How to Appreciate Music Part 6

I have gone into some detail regarding these etudes because I regard them, as a whole, among the greatest of Chopin's works. But I once heard Rubinstein play the entire set of twenty-four Preludes, and I sometimes wonder, as one often does with the compositions of a great genius, whether these Preludes, in spite of their comparative brevity, should not be ranked as high as anything Chopin ever wrote. According to tradition, they were composed during the winter of 1838, which Chopin spent with George Sand at Majorca in the Balearic Islands. But there is authority for saying that they received only the finis.h.i.+ng touches there, and are in fact the gleanings of his portfolios.

It seems as if in these twenty-four pieces every phase of human emotion were brought out. If my memory is correct, Rubinstein played them as a solo group at a Philharmonic concert, or he may have given them about the same time at one of his recitals. It was in 1872; and while after this long lapse of time it is impossible to remember every detail of his performance, I shall never forget the exquisite tenderness with which he played the very brief Prelude in A major, the seventh. He simply caressed the keyboard, touched it as if his fingers were tipped with velvet; and though into the other compositions of the series he put, according as their character varied, an immense amount of pa.s.sion, or more subdued emotion, I can still hear this seventh Prelude sounding in my memory, note for note and bar for bar, as he rendered it--a prolonged, tremulous whisper. Schumann regarded the Preludes as most remarkable, saying that "in every piece we find in his own hand 'Frederic Chopin wrote it.' One recognizes him in his pauses, in his quick-coming breath. He is the boldest, the proudest poet-soul of his time."

Each number in the series is complete in itself, a mood picture; but the series as a whole, in its collection of moods, its panorama of emotions, represents the entire range of Chopin's art. The fourth in E minor, covering only a page, is one of the most pathetic plaints ever penned. The fifteenth in D flat major, with its continual reiteration of the dominant, like the incessant drip of rain on a roof, is a nocturne--Chopin in one of his morbid moments; while the eighteenth in F minor is as bold a piece of dramatic recitative as though it had been lifted bodily out of a music-drama. And so we might run the whole range of the collection, finding each admirable in itself, yet different from all the others. What a group for a recital these twenty-four Preludes make!

Nocturnes.

If Chopin had not written the Nocturnes I doubt if those who play and those who comment on him would err so often in attributing such an excess of morbidness to him as they do, or lay the charge of effeminacy against him. Morbid these Nocturnes undoubtedly are in many parts, and yet they often rise to the dignity of elegy, and sometimes even of tragedy. Exquisitely melodious they are, too, and full of the haunting mystery of night. The one in C sharp minor, Opus 27, No. 1, is perhaps the most dramatic of the series, and Henry T. Finck, in his Chopin essay, is entirely within bounds when he says that it embodies a greater variety of emotion and more genuine dramatic spirit on four pages than many operas on four hundred. There are greater nocturnes than the one in G, Opus 37, No. 2, but I must nevertheless regard it as the most beautiful of all. It may bewitch and unman the player, as Niecks has said, but, on the other hand, I think its second melody, like a Venetian barcarolle breathed through the moonlight, is the most exquisite thing Chopin ever composed; and note how, without any undulating accompaniment, its rhythm nevertheless produces a gentle wavy effect.

Probably the most familiar of all the Nocturnes is the one in E flat, the second in the first set, Opus 9. It has been played so much that unless it is interpreted in a perfect manner it comes perilously near to being hackneyed; but under the hands of a great pianist, who unites with absolute independence of all his ten fingers, the soul of a poet, it becomes an iridescent play of color, with a sombre picture of melancholy seen through the iridescence. Remenyi played a violin arrangement of it with such delicacy and so much poetry of feeling that he actually reconciled one to its transfer from the pianoforte to the soprano instrument of four strings.

Chopin and Poe.

John Field, an Irish composer (1782-1837), was the first to compose nocturnes, and it is not unlikely that Chopin got the pattern from him. Occasionally at historical recitals one hears a nocturne by John Field; but I think that if even those who love to question the originality of great men were familiar with the nocturnes of Field, they would realize how far Chopin went beyond him, making out of a small type an art form of such poetic content that, in spite of Field having been first in the lists, Chopin may be said to have originated the form. Naturally, Field did not relish seeing himself supplanted by this greater genius, and he said of Chopin that he composed music for a sick-room, and had "a talent of the hospital." On recital programs Chopin's nocturnes often appear, and, when played by a master like Paderewski, who is sensitive to every shade of Chopin's genius, they are heard with an exquisite feeling of sorrow. In these Nocturnes, Chopin always seems to me like Edgar Allan Poe in "Ullalume" or in "Annabel Lee"--and was not Poe one of the only two American poets of real genius?

Waltzes and Mazurkas.

A Chopin waltz will admirably afford contrast in a group of Chopin pieces on a recital program. Possibly the waltzes are the most frequently played by amateurs of all Chopin's compositions. But, to perpetrate an Irish bull, even those that have been played to death still are very much alive. It was Schumann who said that if these waltzes were to be played for dancing more than half the dancers should be Countesses, the music is so aristocratic. Indeed, to listen to these waltzes is like looking at a dance through a fairy lens. They seem to be improvisations of the pianist during a dance, and to reflect the thoughts that arise in the player's mind as he looks on, giving out the rhythm with the left hand, while the melody and the ornamental note-groups indicate his fancies--love, a jealous plaint, joy, ecstasy, and the tender whispering of enamored couples as they glide past. The slow A minor "Waltz," with its viola-like left-hand melody, was Chopin's favorite, and he was so pleased when Stephen h.e.l.ler told him that it was his favorite one, too, that he invited him to luncheon. (Strange that we always should regard food as the most appropriate reward of artistic sympathy!) Each waltz, with the exception of some of the posthumous ones, has its individual charm, but to me the most beautiful is the one in C sharp minor, with its infinite expression of longing in its leading theme and its remarkable chromatic descent before the brilliant right-hand pa.s.sage that follows in the second episode. These chromatics should be emphasized, as they are a feature of the pa.s.sage and form gems of harmonization. But few pianists seem to appreciate their significance and pay sole attention to bringing out the upper voice.

Thoroughly characteristic of Chopin, thoroughly in keeping with his Polish nationality and its traditions, are the Mazurkas--jewels of music, full of the finest feeling, the most delicate harmonization, and with a dash and spirit entirely their own. Weitzmann truly says that they are the most faithful and animated pictures of his nation which Chopin has left us, and that they are masterpieces of their cla.s.s: "Here he stands forth in his full originality as the head of the romantic school of music; in them his novel and alluring melodic and harmonic progressions are even more surprising than in his larger compositions."

Liszt on the Mazurkas.

Liszt, too, pauses to pay his tribute to them: "Some portray foolhardy gaiety in the sultry and oppressive air of a ball, and on the eve of a battle; one hears the low sighs of parting, whose sobs are stifled by sharp rhythms of the dance. Others portray the grief of the sorely anxious soul amid festivities, whose tumult is unable to drown the profound woe of the heart. Others, again, show the tears, premonitions and struggles of a broken heart, devoured by jealousy, sorrowing over its loss, but repressing the curse. Now we are surrounded by a swirling frenzy, pierced by an ever-recurring palpitating melody like the anxious beating of a loving but rejected heart; and anon distant trumpet calls resound like dim memories of bygone fame." All this is very fine, although a trifle over-sentimental. The fact is that the Chopin Mazurkas are archly coquettish, pa.s.sionately pleading, full of delicate banter, love, despair and conquest--and always thoroughly original and thoroughly interesting. In fact Chopin never is commonplace. A Mazurka or two will add zest to any group of his works on a recital program.

The Polonaises are Chopin's battle-hymns. The roll of drums, the booming of cannon, the rattle of musketry and the plaint for the dead--all these things one may hear in some of these compositions. The mourning notes, however, are missing from the "A Major Polonaise,"

Opus 40, and usually called "Le Militaire." It is not a large canvas, but it is heroic and one of the most virile of all his works. It was of this polonaise Chopin said that if he could play it as it should be played, he would break all the strings of the pianoforte before he had finished.

Other Works.

And then the Ballades and the Scherzos. These are perhaps Chopin's greatest contributions to the music of the pianoforte. They are wonderfully original, wonderfully emotional, yet never to the point of morbidness, full of his original harmonies, fascinating rhythms and glow. In the Scherzos he is not gaily abandoned, as the t.i.tle would suggest, but often grim and mocking--tragedy mocking itself.

Chopin also wrote Sonatas--felt himself obliged to, perhaps, because he was writing for the pianoforte, because pianoforte music still was in the grip of the thirty-two Beethoven pianoforte sonatas. By no means did he adhere to the cla.s.sical form; yet these three sonatas are not to be counted among his most successful compositions. One of them, the B flat minor, contains the familiar funeral march which has been said to "give forth the pain and grief of an entire nation"--Chopin's nation, sorrowing Poland; and, indeed, the middle episode, the trio of the march, is pathetic to the verge of tears, while in the other portions the march progresses to the grave amid the tolling of bells and the heavy tramp of soldiery. It is played and played, possibly played too much; and yet, when well played, never misses leaving a deep impression. Because people will persist in "playing" certain popular pieces, there is no reason these should not be enjoyed when interpreted by a master. There is a vast difference between interpretation and mere "playing."

This funeral march is followed in the sonata by a finale which aptly enough has been described as night winds sweeping over graves. The funeral march often is played at recitals as a detached piece. I cannot see why pianists do not add this finale, which has real psychological connection with it. The "Berceuse," a "Barcarolle," two "Concertos for Piano and Orchestra," which often are slightingly spoken of, and most unjustly, since they are full of beautiful melody and most grateful to play--beyond these it does not seem necessary to go here, unless, perhaps, to mention the Impromptus, which are full of the most delightful _chiaroscuro_, and the great F minor "Fantaisie."

A n.o.ble from Head to Foot.

Because Chopin wrote only for the pianoforte, because as a rule his pieces are not long, his greatness was not at first recognized. The conservatives seemed to think no man could be great unless he wrote sonatas in four movements for the piano and symphonies for the orchestra, unless he composed for fifty or sixty instruments instead of for only one. But although Jumbo was large, he was not accounted beautiful, and wors.h.i.+p of the big is a mistaken kind of reverence.

Chopin's briefest mazurka is worth infinitely more than many sonatas that cover many pages. This composer was a tone poet of the highest order. While to-day we regard him mainly as the interpreter of beauty, in his own day he was an innovator, a reformer and, like his own Poles, a revolutionist. The pianoforte--the pianoforte as a solo instrument--sufficed for his most beautiful dreams, for his most pa.s.sionate longings. Bie, in his "History of the Pianoforte and Pianoforte Players," tells us that Chopin smiled when he heard that Czerny had composed another overture for eight pianos and sixteen persons, and was very happy over it. "Chopin," adds Bie, "opened to the two hands a wider world than Czerny could give to thirty-two."

Rubinstein, as quoted by Huneker, apostrophizes him as "the piano bard, the piano rhapsodist, the piano mind, the piano soul.... Tragic, romantic, virile, heroic, dramatic, fantastic, soulful, sweet, dreamy, brilliant, grand, simple--all possible expressions are found in his compositions and all are sung by him upon his instrument." Huneker himself says: "In Chopin's music there are many pianists, many styles, and all are correct if they are poetically musical, logical and individually sincere." Best of all, he enlarged the scope for individual expression in music. Once for all, he got pianoforte music away from the set form of the cla.s.sical sonata. "He was sincere, and his survival when nearly all of Mendelssohn, much of Schumann, and half of Berlioz have suffered an eclipse, is proof positive of his vitality."--Thus again Huneker. Bie says, in summing up his position, that his greatness is his aristocracy; that "he stands among musicians, in his faultless vesture, a n.o.ble from head to foot." But, above all, he is a searcher of the human soul, and, because he searched it out on the pianoforte, is he therefore less great than if he had drawn it out on the strings, piped it on the reeds, blown it through the tubes and battered it on the drumheads of the orchestra?

VI

SCHUMANN, THE "INTIMATE"

Having finished with his Chopin group, the pianist is apt to follow it with his Schumann selections, and we meet with another original musical genius. Robert Schumann was born at Zwickau in June, 1810. His father was a book publisher and was in hopes that the son would show literary apt.i.tude. In fact, the elder Schumann discouraged Robert's musical aspirations; and as a result, instead of receiving early in life a systematic musical training, his education was along other lines. He studied law at Leipzig in 1828 and in Heidelberg in 1829, and was thus what is rare among musicians--a composer with an academic education.

His meeting with the celebrated pianoforte teacher, Frederick Wieck, the Leschet.i.tzki of his day, determined Schumann to enter upon a musical career. Wieck took him into his home in Leipzig and he studied the pianoforte with a view of becoming a virtuoso. In order to gain greater freedom in fingering, he devised a mechanical apparatus by which one finger was suspended in a sling while the others played upon the keyboard. Unfortunately, through the use of this contrivance he strained the tendons of one hand and his dream of a virtuoso's career vanished. Meanwhile he had fallen in love with his teacher's daughter, Clara Wieck, and finally, after determined opposition on the part of her father, married her in 1840. Later in life a brain trouble from which he had suffered intermittently became more severe, and in February, 1854, he became possessed of the idea that Schubert's spirit had appeared to him and given him a theme to work out. He abruptly left the room in which he was sitting with some friends in his house at Dusseldorf and threw himself into the Rhine. Some boatmen rescued him from drowning, but he had to be taken to an asylum near Bonn, where he died in July, 1856.

These circ.u.mstances in his life are mentioned here not only because of their interest, but because they explain some aspects of his music.

Schumann was of a brooding disposition, intensely introspective.

Compared with Chopin, his music lacks iridescence and shows a want of brilliancy. This will be immediately apparent if at a recital a pianist places the Schumann pieces after a Chopin group, as he is apt to do for the sake of the very contrast which they afford. But if Schumann's compositions are wanting in superficially attractive brightness, they more than make up for it in their profounder characteristics. All through them one seems to hear a deep-sounding tone. One might say that his works for the keyboard instrument are pianoforte music for the viola, and for that reason they appear to me so expressive and so appealing. The harmonies are wonderfully compact.

One feels after striking a Schumann chord like stiffening the fingers in order to hold it down more firmly, keep a grip on it, and let it sound to its last echo.

Poet, Bourgeois, and Philosopher.

In Schumann's music the sensitive listener will find a curious blending of poet, bourgeois, and philosopher. He had the higher fancy, the warmth of the poet, a bourgeois love of what was intimate and homely, and the introspection of the philosopher.

Sometimes he is so introspective that he appears to me actually to be burrowing in harmony like a mole. The melodies are interwoven; sometimes the upper voice flutters lightly down upon "contrapuntal collisions in the ba.s.s"; frequently his rhythms are syncopated; melodies are superimposed upon each other; he uses "imitations,"

canonic figuration, and often by introducing a single note foreign to the scale, suddenly lowers or lifts an entire pa.s.sage. There are interior voices in his music, half suppressed, yet making themselves heard now and then above the princ.i.p.al melody. He loves "antic.i.p.ations"--advancing a single note or a few notes of the harmony and then filling in the sustained tone or tones with what was at first lacking. These characteristics are so marked that it is as easy to recognize Schumann as it is to distinguish Chopin in the first few bars of a work by either. Each is _sui generis_, each has his own hallmark, and it is a great thing in music, as in other arts, to have one's product so personal that there can be no mistaking whose it is.

Schumann made valuable contributions to so-called program music. His pieces, besides intrinsic musical worth, have a distinct meaning, usually indicated by the t.i.tles he gives them. And these t.i.tles themselves often are suggested by the works of authors whom he admired, or hark back to certain fanciful figures like harlequins and columbines. His second work for the pianoforte, "The Papillons,"

derived its inspiration from the poet, Jean Paul, who was at that time an object of his intense wors.h.i.+p. But whoever expects to find b.u.t.terflies fluttering through these Schumann pieces will be mistaken.

They are rather symbols of thoughts still in the chrysalis state and waiting, like b.u.t.terflies, to cast off the sh.e.l.l and gain air and freedom. This symbolism must be borne in mind in listening to "The Papillons."

Schumann himself said, in a general way, regarding his programmatic intentions in this and other works, that the t.i.tles given to his music should be taken very much like the t.i.tles of poems, and that, as in the case of poems, the music in itself should be beautiful, irrespective of t.i.tle or printed explanation. This is true of all program music that has survived. It will be found beautiful in itself; but it also is easy to discover that the t.i.tles and explanations which are calculated to place the hearer in certain receptive moods vastly add to his enjoyment.

"Carnaval" and "Kreisleriana."

I am always glad when a pianist elects to place the Schumann "Carnaval" on his program, because it is so characteristic of the composer's method of work and of his writing short pieces _en suite_, giving a separate name to each of his diversions yet uniting them into one composition by means of a comprehensive t.i.tle. The complete t.i.tle to this work is "Carnaval Scenes Mignonnes sur Quatre Notes pour Piano, Op. 9." The four notes are A S C H, and in explanation it should be said that in German S (es) is E flat, and H the B of our musical scale. Asch was the birthplace of Ernestine von Fricken, one of Schumann's early loves. Three of the divisions of the "Carnaval"

are ent.i.tled Florestan, Eusebius, and March of the Davidsbundler.

Schumann had founded the "Neue Zeitschrift fur Musik," and he contributed to it under the noms-de-plume of Florestan, Eusebius and Raro; while his a.s.sociates were denominated the Davidsbundler, it being their mission to combat and put to flight the old fogies of music, as David had the Philistines. Schumann himself is the looker-on at this carnival, a thinker wandering through the gay whirl, drawing his own conclusions, and noting down in music the varied figures as they pa.s.s, and his reflections on them. We meet Chopin and Paganini, each neatly characterized; Chiarina (the Italian diminutive of Clara) and Estrella (none other than Ernestine herself); also Harlequin, Pantalon, and Columbine. The Davidsbundler march in to the strains of the German folk-song,

"Grandfather wedded my grandmother dear, So grandfather then was a bridegroom, I fear,"

and the whole ends in a merry uproar. He wrote another carnival suite, Opus 26, the "Faschingschw.a.n.k aus Wien," in which he introduced a suggestion of the "Ma.r.s.eillaise," which was at that time forbidden to be played in Vienna.

The t.i.tle of another work which ranks among his finest productions, the "Kreisleriana," also requires explanation. This he derived from a book by E. T. A. Hoffmann, who sometimes is spoken of as the German Poe, although he lacks the exquisite art of the American author--in fact, is a Poe bound up in much heavy German philosophy and turgid introspection. The _Kreisler_ of Hoffmann's book is an exuberant sentimentalist, and is said to have had his prototype in Kapellmeister Ludwig Bohner, who, after a brilliant early career, had become addicted to drink and was reduced to maudlin memories of his former triumphs. In Hoffmann's book there is a contrast drawn between this pathetic character, whose ideals have become shadows which he vainly chases, and the prosaic views of life as set forth by another character _Kater Murr_ (literally _Tomcat Purr_). But these "Kreisleriana," of which Bie says "the joys and sorrows expressed in these pieces were never put into form with more sovereign power,"

should be ent.i.tled "Schumanniana," for although the t.i.tle is derived from Hoffmann, the content is Schumann.

Thoughts of His Clara.

Concerning the work as a whole he wrote to Clara while in the throes of composition: "This music now in me, and always such beautiful melodies! Think of it, since my last letter to you I have another entire book of new things ready. I intend to call them 'Kreisleriana,'

and in them you and a thought of you play the chief role, and I shall dedicate them to you. Yes, they belong to you as to no one else, and how sweetly you will smile when you find yourself in them! My music seems to me so wonderfully interwoven, in spite of all its simplicity, and speaking right from the heart. It has that effect upon all for whom I play these things, as I now do gladly and often." If Clara and a thought of Clara play the chief role, what becomes of _Kreisler_ and _Kater Murr_? Surely "Kreisleriana" are Schumanniana.