music.
The two influences were without doubt from César Franck and Bizet whose sincerity not only influenced musicians but rather quickly gained the public. The third influence was of course, Wagner, who, though he infuriated many, gained followers for his theories everywhere that his music was heard. In France, Reyer and Chabrier were both Wagner enthusiasts and did much to bring him finally into the Paris Opera House a little before the 20th century (adapted from The Art of Music). Out of these influences came a fine group of gifted composers,—d’Indy, Dukas, Charpentier and others.
Ernest Reyer (1823–1909), who was an ardent follower of Wagner, had a hard time because of the new harmonies he used. His last opera Salammbo is better known to us than the others, and his works are still played in Paris at the Grand Opera.
A man famous as composer of the tone poem, España, Emmanuel Chabrier (1841–1894) must come in here, for at the time of his death he was writing a most interesting opera, Briseis, which was finished by his pupils. The day before he died Robert Louis Stevenson stopped in the middle of a sentence, in his novel The Weir of Hermiston, one of his best. The first woman to receive the Prix de Rome in France, Lili Boulanger (1892–1918) did much of her composing in bed during her last illness; her devoted sister Nadia, a prominent musician in Paris, and had received the second Prix de Rome, finished the deathbed works. And did we not see Mozart finishing his Requiem on the last day of his life? Illness and impending death seem not to matter to men and women who have genius.
This group was striking out for something new, and was influenced by Wagner’s theories, Franck’s return to the old classic style, the Russian school, the re-action against Wagner and the renewed interest in orchestral concerts in Paris (adapted from C. G. Hamilton).
Camille Saint-Saëns (1835–1921) wrote in all styles from classic to the newest of program music. He is another who gave concerts before he was twelve years old; he studied at the Conservatory, lived in Paris as a composer, organist and pianist, was a learned man and a very good musical critic. Later in life he lived in Algiers, which accounts for the oriental touch in his music. He journeyed over much of the world and we heard him in Carnegie Hall, on his last trip to this country in 1915, on his way to the San Francisco exposition where he played the organ and conducted his opera Samson and Delilah. He played some of his most technically difficult pieces when he was in his eighties. He wrote some symphonies, some descriptive symphonic poems, Le Rouet D’Omphale, Phæton, Dance Macabre (very weird and rhythmic) and others. Out of five, his G minor is the most brilliant piano concerto.
He is best known for his opera Samson and Delilah which is carried into fame by the two arias, My Heart at Thy Sweet Voice and Love Come to My Aid. This last is of the finest lyric writing in French opera and the first is surpassingly emotional. The choral parts (often sounding like early Hebrew music) show a real master at work, and the effect of the whole is very dramatic, whether sung as oratorio or opera.
It is not as an opera writer, however, that Saint-Saëns wished to go down to history for he threw his whole strength into trying to make the French public know and love the classics. Paul Landormy says: “From the historic point of view, Saint-Saëns is a notable figure. Saint-Saëns is the French Mendelssohn.... He undertook the musical education of France at the exact moment when Berlioz despaired of succeeding with the task, and he prepared the public for the great French School of symphonists which arose toward the end of the 19th century.”
In 1871 Saint-Saëns was made president of the newly formed National Society of Music of which you will read later.
The ballet was used to advantage by Clement Philibert Léo Délibes (1836–1891) a master of this form of music and dance. He built up a certain atmosphere that is particularly French. His ballets, Coppelia and Sylvia and his opera Lakmé are conventional and very popular. Lakmé is opéra comique because of the spoken words and of its romantic character. Délibes always has a certain delicacy of color, and charm which captivates.
Another composer who writes in an exotic vein (or an out-of-the-nation-to-which-he-belongs way, with all the color of the other nation in costumes and scenes) is Edouard Victor Antoine Lalo (1823–1892). Lalo was trained to sincerity by his models, Beethoven, Schubert and Schumann. This does not mean copying, for his music is not anything like the music of these men. He skilfully drew a variety of effects from his orchestration, and his music has individuality. His best known work in opera is Le Roi d’Ys. He also wrote a work for violin and orchestra Symphonie Espagnole which is a pet of all the violinists because of its brilliancy and beauty.
Jules Massenet (1842–1912) was something like a modern French Meyerbeer and an Offenbach combined, yet his work is far more worth while. Before he died he was at the height of his popularity in Europe and America, and the repertory of the Hammerstein Opera in New York included many of Massenet’s works. He composed operas so rapidly that his public could not forget him!
He built on Gounod and Ambroise Thomas and gained much from Wagner. He used continuous melody and some of the principles of the leit-motif. Wagner’s music compared to Massenet’s was thick for Massenet’s is thin!
Whether Massenet will always remain popular is a question. His operas are engaging and clever, and he knew how to write theatre music to please the public. The most important of his operas (about fifteen), are Manon and Le Jongleur de Notre Dame. The title parts of both were sung by the brilliant Mary Garden, in this country. (See Chapter VIII.) Manon ranks second to the Jongleur. You know, too, the Meditation from Thäis, another of his popular successes. It was written for Sybil Sanderson, an American singer, in Paris. Massenet’s operas did not show his tremendous knowledge of counterpoint, of which he was professor at the Conservatory. His position was later filled by André Gédalge who has taught most of the composers of today. Gédalge is also the composer of some very fine symphonies, sonatas and an extraordinary Treatise on the Fugue.
Other writers of this period are Xavier Leroux (1863–1919), Gabriel Pierné, born the same year, composer of a delightful oratorio, Children’s Crusade. He is now conductor of the Colonne Orchestra in Paris. André Messager, born ten years before these two is the composer of some very charming light operas of which Veronique is the best known. There are also the great organists Charles Marie Widor (1845) with ten organ symphonies and many other works, and Alexandre Guilmant (1837–1911), a great organist who came to America while one of the writers of this book (Ethel Peyser) was at Vassar College, where he inaugurated the new organ.
Although César Franck was not a successful opera writer, he influenced composers by showing how to combine modern harmony successfully with the classic form.
Among the many César Franck’s revival of the classic style influenced are Gabriel Pierné, Henri Duparc (1848), and Ernest Chausson (1855–1899), Franck’s pupils. Chausson was first known through Helen, a three-act opera and Le Roi Arthus, which show what he might have accomplished had not an accident caused his death. Besides the operas he wrote beautiful chamber music, orchestral works and songs. His Poem for violin is full of gentle, yet deep feeling. All his work has veiled mystery and is very lovely.
The most important pupil of César Franck is Vincent d’Indy (1851), one of the most important figures in France. He founded, with Charles Bordes and Guilmant, the organist, the Schola Cantorum, and revived interest in sacred music. He has been in this country and is admired for his symphonic works, his operas Fervaal and L’Étranger (The Stranger), piano pieces and chamber music. One of his symphonic poems, Istar, was made into a ballet for Mme. Ida Rubenstein and was performed for the first time at the Grand Opera in Paris, in 1924.
Alfred Bruneau (1857) links the Wagner period with Debussy’s. His operas are rarely given outside of Paris. His manner was new and caused much discussion. He based many of his plots on Émile Zola’s writings, and was conductor of the Opéra Comique. The Attack on the Mill was given in America.
Gustav Charpentier (1869) comes next. He made his name with the delightful opera about the dressmaker apprentice Louise, a musical novel on the life in Montmartre, one of the artist quarters of Paris. Charpentier wrote the book, which was the story of his own life. He also wrote its sequel Julien. No one who has ever been in Paris fails to be deeply stirred by this picture of the simple home life of the midinette or sewing girl. Mary Garden created the part of Louise in America and it was the first rôle of her operatic career. In one scene, you hear the almost forgotten street cries of Paris. He has also written a charming work for orchestra, Impressions of Italy, which is the result of his having won the Prix de Rome in his youth.
This brings us up to the 20th century to which we shall devote an entire chapter. But in order to finish our story of French opera, we will merely introduce you to Claude Achille Debussy, the ultra-modern harmonist and weaver of mystery and beauty, who ushered in the 20th century with his lovely and enchanting opera, Pelleas and Melisande written on the play by Maurice Maeterlinck. For ten years the composer worked over this masterpiece, and it was produced for the first time at the Opéra Comique, in Paris in 1902. Here we find something that never had been before,—opera completely separated from all the old ideas of what opera should be. But in tearing down the old, Debussy gave something very rare, beautiful, sensitive, touching a very high artistic peak, in its place. This was pure impressionism in music, just what romanticism was to the early 19th century. This carries the French School to its highest degree of mystic beauty.
Coming later than Debussy’s opera are Maurice Ravel’s L’Heure Espagnole (The Spanish Hour), Henri Rabaud’s Marouf, Paul Dukas’ Ariane et Barbe Bleue, also a Maeterlinck libretto and second only to Pelleas and Melisande in atmospheric charm, Albert Roussel’s Padmavati, an Oriental opera, that has been produced very recently at the Grand Opera in Paris, and Florent Schmitt’s Le Petit Elfe Ferme l’Oeil (The little elf winks its eye) presented at the Opéra Comique in 1924.
Outside of the operas of Richard Strauss, of which we have written elsewhere, there have been few outstanding opera writers in Germany since Wagner. Among those are Ludwig Thuille (1861–1907), whose Lobetanz was given at the Metropolitan Opera House in 1911; Eugene d’Albert (1864), who has lived in Germany most of his life, although he was born in Scotland, and wrote the lovely Tiefland which was performed in America; Max Schillings (1868), whose Mona Lisa was performed at the Metropolitan; Hans Pfitzner (1869), who wrote an operatic legend based on Palestrina; Siegfried Wagner (1869), son of Richard; and Leo Blech (1871).
The one great exception was Engelbert Humperdinck (1854–1921), born in Bonn, Beethoven’s birthplace. He is perhaps closer to the hearts of children than any one else who ever wrote music. This seems much to say, but when you hear that it was he who wrote that beautiful little fairy story Hansel and Gretel, we are sure you will agree. The San Carlo Opera Company has given special performances of it in English. Would it not be nice if operas were given in the language you best understand? You would then find out for yourselves that this is the story of Babes in the Woods. How fine it would have been too, if you had been able to hear in your own language the other opera written by Humperdinck! This was Koenigskinder (Children of the King), which gave one of the loveliest rôles to Geraldine Farrar, and brought a large flock of real geese on the stage to take part in the performance. The other name of the opera is The Goose-Girl, which explains the presence of the geese. Geraldine Farrar always brought one or two with her when she acknowledged the applause and there was always an awful squawk! In this opera too, there is a horrid old Witch. Humperdinck found joy and inspiration in the folk music of Germany, much of which deals with fairies, elves, witches and inhabitants of the world of imagination.
Humperdinck was a great musician and he had the honor of being asked to prepare the score of Parsifal for the publishers.
Because of the beauties of his melodies, the lovely subjects he selected and his sympathy with the finer and higher things of life, it is a pity that Humperdinck left so few works.
He was attracted to the theatre and wrote much music as theatre music for plays. This is called incidental music, that is, it is incidental and the play’s the thing! Just before he died Humperdinck wrote the incidental music for the Miracle which is a great spectacle in pantomime. This means that there is no speaking, only tableaux and acting. He did not live to finish it, but it was completed by his son, for the production made by Max Reinhardt.
Probably you think that any music on a program is program music! Of course it is, but not in the special use of the word, for when it is program music, it has a story of its own and has to be described in more or less detail so that the audience can understand what it is about. Therefore, we find two classes of music—absolute music, which needs no story to explain it, and—program music, which does. Beethoven’s best works are known by their opus number while most of Schumann’s have descriptive titles. Early composers sometimes wrote music describing or imitating something, like Daquin’s Cuckoo, Jannequin’s Battle of Marignan, The Carman’s Whistle, etc. These pieces were program music in a way, but the modern tone poets went further by writing music with rather extended stories and with music not as simple as it used to be, but nevertheless an outgrowth of ballad form, sonata and the symphony.
Suppose you wanted to write a tone poem! First you must have a subject and then you must write music to explain it. Let us say you were going to write a Subway Tone Poem, your program notes might read something like this: The hero rushes away from his office, into the hurrying, scurrying street, down the slippery, crowded subway steps, and when he reaches the noisy turnstile slips in his fare and meets his young lady. He leads her through the crowd, protecting her from the jostling mob. Then they enter the train and above the noise and bustle they cast sweet glances at each other and converse. The train stops occasionally and finally they get off at their station. They walk to her home, along an empty side street where it is quiet and charming. He doffs his cap and we leave them, both thinking lovely things about each other.
Don’t you think you’re ready now to write a tone poem?
Up to Hector Berlioz’ time (1803–1869), there was no definite attempt to write a tone poem with an elaborate story. This man, one of the most complicated in musical history, did much to help music and future musicians, for he started to tell stories in music without scenery or dialogues.
He was born near Lyons, France, the son of a doctor who wanted him to study medicine, but as he almost fainted several times in the dissecting room, he gave it up. This was his first rebellion and all his life he struggled against nearly everything that existed. His was a noble discontent in many ways, for he believed deeply in his own ideas and suffered much putting them into practice. He lived shortly after the French Revolution when everything was topsy-turvy. Many of the old things that people had looked upon with reverence had vanished and he tried, as other young men of his day, to forge new ideas according to his sense of right.
One day he saw some musical score paper and realized in a moment, what wonderful things might be done with it and exclaimed: “What an orchestral work one might write on that!” and quite suddenly, he decided to write music! He could only play the guitar, the flute and the flageolet and knew practically nothing of harmony. He certainly paid well for his decision, for he had a hard struggle with himself and circumstances.
He took one of his compositions to Professor Lesueur at the Paris Conservatory, and was admitted.
Cherubini, Director of the Conservatory, made a rule that men and women should use separate doors leading into the library. Not knowing this rule, Berlioz entered by the door reserved for the women and sat down to read a score of his beloved Gluck. Cherubini, thin, pale-faced, with tousled hair and fiercely shining eyes, came up to Hector and reprimanded him for breaking the rule. They had a noisy fight, chasing in and out among the desks and when Berlioz reached the door, he looked back at Cherubini and called out: “I am soon coming back to study Gluck again.” Being a determined boy, he did come back, but Cherubini, on whom his future depended, was his staunch enemy for life.
His parents were infuriated with Hector for his conduct in and out of school. His mother, a pious woman, practically disowned him and his father gave him but a small allowance with the stipulation that unless he could soon prove his ability in music, he should have to go back to medicine. So he tried desperately to earn money, by singing in choruses, playing the flute and teaching, hoping that he could win the Prix de Rome, which would give him a few years in Rome and three thousand francs. After terrific opposition by Cherubini and held back, too, by his own lack of diplomacy, either by submitting works that were written too poorly or too well, he lost many chances for the prize and finally, after four attempts, he won the coveted award with his cantata Sardanapalus. The amusing thing about this is, that he left out the parts then looked upon as modern, and difficult, which would have lost him the prize, but the first time it was played in public, he put them all in, and the piece was successful.
Then he fell in love, and after much posing and strutting about and foolish behavior, he married the young Irish actress, Harriet Smithson. They were very unhappy and unfortunate, but he was good to her and even gave up composing to earn a living by writing, and he proved an exceptionally gifted writer and critic.
His autobiography, too, is most interesting for he sees himself as a romantic hero and tells the tale with great dramatic energy and exaggeration.
At one time he was engaged to another woman who was unkind to him and he wrote: “Two tears of rage started from my eyes and my mind was made up on the spot to kill without mercy.” But being impetuous and quick tempered, he never reached the scene of murder, for, when about to sail to where she was, he either fell or jumped into the water, which very much dampened his ardor for killing.
One night, Chopin and Schumann followed him because he had threatened to kill himself. But, at the crucial moment Berlioz changed his mind!
Life for Berlioz was a drama in which he was the leading man, and he watched his own performance, as if he were a part of the audience. He craved novelty at every turn. He was sensitive, high-strung and vain, and yet withal, he had the dignity of being loyal to his beliefs in himself, and did not want to deceive anybody. He wrote with humor, brilliancy and understanding, he had faith in his work, and was sufficiently heroic to stick to his course whatever the cost. He was a martyr, for he suffered in order to do what he wished in music, and was never appreciated.
Although he went to England, Germany, Austria and Russia, and was very successful, Paris, only, interested him. In 1863, his opera The Trojans in Carthage failed and in 1868, he died, a broken-hearted man.
It seems strange, but Berlioz disliked Bach and Palestrina and worshiped Beethoven, Gluck and Weber. He was jealous of Wagner and did everything he could to make Tannhäuser a failure in Paris.
Berlioz invented new ways, as do our Jazz Bands today, to make the instruments produce different sounds. He put bags over the horns, hung up the cymbals and had them struck with sticks instead of clapping them together, dressed up the drumsticks in sponges, and was much pleased at the effect made when a trombone played a duet with a piccolo. He made propaganda for new instruments especially for the horn, invented by Adolphe Saxe, which was called Sax Horn, and from which descended the Saxophone, so behold Berlioz, the founder of the Jazz Band!
Where other composers would use four trombones or one, he used sixteen! In his Requiem for example, he used sixteen trombones, twelve ophicleides (cornets with extra levers or keys), eight pairs of kettle drums, two bass drums, a gong and of course, all the regular string and reed instruments. He boasted after the first performance, that a man had a fit from the excessive noise!
He wrote the sort of melody that showed off each particular instrument to its best advantage. He studied them as if they were human beings, and he understood their characters and temperaments, what they could do and at what they would balk. He showed the possibilities of the choirs of wood wind instruments, a rich heritage for us today. The orchestra playing a piece of his, directed by him was matchless in its effect. Effect was the keynote of his writings. As the first great master of tonal effect, he is unsurpassed, and his book on orchestration is still one of the most practical text books on the subject.
Berlioz used the idée fixe (fixed idea) or leit-motif, not as Wagner used it later, but quite definitely, twisting a theme in many ways to bring out different phases of the same subject. Thus, Berlioz founded the dramatic in music, without scenery and without words, which is the Symphonic Tone Poem.
The majority of the people did not understand him any more than they understand Stravinsky today. His greatest work was his Symphony Fantastic written in 1829, in which he used the idée fixe to tell about the life of the artist, in true program music style for which he fought and almost bled. In Harold in Italy, he makes a departure by giving to the viola, the rôle of the “leading lady” which had not been done up to his day. He often used voices with the orchestra as he did in his tone poems Romeo and Juliet, and The Damnation of Faust.
The noisy Requiem is one of the finest things he did, and his overtures, the best of which is the Benvenuto Cellini, are fine works. The oratorio, The Infancy of Christ, written in classic style, was well received, but his operas never succeeded.
He paved the way for new orchestral effects and prepared the ground for Franz Liszt, Richard Wagner, Richard Strauss, and all the other orchestral composers. He was a musical Byron, for he was more interesting than beautiful, more vivid than noble, a sincere poseur, faithful to his ideas and always searching for romance.
Hector Berlioz.
(Father of the Tone Poem.)
Franz Liszt.
Sympathetic Teacher, Composer, Pianist and Friend to Young Musicians.
He was well versed in literature, always carried Virgil in his pocket, and loved and admired Shakespeare, Goethe, Byron, Walter Scott and other great writers on whose works he based many compositions. In his fascinating autobiography, he said, “The dominant qualities of my music are passionate expression, internal fire, rhythmic animation and unexpected change,” and he was right.
And so we leave this romantic man, craving sensation in his life and in his music, exaggerated in word and tone, and thank him for what Daniel Gregory Mason calls, “His contribution to the unresting progress of art.”
He was not appreciated in Paris until after his death, and some one said that the stones hurled at him in contempt were soon piled up for him in the pedestals of his monuments.
Another Mozart seems about to appear, for Franz Liszt (1811–1886), too, was an infant prodigy!
He was born in Raiding, Hungary, and his father, Adam Liszt, who was steward to Prince Esterhazy, gave Franz piano lessons and managed his first concert tours.
At nine Liszt played in public, then went to Vienna and took lessons from Carl Czerny and Salieri. When twelve years old he played in Paris and “set the world on fire” with his brilliancy. Some one said that after his first concert that he had a triumphal progress to fame over the laps of great ladies, for he was petted and “bon-bonned” and kissed by all.
Liszt wanted to go to the Conservatory in Paris, but as he was a foreigner, Cherubini, though a foreigner himself, would not admit him.
Here is a handbill used for advertising the little boy Liszt:
With grand Variations by Herz, will be performed on Erard’s New Patent-Grand Pianoforte, by:
Who will likewise perform an Extempore Fantasia and respectfully requests two written Themes from any of the Audience upon which he will play his Variations
This illustrates two interesting things. The first, the mention of the grand pianoforte, which had not been in use very long; the second, the fashion in Liszt’s day of improvising before an audience, a “stunt” almost like solving a cross-word puzzle without a dictionary!
For a long time, he was advertised as two years younger than he was, and his father carried him to the piano; but he soon rebelled at this pretense and it was discontinued.
After Liszt’s father died in 1827, he gave up concert tours for a while, and settled down with his mother for eight restful years to study and teach the piano. Liszt generously gave his mother all the money he had made in his successful tours because, he said, she had made so many sacrifices for him. At this time he grew spiritually deeper and well fitted for the glories to come. Like Berlioz, Liszt was born a short time after the French Revolution, when new ideas were coming into literature, religion and art, through which this young and gifted artist tried to guide himself in a wholesome way that shaped his future life.
Liszt again made concert tours through Europe (1839), and astounded everyone with his playing and the charm of his personality. Musicians and audiences were at his feet! He made a great deal of money, too, and grew so popular that artists painted him, ladies knelt before him in adoration, tableaux were given in his honor, monuments erected to him and societies named after him.
His kindness to the poor and needy was unfailing. When Pesth was inundated by a flood, he sent a generous gift to the sufferers; he established a fund for the poor in Raiding and completed the necessary sum for the Beethoven monument at Bonn. He never accepted money for teaching after he was “grown up” for he wanted to be a help to his some three hundred pupils. It is said that after 1847 he never gave a concert for his own benefit! An extraordinary character!
In 1843, he went to Weimar, as a visiting artist. Soon he met Princess Von Sayn Wittgenstein of Russia who realized his great gifts and influenced him to become more than a pianist. Later in the year we see him as Choir Master living at Weimar and attracting the greatest people of the musical world to him. Here Liszt was able to help young musicians who came from all over the world. Wagner would never have been so successful, had not Liszt aided him during his exile. He stood by him with patience and loving kindness and helped him to produce his operas. He was of untold assistance to Schumann and Berlioz, Rubinstein, Cornelius and countless others by performing their works when nobody else dared to. Liszt was in high favor with society, and having a love for the new in music, he used his popularity to help music grow. Wagner himself said: “At the end of my last stay in Paris, when ill, broken down and despairing, I sat brooding over my fate, my eye fell on the score of my Lohengrin, totally forgotten by me. Suddenly I felt something like compassion that this music should never sound from off the death-pale paper. I wrote two lines to Liszt; his answer was the news that preparations for the performance were being made on the largest scale the limited means of Weimar would permit.” Liszt’s motto was, “First Place to the Living.”
Liszt’s services were demanded for concerts and festivals in many towns from 1852–1859. The people, however, could not understand how their idol could believe in Wagner and Berlioz, and there were many rabid discussions. Very soon Liszt brought out his own symphonic poems, Tasso, Prometheus, Mazeppa, Les Preludes, and his two piano concertos (1855–1857), utilizing his romantic ideas.
After leaving Weimar, which some biographers claim was because of the adverse criticism of Cornelius’ opera, The Barber of Bagdad, Liszt went to Rome. Here his deep mystical nature and his need for rest and time for contemplation, led him to enter one of the Holy Orders of the Church, and the Pope gave him the honorary title of Abbé. Pope Pius IX adored him and called him his Palestrina. The church music which he composed there included his oratorios St. Elizabeth, The Christus, his unfinished Stanislaus, the Hungarian Coronation Mass and the Requiem.
Liszt returned to Weimar every spring and summer and conducted many festivals and concerts, including the Beethoven centenary. He was also much interested in the National Academy at Pesth, so now he divided his time between Rome, Pesth, and Weimar.
He wrote many brilliant piano pieces, among them his nineteen remarkable Hungarian Rhapsodies based on the melodies he heard from the gypsies. Besides composing music, teaching and helping other musicians and giving to the needy, he wrote essays and criticisms.
In appearance Liszt was tall and thin with deep-set eyes and bushy eyebrows and a mouth which turned up at the corners when he smiled. His charm of manner won all who came in contact with him.
A story is told of him that he as a youth was sitting to the artist Scheffer for his portrait, and fell into a theatrical pose, probably with his head thrown back and one hand thrust into the breast of his buttoned coat, which was characteristic. As this did not impress the painter, Liszt, realizing it, cried with much embarrassment, “Forgive, dear master, but you do not know how it spoils one to have been an infant prodigy.”
In spite of Liszt’s outward affectation and posing, he had a noble character. He was simple and whole-souled, free from jealousy and the love of money. He died highly honored in 1886 at the age of seventy-five at a Wagner festival in Bayreuth. In fact it was difficult to tell who received more honor at Bayreuth, Liszt in the audience or Wagner at the conductor’s desk.
As a pianist, no one has surpassed Liszt and he revealed the piano’s possibilities. In addition to his pianoforte compositions, he made “arrangements” of symphonies, chorals, operas, songs and every other form, which brought them closer to the people. His arrangements are so brilliant, although over-decorated and cheap in effect, that he shows that the piano can almost reproduce the orchestra.
Liszt was not as great a composer as he was a pianist and stimulator of other musicians, and much of his music was written for effect. Yet he was a great critic and his love of music for the future rather than of the past, led him to be sympathetic with young composers, for whom he opened the way. The people who gathered about him disliked old forms and were looking for new music in which he encouraged them. Among the musicians who were friends and pupils at Weimar, were: Joseph Joachim Raff, Peter Cornelius, Eduard Lassen, who took Liszt’s place when he left Weimar, Leopold Damrosch, the father of Walter and Frank Damrosch of New York, Alexander Ritter, the pianist and inspirer of so many great people, and hundreds of others.
Liszt wrote many symphonic and choral pieces which showed marked originality. Although not as profound as Wagner, he helped Wagner so much that their names would be forever linked, even if his daughter Cosima had not been Wagner’s wife.
Among other friends of Liszt of value to musical history were Anton Rubinstein (1829–1894) (page 443), the Russian, and Hans von Bülow (1830–1894), a German. Both these men were great pianists and wrote noteworthy compositions. Liszt was a great stimulus to them and they had many points in common. Rubinstein was romantic and von Bülow, classic. Rubinstein did much to link Germany and Russia musically, which was a help to both nations. Von Bülow was an illustrious pianist, friend of Wagner, famous conductor, and editor of many musical scores, among them an edition of Beethoven’s Sonatas, still in constant use. Both these men did much for pianists all over Europe.
Other great pianists and composers of their day were: Nikolai Rubinstein (Anton’s brother) (1835–1881); Theodor Leschetizky (1830–1915), trained by Carl Czerny, and he in turn trained hundreds of pianists; Karl Tausig and many others.
Of course, the effect of these pianists was to make music and the piano more popular, thus adding greatly to the musical culture of the world.
You probably know of Piotr (Peter) Ilyitch Tchaikovsky (1840–1893) as a great symphony writer, but he was also a successful writer of tone poems such as The Tempest, Francesco di Rimini, Manfred, based on Byron’s Manfred, Hamlet, The Storm, Romeo and Juliet and two incomplete poems, Destiny and Voievoda. Tchaikovsky was born in Russia, he went to the school of Jurisprudence and later entered the Ministry of Justice but soon began to compose music and took a medal for composition for a piece which he wrote on Schiller’s Ode to Joy, the poem Beethoven used in his 9th Symphony. He also wrote The Nut Cracker Suite for orchestra, adapted from the score of a Ballet, which includes a Russian dance, an Arab dance, a Chinese dance, flower waltz, and other fascinating, whirling, delightful dances.
Many of Tchaikovsky’s things not called tone poems have very definite programs, such as The Snow Maiden (Snegovrotchka) a favorite legend and music to a fairy tale—the parts are named Chorus of Blind Gusslee Players, Monologue of the Frosts, Appearance of the Wood Demons and so on.
Boecklin’s painting Isle of Death, inspired Sergei Rachmaninov (1873) to write a most beautiful musical poem about its sombre trees and the sea. As a distinguished pianist he has glorified the art in all countries, especially in America. He was a student of Siloti and of Zvierev, a friend of Tchaikovsky. His masters in harmony and theory were Taneiev and Arensky. He has held musical posts of honor and has written remarkable piano concertos, chamber music works, choruses and one opera, Aleko. You probably know his much played C minor Prelude which has been a sort of visiting card of Rachmaninov to the public.
In the list of tone poets, Richard Strauss (1864), or Richard II is one of the most important. It is strange that he should have the same name as Wagner, for his father Franz Strauss, a skilled horn player, disliked Wagner and his compositions intensely. Richard’s mother was the daughter of a brewer and they all lived in Munich, where the son was born.
When he was a little boy, he wrote musical notes before he could write the alphabet, and at six, composed little pieces. By the time he was twenty he had written compositions which put him with Schubert and Mozart, in the ranks of musical prodigies.
Until his sixteenth work Aus Italien (From Italy) (1886), his first tone poem, he did not depart from the classic forms, although there were a few signs of change in style in a violin sonata which he wrote just before the tone poem. In fact, he was so much against Wagner and his innovations, that no one could have guessed that later he himself would be considered an innovator and would be accused of imitating Wagner.
During his youth, after hearing Siegfried he wrote to a friend about the music of Mime: “It would have killed a cat and the horror of musical dissonances would melt rocks into omelettes.”
When he met von Bülow, the old master thought little of his talents, but the young man gave him a surprise. For, when Richard went to Meiningen he had never led an orchestra in his life and without one rehearsal, conducted his Serenade for Strings, opus 7. Von Bülow realized his great ability, made him assistant conductor, and a year later when he left Meiningen, Strauss took his place.
It was about now that Richard met Alexander Ritter the violinist and radical thinker who, he said, changed his life by introducing to him new ideas. He became converted to Wagner. When he heard Tristan and Isolde he was thrilled by it. So, like Proteus, the god who changed his form to suit his adventure, Strauss, the musical Proteus changed his ideas to suit his opinions.
Wearied by hard work after writing many classical pieces including a sonata, an overture, the Festmarsch, a violin concerto, songs, a horn concerto and other things, he became very ill. He said to a friend that he was ready to die, and then added, “No, before I do, I should love to conduct Tristan.” This shows that the young man could change his opinion and become devoted to what he loathed years before, a fine quality which continually brought down upon his head criticism from smaller folk. Yet this Proteus-like quality was a sign of his power for growth.
Because he did not gain strength quickly from his illness, he went to Italy and then wrote his first symphonic poem Aus Italien (From Italy) in a new and modern vein.
When he returned, he led the orchestra in the Court Theatre of Munich and then went to Weimar for two years, and this former young classicist was now hailed as the leader of modern composers! He produced, here, three tone poems: Macbeth, Don Juan and Tod und Verklärung (Death and Transfiguration) (1888–1890).
Then, on account of illness (1892) he went to Greece, Egypt and Sicily. During this tour, he wrote Guntram, which he produced on his return to Weimar.
He became interested in the Bayreuth festivals and in 1894 he conducted a production of Tannhäuser, after which he married Pauline de Ana who played Elizabeth. Before this, he had made her the heroine of his first opera, Guntram (1893).
Not long after this he gave up the Weimar post and went to Munich with his bride. He became the conductor there and at the same time, led the Berlin Philharmonic concerts until the double work and commuting became too much for him. He gave up Berlin and Arthur Nikisch succeeded him,—the same Arthur Nikisch who later took the baton of the Boston Symphony Orchestra in America.
In 1899 he became the leader of the Royal Opera in Berlin in which city he decided to live and from there made trips all over the world including the United States, first in 1904 and later, after the World War. During his last tour, we heard him play the piano for his songs which are unsurpassed in beauty, and conduct some of his own orchestral works with skill and enthusiasm.
He is tall and slender, with kindly blue eyes, rather informal in manner. He has the air of a happy man even if he has received some of the harshest criticism from friends and foes that any composer has had from earliest times. His wife used to sing his songs in public. He is fond of games, especially the card game “skat” and like the true grandson of a brewer enjoys his glass of beer.
Among Strauss’ greatest works are his operas Electra, Salome and Der Rosenkavalier and his nine tone poems. Despite all the harsh things critics have said of him, Strauss has always maintained that, although he did not write in accepted forms, he felt that the form should always be suitable to the subject, for “as moods and ideas change so must forms.” This, Ernest Newman said in defence of Strauss, and it may be applied to all arts.
So Strauss is not formless but like Proteus, has many forms. Cecil Gray said, “he seems to have an irresistible itch to provoke the amazement and the horror of the multitude.” This is quite true, especially in Salome, Electra and Der Rosenkavalier in which opera he went back to Mozart form as a model. It seems incredible that a man who could write the noble songs that he has written should have chosen such unpleasant plots for his operas!
In Tod und Verklärung (Death and Transfiguration) he was distinctly a follower of Liszt. His friend Alexander Ritter is said to have written the poem after the music.
At the time that it was first played, it caused so much comment that Strauss, like Browning, laughed at people for trying to “read” more into it than he wrote. Browning was asked whether he meant a certain thing in one of his poems, and his reply was something like this: “Madam, I never thought of it, but if you think it is there, I am more than glad to know it.”
His Don Juan is delightful, too, but his Til Eulenspiegel (1895) which tells of the mischievous pranks of Til, is one of the finest examples of humor in music and probably will outlive many works of this modern period, his own as well as others. He wrote it in the form of a classical Rondo, because he could picture Til’s ever recurring deviltry and exploits in this form. Poor Strauss was reviled for this daringly written music, too, yet this tone poem is an amazing piece of work and was given gloriously as a ballet in New York City a few years ago by Diaghilev’s Russian Ballet.
In Also Sprach Zarathustra (Thus Spake Zarathustra), Strauss uses the idée fixe or leit-motif. This is based on a prose poem of Nietzsche.
In Don Quixote he goes back to the form of the classical variation, for it is an ingenious way of showing the varying sides of the character of Don Quixote. Here he shows events and not ideas, a most definite story in tones. You can almost see the attack on the wind-mills and you can actually hear the sheep bleating, the church music of passing pilgrims, and the love tale of Dulcinea. In this piece, program music reaches its height.
In Ein Heldenleben (A Hero’s Life) (1898) Strauss frankly quotes from his musical works. He does not have to prove that he is the hero, for he admits it! When Strauss was asked what the poem meant, he said, “There is no need of a program, it is enough to know that there is a hero fighting his enemies.” In it, you can really hear the carping critics, his retorts, the triumphs and the defeats. It is very interesting and amazingly well written.
The Domestic Symphony (Sinfonia Domestica) is the story of a family for one day. There is the father motif, the mother motif and the baby motif! The final fugue represents education very aptly for you get from it the sense of flight and struggle and the never endingness of education.
One of his last works is The Alpine Symphony. His other works include an early opera Feuersnoth, and his songs which are among the greatest ever written by any composer, ranking him with Franz, Schubert, Schumann, Brahms and Hugo Wolf.
Strauss shows in all his work great pictorial power. He paints in tones if ever a man does. His humor in music is amazing. He tries to make vivid in music a thing as simple as a fork and as complex as a philosophic idea. Some one said of him, comparing him to Wagner, that he started out to write symphonic poems and really wrote music dramas, while Wagner started out to write music dramas and ended by writing Tristan and Isolde, a super-symphonic poem with voices added.
Richard Strauss is the last of the great German classic and romantic composers who have ruled the musical world for the past two centuries. Still living in Germany he has opened the way to many of the younger composers, who have learned much from his methods of orchestration and handling music in the large forms. While he out-Wagnered Wagner in strange and new harmony, he now seems old fashioned in comparison to Schoenberg, Stravinsky and Honegger. Although Strauss seemed to us very complex and exaggerated a few years ago, it was very interesting to notice that when his works were revived in America after the War, the audiences had grown up musically to the point where they seemed no longer unintelligible or ultra-modern.
We remember when we were leaving the opera house after the first performance of Salome in this country, hearing one ill bred, untutored woman say, “Gee! Goit, but that was one big noise!” By this time she has probably reached the point where she is jazzing the Salome dance with real pleasure and understanding!
He did many unusual things with instruments, added many new ones, and as someone said, he loves to have the “trombone play like a piccolo!”
No one can say where Strauss will stand as a composer, for time alone can place him. However, we make bold to state that he will stand high in the company of the world’s composers.
As imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, there is no proof of the success of the tone poem more telling than the fact that practically every composer in the musical world has written symphonic tone poems. In fact today, one hundred tone poems are written to one symphony! Berlioz had his followers in France, and in the group around César Franck were several who wrote tone poems. One of the most charming of these poets was Alexis Emanuel Chabrier (1841–1894) who took up music first as an amateur while studying law in Paris, and while he was Minister of the Interior. Later he became so devoted to music that he gave all his time to it.
Among his works are operas and many other forms of music, the loveliest of which is the Rhapsody on Spanish tunes called España. It is a model of its kind and in it he uses the collected material with rare skill. It shows him very clever in reproducing foreign atmosphere and feeling. He was born in Ambert, France, and died in Paris.
Claude Achille Debussy (1862–1918) although talked of in another chapter, must be mentioned as a composer of tone poems in this. Among his most famous works are Après-midi d’Un Faune, La Mer, Les Nuages, Fêtes, and Sirènes which are all surpassingly lovely, written in Debussy’s special harmonies with which he wove a mystical, far away atmosphere, so compelling and yet so magical that you think you are in a mysterious cloudland. He usually uses a scale of whole tones. In Pelleas and Melisande, his greatest work (opera) you seem to look into a distant land which never did and never will exist, except in the glorious reaches of his or our imaginations. So to those of us who love fairy realms, cloudland and beauty of idea and serene expression, Debussy will be a rare treat and never vanish from our mind’s ear.