Symphonies and Their Meaning Part 32

Out of these inspiriting reaches sings a new melody in canon of strings (though it may relate to some shadowy memory), while in the ba.s.s rolls the former ending phrase; then they romp in jovial turn of rhythm.

[Music: (Oboes, doubled below in ba.s.soons) (Strings, doubled below) (Horns) (_Pizz._ cello doubled below)]

A vague and insignificant similarity of themes is a fault of the work and of the style, ever in high disdain of vernacular harmony, refres.h.i.+ng to be sure, in its saucy audacity, and anon enchanting with a ring of new, fiery chord. As the sonorous theme sings in muted bra.s.s, picking strings mockingly play quicker fragments, infecting the rest with frivolous retorts, and then a heart-felt song pours forth, where the accompanying cries have softened their mirth. Back they skip to a joyous trip with at last pure ringing harmonies.

At the fervent pitch a blast of trumpets rises in challenging phrase, in incisive clash of chord, with the early sense of Parna.s.sian ascent. At the end of this brave fanfare we hear a soft plea of the descending tone that prompts a song of true lyric melody, with the continuing gentlest touch of regret, all to a sweetly bewildering turn of pace. So tense

[Music: (Continuing organ pt. of violins) (Fl. & clar. _dolce_) _Animando_ (Melody in ob. _dolce_) (Strings)]

and subtle an expression would utterly convert us to the whole harmonic plan, were it not that just here, in these moving moments, we feel a return to clearer tonality. But it is a joy to testify to so devoted a work of art.

With the last notes of melody a new frisking tune plays in sauciest clashes of chord, with an enchanting stretch of ringing bra.s.s. A long merriment ensues in the jovial trip, where the former theme of horns has a rising cadence; or the tripping tune sings in united chorus and again through its variants. After a noisy height the dulcet melody (from the descending tone) sings in linked sweetness. In the later tumult we rub our eyes to see a jovial theme of the ba.s.s take on the lines of the wistful melody. Finally, in majestic tread amid general joyous clatter the bra.s.s blow the gentle song in mellowed tones of richest harmony.

_CHADWICK.[A] SUITE SYMPHONIQUE (IN E FLAT)._

[Footnote A: George W. Chadwick, American, born in 1854.]

With a rush of harp and higher strings the Suite begins on ardent wing in exultant song of trumpets (with horns, ba.s.soons and cellos) to quick palpitating violins that in its higher flight is given over to upper reeds and violas. It is answered by gracefully drooping melody of strings and harps topped by the oboes, that lightly descends from the heights with a cadence long delayed, like the circling flight of a great bird before he alights. Straightway begins a more pensive turn of phrase (of clarinet and lower strings) in distant tonal scene where now the former (descending) answer sings timidly in alternating groups. The pensive melody returns for a greater reach, blending with the original theme (in all the ba.s.ses) in a glowing duet of two moods as well as melodies, rising to sudden brilliant height, pressing on to a full return of the first exultant melody with long, lingering, circling descent.

The listener on first hearing may be warned to have a sharp ear for all kinds of disguises of the stirring theme and in a less degree, of the second subject. What seems a new air in a tranquil spot, with strum of harp,--and new it is as expression,--is our main melody in a kind of inversion. And so a new tissue of song continues, all of the original fibre, calming more and more from the first fierce glow. A tuneful march-like strain now plays gently in the horns while the (inverted) expressive air still sounds above.

[Music: (Oboe with 8ve. flute) (Oboe) (Horns) _Calmato ed espressivo a.s.sai_]

When all has quieted to dim echoing answers between horn and reed, a final strain bursts forth (like the nightingale's voice in the surrounding stillness) in full stress of its plaint. And so, in most natural course, grows and flows the main balancing melody that now pours out its burden in slower, broader pace, in joint choirs of wood and strings.

[Music: _Meno mosso e largamente_ (Woodwind above, strings below) (_pizz._ ba.s.ses)]

It is the kind of lyric spot where the full stream of warm feeling seems set free after the storm of the first onset. In answer is a timid, almost halting strain in four parts of the wood, echoed in strings. A new agitation now stirs the joint choirs (with touches of bra.s.s), and anon comes a poignant line of the inverted (main) theme. It drives in rising stress under the spurring summons of trumpets and horns to a celebration of the transfigured second melody, with triumphant cadence.

Nor does the big impulse halt here. The trumpets sound on midst a spirited duet of inverted and original motives until the highest point is reached, where, to quicker calls of the bra.s.s, in broadest pace the main subject strikes its inverted tune in the trebles, while the ba.s.s rolls its majestic length in a companion melody; trombones, too, are blaring forth the call of the second theme.

Brief interludes of lesser agitation bring a second chorus on the reunited melodies in a new tonal quarter.

In mystic echoing groups on the former descending answer of main theme the mood deepens in darkening scene. Here moves in slow strides of lowest bra.s.s a shadowy line of the second melody answered by a poignant phrase of the first. Striking again and again in higher perches the dual song reaches a climax of feeling in overpowering burst of fullest bra.s.s.

In masterful stride, still with a burden of sadness, it has a solacing tinge as it ends in a chord with pulsing harp, that twice repeated leads back to the stirring first song of main theme.

Thence the whole course is clear in the rehearsal of former melodies.

Only the pensive air has lost its melancholy. Here is again the lyric of warm-hued horns with plaintive higher phrase, and the full romance of second melody with its timid answer, where the nervous trip rouses slowly the final exultation. Yet there is one more descent into the depths where the main melody browses in dim searching. Slowly it wings its flight upwards until it is greeted by a bright burst of the second melody in a chorus of united bra.s.s. And this is but a prelude to the last joint song, with the inverted theme above. A fanfare of trumpets on the second motive ends the movement.

The Romanze is pure song in three verses where we cannot avoid a touch of Scottish, with the little acclaiming phrases. The theme is given to the saxophone (or cello) with obligato of clarinet and violas; the ba.s.s is in ba.s.soons and _pizzicato_ of lower strings. One feels a special grat.i.tude to the composer who will write in these days a clear, simple, original and beautiful melody.

The first interlude is a fantasy, almost a variant on the theme in a minor melody of the wood, with a twittering phrase of violins. Later the strings take up the theme in pure _cantilena_ in a turn to the major,--all in expressive song that rises to a fervent height. Though it grows out of the main theme, yet the change is clear in a return to the subject, now in true variation, where the saxophone has the longer notes and the clarinet and oboe sing in concert.

There follows a pure interlude, vague in motive, full of dainty touches.

The oboe has a kind of _arioso_ phrase with trilling of flutes and clarinets, answered in trumpets and harp.

Later the first violins (on the G string) sing the main air with the saxophone.

A double character has the third movement as the t.i.tle shows, though in a broadest sense it could all be taken as a Humoreske.

With a jaunty lilt of skipping strings the lower reeds strike the capricious tune, where the full chorus soon falls in. The answering melody, with more of sentiment, though always in graceful swing with tricksy attendant figures, has a longer song. Not least charm has the concluding tune that leads back to the whole melodious series.

Throughout are certain chirping notes that form the external connection with the Humoreske that begins with strident theme (_molto robusto_) of low strings, the whole chorus, xylophon and all, clattering about, the high wood echoing like a band of giant crickets,--all in whimsical, varying pace. The humor grows more graceful when the first melody of the Intermezzo is lightly touched. The strange figure returns (in roughest strings and clarinet) somewhat in ancient manner of imitation. Later the chirruping answer recurs. Diminis.h.i.+ng trills are echoed between the groups.

Slowly the scene grows stranger. Suddenly in eerie harmonies of newest French or oldest Tartar, here are the tricks and traits where meet the extremes of latest Romantic and primeval barbarian. In this motley cloak sounds the typical Yankee tune, first piping in piccolo, then grunting in tuba. Here is Uncle Sam disporting himself merrily in foreign garb and scene, quite as if at home. If we wished, we might see a political satire as well as musical.

After a climax of the clownish mood we return to the Intermezzo melodies.

The Finale begins in the buoyant spirit of the beginning and seems again to have a touch of Scotch in the jaunty answer. The whole subject is a group of phrases rather than a single melody.

Preluding runs lead to the simple descending line of treble with opposite of ba.s.ses, answered by the jovial phrase. In the farther course the first theme prevails, answered with an ascending brief motive of long notes in irregular ascent. Here follows a freer flow of the jolly lilting tune, blending with the sterner descending lines.

Balancing this group is an expressive melody of different sentiment. In its answer we have again the weird touch of neo-barbarism in a strain of the reed, with dancing overtones of violins and harp, and strumming chords on lower strings. Or is there a hint of ancient Highland in the drone of alternating horns and ba.s.soons?

Its brief verse is answered by a fervent conclusive line where soon the old lilting refrain appears with new tricks and a big celebration of its own and then of the whole madrigal of martial melody. It simmers down with whims and turns of the skipping phrase into the quiet (_tranquillo_) episode in the midst of the other stress.

[Music: (With lower 8ve.) _Tranquillo_ (With _pizz._ quarter notes in ba.s.ses and strings)]

The heart of the song is in the horns, with an upper air in the wood, while low strings guard a gentle rhythm. A brief strain in the wind in ardent temper is followed by another in the strings, and still a third in joint strings and wood. (Again we must rejoice in the achievement of true, simple, sincere melody.) The final glowing height is reached in all the choirs together,--final that is before the bra.s.s is added with a broader pace, that leads to the moving climax. As the horns had preluding chords to the whole song, so a single horn sings a kind of epilogue amid harmony of strings and other horns. Slowly a more vigorous pulse is stirred, in an interlude of retorting trumpets.

Suddenly in the full energy of the beginning the whole main subject sounds again, with the jolly lilt dancing through all its measures, which are none too many. The foil of gentle melody returns with its answer of eerie tune and harmonies. It seems as if the poet, after his rude jest, wanted, half in amends, half on pure impulse, to utter a strain of true fancy in the strange new idiom.

A new, grateful sound has again the big conclusive phrase that merges into more pranks of the jaunty tune in the biggest revel of all, so that we suspect the jolly jester is the real hero and the majestic figures are, after all, mere background. And yet here follows the most tenderly moving verse, all unexpected, of the quiet episode.

The end is a pure romp, _molto vivace_, mainly on the skipping phrase.

To be sure the stately figures after a festive height march in big, lengthened pace; but so does the jolly tune, as though in mockery. He breaks into his old rattling pace (in the Glockenspiel) when all the figures appear together,--the big ones changing places just before the end, where the main theme has the last say, now in the ba.s.s, amidst the final festivities.

_LOEFFLER.[A] LA VILLANELLE DU DIABLE_

_(The Devil's Round)_

(After a poem by M. Rollinat. Symphonic poem for Orchestra and Organ)

[Footnote A: Charles Martin Loeffler, born in Alsace in 1861.]

Few pieces of program music are so closely a.s.sociated with the subject as this tone picture of the Devil's Round. The translation of M.

Rollinat's "Villanelle," printed in the score is as follows:[A]

h.e.l.l's a-burning, burning, burning. Chuckling in clear staccato, the Devil prowling, runs about.

He watches, advances, retreats like zig-zag lightning; h.e.l.l's a-burning, burning, burning.

In dive and cell, underground and in the air, the Devil, prowling, runs about.

Now he is flower, dragon-fly, woman, black-cat, green snake; h.e.l.l's a-burning, burning, burning.

And now, with pointed moustache, scented with vetiver, the Devil, prowling, runs about.