Symphonies and Their Meaning Part 18

CHAPTER XIII

BOHEMIAN SYMPHONIES

In the music of modern Bohemia is one of the most vital utterances of the folk-spirit. The critic may not force a correspondence of politics and art to support his theory. Yet a cause may here be found as in Russia and Finland. (Poland and Hungary had their earlier song). There is a sincerity, an unpremeditated quality in Bohemian music that is not found among its western neighbors. The spirit is its own best proof, without a conscious stress of a national note. Indeed, Bohemian music is striking, not at all in a separate tonal character, like Hungarian, but rather in a subtle emotional intensity, which again differs from the wild abandon of the Magyars. An expression it must be of a national feeling that has for ages been struggling against absorption. Since ancient times Bohemia has been part of a Teutonic empire. The story of its purely native kings is not much more than legendary. Nor has it shared the harder fate of other small nations; for the Teuton rule at least respected its separate unity.

But the long a.s.sociation with the German people has nearly worn away the racial signs and hall-marks of its folk-song. A Bohemian tune thus has a taste much like the native German. Yet a quality of its own lies in the emotional vitality, shown in a school of national drama and, of late, in symphony. It is not necessary to seek in this modern culmination a correspondence with an impending danger of political suppression. Art does not follow history with so instant a reflection.

The intensity of this national feeling appears when Smetana himself, the minstrel of the people, is charged at home with yielding to the foreign influence. Here again is the hards.h.i.+p of the true national poet who feels that for the best utterance of his message he needs the grounding upon a broader art; here is the narrow Chauvinism that has confined the music of many lands within the primitive forms.

Two types we have in Bohemian music of later times: one, Smetana, of pure national celebration; a second, Dvorak, who with a profound absorption of the German masters, never escaped the thrall of the folk-element and theme.

_SMETANA. SYMPHONIC POEM, "THE MOLDAU RIVER"_[A]

[Footnote A: Friedrich Smetana, 1824-1884, foremost among Bohemian dramatic composers, wrote a cycle of symphonic poems under the general t.i.tle "My Country." Of these the present work is the second.]

Simplicity is uppermost in these scores; yet the true essence is almost hidden to the mere reader. With all primitive quality they are more difficult than many a cla.s.sic symphony. The latent charm of folk humor and sentiment depends more on tradition and sympathy than on notation.

The navely graphic impulse (that we find throughout the choral works of Bach) that merely starts a chance themal line, as here of the first branch of the Moldau, does not disturb the emotional expression. And while the feeling is sustained, the art is there, not to stifle but to utter and set free the native spring of song.

It must be yielded that the design is not profound; it smacks of the village fair rather than of grand tragedy. Song is ever supreme, and with all abundance of contrapuntal art does not become sophisticated.

The charm is not of complexity, but of a more child-like, sensuous kind.

It must all be approached in a different way from other symphonic music.

The minstrel is not even the peasant in court costume, as Dvorak once was called. He is the peasant in his own village dress, resplendent with color and proud of his rank.

We cannot enjoy the music with furrowed brow. It is a case where music touches Mother Earth and rejuvenates herself. Like fairy lore and proverbs, its virtue lies in some other element than profound design.

For any form of song or verse that enshrines the spirit of a people and is tried in the forge of ages of tradition, lives on more surely than the fairest art of individual poet.

The stream is the great figure, rising from small sources in playful flutes, with light spray of harp and

[Music: _Allegro commodo non agitato_ _lusingando_ (Flute with chord of _pizz._ strings)]

strings. The first brook is joined by another (in clarinets) from a new direction. Soon grows the number and the rustle of confluent waters. The motion of the strings is wavelike, of a broader flow, though underneath we scan the several lesser currents. Above floats now the simple, happy song, that expands

[Music: _dolce_ (Reeds and horns with waving strings and stroke of triangle)]

with the stream and at last reaches a glad, sunny major.

Still to the sound of flowing waters comes the forest hunt, with all the sport of trumpets and other bra.s.s.

It is descriptive music, tonal painting if you will; but the color is local or national. The strokes are not so much of events or scenes as of a popular humor and character, which we must feel with small stress of each event. The blowing of trumpets, the purling of streams, the swaying of trees, in primal figures, all breathe the spirit of Bohemia.

The hunt dies away; emerging from the forest the jolly sounds greet us of a peasant wedding. The

[Music: _Tempo moderato_ (Reeds and strings)]

parade reaches the church in high festivity and slowly vanishes to tinkling bells.

Night has fallen; in s.h.i.+fted scene the stream is sparkling in the moonlight still to the quiet sweet harmonies. But this is all background for a dance of nymphs, while a dulcet, sustained song sounds through the night. At last, to the golden horns a faintest harmony is added of deeper bra.s.s. Still very softly, the bra.s.s strike a quicker phrase and we seem to hear the hushed chorus of hunt with the call of trumpets, as the other bra.s.s lead in a new verse that grows l.u.s.tier with the livelier song and dance, till--with a flash we are alone with the running stream with which the dance of nymphs has somehow merged.

On it goes, in happy, ever more masterful course, a symbol of the nation's career, surging in bright major and for a moment quieting before the mighty Rapids of St. Johann. Here the song of the stream is nearly lost in the rush of eddies and the strife of big currents, with the high leaps of das.h.i.+ng spray,--ever recurring like unceasing battle with a towering clash at the height of the tempest. At last all meet in overpowering united torrent, suddenly to hush before the stream, at the broadest, rushes majestically along in hymnal song of exalted harmonies and triumphant melody, with joyous after-strains.

As the pilgrim to his Mecca, so the waters are wafted into the climactic motive of the Hradschin, the chant of the holy citadel. The rest is a long jubilation

[Music: _Motiv Vyserad_ (Full orchestra, with rapid figures in the strings)]

on quicker beats of the chant, amid the plash of waters and the shaking of martial bra.s.s. Strangely, as the other sounds die away, the melody of the stream emerges clear and strong, then vanishes in the distance before the jubilant Amen.

In the general view we must feel a wonderful contrast here with the soph.o.m.oric state of the contemporary art in other lands where the folk-song has lost its savor,--where the natural soil is exhausted and elegant castles are built in the air of empty fantasy, or on the sands of a vain national pride.

_DVoRaK. SYMPHONY, "FROM THE NEW WORLD."_[A]

[Footnote A: Anton Dvorak, 1841-1904.]

It is a much-discussed question how far Dvorak's American symphony is based on characteristic folk-song. Here are included other questions: to what extent the themes are based on an African type, and whether negro music is fairly American folk-song. Many, perhaps most people, will answer with a general negative. But it seems to be true that many of us do not really know the true negro song,--have quite a wrong idea of it.

To be sure, all argument aside, it is a mistake to think that folk-song gets its virtue purely from a distinctive national quality,--because it is Hungarian, Scandinavian, or Slavonic. If all the national modes and rhythms of the world were merged in one republic, there would still be a folk-song of the true type and value. There is a subtle charm and strength in the spontaneous simplicity, all aside from racial color. It is here that, like Antaeus, the musician touches Mother Earth and renews his strength. So, when Dvorak suddenly s.h.i.+fts in the midst of his New World fantasy into a touch of Bohemian song, there is no real loss. It is all relevant in the broad sense of folk feeling, that does not look too closely at geographical bounds. It is here that music, of all arts, leads to a true state of equal sympathy, regardless of national prejudice. What, therefore, distinguishes Dvorak's symphony may not be mere negro melody, or even American song, but a genuine folk-feeling, in the widest meaning.

In one way, Dvorak's work reminds us of Mendelssohn's Scotch Symphony: both exploit foreign national melody in great poetic forms. One could write a Scotch symphony in two ways: one, in Mendelssohn's, the other would be to tell of the outer impression in the terms of your own folk-song. That is clearly the way Mendelssohn wrote most of the Italian Symphony,--which stands on a higher plane than the Scotch. For folk-song is the natural language of its own people. It is interesting to see the exact type that each theme represents; but it is not so important as to catch the distinction, the virtue of folk-song _per se_ and the purely natural utterance of one's own. Of course, every one writes always in his folk-tones. On the other hand, one may explore one's own special treasures of native themes, as Dvorak himself did so splendidly in his Slavic Dances and in his Legends. So one must, after all, take this grateful, fragrant work as an idea of what American composers might do in full earnest. Dvorak is of all later masters the most eminent folk-musician. He shows greatest sympathy, freedom and delight in revelling among the simple tones and rhythms of popular utterance, rearing on them, all in poetic spontaneity, a structure of high art.

Without strain or show, Dvorak stood perhaps the most genuine of late composers, with a firm foot on the soil of native melody, yet with the balance and restraint and the clear vision of the trained master.[A]

[Footnote A: The whole subject of American and negro folk-song is new and unexplored. There are races of the blacks living on the outer reefs and islands of the Carolinas, with not more than thirty whites in a population of six thousand, where "spirituals" and other musical rites are held which none but negroes may attend. The truest African mode and rhythm would seem to be preserved here; to tell the truth, there is great danger of their loss unless they are soon recorded.]

In a certain view, it would seem that by the fate of servitude the American negro has become the element in our own national life that alone produces true folk-song,--that corresponds to the peasant and serf of Europe, the cla.s.s that must find in song the refuge and solace for its loss of material joys. So Dvorak perhaps is right, with a far seeing eye, when he singles the song of the despised race as the national type.

Another consideration fits here. It has been suggested that the imitative sense of the negro has led him to absorb elements of other song. It is very difficult to separate original African elements of song from those that may thus have been borrowed. At any rate, there is no disparagement of the negro's musical genius in this theory. On the contrary, it would be almost impossible to imagine a musical people that would resist the softer tones of surrounding and intermingling races.

We know, to be sure, that Stephen Foster, the author of "The Old Folks at Home," "Ma.s.sa's in the Cold, Cold Ground," and other famous ballads, was a Northerner, though his mother came from the South. We hear, too, that he studied negro music eagerly. It is not at all inconceivable, however, Foster's song may have been devoid of negro elements, that the colored race absorbed, wittingly or unwittingly, something of the vein into their plaints or lullabies,--that, indeed, Foster's songs may have been a true type that stirred their own imitation. From all points of view,--the condition of slavery, the trait of a.s.similation and the strong gift of musical expression may have conspired to give the negro a position and equipment which would ent.i.tle his tunes to stand as the real folk-song of America.

The eccentric accent seems to have struck the composer strongly. And here is a strange similarity with Hungarian song,--though there is, of course, no kins.h.i.+p of race whatever between Bohemians and Magyars. One might be persuaded to find here simply an ebullition of rhythmic impulse,--the desire for a special fillip that starts and suggests a stronger energy of motion than the usual conventional pace. At any rate, the symphony begins with just such strong, nervous phrases that soon gather big force. Hidden is the germ of the first, undoubtedly the chief theme of the whole work.

It is more and more remarkable how a search will show the true foundation of almost all of Dvorak's themes. Not that one of them is actually borrowed, or lacks an original, independent reason for being.

Whether by imitation or not, the pentatonic scale of the Scotch is an intimate part of negro song. This avoidance of the seventh or leading tone is seen throughout the symphony as well as in the traditional jubilee tunes. It may be that this trait was merely confirmed in the African by foreign musical influence. For it seems that the leading-note, the urgent need for the ascending half-tone in closing, belongs originally to the minstrelsy of the Teuton and of central Europe, that resisted and conquered the sterner modes of the early Church. Ruder nations here agreed with Catholic ritual in preferring the larger interval of the whole tone. But in the quaint jump of the third the Church had no part, clinging closely to a diatonic process.

The five-toned scale is indeed so widespread that it cannot be fastened on any one race or even family of nations. The Scotch have it; it is characteristic of the Chinese and of the American Indian. But, independently of the basic mode or scale, negro songs show here and there a strange feeling for a savage kind of lowering of this last note.

The pentatonic scale simply omits it, as well as the fourth step. But the African will now and then rudely and forcibly lower it by a half-tone. In the minor it is more natural; for it can then be thought of as the fifth of the relative major. Moreover, it is familiar to us in the Church chant. This effect we have in the beginning of the Scherzo.

Many of us do not know the true African manner, here. But in the major it is much more barbarous. And it is almost a pity that Dvorak did not strike it beyond an occasional touch (as in the second quoted melody). A fine example is "Roll, Jordan Roll," in E flat (that opens, by the way, much like Dvorak's first theme), where the beginning of the second line rings out on a savage D flat, out of all key to Caucasian ears.

We soon see stealing out of the beginning _Adagio_ an eccentric pace in motion of the ba.s.s, that leads to the burst of main subject, _Allegro molto_, with a certain

[Music: _Allegro molto_ (Strings) (Horns) _Pizz._ (Strings) (Clarinets doubled below in ba.s.soons) (Strings)]