Franz Liszt Part 8

This is C. A. Barry's answer to the question, Why was Liszt obliged to invent the term symphonic poem?

It may be explained that finding the symphonic form, as by rule established, inadequate for the purposes of _poetic_ music, which has for its aim the reproduction and re-enforcement of the emotional essence of dramatic scenes, as they are embodied in poems or pictures, he felt himself constrained to adopt certain divergences from the prescribed symphonic form, and, for the new art-form thus created, was consequently obliged to invent a more appropriate t.i.tle than that of "symphony," the formal conditions of which this would not fulfil. The inadequateness of the old symphonic form for translating into music imaginative conceptions arising from poems or pictures, and which necessarily must be presented in a fixed order, lies in its "recapitulation" section.

This Liszt has dropped; and the necessity of so doing is apparent. Hence he has been charged with formlessness. In justification, therefore, of his mode of procedure, it may be pointed out to those of his critics who regard every divergence from the established form as tending to formlessness, that the form which he has devised for his symphonic poems in the main differs less from the established form than at first sight appears. A comparison of the established form of the so-called cla.s.sical period with that devised by Liszt will make this apparent.

The former may be described as consisting of (1) the exposition of the princ.i.p.al subjects; (2) their development; and (3) their recapitulation.

For this Liszt has subst.i.tuted (1) exposition, (2) development, and (3) further development; or, as Wagner has tersely expressed it, "nothing else but that which is demanded by the subject and its expressible development." Thus, though from sheer necessity, rigid formality has been sacrificed to truthfulness, unity and consistency are as fully maintained as upon the old system, but by a different method, the reasonableness of which cannot be disputed.

A FAUST SYMPHONY

Franz Liszt as a composer was born too soon. Others plucked from his amiable grasp the fruits of his originality. When Stendhal declared in 1830 that it would take the world fifty years to comprehend his a.n.a.lytic genius he was a prophet, indeed, for about 1880, his work was felt by writers of that period, Paul Bourget and the rest, and lived again in their pages. But poor, wonderful Liszt, Liszt whose piano playing set his contemporaries to dancing the same mad measure we recognise in these days, Liszt the composer had to knock unanswered at many critical doors for a bare recognition of his extraordinary merits.

One man, a poor, struggling devil, a genius of the footlights, wrote him encouraging words, not failing to ask for a dollar by way of compensating postscript. Richard Wagner discerned the great musician behind the virtuoso in Liszt, discerned it so well that, fearing others would not, he appropriated in a purely fraternal manner any of Liszt's harmonic, melodic, and orchestral ideas that happened to suit him. So heavily indebted was he to the big-hearted Hungarian that he married his daughter Cosima, thus keeping in the family a "Sacred Fount"--as Henry James would say--of inspiration. Wagner not only borrowed Liszt's purse, but also his themes.

Nothing interests the world less than artistic plagiarism. If the filching be but cleverly done, the setting of the stolen gems individual, who cares for the real creator! He may go hang, or else visit Bayreuth and enjoy the large dramatic style in which his themes are presented. Liszt preferred the latter way; besides, Wagner was his son-in-law. A story is told that Wagner, appreciating the humour of his _Alberich_-like explorations in the Liszt scores, sat with his father-in-law at the first Ring rehearsals in 1876, and when Sieglinde's dream words "Kehrte der Vater nun heim" began, Wagner nudged Liszt, exclaiming: "Now, papa, comes a theme which I got from you." "All right," was the ironic answer, "then one will at least hear it."

This theme, which may be found on page 179 of Kleinmichael's piano score, appears at the beginning of Liszt's Faust Symphony. Wagner had heard it at a festival of the Allgemeiner Deutscher Musik Verein in 1861. He liked it so well that he cried aloud: "Music furnishes us with much that is beautiful, but this music is divinely beautiful!"

Liszt was already a revolutionist when Wagner published his sonata Op.

1, with its echoes of Haydn and Mozart. The Revolutionary Symphony still survives in part in Liszt's eighth symphonic poem. These two early works when compared show who was the real path breaker. Compare Orpheus and Tristan and Isolde; the Faust Symphony and Tristan; Benediction de Dieu and Isolde's Liebestod; Die Ideale and Der Ring--Das Rheingold in particular; Invocation and Parsifal; Battle of the Huns and Kundry-Ritt; The Legend of Saint Elizabeth and Parsifal, Excelsior and Parsifal.

The princ.i.p.al theme of the Faust Symphony may be heard in Die Walkure, and one of its most characteristic themes appears, note for note, as the "glance" motive in Tristan. The Gretchen motive in Wagner's Eine Faust Ouverture is derived from Liszt, and the opening theme of the Parsifal prelude follows closely the earlier written Excelsior of Liszt.

All this to rea.s.sure timid souls who suspect Liszt of pilfering. In William Mason's Memories of a Musical Life is a letter sent to the American pianist, bearing date of December 14, 1854, in which the writer, Liszt, says, "Quite recently I have written a long symphony in three parts, called Faust [without text or vocal parts] in which the _horrible_ measures 7-8, 7-4, 5-4 alternate with common time and 3-4."

And Liszt had already finished his Dante Symphony. Wagner finished the full score of Rheingold in 1854, that of Die Walkure in 1856; the last act of Tristan was ended in 1859. The published correspondence of the two men prove that Wagner studied the ma.n.u.scripts of Liszt's symphonic poems carefully, and, as we must acknowledge, with wonderful a.s.similative discrimination. Liszt was the loser, the world of dramatic music the gainer thereby.

Knowing these details we need not be surprised at the Wagnerian--alas, it may be the first in the field who wins!--colour, themes, traits of instrumentation, individual treatment of harmonic progressions that abound in the symphony which Mr. Paur read for us so sympathetically.

For example, one astounding transposition--let us give the theft a polite musical name--occurs in the second, the Gretchen, movement where Siegfried, disguised as Hagen, appears in the Liszt orchestra near the close.

You rub your eyes as you hear the fateful chords, enveloped in the peculiar green and sinister light we so admire in Gotterdammerung. Even the atmosphere is abducted by Wagner. It is all magnificent, this Nietzsche-like seizure of the weaker by the stronger man.

To search further for these parallelisms might prove disquieting.

Suffice to say that the beginnings of Wagner from Rienzi to Parsifal may be found deposited nugget-wise in this Lisztian Golconda. The true history of Liszt as composer has yet to be written; his marvellous versatility--he overflowed in every department of his art--his industry are memorable. Richard Wagner's dozen music-dramas, ten volumes of prose polemics and occasional orchestral pieces make no better showing when compared to the labours of his brain-and-money-banker, Franz Liszt.

Nor was Wagner the only one of the Forty Thieves who visited this Ali Baba cavern. If Liszt learned much from Chopin, Meyerbeer--the duo from the fourth act of Huguenots is in the Gretchen section--and Berlioz, the younger men, Tschaikowsky, Rubinstein, and Richard Strauss, have simply polished white and bare the ribs of the grand old mastodon of Weimar.

Faust is not a symphony. (Query: What is the symphonic archetype?) Rather is it a congeries of symphonic moods, structurally united by emotional intimacy and occasional thematic concourse. The movements are respectively labelled Faust, Gretchen, and Mephistopheles, the task, an impossibly tremendous one, being the embodiment in tones of the general characteristics of Goethe's poetic-philosophic master-work.

Therefore, discarding critical crutches, it is best to hear the composition primarily as absolute music. We know that it is in C minor; that the four leading motives may typify intellectual doubt, striving, longing, and pride--the last in a triumphant E major; that the Gretchen music--too lengthy--is replete with maidenly sweetness overshadowed by the masculine pa.s.sion of Faust (and also his theme); that in the Mephistopheles Liszt appears in his most characteristic pose--Abbe's robe tucked up, Pan's hoofs showing, and the air charged with cynical mockeries and travesties of sacred love and ideals (themes are topsy-turvied a la Berlioz); and that at the close this devil's dance is transformed by the great comedian-composer into a mystic chant with music celestial in its white-robed purities; Goethe's words, "Alles Vergangliche," ending with the consoling "Das Ewig weiblich zieht uns hinan."

But the genius of it all! The indescribable blending of the sensuous, the mystic, the diabolic; the master grasp on the psychologic development--and the imaginative musical handling of themes in which every form, fugal, lyric, symphonic, latter-day poetic-symphonic, is juggled with in Liszt's transcendental manner. The Richard Strauss scores are structurally more complex, while, as painters, Wagner, Tschaikowski, and Strauss outpoint Liszt at times. But he is Heervater Wotan the Wise, or, to use a still more expressive German term, he is the Urquell of young music, of musical anarchy--an anarchy that traces a spiritual air-route above certain social tendencies of this century.

Nevertheless it must be confessed that there are some dreary moments in the Faust.

SYMPHONY AFTER DANTE'S DIVINA COMMEDIA

The first sketches of this symphony were made during Liszt's stay at the country house of the Princess Carolyne Sayn-Wittgenstein at Woronice, October, 1847--February, 1848. The symphony was finished in 1855, and the score was published in 1858. The first performance was at Dresden on November 7, 1857, under the direction of Wilhelm Fischer. The first part, Inferno, was produced in Boston at a Philharmonic Concert, Mr.

Listemann conductor, November 19, 1880. The whole symphony was performed at Boston at a Symphony Concert, Mr. Gericke conductor, February 27, 1886.

The work is scored for 3 flutes (one interchangeable with piccolo), 2 oboes, cor anglais, 2 clarinets, ba.s.s clarinet, 2 ba.s.soons, 4 horns, 2 trumpets, 3 trombones, ba.s.s tuba, 2 sets of kettle-drums, cymbals, ba.s.s drum, gong, 2 harps, harmonium, strings, and chorus of female voices.

The score is dedicated to Wagner: "As Virgil led Dante, so hast thou led me through the mysterious regions of tone-worlds drunk with life. From the depths of my heart I cry to thee: 'Tu se lo mio maestro, e 'l mio autore!' and dedicate in unalterable love this work. Weimar, Easter, '59."

_I. Inferno: Lento, 4-4._

Per me si va nella citta dolente: Per me si va nell' eterno dolore: Per me si va tra la perduta gente!

Through me the way is to the city dolent; Through me the way is to eternal dole; Through me the way among the people lost.

--_Longfellow._

These words, read by Dante as he looked at the gate of h.e.l.l, are thundered out by trombones, tuba, double ba.s.ses, etc.; and immediately after trumpets and horn make the dreadful proclamation (C-sharp minor): "Lasciate ogni speranza, voi ch' entrate" ("All hope abandon, ye who enter in.") Liszt has written the Italian lines under the theme in the score. The two "h.e.l.l motives" follow, the first a descending chromatic pa.s.sage in the lower strings against roll of drums, the second given to ba.s.soons and violas. There is ill.u.s.tration of Dante's lines that describe the "sighs, complaints, and ululations loud":--

Languages diverse, horrible dialects, Accents of anger, words of agony, And voices high and hoa.r.s.e, with sound of hands, Made up a tumult that goes whirling on Forever in that air forever black, Even as the sand doth, when the whirlwind breathes.

--_Longfellow._

The Allegro frenetico, 2-2, in the development paints the madness of despair, the rage of the d.a.m.ned. Again there is the cry, "All hope abandon" (trumpets, horns, trombones, tuba). There is a lull in the orchestral storm. Quasi Andante, 5-4. Harps, flutes, violins, a recitative of ba.s.s clarinet and two clarinets lead to the episode of Francesca da Rimini and Paolo. The cor anglais sings the lamentation:--

There is no greater sorrow Than to be mindful of the happy time In misery.

Before the 'cello takes up the melody sung by the clarinet, the Lasciate theme is heard (muted horn, solo,) and then in three tempo, Andante amoroso, 7-4, comes the love duet, which ends with the Lasciate motive.

A harp cadenza brings the return to the first allegro tempo, in which the Lasciate theme in combination with the two h.e.l.l motives is developed with grotesque and infernal orchestration. There is this remark in the score: "This whole pa.s.sage should be understood as sardonic, blasphemous laughter and most sharply defined as such." After the repet.i.tion of nearly the whole of the opening section of the allegro the Lasciate theme is heard _fff_.

_II. Purgatorio and Magnificat._ The section movement begins Andante con moto, D major, 4-4. According to the composer there is the suggestion of a vessel that sails slowly over an unruffled sea. The stars begin to glitter, there is a cloudless sky, there is a mystic stillness. Over a rolling figuration is a melody first for horn, then oboe, the Meditation motive. This period is repeated a half-tone higher. The Prayer theme is sung by 'cello, then by first violin. There is ill.u.s.tration of Dante's tenth canto, and especially of the pa.s.sage where the sinners call to remembrance the good that they did not accomplish. This remorseful and penitent looking-back and the hope in the future inspired Liszt, according to his commentator, Richard Pohl, to a fugue based on a most complicated theme. After this fugue the gentle Prayer and Repentance melodies are heard. Harp chords established the rhythm of the Magnificat (three flutes ascending in chords of E-flat). This motive goes through sundry modulations. And now an unseen chorus of women, accompanied by harmonium, sings, "Magnificat anima mea Dominum et exultavit spiritus meus, in Deo salutari meo" (My soul doth magnify the Lord, and my spirit hath rejoiced in G.o.d my Saviour). A solo voice, that of the Mater Gloriosa, repeats the song. A short choral pa.s.sage leads to "Hosanna Halleluja." The final harmonies are supposed to ill.u.s.trate the pa.s.sage in the twenty-first canto of the Paradiso:--

I saw rear'd up, In colour like to sun-illumined gold, A ladder, which my ken pursued in vain, So lofty was the summit; down whose steps I saw the splendours in such mult.i.tude Descending, every light in heaven, methought, Was shed thence.

--_H. F. Cary._

The "Hosanna" is again heard, and the symphony ends in soft harmonies (B major) with the first Magnificat theme.

Liszt wrote to Wagner, June 2, 1855: "Then you are reading Dante? He is excellent company for you. I, on my part, shall furnish a kind of commentary to his work. For a long time I had in my head a Dante symphony, and in the course of this year it is to be finished. There are to be three movements, 'h.e.l.l,' 'Purgatory,' and 'Paradise,' the two first purely instrumental, the last with chorus."

Wagner wrote in reply a long letter from London: "That 'h.e.l.l' and 'Purgatory' will succeed I do not call into question for a moment, but as to 'Paradise' I have some doubts, which you confirm by saying that your plan includes choruses. In the Ninth Symphony the last choral movement is decidedly the weakest part, although it is historically important, because it discloses to us in a very nave manner the difficulties of a real musician who does not know how (after h.e.l.l and purgatory) he is to describe paradise. About this paradise, dearest Franz, there is in reality a considerable difficulty, and he who confirms this opinion is, curiously enough, Dante himself, the singer of Paradise, which in his 'Divine Comedy' also is decidedly the weakest part." And then Wagner wrote at length concerning Dante, Christianity, Buddhism, and other matters. "But, perhaps, you will succeed better, and as you are going to paint a _tone_ picture, I might almost predict your success, for music is essentially the artistic, original image of the world. For the initiated no error is here possible. Only about the 'Paradise,' and especially about the choruses, I feel some friendly anxiety."

The next performance of the symphony in Boston was May 1, 1903, again under the direction of Mr. Gericke. Mr. Philip Hale furnished the notes for the a.n.a.lytical programme. Richard Pohl, whose critical annotations were prompted and approved by Liszt, points out that a composer worthy of a theme like Faust must be something more than a tone-composer: his concern ought to be with something that neither the word with its concrete definiteness can express, nor form and colour can actually realise, and this something is the world of the profoundest and most intimate feelings that unveil themselves to man's mind only in tones.

None but the tone poet can render the fundamental moods. But in order to seize them in their totality, he must abstract from the material moments of Dante's epic, and can at most allude to few of them. On the other hand, he must also abstract from the dramatic and philosophical elements. These were Liszt's views on the treatment of the subject.

The Dante idea had obsessed Liszt for years. In 1847 he had planned musical ill.u.s.trations of certain scenes from the epic with the aid of the newly-invented Diorama. This plan was never carried out. The Fantasia quasi-sonata for pianoforte (Annees de Pelerinage), suggested by a poem of Victor Hugo, "Apres une lecture de Dante," is presumably a sketch; it is full of fuliginous grandeur and whirling rhythms. Composed of imagination and impulse, his mind saturated with contemporary literature, Liszt's genius, as Dannreuther declares, was one that could hardly express itself save through some other imaginative medium. He devoted his extraordinary mastery of instrumental technique to the purposes of ill.u.s.trative expression; and, adds the authority cited, he was now and then inclined to do so in a manner that tends to reduce his music to the level of decorative scene painting or _affresco_ work. But the unenthusiastic critic admits that there are episodes of sublimity and great beauty in the Dante Symphony. The influence of Berlioz is not marked in this work.

WEINGARTNER'S AND RUBINSTEIN'S CRITICISMS

In his The Symphony Since Beethoven, Felix Weingartner, renowned as a conductor and composer, has said some pertinent things of the Liszt symphonic works. It must not be forgotten that he was a pupil of the Hungarian composer. He has been discussing Beethoven's first Leonora overture and continues thus:

"The same defects that mark the Ideale mark Liszt's Bergsymphonie, and, in spite of some beauties, his Ta.s.so. Some other of his orchestral works, as Hamlet, Prometheus, Herode Funebre, are inferior through weakness of invention. An improvisatore style, often pa.s.sing into dismemberment, is peculiar to most of Liszt's compositions. I might say that while Brahms is characterised by a musing reflective element, in Liszt a rhapsodical element has the upper hand, and can be felt as a disturbing element in his weaker works. Masterpieces, besides those already mentioned, are the Hungaria, Festklange the Hunnenschlacht, a fanciful piece of elementary weird power; Les Preludes, and, above all, the two great symphonies to Faust and Dante's Divine Comedy. The Faust Symphony intends not at all to embody musically Goethe's poem, but gives, as its t.i.tle indicates, three character figures, Faust, Gretchen and Mephistopheles. The art and fancy with which Liszt here makes and develops psychologic, dramatic variation of a theme are shown in the third movement. Mephistopheles, the 'spirit that denies,' 'for all that does arise deserves to perish,' is the principle of the piece.