Symphonies and Their Meaning Part 10

Back he then repairs; See how swells the tide!

How each pail he bears Straightway is supplied!

Stop, for lo!

All the measure Of thy treasure Now is right!

Ah, I see it! woe, oh, woe!

I forget the word of might.

Ah, the word whose sound can straight Make him what he was before!

Ah, he runs with nimble gait!

Would thou wert a broom once more!

Streams renew'd forever Quickly bringeth he; River after river Rusheth on poor me!

Now no longer Can I bear him, I will snare him, Knavish sprite!

Ah, my terror waxes stronger!

What a look! what fearful sight!

Oh, thou villain child of h.e.l.l!

Shall the house through thee be drown'd?

Floods I see that widely swell, O'er the threshold gaining ground.

Wilt thou not obey, O thou broom accurs'd!

Be thou still, I pray, As thou wert at first!

Will enough Never please thee?

I will seize thee, Hold thee fast, And thy nimble wood so tough With my sharp axe split at last.

See, once more he hastens back!

Now, O Cobold, thou shalt catch it!

I will rush upon his track; Cras.h.i.+ng on him falls my hatchet.

Bravely done, indeed!

See, he's cleft in twain!

Now from care I'm freed, And can breathe again.

Woe oh, woe!

Both the parts, Quick as darts, Stand on end, Servants of my dreaded foe!

O ye G.o.ds, protection send!

And they run! and wetter still Grow the steps and grows the hall.

Lord and master, hear me call!

Ever seems the flood to fill.

Ah, he's coming! see, Great is my dismay!

Spirits raised by me Vainly would I lay!

"To the side Of the room Hasten, broom, As of old!

Spirits I have ne'er untied Save to act as they are told."

In paragraphs are clearly pointed the episodes: the boy's delight at finding himself alone to conjure the spirits; the invocation to the water, recurring later as refrain (which in the French is not addressed to the spirit); then the insistent summons of the spirit in the broom; the latter's obedient course to the river and his oft-repeated fetching of the water; the boy's call to him to stop,--he has forgotten the formula; his terror over the impending flood; he threatens in his anguish to destroy the broom; he calls once more to stop; the repeated threat; he cleaves the spirit in two and rejoices; he despairs as two spirits are now adding to the flood; he invokes the master who returns; the master dismisses the broom to the corner.

There is the touch of magic in the first harmonics of strings, and the sense of sorcery is always sustained in the strange harmonies.[A]

[Footnote A: The flageolet tones of the strings seem wonderfully designed in their ghostly sound for such an aerial touch. Dukas uses them later in divided violins, violas and cellos, having thus a triad of harmonics doubled in the octave.

The remaining instruments are: Piccolo, 2 flutes, 2 oboes, 2 clarinets, ba.s.s-clarinet, 3 ba.s.soons, contra-ba.s.soon (or contra-ba.s.s sarrusophon); 4 horns, 2 trumpets (often muted); 2 cornets-a-pistons; 3 trombones; 3 kettle-drums; harp; glockenspiel; big drum, cymbals and triangle.]

After a mystic descent of eerie chords, a melodious cooing phrase begins in higher wood, echoed from one voice to the other, while the spirit-notes are still sounding.

Suddenly dashes a stream of descending spray, met by another ascending; in the midst the first phrase is rapidly sounded (in muted trumpet). As suddenly the first solemn moment has returned, the phrase has grown in melody, while uncanny harmonies prevail. Amidst a new feverish rush a call rings

[Music: (Wood and _pizz._ strings) _Vivace_ (Horns and trumpets)]

loud and oft (in trumpets and horns) ending in an insistent, furious summons. The silence that ensues is as speaking (or in its way as deafening) as were the calls.

After what seems like the grating of ancient joints, set in reluctant motion, the whole tune of the first wooing phrase moves in steady gait, in comic ba.s.soons, to the tripping of strings, further and fuller extended as other voices join. The beginning phrase of chords recurs as answer. Ever the lumbering trip continues, with strange turn of harmony and color, followed ever by the weird answer. A fuller apparition comes with the loud, though m.u.f.fled tones of the trumpets. The original tune grows in new turns and folds of melody, daintily tipped with the ring of bells over the light tones of the wood. The brilliant

[Music: _Vivace_ (Melody in 3 ba.s.soons) (Acc't in _pizz._ strings)]

harp completes the chorus of hurrying voices. Now with full power and swing the main notes ring in st.u.r.dy bra.s.s, while all around is a rus.h.i.+ng and swirling (of harps and bells and wood and strings). And still more furious grows the flight, led by the unison violins.

A mischievous mood of impish frolic gives a new turn of saucy gait. In the jovial answer, chorussed in simple song, seems a revel of all the spirits of rivers and streams.

At the top of a big extended period the trumpet sends a shrill defiant blast.

But it is not merely in power and speed,--more in an infinite variety of color, and whim of tune and rhythmic harmony, that is expressed the full gamut of disporting spirits. Later, at fastest speed of tripping harp and wood, the bra.s.s ring out that first, insistent summons, beneath the same eerie harmonies--and the uncanny descending chords answer as before. But alas! the summons will not work the other way. Despite the forbidding command and all the other exorcising the race goes madly on.

And now, if we are intent on the story, we may see the rising rage of the apprentice and at last the fatal stroke that seemingly hems and almost quells the flood. But not quite! Slowly (as at first) the hinges start in motion. And now, new horror! Where there was one, there are now two ghostly figures scurrying to redoubled disaster. Again and again the stern call rings out, answered by the wildest tumult of all. The shouts for the master's aid seem to turn to shrieks of despair. At last a mighty call overmasters and stills the storm. Nothing is heard but the first fitful phrases; now they seem mere echoes, instead of forewarnings. We cannot fail to see the fine parallel, how the masterful command is effective as was the similar call at the beginning.

Significantly brief is the ending, at once of the story and of the music. In the brevity lies the point of the plot: in the curt dismissal of the humbled spirit, at the height of his revel, to his place as broom in the corner. Wistful almost is the slow vanis.h.i.+ng until the last chords come like the breaking of a fairy trance.

CHAPTER X

TSCHAIKOWSKY

The Byron of music is Tschaikowsky for a certain alluring melancholy and an almost uncanny flow and sparkle. His own personal vein deepened the morbid tinge of his national humor.

We cannot ignore the inheritance from Liszt, both spiritual and musical.

More and more does the Hungarian loom up as an overmastering influence of his own and a succeeding age. It seems as if Liszt, not Wagner, was the musical prophet who struck the rock of modern pessimism, from which flowed a stream of ravis.h.i.+ng art. The national current in Tschaikowsky's music was less potent than with his younger compatriots; or at least it lay farther beneath the surface.

For nationalism in music has two very different bearings. The concrete elements of folk-song, rhythm and scale, as they are more apparent, are far less important. The true significance lies in the motive of an unexpressed national idea that presses irresistibly towards fulfilment.

Here is the main secret of the Russian achievement in modern music,--as of other nations like the Finnish. It is the cause that counts. Though Russian song has less striking traits than Hungarian or Spanish, it has blossomed in a far richer harvest of n.o.ble works of art.

Facile, fluent, full of color, Tschaikowsky seems equipped less for subjective than for lyric and dramatic utterance, as in his "Romeo and Juliet" overture. In the "Manfred" Symphony we may see the most fitting employment of his talent. Nor is it unlikely that the special correspondence of treatment and subject may cause this symphony to survive the others, may leave it long a rival of Schumann's "Manfred"

music.

With Tschaikowsky feeling is always highly stressed, never in a certain natural poise. He quite lacks the n.o.ble restraint of the masters who, in their symphonic lyrics, wonderfully suggest the still waters that run deep.