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Title: The art of music, Vol. 05 (of 14)
The voice and vocal music
Editor: Daniel Gregory Mason
Leland Hall
Edward Burlingame Hill
César Saerchinger
David C. Taylor
Release date: September 4, 2024 [eBook #74367]
Language: English
Original publication: United States: National Society of Music, 1915
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* * * * *
THE ART OF MUSIC
The Art of Music
A Comprehensive Library of Information
for Music Lovers and Musicians
Editor-in-Chief
DANIEL GREGORY MASON
Columbia University
Associate Editors
EDWARD B. HILL LELAND HALL
Harvard University Past Professor, Univ. of Wisconsin
Managing Editor
CÉSAR SAERCHINGER
Modern Music Society of New York
In Fourteen Volumes
Profusely Illustrated
[Illustration]
NEW YORK
THE NATIONAL SOCIETY OF MUSIC
[Illustration: Saint Cecilia]
_After the painting by Rubens_
(_Kaiser-Friedrich Museum, Berlin_)
THE ART OF MUSIC: VOLUME FIVE
The Voice and Vocal Music
Department Editors:
DAVID C. TAYLOR
Author of ‘The Psychology of Singing,’ etc.
AND
HIRAM KELLY MODERWELL
Musical Correspondent, Boston Evening Transcript, etc.
Author of ‘The Theatre of Today,’ etc.
Introduction by
DAVID BISPHAM, LL.D.
[Illustration]
NEW YORK
THE NATIONAL SOCIETY OF MUSIC
Copyright, 1915, by
THE NATIONAL SOCIETY OF MUSIC, Inc.
[All Rights Reserved]
THE VOICE AND VOCAL MUSIC
INTRODUCTION
All the Arts, being emanations from the superman, are of the highest
significance to the human race therapeutically--the word being used in
its broadest possible significance. They are curative, they do us good.
There is happily no longer a ban put upon any one of them in the modern
world, except by an occasional religious sect, and even those survivors
of a prohibitory past are rapidly disappearing.
Enough can scarcely be said of the value of the literature of song
as it exists to-day. Whatever has been written or is yet to appear,
is a natural growth, and should be recognized as welling up from the
unsounded depths of the human mind, as something to be used for the
benefit, here and now, of young and old, male and female, rich and
poor, well and ill--as a fruit ‘for the healing of the nations.’ When
performed under proper circumstances, music--and particularly song,
because it is so individual--has a power for good that is amazing.
But this is not generally recognized; only by poets and dreamers
has it been stated. The words of such are accepted by the world at
large as beautiful generalizations, having no immediate or personal
significance, applicable to some realm of fancy, some Celtic fairyland,
as impossible as an Oriental heaven, but not to the sombre facts of
existence upon this earth--facts so discordant that none but a prophet
could by any stretch of the imagination reconcile them with a life of
harmony here. Personally I believe in the foresight of the prophets
and poets, and hope that Science will ere long come forward to set
the seal of authority upon their utterances. When this is done, song
will be accorded the position that so justly belongs to it, and its
place will not be an inferior one in the scheme of man’s development
through savagery into civilization, and beyond. The seers spoke better
than we know; they saw, and do see, through the veil of the present
into the beyond, through the paradoxical Paradise of parable into
the theoretical perfection in which the effort to attain practical
results will be one of the chiefest of joys. Is it not wonderful to
realize that music and song are so prominent in the utterances of these
hitherto misunderstood soothsayers? _Truth_-sayers are they in
sooth!
There is a noble work to be done in the endeavor to bring about
sensibly, systematically and scientifically, the realization of their
visions as they pertain to music, and a recognition of the value of
song and singing and the application of this beautiful and all but
universal gift to the betterment of conditions both personal and social.
To the musical enthusiast society seems to be divided into two classes:
those who are musical and those who are not. The fact remains, however,
that every normal person is musical to a certain degree, though
some may believe it of themselves more readily than others believe
it of them. To paraphrase Shakespeare, some are born musical, some
achieve music, but all should have music thrust upon them. In one way
or another, everyone should be educated in music, to the degree at
least of knowing from childhood about it and its makers, being able
to participate in musical performance, or at least to appreciate the
performance of others, for the musical gift is a fundamental part of
human nature; but unfortunately the vast majority of people seem to
be unaware of the importance and value of this precious possession,
which has indeed by too many come to be considered as a mere source of
amusement, and not as a thing to be taken seriously.
We have now reached a period when all music, and particularly singing,
should receive most careful consideration. The voice is so intimate a
thing that no one can avoid it in himself or escape it in others, and
so great is its power when properly used, whether in speech or song,
that it is amazing that its qualities are not more fully realized by
all educators and treated accordingly. But up to the present time it
seems that those who have influence in educational matters have not
had their eyes opened to the fact that every human being should be
taught to speak properly and to sing as well as may be, and that these
things are perfectly easy of accomplishment, if only correct models are
put before children as they grow up. Languages, the most difficult to
acquire by adults, are learned by children with perfect ease from those
with whom they come into contact; they will speak them well or ill,
according as they have heard others speak. In short, example is, where
voice is concerned, better than precept; and the ear, so intimately
associated with everything vocal, should be given more to do than has
hitherto been considered necessary either in schools or by private
teachers. While most young people do not begin to take singing lessons
until their voices are reasonably settled and can bear the strain of
study, it does not seem incompatible with the dictates of common sense
to say that the training of voices, as of bodies and minds, may be
undertaken much earlier than has generally been thought advisable. ‘The
precious morning hours’ of youth are too often shamefully wasted; in
them this natural and beautiful gift should be brought out. Vocal music
should be learned by ear as well as by eye, pieces suited to varying
vocal capacities and wisely selected by those competent to choose
should be taught, while certain of the musical masterpieces should be
made familiar to all.
This seems so obvious as to be hardly worth saying, but as a matter
of fact, song is by too many looked upon merely as a luxury to be
enjoyed by the few, whereas it is in reality a necessity that should
be used by all, for all have not only a latent impulse toward vocal
expression, but much more of a natural gift than is usually granted.
Persons selected for the purity of their enunciation and beauty of
their voices should every day, in all schools, speak and sing to the
pupils, who in turn would unconsciously imitate what they heard; and
so there would grow a regard for purity and beauty of tone, both in
speech and in song, which later would find expression in the study of
the various branches of vocal music--from folk-song to the art-song,
from sacred music and oratorio to opera. Only those especially gifted
should be permitted by their masters to take up the profession of
singer or teacher of singing, and thus there would be selected from the
great field of those who know much the few specialists in this or that
phase of the art who know more, and who are by nature better fitted to
exercise their talents in public.
So many people are able to sing after a fashion that sufficient care
is not always taken to separate those who are entitled to enter with
joy into the ranks of the interpreters of song from those who are fit
only for the comparative outer darkness of the auditor. But if that be
darkness, how great is the light of those who, by common consent, are
adjudged competent to bear so glorious a lamp before the footsteps of
the world!
The desire to sing is so universal that many enthusiasts overlook the
fact that they have neglected to train their vocal apparatus until
it is too late to make serious study worth while. Little can then
be done beyond what will give pleasure to the individual himself.
But this universal desire to sing should be universally recognized.
When in future it shall be not only so recognized but sensibly and
scientifically satisfied, then it will no doubt be found that very
great benefit will result to musical art and, through it, to the daily
lives of well-nigh everyone on earth.
When the science of education shall have advanced further, music, and
especially singing, will hold a very important place in the scheme,
and the difference will become clearly apparent between the average
normal being with the average vocal equipment and the artist to the
manner born. As with those whose trend toward mathematics or languages
is unmistakable, so the truly musical are to be distinguished with ease
from their fellows; but all such, and especially singers, should be
educated with great care and in a broad and comprehensive manner.
Great geniuses have written music to the words of great poets because
they were compelled by the inmost needs of their natures to supplement
the message of poetry by that of music. What does the world at large
care for these things? Only the educated in musical art know that they
exist, but the time is now at hand when the storehouses of music will
be opened, and their treasures disseminated among the general public
through the schools. Instrumental music is so costly in comparison
to vocal music that the obvious course to pursue is to train that
wonderful instrument, the voice, which all carry about with them, but
the value of which is realized by only a few.
The many-sided occupation of the singer should be as carefully studied
as that of the pianist, the violinist, or the organist. The vocalist
requires a technique comparable to that of any of these virtuosi, a
memory trained to answer the demands not only of music but of words,
a knowledge not merely of one’s own but of several other languages,
a training in the manner of speaking and singing intelligibly in
these tongues, a mastery of the actor’s art with all that it means in
gesture, deportment and expression, and, finally, a comprehension of
the whole of vocal literature. Would-be singers should be well educated
men and women, subjected to rigorous examination in all branches of
their art at every stage of progress; for only thus may vocal artists
be prepared for their exacting and important career and be made worthy
to tread in future our concert platforms and operatic stages. For this
way singing will become a dignified profession instead of a spurious
and uncertain career, at which the vast majority of those who follow it
can expect to earn but a pittance.
The fact should be very clearly forced home upon students that voice
alone does not make a public singer any more than the possession of a
Stradivarius makes a violinist, but if either has a good instrument
the possessor of so valuable a thing should train himself to play upon
it with more than ordinary care, and intelligently study not only the
classics of his branch of the profession, but, in the case of a singer
especially, enlarge his knowledge of poetry, literature, the drama, and
the fine arts in general. Thus equipped he may with safety and with
reasonable expectations of success take the hazardous path that leads
to the supreme honor of lasting public esteem. Every student should
recognize this necessity and work with this end in view. The way is
long and the task is hard, but it is not impossible.
Ignorance and daring have long gone hand in hand with an assurance
which is at times amazing, but the rising generation should be
obliged to learn not only how to sing, but what to sing--both equally
important. And then, with intelligence awakened, and the dawn of a new
day breaking in through the windows of the mind, we may look for the
beginnings of an interest in the advancement of a vocal art that has
too long been harnessed to the car of Fashion, and under the yoke of
Commercialism.
As before the Renaissance of plastic art all had been said in painting
and sculpture that could be said in the old formulæ, so in music the
few notes of the scale had in the hands of the older masters been
worked to their ultimate possibilities of expression, when lo! a new
light was shed upon the situation, and presently the flood-gates of
sound were opened, and undreamed-of works appeared in rapid succession
to amaze and affright the senses. Song reflects this, and the limits of
vocal capacity have seemingly been reached. It is not to be believed,
however, that, to whatever lengths this new musical Renaissance may
go, the appeal of simple melody will ever want for an audience. The
past has enough and to spare of song that we have not even tasted,
much less digested. Let us set ourselves to teach the multitudes of
the uninitiated rising generation all the beauties of the classics of
song. They are as full as ever of worth and loveliness, and must form
a part of the heritage of the generations yet unborn. The peasant from
afar has in him the blood of the peoples from which sprang the great
artists and musicians of the past, and it is not for a moment to be
supposed that under the freer circumstances of life in America works of
originality and charm will soon be forthcoming. This is no place nor
time for the sadness of a conquered race that by the waters of another
land hung up its harps, and refused to sing the songs of home. Here,
on the contrary, may all the accumulated wealth of the beauty of song
be joyously revealed to the people by the people, and for the people’s
good.
No words can describe music. Talk of it as we may, only music can tell
us of itself. How profound its appeal to the very essence of human
nature! In the works that have been left to us we have a marvellous
heritage. Let it not be neglected, but preserved, honored, and taught
to all, from the least even unto the greatest; for when sound has been
wedded to words by one of the anointed hierarchy of the priests of
music, what a mystic union is there. How potent the spell of a voice
lifted in song informed by the spirit of poetry!
We have here at hand that which makes our Paradise--the gift of song.
Let us no longer disregard this fundamental possession, but use it
well, and with it enter into the peace that song can give to all who
have ears to hear its wondrous message. It is the Evangel that has for
so long been knocking at our doors. Let us open wide and welcome this
friend and comrade whose voice goes throbbing through the aisles of
the vast Temple of Music--that structure not made with hands; heard,
not seen, present only to the spirit of mortals, place of worship and
refreshment for all generations.
DAVID BISPHAM.
August, 1914.
CONTENTS OF VOLUME FIVE
PAGE
INTRODUCTION BY DAVID BISPHAM vii
PART I. THE VOCAL MECHANISM
CHAPTER
I. THE VOCAL ORGANS, THEIR OPERATION AND HYGIENE 1
The vocal instrument; anatomy of the vocal organs; the
healthy mechanism--The larynx; the laryngoscope;
operations of the laryngeal muscles--Tone production; the
resonating cavities; vowel formation; articulation--Vocal
hygiene; incorrect tone production; throat stiffness and
its cure.
II. VOCAL CULTIVATION AND THE OLD ITALIAN METHOD 24
Historical aspect of vocal cultivation--The modern
conception of voice culture; the mechanical and
psychological methods--Ancient systems--Mediæval
Europe--The revival of solo singing; the rise of
coloratura--The old Italian method--The _bel canto_
teachers: Caccini; Tosi and Mancini; the _Conservatoire_
method; the Italian course of instruction; theoretical
basis of the Italian method.
III. MODERN SCIENTIFIC METHODS OF VOICE CULTURE 55
The transition from the old to the modern system;
historical review of scientific investigation; Manuel
García; progress of the scientific idea; Helmholtz, Mandl,
and Merkel--Diversity of practices in modern methods; the
scientific system; breathing; laryngeal action; registers;
resonance; emission of tone; the singer’s sensations;
correction of faults; articulation--General view of modern
voice culture.
PART II. THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE ART SONG
IV. THE NATURE AND ORIGIN OF SONG 70
The origin of song--The practical value of primitive
song--The cultural value of primitive song--Biography
of primitive song--The lyric impulse--Folk-song and
art-song--Characteristics of the art-song; style, the
singer and the song.
V. FOLK-SONGS 100
The nature and value of folk-songs--Folk-songs of the
British Isles--Folk-song in the Latin lands--German and
Scandinavian folk-song--Hungarian folk-song--Folk-songs of
the Slavic countries; folk-song in America.
VI. THE EARLY DEVELOPMENT OF SONG 130
Song in early Christian times--The age of chivalry--The
troubadours and trouvères--The minnesingers--The
mastersingers; the Lutheran revival--Polyphonic eclipse
of song.
VII. THE CLASSIC SONG AND THE ARIA 151
Italy and the monodic style--Song in the seventeenth
century; Germany; France--Song in England--The aria--German
song in the eighteenth century; French song in the eighteenth
century; forerunners of Schubert.
PART III. THE ROMANTIC SONG
VIII. FRANZ SCHUBERT 186
Art-song and the romantic spirit--Precursors of
Schubert--Schubert’s contribution to song; Schubert’s
poets--Classification of Schubert’s songs--Faults and
virtues--The songs in detail; the cycles--Schubert’s
contemporaries.
IX. ROBERT SCHUMANN 231
Romantic music and romantic poetry--Schumann as a
song-writer--The earlier songs--The ‘Woman’s Life’ cycle;
the ‘Poet’s Love’ cycle; the later songs--Schumann’s
contemporaries.
X. THE CONTEMPORARIES OF SCHUBERT AND SCHUMANN 258
The spirit of the ‘thirties’ in France; the lyric poets of
the French romantic period--Monpou and Berlioz--Song-writers
of Italy; English song-writers--Robert Franz--Löwe and the
art-ballad.
XI. BRAHMS, WAGNER AND LISZT 276
Brahms as a song-writer--Classification of Brahms’ songs;
the ‘folk-songs’; analysis of Brahms’ songs--Wagner’s
songs; Liszt as a song-writer.
XII. LATE ROMANTICS IN GERMANY AND ELSEWHERE 296
The dilution of the romantic spirit--Grieg and his
songs--Minor romantic lyricists: Peter Cornelius, Adolph
Jensen, Eduard Lassen, George Henschel, and Halfdan Kjerulf;
Dvořák’s songs--French song-writers: Gounod and others;
Saint-Saëns and Massenet; minor French lyricists--Edward
MacDowell as song-writer; Nevin and others--Rubinstein and
Tschaikowsky--English song.
PART IV. MODERN SONG LITERATURE
XIII. HUGO WOLF AND AFTER 330
Wolf and the poets of his time; Hugo Wolfs songs; Gustav
Mahler; Richard Strauss as song-writer; Max Reger’s
songs--Schönberg and the modern radicals.
XIV. MODERN FRENCH LYRICISM 346
Fauré and the beginning of the new--Chabrier, César Franck,
and others--Bruneau, Vidal, and Charpentier--Debussy and Ravel.
XV. MODERN LYRICISTS OUTSIDE OF GERMANY AND FRANCE 364
The new Russian school: Balakireff, etc.; Moussorgsky
and others--The Scandinavians and Finns--Recent English
song-writers.
APPENDIX. THE FRENCH-CANADIAN FOLK-SONG 375
INDEX 380
ILLUSTRATIONS IN VOLUME FIVE
‘Saint Cecilia’; painting by Rubens _Frontispiece_
The Larynx (Line-cuts in text) 6-13
FACING
PAGE
Apotheosis to Farinelli 44
Manuel García 58
Illustration for the ‘Roman de Fauvel’; fifteenth century print 74
Famous Singers of the Past (Malibran, Rubini, Lablache) 98
Famous Singers of the Past (Jenny Lind, Patti,
Schroeder-Devrient, Viardot-García) 152
‘Das Veilchen’; Fac-simile of Mozart’s manuscript 178
Precursors of Schubert (Hiller, Reichardt, Zelter, Zumsteeg) 192
Poets of the Romantic Period (Hugo, Goethe, Schiller, Heine) 200
Robert and Clara Schumann 238
Robert Franz 268
Famous Singers (Lilli Lehmann, Marcella Sembrich, Melba,
Schumann-Heink) 286
Minor Romanticists (Löwe, Jensen, Lassen) 306
Hugo Wolf 332
French and Scandinavian Song-Writers
(Fauré, Pierné, Sjögren, Sinding) 346
Lieder Singers of Today (Julia Culp, Ludwig Wüllner,
David Bispham, Elena Gerhardt) 364
THE VOICE AND VOCAL MUSIC
CHAPTER I
THE VOCAL ORGANS, THEIR OPERATION AND HYGIENE
The vocal instrument; anatomy of the vocal organs; the healthy
mechanism--The larynx; the laryngoscope; operations of the
laryngeal muscles--Tone production; the resonating cavities;
vowel formation; articulation--Vocal hygiene; incorrect tone
production; throat stiffness and its cure.
An acquaintance with the anatomical structure of the vocal organs,
together with an understanding of the acoustic laws bearing on their
operations, is usually held necessary to a competent knowledge of the
principles of voice culture. A rather tedious course of study is indeed
demanded for this purpose. But it will be our aim to present this
portion of our subject briefly, touching only on those points which are
essential to a practical grasp of vocal methods. For a more extended
treatment of the anatomy of the organs of voice and breathing any
standard text-book of anatomy may be consulted. It is, however, hoped
that our outline of the subject will suffice for the purposes of the
general reader.
As the subject of acoustics is dealt with in Vol. XII, the present
chapter does not cover this topic. A sufficient understanding of the
laws of vibration and resonance is also assumed on the part of the
reader.
No man-made musical instrument can compare with the human voice in
complexity and delicacy of structure. Yet, so far as the general
principles of its construction are concerned, it does not differ
materially from the voices of air-breathing mammals and birds in
general. In each case the vocal organs form a complex wind instrument,
consisting of an air chamber (the lungs), a vibrating mechanism (the
vocal cords), and a set of reinforcing resonance cavities. The human
voice differs from the voices of other air-breathing animals only in
its vastly higher development and complexity.
The vocal organs of all the various species of animal life we are now
considering were developed as a part of the respiratory system. In the
early stages of the evolution of air-breathing animal forms the lungs
had only one function, that of supplying air for the oxidizing of the
red corpuscles of the blood. No other use was made of the respiratory
organs; the breath served no purpose beyond that of furnishing oxygen
for the needs of the circulatory system. This was the condition of
those forms which were the forerunners of present mammal and bird life.
In the course of evolution a gradual change took place in a part of the
respiratory tract. This modification was an example of what is called
in evolutionary science ‘adaptive change.’ The organs of respiration
were modified and developed in such a way that the pressure of the
expired air could be utilized in the production of sound.
As evolution progressed the organs of voice which thus had their origin
took on an ever-increasing complexity of structure. This process of
evolution has reached its highest development in man. As a musical
instrument the human vocal organs may fairly be said to have reached
the point of perfection.
I
From the anatomist’s standpoint the vocal organs consist of four parts:
1. The lungs, together with the bones by which they are inclosed and
the muscles which fill and empty them.
2. The larynx and its appendages.
3. The resonating cavities--trachea, pharynx, mouth, and the cavities
of the nose and head.
4. The organs of articulation--the tongue, lips, teeth, etc.
Each of these organs performs a different function in the production of
useful and beautiful sounds. It is the generally accepted view among
vocal scientists that each portion of the vocal mechanism has one and
only one correct mode of operation. Many forms of incorrect action are
also possible; indeed, the untrained voice is believed to be liable
in almost every case to faulty operation in some respect. Scientific
investigation of the voice has for its purpose the determining of the
correct muscular actions of the various parts of the vocal mechanism,
and the formulation of exercises whereby the student is enabled to
acquire command of these actions.
Modern methods of voice culture embody the results of scientific study
of the vocal mechanism. It must be observed that not all investigators
are agreed upon what constitutes the correct vocal action. Several
conflicting theories have been urged concerning the proper movements
of the breathing and laryngeal muscles and the operations of the
resonating cavities. An exhaustive treatment of these various theories
is, however, not called for here. Some of them have been discarded,
others have but few followers. The majority of authorities are in fair
agreement concerning the theoretical basis of voice culture. In the
present chapter only the theoretical aspect of the subject will be
considered; the third chapter will be devoted to the practical methods
which embody the doctrines of vocal science.
Two opposed sets of muscles are concerned in the operations of
breathing, those which, respectively, fill and empty the lungs. The
action of inspiration consists of an expansion of the chest cavity,
which by increasing its cubical capacity draws in air from the outside
to fill what would otherwise be a vacuum. The chest cavity is conical
in shape, its base being formed by the diaphragm, and its sides and
apex by the ribs, the breast-bone, and the intercostal muscles.
Broadly speaking, there are two distinct forms of muscular action by
which the chest cavity can be expanded in inspiration: one is the
sinking of the base of the chest cavity, the other the broadening of
the chest by raising the ribs. Either of these can with some little
practice be performed independently of the other.
The sinking of the base of the cavity is accomplished by the
contraction of the diaphragm. This muscle is roughly circular in
outline. In its relaxed state it rises to a dome in the middle and
might be compared in shape to an inverted bowl. As it contracts the
diaphragm flattens out and increases the length of the vertical axis
of the chest cavity. In its descent it pushes the viscera downward and
forces the abdomen to protrude slightly. This manner of breathing is
commonly called abdominal, although the muscles of the abdomen are not
directly concerned in the filling of the lungs.
The expansion of the chest cavity may be accomplished by the raising of
the ribs. Owing to their curved shape and sloping position, a slight
elevation of the ribs causes them to rotate outward from the central
axis of the chest cavity. This increases the horizontal diameter of the
cavity in every direction--forward, backward, and sidewise.
In the judgment of the most competent investigators the best form of
breathing combines the two muscular actions just described. At the
start of the inspiration the diaphragm descends, but the protruding
of the abdomen is checked almost instantly by a contraction of the
abdominal muscles. The inspiration is then completed by the lateral
expansion of the chest. In this manner the lungs are filled to their
greatest capacity in the least possible time. Another great advantage
of this type of breathing is that it imparts a peculiarly erect and
graceful carriage, a matter of much importance to the singer and public
speaker.
In the action of expiration following the taking of a full breath in
the manner just described two sets of muscles are involved. These
are: first, the abdominal muscles, which push the diaphragm back to
its original position; second, the muscles which lower the ribs (the
internal intercostals and some of the external abdominal muscles). The
actions of both these sets of muscles can easily be observed. When
correctly performed the two actions are simultaneous, the whole chest
cavity being gradually and uniformly contracted.
A highly important feature of correct breathing, in the opinion of most
authorities, is the control of the expiration. In the first place, all
the expired air must be converted into tone and none of it allowed to
escape unused. Further, the vocal cords must not be exposed to the full
force of a powerful expiratory blast, as they are too small and weak to
withstand this pressure without strain and injury. The air must be fed
to the vocal cords in just sufficient quantity to serve the purposes of
tone production.
It is generally held that this economy of breath can be secured,
without strain on the vocal cords, only by opposing the action of
the inspiratory muscles to the action of the muscles of expiration.
Instead of allowing the inspiratory muscles to relax completely at the
beginning of the expiration these muscles are to be held on tension
throughout the expiration. By this means both the force and the speed
of the expiration can be regulated at will; no undue pressure is
exerted on the vocal cords, and the tone is prolonged steadily and
evenly so long as the expiration lasts.
II
[Illustration: FIGURE I]
The main passage from the lungs to the outer air is the trachea or
windpipe, a tube formed of from sixteen to twenty rings of cartilage,
united by tendons and muscular fibres, and lined with mucous membrane.
At the top of the trachea is situated the larynx, the organ of
phonation, strictly speaking. The larynx is built up of two cartilages,
the thyroid and cricoid, which represent developments of what once were
the uppermost two rings of the trachea. The cricoid cartilage, forming
the base of the larynx, is shaped like a seal ring, with the bezel to
the back. The thyroid cartilage, just above the cricoid, has the form
of an open book, V-shaped in horizontal section. In the interior of the
larynx are two tiny cartilages, the right and left arytenoids. These
rest on top of the rear portion of the cricoid, on which they rotate
freely.
Figure I shows two views, front and rear, of the cartilages of the
trachea and larynx. Immediately above and connected with the thyroid
cartilage is the hyoid bone, which serves as the attachment of the base
of the tongue. It is shaped like a horseshoe, the ends pointing to the
rear.
[Illustration: FIGURE II]
Figure II presents a section of the interior of the larynx, all the
muscular tissues having been removed. In this cut the position of the
arytenoid cartilages is plainly shown.
By feeling the outside of the throat with the thumb on one side and the
forefinger on the other, the hyoid bone and the thyroid and cricoid
cartilages can easily be located. The space between the two cartilages
in front is covered by the crico-thyroid membrane.
The muscles of the larynx are considered in two groups, the extrinsic,
those which connect the larynx with the other parts of the body, and
the intrinsic, those which belong to the larynx strictly speaking. By
the extrinsic muscles the larynx is held in its place in the throat.
These muscles are usually held to have no direct office in phonation.
[Illustration: FIGURE III]
The intrinsic muscles of the larynx are nine in number, as follows:
2 Thyro-arytenoids, right and left.
2 Crico-thyroids, right and left.
2 Lateral crico-arytenoids, right and left.
2 Posterior crico-arytenoids, right and left.
1 Arytenoideus.
In Figure III these muscles are plainly shown. This cut presents a view
of the interior of the left half of the larynx; the right half of the
thyroid cartilage has been removed, together with the muscles which
lie to the right of the middle line of the larynx. We see the muscles
of the left side of the interior of the larynx and also the right
posterior crico-arytenoideus and the right crico-thyroid.
[Illustration: FIGURE IV]
The thyro-arytenoideus muscles are attached in front to the interior
angle of the thyroid cartilage, and at the back to the arytenoid
cartilages. To their outer edges the vocal cords are attached and the
space between them is called the glottis. The crico-thyroids are
attached to the outer surfaces of the cartilages. The lateral and
posterior crico-arytenoids have very complex attachments, which can
be seen in Figure III. The arytenoideus connects the rear surfaces of
the two arytenoid cartilages. In Figure IV a drawing of the larynx is
presented, looked at from above, the surrounding parts having been
dissected away to allow a clear view of the muscles just considered.
It is impossible to state with absolute certainty just what office
the various intrinsic laryngeal muscles have in the production of
tones of different pitches and qualities. Most of our information
regarding this subject has been obtained by means of the laryngoscope.
People interested in singing are now very generally acquainted with
this little instrument, although it was invented by Manuel García so
recently as 1855. While it is generally used only by physicians, anyone
who wishes to can easily procure one and by its means observe the
actions of his own vocal cords. The laryngoscope consists of a little
mirror fitted to a handle at an angle of about 100 degrees. When used
by a physician, it is held in the back of the subject’s throat, the
tongue being pulled forward and to one side. A ray of strong light is
reflected into it from another mirror, which the observer straps to his
forehead. This ray of light is again reflected by the laryngeal mirror
so as to illuminate the vocal cords. At the same time the observer sees
in the laryngeal mirror the image of the vocal cords and so studies
their movements.
While laryngoscopic observation has thrown much valuable light on the
operations of the laryngeal muscles, it has not by any means cleared
up all the mysteries pertaining to this peculiarly intricate subject.
All the muscles concerned are very small. Each one contains a vast
and intricate number of tiny fibres, extending in widely varying
directions. As each one of these sets of fibres can be contracted
with a greater or less degree of strength than those most intimately
connected with it, the possibility of variety in the combined actions
of the laryngeal musculature is seen to be almost unlimited. Many
conflicting theories have been offered to explain the details of
the laryngeal action, but a comprehensive review of the subject is
not called for here. Our purpose will be served by stating the most
generally accepted theory, without committing ourselves as to its
accuracy or sufficiency. This theory is as follows:
In quiet breathing all the laryngeal muscles are in a state
of relaxation, with the possible exception of the posterior
crico-arytenoids. These muscles draw the arytenoid cartilages apart,
and so open the glottis. For the production of a tone the glottis
is closed by the contraction of the arytenoideus, which pulls the
arytenoid cartilages together. The tension of the vocal cords is
regulated by two sets of muscles: first, the thyro-arytenoids, to which
the cords are directly attached; second, the lateral crico-arytenoids,
which rotate the arytenoid cartilages, bringing their forward spurs
together.
The pitch of the tone is determined in two ways: first, by the tension
of the vocal cords; second, by their effective length. In different
parts of the vocal range the manner of adjustment for pitch varies. For
the lowest notes of the voice, the chest register, the cords vibrate
in their full length. As the pitch rises in singing an ascending scale
passage in this part of the voice, the tension of the vocal cords is
gradually increased by a corresponding increase in the strength of
the contraction of the thyro-arytenoids. When the limit of the chest
register has been reached, a further ascent in pitch is brought about
by the gradual shortening of the vocal cords. This is effected by
the contraction of the lateral crico-arytenoids, which rotate the
arytenoid cartilages inward, as has just been described. The forward
spurs of these cartilages are slightly curved in shape, so that, as
they continue to rotate, their point of contact is gradually brought
further and further forward. As the vocal cords are held tightly
together behind this point, the portion of the cords left free to
vibrate is shortened with each material increase in the tension of the
lateral crico-arytenoids.
With each shortening of the vibrating parts of the cords the pitch is
correspondingly raised. The portion of the vocal range thus produced
is called the medium register. The highest note of the medium register
is reached when the forward spurs of the arytenoid cartilages are
in contact at their tips. Beyond this point there can be no further
shortening of the vocal cords in this way. The remaining notes of the
compass, known as the head register, are secured through a shortening
of the effective length of the vocal cords at their forward ends, as
well as by a further increase in their tension. Both these actions are
accomplished by the contraction of the thyro-arytenoids.
[Illustration: FIGURE V]
Figure V shows a laryngoscopic view of the larynx, as it appears in
quiet breathing. It will be observed that the vocal cords are widely
separated, and the glottis is opened to its full extent. A similar
view of the larynx during the production of tone is given in Figure VI.
The vocal cords are closely approximated and the glottis is narrowed to
a tiny slit-like opening.
[Illustration: FIGURE VI]
III
What was said about the uncertainty of our present knowledge concerning
the laryngeal action applies with almost equal force to the other
operations of tone production. Beyond the basic facts that the tones
of the voice are produced by the vibration of the vocal cords and are
reinforced and modified by the influence of the resonance cavities,
little can be stated with absolute certainty. There is, of course, no
question as to the definiteness of our knowledge of the anatomical
structure of the parts involved. But, with regard to the muscular
operations of the resonance cavities and the application of acoustic
and mechanical principles in these operations, the same uncertainty is
encountered as in the laryngeal actions. We shall continue therefore
to outline the most widely accepted theories, without entering into a
discussion as to their soundness.
Considered acoustically, the voice is a wind instrument of the reed
class. It differs, however, from all other reed instruments in several
particulars. It is capable of producing a wide range of pitches,
covering more than three octaves in many cases, by the operation of a
single pair of reeds. Further, it has command of an immense range of
tone qualities, through the combined action of its reed mechanism and
its resonating cavities.
For the production of tone the vocal cords are brought together and
held on tension with sufficient strength momentarily to close the
glottis and check the outflow of the expired breath. As a slight degree
of condensation takes place in the air behind the cords, they are
forced apart and a tiny puff of air is allowed to escape. Immediately
the cords spring back, once more close the glottis, and again check the
outflow of the breath. This is repeated a varying number of times per
second, the rate of rapidity of the succession of puffs being regulated
by the degree of tension of the vocal cords, and by their effective
vibrating length. The pitch of the tone thus produced is determined
by the rate of the air puffs; these range from 75 per second for the
lowest usual bass note, [Illustration: Music score] to 1,417 per second
for the highest usual soprano note, [Illustration: Music score].
The tone produced by the vibration of the vocal cords is complex in its
acoustic character, containing the fundamental note and a large number
of its overtones. Yet as it leaves the cords the tone is weak in power
and of rather characterless quality. In order to be of musical quality,
volume, and carrying power, the primary or vocal cord tone requires to
be modified and reinforced by the resonance cavities.
The resonating cavities of the voice, mastery of which is considered
essential to the scientific management of the voice, are the chest,
the mouth-pharynx, the nasal passages, and the sphenoid, ethnoid,
and frontal sinuses. Each of these is adapted by its size and shape
to reinforce either the fundamental note or certain of its overtones
with especial prominence. In order to produce a satisfactory tone each
resonance cavity must exercise its particular influence in the proper
way, their combined effect being necessary to a correct use of the
voice.
Much importance is attached by most vocal authorities to the subject
of chest resonance. It is believed that the size of the chest
cavity,[1] much greater than that of the other resonating spaces,
adapts it especially to the reinforcement of the fundamental note
and its lower overtones.[2] The mouth-pharynx cavity is capable of
extreme variability in both size and shape. This mobility enables it
to reinforce a wide variety of overtones, and so to exercise a most
important influence in determining the quality of the tone. Another
function of this cavity is to increase the power of the primary or
vocal cord tone. To secure the effect of crescendo in a single tone,
the force of the expiratory blast is gradually increased. In order
that the tone may be of uniform musical quality as it swells from soft
to loud, a corresponding increase must take place in the size of the
mouth-pharynx cavity. This is effected by the gradual opening of the
mouth by a lateral expansion of the pharynx and by a lowering of the
base of the tongue. A slight elevation of the soft palate may also
contribute to the expansion of the cavity.
A highly important feature of mouth-pharynx resonance is the forming of
the various vowel sounds. Each vowel is simply a distinct quality of
sound, caused by the special prominence of some one or two overtones.
Helmholtz investigated this aspect of voice production exhaustively.
At first thought, it seems strange that a tone on some one pitch gives
the effect of a particular vowel. Yet we can readily hear this in the
steam siren whistle commonly used for alarms of fire. This produces a
screaming sound, caused by a gradual rise and fall of pitch through a
range of several octaves. Its almost vocal effect of ‘Ooh-oh-ah-eh-ee’
gives us a clear idea of the manner in which these vowels are each the
sound of a note somewhat higher than the one preceding.
Helmholtz gives as the determining notes for certain of the German
vowels the following table:
[Illustration: Music score]
For each vowel the mouth-pharynx must assume a shape and size adapted
to reinforce with special prominence its particular note or notes.
Anyone can readily observe for himself what the positions of the tongue
and lips are for the various vowels. For _ee_ the tongue is arched high
in the mouth and the lips are only slightly parted. For _ah_ the mouth
is opened slightly wider, while the tongue lies flat, etc.
No variation can be made in the size or shape of the nasal and head
cavities. As these hollow spaces are small and very various in form,
they reinforce only the higher overtones. Special prominence given
to the higher upper partials[3] has the effect of making the tone
brilliant and somewhat metallic in quality, and it is here that the
special function of nasal resonance is seen. A certain degree of nasal
resonance is therefore essential to the correctly used voice, but
this must be kept within well-defined bounds. Excessive prominence of
this resonance is the cause of the unpleasantly nasal sound which is
absolutely out of place in correct tone production.
There remains to be treated under this head the production of consonant
sounds. Consonant sounds are of various acoustic characters and are
formed in a variety of ways. They may best be considered as of two
classes: those into which a tone produced by the vocal cords enters and
those devoid of this element. The other determining factor in consonant
formation is the point at which an interruption takes place in the
outflow of the breath.
There are a number of allied pairs of consonants, one with and the
other without an accompanying vocal sound. These are:
_v_ and _f_
_b_ and _p_
_z_ and _s_
_d_ and _t_
_j_ and _ch_
_th_ (as in that) and _th_ (as in think)
_z_ (as in azure) and _sh_
_g_ and _k_
In each of these pairs the interruption takes place at the same
point--_v_ and _f_ between the lower lip and the upper teeth, _b_ and
_p_ at the lips, etc.
Another class of consonants are the so-called sonants or liquids,
_l_, _m_, _n_, and _ng_. In these the vocal tone may have appreciable
duration; we can hum a tune on any one of them; _m_, _n_, and _ng_ are
emitted solely through the nostrils, the orifice of the mouth being
completely closed.
_R_ may be pronounced in two ways, the trilled or rolled _r_ being
best for the purposes of singing. Another form of this consonant,
made by the vibration of the uvula in contact with the back of the
tongue, is essential to a correct (conversational) pronunciation of
both French and German, although it has no place in English. The rolled
_r_, however, is generally used in singing by both the French and the
Germans.
IV
A highly beneficial form of physical exercise is found in the regular
daily practice of singing. All the muscles of the abdomen and thorax
are strengthened by this exercise; the lungs are developed to their
greatest normal capacity, and the habit is formed of breathing at
all times in the most healthful manner. Both the circulation and the
digestion share in the benefits derived from regular vocal practice,
and the general health inevitably reflects the advantages incident to a
proper performance of these most important bodily functions. An erect
and graceful bearing, with well poised head and shoulders and firm,
elastic step, can be secured through the correct practice of singing
more readily than in almost any other way.
Yet the professional use of the voice imposes considerable restrictions
on the singer’s habits of daily life. As Sir Morell Mackenzie has said,
the singer is an athlete who must always be in training. A perfect
condition of the voice demands a perfect state of general health.
The singer must plan his whole life in conformity with the demands
imposed on him by his art. The slightest indisposition of any kind
is almost invariably reflected in the voice. Under the conditions in
which people in the usual walks of life are placed, slight colds and
trifling upset states of the digestive organs are a matter of almost
no concern. But with the professional singer conditions are entirely
different. So delicate and finely adjusted are the laryngeal muscles
of the cultivated voice that their ‘tone’ may be upset by apparently
insignificant causes. The mucous membranes of the larynx and throat are
also highly sensitive to severe and unfavorable conditions.
It is necessary, therefore, for the singer to study himself, to learn
by experience what is good and what is bad for him. This is a matter
in which individual peculiarities play so great a part that only very
general rules can safely be laid down. Singing within less than two
hours after the eating of a hearty meal is almost certain to have
an injurious effect on the voice. Exposure and over-fatigue must be
carefully avoided. Stimulants, especially alcohol and tobacco, have
a markedly bad influence on the mucous membranes of the throat. But
beyond general statements of this kind, so obvious indeed that their
truth is fairly well known, little can with safety be said as to the
regimen imposed on the singer. That one man’s meat is another man’s
poison is most strikingly true in its application to the voice. Many
famous singers have been excessive smokers without seeming to suffer
any ill results from the habit. Yet with most vocalists tobacco has
a very irritating effect on the mucous membranes. So, also, with
regard to eating and drinking, the widest differences of individual
constitution are seen. Hot drinks are beneficial to some voices,
injurious to others; cold drinks and ices are equally contradictory in
their influence on the voice. All these questions of daily habit must
be decided by each singer for himself and experience is the only safe
guide.
There is a class of dangers to which the voice is exposed, entirely
distinct from the influence of unfavorable conditions of the general
health. Most of the throat troubles to which singers and public
speakers are liable are directly traceable to a wrong use of the vocal
organs. One of the most striking facts regarding the voice is this:
If the voice is correctly produced it is benefited by exercise and
improves steadily, year after year, in power, beauty, and facility of
execution. On the other hand, when the voice is wrongly or imperfectly
used exercise has exactly the opposite effect. Badly produced voices
constantly deteriorate; their use results in course of time in throat
troubles, of which the number and variety seem almost inconceivably
great.
One general trouble lies at the bottom of all the throat ailments which
follow on a wrong use of the vocal organs. This is a state of muscular
strain suffered by the delicate muscles of the larynx. Every incorrect
manner of producing vocal tone imposes an excessive degree of effort on
these muscles. On the practical side the difference between the correct
production of tone and any wrong use of the voice may be stated thus:
When the voice is correctly used each tiny muscle of the larynx exerts
exactly the right degree of effort in its contraction. To just this
amount of exertion the muscles are fitted by Nature and in it they find
their normal and healthful exercise. Incorrect tone production, on the
other hand, always involves an excessive expenditure of effort on the
part of the laryngeal muscles. The throat is in a state of muscular
stiffness, in which all the muscles are contracted with more than their
normal and appropriate degree of effort.
Muscular stiffness is indeed possible in any part of the body. It can
be well illustrated as follows: Take a pencil and a sheet of paper and
copy a few lines of what you are reading; grasp the pencil with all
the strength of your fingers and exert all the power of your hand and
arm in forming the letters. You will find that your arm and hand tire
after a few minutes of writing in this manner. This follows from the
expenditure of vastly more effort than is required for the purpose of
writing.
All the muscles of the body are arranged in opposed pairs and groups.
As your hand rests on the table, the contraction of one set of muscles
brings the thumb and the first two fingers together so as to grasp the
pencil. An opposed set will, by their contraction, spread these fingers
apart, and the pencil will be released. If, now, both these sets of
muscles are contracted at the same time the pencil is held stiffly, and
the hand moves to form the letters only by the exertion of considerable
effort. The muscles themselves are stiffened by this simultaneous
contraction of opposed pairs and groups.
Throat stiffness, the characteristic feature of all incorrect vocal
actions, is exactly similar in its nature to the stiffness of the hand
and arm just considered. The laryngeal muscles are also arranged in
sets which oppose their action one to another. One set (the posterior
crico-arytenoids) opens the glottis, another set (the arytenoideus and
the lateral crico-arytenoids) closes the glottis and brings the vocal
cords on tension. Now, if the glottis opening muscles are contracted
during tone production, the opposed muscles must put forth enough
strength to overcome the effects of this contraction in addition to
that which they are normally called upon to exert. This applies also
to all the other sets of laryngeal muscles. Through this excessive
tension the delicate laryngeal muscles are strained and weakened, and
in the course of time the voice is permanently injured. This condition
of throat stiffness is by no means uncommon, a matter for which modern
methods of voice culture are to a certain degree responsible. The
attempt to manage the vocal organs directly is very apt to lead to
excessive tension of the muscles.
Throat stiffness is very insidious in its workings. It tends always to
become more pronounced and to impose a constantly greater strain on the
voice. Yet in its beginnings the singer may be completely unaware of
any trouble. The muscles of the larynx are very poorly supplied with
sensory nerves, so poorly, indeed, that under ordinary circumstances
we are utterly unconscious of their movements. Owing to this fact, a
condition of strain may exist without making itself manifest by any
painful sensation. It thus comes about that a singer may suffer from
the constantly progressing effects of throat stiffness before its
results are so pronounced as to be painful.
Yet there is one infallible way of determining whether a voice is
correctly used, or whether, on the contrary, its production is
characterized by excessive muscular tension. This is found in the sound
of the tones. Any degree of throat stiffness is invariably reflected in
the sound of the voice. A throaty quality of tone always results from
an incorrect manner of production, and this quality can result in no
other way. While a keen and highly experienced ear is needed to detect
a slight degree of throatiness, any ordinary observer can hear this
condition when it is very pronounced. True, it is very much easier to
detect a throaty quality in the voice of some one else than in one’s
own voice. The singer labors under this disadvantage, that he can never
hear his own voice as clearly and with the same discrimination as can
the people who listen to him. Yet by practice and careful attention
this difficulty can in great measure be overcome.
For the cure of throat stiffness and its attendant ills the physician
can do but little. Even the diagnosis of the condition can hardly be
said to lie within his province. In very bad cases a swelling of the
muscles inside the larynx can be detected, as well as a sympathetic
congestion of the mucous membranes. The existence of nodes on the vocal
cords, rather a rare condition resulting from long-continued vocal
strain, can also be determined by laryngoscopic examination. But in
the case of the great majority of singers suffering from the effects
of throat stiffness the only competent diagnosis is made by the vocal
teacher, whose ear is sufficiently trained and experienced to hear the
exact nature of the trouble. Further, it is the vocal teacher alone who
can relieve and permanently cure the condition. The physician can allay
the inflammation of the mucous membranes and can temporarily stimulate
the vocal muscles. But no lasting relief can be given in this way. Only
one real cure is possible. That is the abandonment of the incorrect
habits of tone production and the adoption of the correct manner of
using the voice.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] A certain allowance must be made for popular forms of speech in
dealing with the subject of chest resonance. It is plain that the
air in the chest cavity could not possibly be thrown into regular
vibrations. In the acoustic sense the chest is not a hollow space, but
a solid body. Filled as it is with the spongy tissue of the lungs,
as well as the heart and the great blood vessels, there is no room
for the formation of air waves or the oscillation of air particles.
Another form of resonance is involved here, what is known in acoustics
as sounding-board resonance. The reinforcing vibrations of the chest
are those of its bony structure, which vibrates according to the same
principle as the sounding-board of a piano.
[2] Overtones, or harmonics, are the tones produced by the vibrations
of the individual parts of a resonating body, into which it
automatically divides itself. See Vol. XII.
[3] Overtones. _Cf._ note above.
CHAPTER II
VOCAL CULTIVATION AND THE OLD ITALIAN METHOD
Historical aspect of vocal cultivation--The modern conception
of voice culture; the mechanical and psychological
methods--Ancient systems--Mediæval Europe--The revival
of solo singing; the rise of coloratura--The old Italian
method--The _bel canto_ teachers: Caccini; Tosi and Mancini;
the _Conservatoire_ method; the Italian course of instruction;
theoretical basis of the Italian method.
Musical historians generally agree that the training of voices for the
purposes of artistic singing had its beginnings about the year 1600.
Voice culture as a distinct department of musical education is held to
date no further back than the time when solo singing first began to
attract the attention of educated musicians. This view, however, is
altogether misleading. From its very beginnings the art of music in
Europe was built upon the foundation of singing; no other type of music
was, indeed, recognized as a legitimate branch of the art until music
had progressed through several centuries of development. Music was
brought up to the beginning of its present stage of evolution through
the working out of theories which were exemplified in practice only
by the use of voices. Counterpoint, the basis of musical composition
until well along in the seventeenth century, had its origin in vocal
music; throughout its entire history, up to its highest expression
in the music of Palestrina and his school, contrapuntal writing was
applied only to works composed for voices. Even if no records were
to be found of any means used for training the voice, the conclusion
would be inevitable that, throughout all these centuries (roughly
speaking, from the sixth to the seventeenth), some attention must have
been paid to vocal development and technique. It is true that anyone
endowed with a good voice can sing, with some degree of facility,
any simple music which he has the ability to memorize. No technical
training of the voice is needed to enable one to sing simple songs.
Folk-music was the possession of the great mass of the people to whom
any ideas of vocal management were utterly unknown. This was also
true of the various classes of minstrels, troubadours, etc. Although
theirs was purely a vocal art, the only training their voices ever
received was that incidental to the actual singing of their music.
But for the performance of the music incorporated in the Roman ritual
throughout all its history this untutored style of singing would not
have sufficed. A much better command of the voice was needed than can
be acquired merely through the unguided singing of simple folk-songs
and lays. Precision, power, and facility of voice were demanded in the
music of the church and these could not have been hit upon by accident.
The chances are all against a voice falling into the correct manner of
production if called upon to sing music of any difficulty without some
definite instruction. This will be made clearer by a consideration of
the peculiar problem involved in any extended use of the voice.
I
Modern thought on the subject of vocal cultivation has crystallized
along well-defined lines. For one thing, it has emphasized in a
striking way the problem of the management of the vocal organs. The
fact is now clearly recognized that the voice has one correct mode
of operating, as well as an almost limitless possibility of wrong or
incorrect forms of activity. When the voice is correctly produced it
can be used daily in large halls and churches without strain or undue
fatigue. By judicious exercise, when rightly produced, the voice is
greatly increased in volume and power; it acquires facility in the
singing of difficult and elaborate music; its compass is increased,
giving it command of a wider range of notes than is possessed by the
untrained voice.
Yet vocal cultivation demands the adoption of the correct management
of the vocal organs. When the voice is correctly produced nothing
more than judicious exercise is needed to bring it to the condition
of technical mastery. But if the proper manner of producing tone is
not acquired, then the exercise of the voice is fraught with peril to
the vocal organs. Instead of the voice being benefited by practice the
contrary result is almost inevitable. The use of a wrongly produced
voice on an extended scale, involving, as it must, the daily attempt
to produce tones powerful enough to fill a large space, strains and
injures the vocal organs. This results in a weakening of the voice, in
loss of control, in discomfort and pain to the singer, in a strained,
harsh quality of tone, and finally, if persisted in long enough, in
complete loss of voice.
The difference between the correct use of the voice and any incorrect
manner of producing tone is inherent in the organ itself. No one who
wishes to sing can elude the problem which Nature thus propounds. On
the contrary, the problem of vocal management must be solved some time
in the course of a singer’s vocal studies or the technical command of
the voice can never be attained. Vocal cultivation is that form of
exercise of the voice which leads, through the correct management of
the organ, to a command of all the voice’s resources of beauty, range,
power, and flexibility.
Even on the earliest singers of the church a solution of the vocal
problem was imposed. These singers had to perform daily in large
cathedrals and churches; they had to sing their music in time and
in tune. Some measure of vocal cultivation was of necessity involved
in their training. We are, fortunately, not left in ignorance of the
methods applied in vocal training in the centuries which preceded the
rise of solo singing. Many references to this subject found in the
writings of early musical historians have been gathered together by H.
F. Mannstein in his _Geschichte, Geist, und Ausübung des Gesanges von
Gregor dem Grossen bis auf unsere Zeit_ (Leipzig, 1845). Fétis also
contains many passages which throw valuable light on the subject It is
true that the subject has been considered rather obscure, owing to the
fact that students have looked for something not to be found, that is,
for rules bearing on the mechanical management of the vocal organs. In
order to understand this subject fully the modern conception of voice
culture must first be briefly considered.
Modern methods of voice culture are based upon the doctrine that the
vocal organs must be consciously guided by the singer in the correct
performance of their functions. The idea is that the voice must be
led to adopt the correct manner of action by direct attention to its
mechanical processes. According to the present conception, the singer
must see to it that his vocal cords act in a certain way; that his
breath is controlled at the proper point; that the tones have the
correct origin and receive the influence of resonance in the correct
manner. Even back of this conception lies a belief in the helplessness
of the vocal organs to hit upon the proper mode of acting without the
conscious direction of the singer. The singer must impose a certain
manner of operating on the voice and carefully supervise all the
processes of tone production. This is the scientific view of voice
culture; until quite recently it was almost universally held.
It is almost incredible that this view is thoroughly modern and that
its origin cannot be traced further back than the invention of the
laryngoscope in 1855. Not until 1883 did the scientific view of vocal
cultivation find definite expression in the writings of any authority
on the voice; in that year Browne and Behnke, in their book entitled
‘Voice, Song, and Speech,’ stated the scientific doctrine in plain
terms, and asserted that the voice cannot be controlled in any other
way than by attention to the mechanical processes of the vocal organs.
For many years thereafter this doctrine went unchallenged, and methods
of voice culture treated as the most important materials of instruction
the means they embodied for enabling students of singing to acquire
direct conscious control over their vocal organs.
An entirely different conception of voice culture has recently been
advanced and has indeed made great headway. From the fact that the
new doctrine found its first complete statement in the writer’s
‘Psychology of Singing’ (New York, 1908), it has come to be known as
the psychological theory, in contradistinction to the mechanical theory
embodied in the scientific system.
Briefly stated, the psychological theory of voice production is as
follows: To the vocal problem propounded by nature the solution has
also been furnished by nature herself. Nature has endowed the voice
with a sufficient guide and monitor--the sense of hearing. There is
a direct connection between the cerebral centres of hearing and the
centres governing the muscles of the vocal organs. The volitional
impulse to produce a certain sound involves the hearing of the sound
in imagination; through the nerve fibres connecting the centres of
hearing and of voice, the nerve impulse is sent to the vocal organs
which causes them to assume the positions and perform the muscular
contractions necessary for the production of the desired tone. Thus the
voice is controlled by the ear, and it needs no other form of control
than that furnished by the ear. A correct management of the voice in
singing results in the production of tones of a distinct characteristic
sound, while any incorrect use of the voice produces tones which
differ from the correct type, more or less, according to the degree
of faultiness in the vocal management. The ear is the only reliable
judge of the voice. Only by listening to the tones it produces can it
be determined whether a voice is correctly used or not. The object of
vocal cultivation is first of all to enable the voice to produce the
correct type of tone. This is accomplished by practice, which consists
of repeated efforts to sing tones of the type recognized by the ear as
correct. If the ear has the right conception of pure tone, the vocal
organs gradually fall into the way of producing correct tones, that
is, of operating in the correct manner. In this the voice is guided
by its own instincts, which offer a safer and more efficient guidance
than that provided by the conscious management of the vocal organs. No
attention whatever need be paid to the mechanical operations of tone
production. The vocal organs are informed by the mental ear what is
expected of them, and perform their functions instinctively without any
help from the intellect.
One advantage of the psychological doctrine is that it at once dispels
all the mystery which has seemed to surround the early history of the
subject, and which has extended even to the method of the Italian
teachers of _bel canto_. Little notice has indeed been taken of the
systems of vocal cultivation which flourished before the rise of the
Italian school of vocal teachers. But since the universal adoption of
the scientific doctrine, repeated efforts have been made to penetrate
the secret of the old method. These efforts have always resulted in
failure, for the reason already mentioned. Investigators have sought to
re-discover the form of instruction used for the purpose of imparting
a direct conscious control of the vocal organs; their conviction that
no other means of vocal command is possible has blinded students of
the subject to the instinctive processes actually followed. As our
main purpose in the present chapter is to describe the system now
known as the old Italian method, a fuller treatment of its records,
both literary and traditional, will be reserved for a later section. A
review of the early history of voice culture will lead most readily to
the consideration of the old Italian method.
II
Ancient systems of vocal culture call for only passing mention. In the
early civilizations of Egypt, Chaldea and Assyria the art of singing
was cultivated assiduously. In the services of the temples this ancient
art found its most serious and dignified employment. Each of the
countries named possessed, at the time of its highest civilization,
a highly elaborate ritual of worship, in which singing played a most
important part. Every temple had its corps of trained singers, who were
especially educated for this office. The most important feature of
the education of the temple singers was the memorizing of the musical
settings to which the various poems and chronicles of the ritual were
sung and chanted. The course of instruction consisted of the actual
singing of the music, under the tuition of a master whose memory was
stored with the entire devotional repertoire of the cult. A proper
performance of the music was the object sought, and to this the most
earnest attention was paid. But incident to this was the production of
the quality and type of tones which experience had shown to be best
adapted to the use of the voice in the massive temples and in the
open-air services. The temple music schools were under the constant
supervision of the priests and other officials in charge and the
classes met regularly for instruction and practice.
Very much the same system was followed in the Temple at Jerusalem.
Of the musical system developed there we have a highly complete and
satisfactory record. Here the art of singing was carried to a very high
pitch of development. At the time of Solomon there were 4,000 Levites
attached to the Temple, whose office it was to sing and intone the
various services. The elaborate ritual contained musical settings for
the Psalms and certain of the historical and prophetic books, which
demanded a high degree of vocal ability for their rendition. Both the
priests and the Levites received a lengthy training in the singing
of the music allotted to them. The music of the Temple is especially
interesting to the student of the history of singing, for the reason
that it included a remarkably developed system of vocal ornamentation.
It would have been impossible to sing this music without a thorough
command of the voice, and the education of the priests and Levites
therefore included a comprehensive system of vocal cultivation.
The experience of the early masters of the old Italian school taught
them that the best means for training the voice in facility and
flexibility is the actual singing of ornamental florid music. This was
also the plan followed in the school attached to the Temple. A system
of notation was in use, somewhat similar to that of the neumes used
in Europe from the ninth to the thirteenth century. Every standard
ornament and melodic phrase was represented by a letter, according to a
strictly arbitrary system. A most important part of the Temple method
of musical instruction was the memorizing of the various phrases,
groups, runs, etc., represented by the significant letters. This was
purely a matter of convention, that is, the meaning of the letters was
recorded only in the memories of the instructors and the graduate
students. The instructor taught the phrase for which a letter stood by
singing it for his students and having them sing it after him until
they had committed it to memory and learned to associate it with the
letter. As the musical phrases were all melodious and in most cases
ornamental, the voice thus received an effective training. One of the
puzzling aspects of the first solo singing in European music is the
difficulty found in tracing the origin of the vocal embellishments
of which it so largely consisted. A possible explanation of this
mystery may be found in the music of the Temple. How the traditions so
carefully treasured there could have found their way into Italy after
the lapse of nearly 2,000 years will be considered in a later section
of this chapter.
In classic Athens the voice was trained for the purposes of both
oratory and singing. A specially recognized profession was that of
the vocal trainer or _phonascus_, whose duties embraced the vocal
cultivation of both singers and public speakers. A well-developed
system of voice culture was followed by these teachers, who
superintended classes in the daily practice of systematic exercises.
For the training of the speaking voice a pupil began his daily practice
by repeating detached sentences at short intervals. From this he passed
to the declamation of long phrases, beginning on the lowest notes of
the voice, raising the pitch gradually until the highest notes were
reached, and then again descending to the lowest range. The exercises
in singing were very similar, although greater attention was paid to
the sustaining of high notes. Owing to the immense size of the Greek
open-air theatres, and to the masks that were always worn by the
actors, volume and power of voice were of the utmost importance. The
actors might justly be described as singers, as all their speeches
were delivered in a style of vocal declamation not unlike our modern
recitative.
Very much the same methods of vocal cultivation were followed in
ancient Rome, although much more attention was paid to oratory than to
singing. There is no reason to believe that voice culture in Europe was
influenced in any way by the classic systems of either Greece or Rome.
III
Vocal cultivation in Europe had an independent beginning. It may be
that some of the musical traditions of the Hebrew Temple had been
carried over into the earlier churches which were founded in Italy,
as there is no doubt that the same traditions were adopted as the
basis of the Eastern church ritual at Constantinople. Certain it is
that prior to the reform of St. Ambrose much of the music of the early
Roman church was highly ornamental in character. At any rate, with the
founding of the choir school attached to the Pontifical chapel at Rome
in the year 590 voice culture made a new start; it underwent a steady
development, and continued to progress without interruption until it
reached its fullest fruition in the Italian school of singing in the
seventeenth century. The choir school at Rome was intended to serve
as a model for the entire Western church; it supplied singers for the
papal choir, which was established to illustrate the proper rendition
of Gregorian music. At the beginning the course of instruction
followed in the Roman choir school was extremely rudimentary, and so
it continued for several centuries. The _maestro di cappella_ had
as part of his duties the training of the singers’ voices. This was
accomplished according to the purely instinctive system followed in
the similar schools of the ancient temples. The students committed to
memory the music as it was sung by the choir master; in the course of
their constant repetition of the various musical numbers their voices
received the necessary training and development. Schools similar to
that at Rome were established at all the great cathedrals and the Roman
system of musical instruction was thus spread over the entire church.
Throughout the Middle Ages musical learning and culture--what little
there was of them--were the exclusive property of the church, and the
only centres of musical instruction were the choir schools. Every
advance which music made during these centuries involved an extension
of the art of singing, and this necessitated of course a corresponding
progress of the art of vocal training. Progress was painfully slow;
indeed little can be pointed out as marking any distinct advance until
the invention of the _sol-fa_ system of instruction by Guido d’Arezzo
about the year 1100.[4] On the basis of this system an entirely new
form of musical education was erected, which continued to flourish
until well along in the 17th century. The new system of musical
instruction consisted of what we should now call a training in sight
singing.
The first method of vocal culture worthy the name was a natural
outgrowth of the _sol-fa_ system. Students were trained in a knowledge
of the intervals by singing the _ut_, _re_, _mi_ syllables in different
combinations. Choir masters were not slow to observe that this form of
study offered excellent means for acquiring a command of the voice.
With the exception of the first one, _ut_, all the _sol-fa_ syllables
are sonorous and easily sung. The difficulty attached to the singing of
_ut_ was obviated by substituting for it the syllable _do_. Constant
singing of the syllables was found to have an admirable effect on the
voice, and they were soon adopted as the basis of vocal instruction.
_Sol-fa_ practice was made to serve a double purpose; both the ear and
the voice received the due measure of attention. Vocal training was
not at this time, nor indeed for several centuries later, thought to
require any very close attention. It was simply an incident in the
general musical education. The demands made on the voice were slight in
comparison with the requirements of the music of a few centuries later.
Music had long been strictly unisonic in character, but about the time
of Guido the need of some addition to a single melody began to be noted.
A peculiarity of the single voice is the fact that while capable of
singing melodies of an almost infinite variety it seems to the cultured
ear to need support of some kind. While untutored people are content
to listen to the singing of a voice without any accompaniment, a
certain degree of culture brings with it a sense of bareness conveyed
by a performance of this kind. Toward the close of the dark ages this
feature of the voice attracted the attention of the church musicians.
They hit upon the device of having a second voice accompany the
first, singing another melody which should have a pleasing effect
in conjunction with the original one. This marked the beginning of
counterpoint, and it gave a direction to the art of music from which it
did not depart for many centuries.
With the gradual extension of polyphonic writing the education of
singers became constantly a more complex and exacting matter. Greater
demands were made on both the voice and the musicianship of the choral
singer. No great modification was, however, made in the system of
instruction; this developed along the lines already marked out for
it. Sight singing continued to be the basis of musical education. As
time went on it became necessary for the singers to master the system
of musical notation, and this was accomplished by a farther extension
of the course in sight singing. An understanding of the rules of
counterpoint was not obligatory on the part of the choristers, but
many of them received sufficient instruction to fit them for both
composition and teaching. Composers and teachers were without exception
graduates of the choir schools; a musical education could not be
obtained elsewhere. Music study had indeed no other purpose than to
train students in the music of the church. Instruction in counterpoint
and composition was not undertaken until the students had mastered
the rudiments of music and had also received their vocal training in
the sight singing classes. Every musician was a singer as a matter of
course.
Musical culture gradually spread from the church and began to embrace
a wider field. During the 15th and the 16th centuries there was a
steady approximation of the two orders of music, scholarly and popular.
Every little royal and princely court had its retinue of musicians.
Polyphonic music had reached a degree of development where its beauty
brought it within the reach of the enjoyment of the great mass of the
people.
Composers had, indeed, begun to write secular ‘art’ music as early
as the thirteenth century. As civilization and culture advanced, and
secular music received a constantly greater measure of attention,
the demands made on lay musicians became more exacting. The old
fashion of singing and playing entirely by ear no longer sufficed for
the requirements of cultured people. Musicians were obliged to fit
themselves for their profession by obtaining a fair degree of technical
knowledge. Many who had enjoyed the training of the choir schools
forsook their employment in the church and devoted themselves to the
practice of secular music.
The field of musical education also broadened. People who looked
forward to embracing the musical profession began to seek instruction
from graduates of the choir schools. But the idea of private
instruction did not become popular for a long time. Music had always
been taught in special schools, and the need of such schools of a
secular character soon became manifest. The first institution of this
type to attain any degree of prominence was that founded in Bologna
in 1482 by a Spanish musician, Ramis di Pareja. It adopted the system
of instruction followed in the choir schools. The century following
the establishment of the Bologna school was one of great activity in
secular musical instruction. Conservatories were founded in most of the
great European cities, although Italy was the chief centre of education
in music.
Polyphonic music had been steadily progressing and, at the period we
have now reached (the sixteenth century), its proper performance called
for singers of no mean ability. The traditional system of musical
education had steadily expanded and had without difficulty kept abreast
of the demands made on it. The strictly musical education of the singer
required a longer and more exacting course of study, and so also did
the technical training of the voice. Composers of this period showed a
marked fondness for florid counterpoint and voices had to be cultivated
to a high point of flexibility to sing their works satisfactorily.
Yet no sweeping alteration was made in the system of vocal cultivation.
Flexibility of voice was acquired through practice in the singing
of individual parts of contrapuntal works, those being chosen which
presented technical difficulties in a convenient form. This advanced
stage of vocal training was undertaken only after the rudimentary
principles of singing had been mastered in the sight-singing classes.
In spite of the greater technical demands made on the voice, the proper
management of the vocal organs was not seen to involve a problem of
any difficulty. Sight singing classes numbered sometimes as many as
forty pupils. The instructor in this primary grade was expected to see
that the students sang clearly and in tune, and that they avoided the
faults of nasality and throatiness. To the matter of tone production
the teacher could of course pay very little attention, as the
rudiments of music were the main subject of study. Yet the few hints
and corrections occasionally given by the sight-singing teacher were
all the instruction that the students received in the management of the
voice. On the completion of the course in sight singing the students
were expected to produce their voices properly, as well as to sing
difficult music at sight. No pupil could be admitted to the classes for
advanced instruction in singing whose voice was not properly controlled.
IV
Up to the latter part of the sixteenth century there was nothing to
give promise of a sudden development of solo singing. Popular music had
as a matter of fact consisted from time immemorial largely of singing
by a single voice. The musical instincts of the great mass of the
people had found expression in the folk-song, while the semi-cultured
classes had long cultivated the arts of the various orders of
Troubadours and Minnesingers. But these popular forms of music were
looked upon by the trained musicians with a certain contempt. Music
had to be sung in parts by several voices in order to be worthy of
recognition as serious art. Polyphonic music utterly ignores the
capabilities of beauty and expressiveness inherent in the single voice.
When several melodies are sung at once, each one of equal importance
with all the others, it is impossible for one voice to receive more
attention than another. Yet a time came when music was forced to
break the bonds of polyphony and free itself from the restraints
imposed upon it by multiple part-writing. Greater command of beauty
and expressiveness was precisely the end sought by those composers,
notably Palestrina, whose work marks the culmination of the polyphonic
school. The spirit of the time was seeking for greater freedom in the
expression of the musical instinct and singers and musicians alike
were moved by this spirit. Solo singing was the inevitable result of a
pressing demand.
Two entirely distinct sets of influences were instrumental in leading
musicians to experiment with the solo voice. The first of these can
be traced back to the practising of individual parts in choral works
as a medium of vocal cultivation. A singer practising a part of this
kind by himself could not fail to notice that he used his voice with
greater freedom and satisfaction than when obliged to consider only the
effect of his voice in conjunction with other singers. So also would
the master who was instructing him in his part. Highly significant is
the fact that this discovery was made in the singing of florid music.
Rather elaborate passages of the florid type were selected for vocal
practice and these would naturally be adapted for bringing out the
purely sensuous beauty of the voice. Florid counterpoint thus contained
within itself the germs of coloratura singing. As singers began to
recognize the beauties of their own individual voices, the desire
naturally arose to display these beauties to others. Opportunity for
vocal display was, however, lacking, as no music had ever been written
for the solo voice. This difficulty was finally overcome by a singer
performing only one part of a contrapuntal work and having the other
parts played as an accompaniment by instrumental performers. The first
solos sung in the history of European musical art were of this type.
As early as 1539 a four-part madrigal was produced in this manner,
the highest soprano part being sung as a solo. The fashion spread
rapidly and solo singing soon began to attract the serious attention of
musicians.[5]
Singers were of course anxious to exhibit their voices. Polyphonic
music offered them little scope in this regard, for florid writing
was distributed among the various parts and it was impossible for
the artists to find works which contained more than an occasional
ornamental passage for any one voice. They hit naturally upon the
device of adding ornaments according to their own taste and fancy
to the part selected for solo performance. Kiesewetter reproduces
a madrigal sung in this manner by a noted soprano singer, Vittoria
Archilei, in 1589. Both the original soprano part and the same part as
embellished by Archilei are reproduced here.
[Illustration: _a._ Simple melody of treble part]
Dalle più alte sfere
dalle più alte sfere
di celesti Sirene
di celesti Sirene
[Illustration: _b._ Melody as sung by Vittoria Archilei]
Dalle più alte sfere
dalle più alte sfere
di celesti Sirene
di celesti Sirene
Vocal ornamentation had by this time become a recognized fashion among
the singers. Considerable mystery surrounds the origin of the various
ornaments and fiorituri which were adopted by the singers at this early
period in the history of solo singing. A possible source from which
they may have been drawn was mentioned in our remarks on the music of
the Temple at Jerusalem. Much of this music was preserved by tradition
and was incorporated, with modifications of course, in the ritual of
the Greek Catholic church at Constantinople. Highly ornamental in
character, it was performed regularly in the Greek church for many
centuries. At the dispersal of the cultured Greeks following the
capture of Constantinople by the Turks in 1452, many musicians trained
in the music of the Greek church found their way into Italy. This
gradual exodus continued indeed for many years, and it is probable
that the traditions of ornamental music thus came to the knowledge of
the Italian singers. Certain it is that the early singers adopted the
same type of ornamentation which had been perfected at Jerusalem nearly
2,000 years previously. Exactly the same variety of turns, trills,
runs, _gruppetti_, etc., are contained in the following examples of
Hebrew and Greek music as were employed by the solo singers at the
close of the sixteenth century.
[Illustration: Hebrew (_transcribed by Fétis_)]
Horuch attoh adonoï elohemi melech hoolom
jozer or uvore choscheh sch scholom uvore es haccol or olom
h’jotzer chajim oros meofel omar vajehi.
[Illustration: Byzantine (_transcribed by Fétis_)]
Erra nan myra métadakry on Epitomné
masou ai gynaikes kai Eplétheé
charas tostoma autou.
Entolegein. Anéstéo kyrios.
It is not necessary, however, to speculate on the causes which led the
first solo singers to adorn their songs with _fiorituri_. Ornamental
singing has always been a natural and instinctive form of expression.
The fondness of primitive peoples for vocal embellishments has been
noted by many observers, prominent among whom is Frederick R. Burton
(‘American Primitive Music,’ New York, 1909). In the Orient singing
of the florid type has always had its home. Returning Crusaders
brought back with them many songs and melodies from Palestine, all
characterized by runs, turns, and other ornaments. The fashion was
taken up by the Troubadours and Trouvères, who familiarized their
hearers with the idea of melodic elaboration by means of florid
passages. Even in the church the officiating priests for many centuries
had a fondness for introducing ornaments in their singing of the
masses. Ornamental singing seems to be prompted by some deep-seated
instinct and its universal popular appeal must be attributed to the
same instinct.
Coloratura singing was thus the foundation of the new art of vocal solo
performance. Musical historians generally attach more importance in
this connection to the invention of dramatic recitative. This is due in
great measure to the fact that the records deal much more fully with
the latter subject, and also to the adoption of declamatory recitative
as the basis of the art form of opera.[6] Solo singing owed its sudden
and unprecedented bound into popularity to the delight which people
took in vocal ornamentation. Even the opera itself was indebted for its
rapid advance to the public demand for coloratura singing. Indeed it
seems hardly too much to say that coloratura singing was the first type
of art music to find its way to the affections of the general public.
Up to about 1600, artistic music, despite its rapid development in the
hundred years preceding, had been the possession only of the cultured
and wealthy classes. But with the opening of the opera houses the
new art form was brought within the reach of the great body of the
people. That the public responded so enthusiastically to the new form
of entertainment thus offered them was due in great measure to the
delight people took in coloratura singing. Composers soon found that
in order to please the public they must provide ornamental solos for
the singers. This was of course opposed to the views of the little
group of Florentine gentlemen who projected the first performances of
opera; they considered musical declamation to be sufficient for all the
purposes of a truly dramatic art. But the public thought otherwise and
demanded to hear the singers in solos which displayed the full beauties
of their voices. Monteverdi’s _Orfeo_, produced in 1607, contains a
number of elaborate coloratura songs.
A striking fact regarding the system of vocal instruction in vogue
during the later decades of the sixteenth century is that it sufficed
for the training of the first solo singers. Artists whose education
had not been designed to fit them for the performance of solo music
were yet able to take up this music and to sing it satisfactorily after
they had left their teachers. Even though it was intended only for the
performance of choral works, the system of vocal training then in vogue
enabled singers to master the new art of solo singing for themselves.
The advance of solo singing did not lead to the abandonment of the
traditional course of instruction. On the contrary, the same system
continued to be applied, extended only to meet the new requirements
imposed on it by the great elaboration of vocal technique. By 1650
coloratura singing was firmly established as the favorite branch of
music, and for more than 200 years following it was one of the chief
glories of the art.
An abundance of singers of a high degree of excellence were provided by
the conservatories and by the many private teachers who practised their
profession in the chief cities of Italy. The most famous musicians did
not disdain to embrace the new profession of voice culture. A sincere
devotion to the art of _bel canto_ was displayed by the teachers of the
early part of the seventeenth century; each one strove to advance the
standards of singing, to discover new possibilities of beauty, range,
and flexibility in the voice, to invent new and delightful ornaments.
The composers vied with the vocal teachers in seeking always for
greater beauty and expressiveness. How successful they were is proved
by the rapid expansion of the opera.
A marked influence in the elevation of the standards of singing was
exerted through the introduction of the male soprano voice. Whether
the voices of the _castrati_ possessed all the wonderful charm and
beauty of quality attributed to them by musical writers of the time we
cannot now determine. But there is no question that voices of this type
are specially favored in their ability to master the most astounding
technical difficulties. The _castrati_ enjoyed an almost incredible
popularity. More has been written about Farinelli and Caffarelli than
about any other artists of the old _bel canto_ period. Historically
considered, the singers of this type are highly important because of
the contribution they made to the elevation of the vocal art. Their
achievements became the standard toward which all other artists
were called upon to strive. While we need have no regret over the
disappearance of the male soprano, his value in the development of _bel
canto_ cannot be ignored.
[Illustration: Apotheosis of Farinelli]
_From an engraving by Wagner after the contemporaneous painting
by Amicorni._
A lineal succession of vocal teachers was well established by 1630.
Several masters of the art had acquired excellent reputations even so
early as 1600. Each famous teacher had many pupils who in their turn
took up the profession of teaching and who almost invariably based
their claims to recognition on the reputation of the master, as well
as on their own excellence as singers. This maestral succession, or
rather many of them, continued down to comparatively recent times. The
changed conditions which came about in the twenty years following the
invention of the laryngoscope (1855) finally broke down the influence
of the teachers who had inherited the old masters’ system, and the
authority of the old method was for a time almost destroyed. In recent
years, however, there has been a great revival of interest in the
methods of instruction followed by the old masters. There is a growing
feeling that scientific methods have not fulfilled their promise, and
vocalists look back upon the earlier centuries of voice culture as a
golden age which has passed away.
V
The old Italian method is now considered to have possessed some merits
which are not shared by modern scientific systems. Yet a certain degree
of mystery still surrounds the old method. Welcome as its revival would
be to many teachers and students, great difficulty is met with in
determining of just what it consisted. Many analyses and explanations
of the old method have indeed been suggested. But as these consist
almost entirely of attempts to find in it some means for the direct
conscious management of the vocal organs, they have necessarily brought
forth little that is of value. All the mystery surrounding the old
method is dispelled by the understanding that it did not treat the
vocal problem as capable of solution by mechanical means.
The old Italian method was simply an amplification of the system of
vocal education which had been in course of development for nearly a
thousand years. It embodied no new conception of vocal management, but
continued to treat the control of the voice as a purely instinctive
matter. Its chief contribution to the technical training of the voice
was the adoption of _vocalises_ and exercises specially designed for
this purpose. Even that was a matter of rather slow development.
During the early decades of the seventeenth century vocal teachers
continued to select passages from standard musical works which lent
themselves readily to the technical exercise of the voice, just as
the teachers of the preceding century had done. Gradually it came to
be seen that greater satisfaction could be obtained from the use of
compositions arranged to bring in the various technical points and
vocal embellishments one or two at a time. Thus the voice could be led
by an easy gradation to the mastery of every technical difficulty and
its training was rendered easier and more expeditious.
But the general scheme of instruction continued to be patterned after
the traditional model. A complete musical education, not only the
special cultivation of the voice, was the goal. The plan of combining
the preliminary training in vocal management with instruction in the
rudiments of music continued to be followed as late as 1750. Many
famous masters employed assistant teachers to perform the drudgery of
the initial stages of instruction, considering that their own high
degree of culture entitled them to deal only with advanced students.
This custom continued for at least one hundred years, and Tosi (1723)
speaks of it as a system so well established as to need no comment.
It is sometimes said that a course of instruction in singing according
to the old Italian method required from five to seven years of study.
This is in one sense true. Yet it is by no means the case that so long
a time was devoted to the technical training of the voice. A thorough
musical education was included in this course, of which the first
two or three years were spent entirely on the rudiments of music.
The course of instruction included also a complete training for the
operatic stage, as well as a repertoire of parts sufficient to enable
the graduating student to secure an engagement at one of the opera
houses. In the latter part of the eighteenth century specialization in
vocal education began to be the rule. Students whose parents foresaw
for them the possibilities of a vocal career were prepared by a
thorough musical education before being sent to a vocal teacher. Under
these circumstances the technical training of the voice was frequently
accomplished in less than two years.
VI
It is to be regretted that so little mention is made by musical
historians of the methods of instruction followed by the old masters.
Vocal teachers of the old school seem to have been so absorbed in their
work that the idea of writing books seldom occurred to them. A vast
quantity of _vocalises_ composed by teachers for their students has
been preserved and many of these are incorporated in books of exercises
now available. A few masters were, however, thoughtful enough to
provide posterity with some knowledge of their system of instruction.
The first of these was Caccini, whose importance as a vocal teacher
should not be overlooked on account of his especial eminence as the
first composer to write music for the solo voice.
In 1601 Caccini published a large number of his compositions for the
solo voice under the title of _Le Nuove Musiche_, a book which is now
of almost inestimable value. It contains vocal pieces in both the
styles then in vogue. It is surprising to see from some of these florid
songs the high degree of vocal virtuosity possessed by the singers of
that early time. In his preface Caccini gives an outline of his system
of vocal training. This consists entirely of rules and directions for
the execution of the various ornaments of singing. Here he shows
himself to have possessed a pure and refined taste, as well as a most
profound love for the beauties of the voice. Yet he does not touch on
the subject of vocal management, proving that he had not had occasion
to depart from the instinctive methods in which he himself had been
trained.
[Illustration: Music score]
Muove si dolce e si soave
guerra lu singando i pensier bel tà mortale,
ch’a volo un cor non spiegheria mai l’ale
per sollevarsi peregrin da terra,
se non scendesse a risvegliarlo Amore,
per sollevarsi pellegrin da terra se non scendesse a
risvegliarlo Amore.
Two other interesting works by teachers of the old school are
‘Observations on the Florid Song’ (1723), by Pietro Francesco Tosi, and
_Riflessioni Pratiche sul Canto Figurato_ (1776), by Giovanni Battista
Mancini. Both these writers devote themselves mainly to a discussion of
vocal embellishments and _fiorituri_, just as did Caccini so many years
earlier. What little they say about the management of the voice shows
that the old idea of reliance on instinctive vocal guidance had not
weakened in their day.
Another highly valuable work, the latest which can be considered of
original value in throwing light on the old Italian method, is the
_Méthode de Chant du Conservatoire de Musique_ (Paris, 1803). This
method was drawn up by the most eminent musicians in Paris at that
time, including even Cherubini and Méhul. They and several others of
almost equal rank were commissioned by the revolutionary government
to devise an official system of vocal education. Yet there is nothing
revolutionary about the method, for it does not depart in any important
particular from the system of instruction described by Tosi and Mancini.
Particular interest attaches to the _Méthode_ because it was the
first complete practical work on its subject ever published. Tosi and
Mancini did not include a single exercise or musical illustration in
their books, but contented themselves with verbal descriptions of the
portamento, messa di voce, appoggiatura, etc. The _Méthode_ on the
other hand consists almost entirely of a collection of exercises,
scales, vocalises, and arias, carefully graded according to difficulty.
These were collected from many sources by the most celebrated vocal
teacher in Paris at that time, Bernardo Mengozzi, the head of the
vocal department at the Conservatoire. Everything necessary for the
thorough cultivation of the voice according to Mengozzi’s conception
of the subject was included in the _Méthode_. A student was expected
to start with the first exercise and study each one consecutively, the
voice steadily progressing until technical perfection was assured with
the mastery of the last aria. No distinction was made between voices,
high and low, male and female, for all were put through the same course
of study. Cherubini thought so highly of the _Méthode_ that he took a
copy with him on his visit to Vienna in 1805 for the purpose of himself
presenting it to Beethoven.
All that has come down to us of the oral traditions of the old school
is summed up in a set of cogent phrases which are commonly known as
the traditional precepts. These are, ‘open the throat,’ ‘sing on the
breath,’ ‘sing the tone forward,’ and ‘support the tone.’ No literary
authority can be given for the precepts, as they are not mentioned in
any works published earlier than about 1830. It is possible that they
do not date back much further than this. Perhaps they represent the
first attempts made by vocal teachers to interpret their instruction
according to the scientific ideas of vocal operation which were just
beginning to become current about that time.
How this could have been the case is readily seen. A perfect vocal tone
sounds as though it floats on the breath. The correct singer’s throat
seems to the hearer to be loose and open and the tone seems to be
lodged in the front of the mouth. When the attention of vocal teachers
began to be turned to the mechanical operations of tone production they
might naturally have been led to observe first those salient features
of tone which seem to point to a definite vocal action.
Yet it is more likely that the old masters actually used the precepts
in instruction merely to point out to their pupils these striking
peculiarities in the sound of the perfect vocal tone. We know that
they always held up before their students a high ideal of artistic
singing. A use of the precepts in this way would be of great service
in helping the students to hear how perfect singing should sound.
To imitate successfully it is necessary in the first place to hear
distinctly. Pointing out the marked characteristics of the perfect tone
enables the ear to know what to listen for.
It must be borne in mind that the old Italian method was never
standardized. No such thing as a school of recognized authority, to
whose principles all teachers were obliged to adhere, was ever evolved.
Each master taught according to his own ideas, and no central authority
or governing body ever undertook to lay out a standard method. Yet the
old masters all followed the same general plan of instruction. In some
of its aspects this plan is thoroughly understood. Students were taught
to sing correctly and artistically solely through the exercise of
their voices in actual singing. The materials used for vocal training
were scales, exercises, and vocalises without and with words. These
were without exception melodious, and the musical and artistic aspects
of singing received attention from the beginning of instruction to
the end. Singing was considered always on its _musical_ side and its
_mechanical_ features were never touched upon. The voice was led on by
a gradual progression from the easy to the difficult.
During the seventeenth century it was the custom for the teachers to
compose exercises and vocalises specially for each pupil, suiting the
technical and musical requirements to the pupil’s stage of advancement.
As this custom died out, teachers provided themselves with extensive
and carefully graded lists of compositions in all the various styles
suitable for instruction.
Coming finally to the question, what means the old masters utilized for
imparting the correct management of the voice, we find that in the
sense in which this problem is understood in modern vocal science they
had no method whatever. It is difficult for one imbued with the idea
of direct vocal management to believe that the voice can possibly be
trained without the student knowing in the first place how to produce
his tones correctly. Yet it would have been equally hard for a master
of the old school to understand what we moderns mean by the conscious
control of the vocal organs. It never entered into the minds of the old
masters that there could be any difficulty about the management of the
voice. ‘Listen and imitate’ summed up for them all that need be known,
indeed all that could be known on the subject. They aimed directly at
tonal perfection as a matter of sound and did not think of attempting
to reach it by the roundabout course of vocal mechanics.
The early teachers of the old school were the direct inheritors of
the traditions stored up as the result of the experiences of vocal
instructors through a period of many centuries. During all this time
the voice had been allowed to operate according to its own instincts.
Although in the last century of this period the rapid advance of the
musical arts had imposed demands of constantly increasing difficulty on
the voice, it continued to fulfill these demands in its own instinctive
way. The ability of the voice to produce the tones exacted of it by the
ear was never doubted. There was no need for a vocal teacher of the old
school to formulate or justify his belief in the voice’s ability to
follow the guidance of the ear. No one at that time had ever thought of
questioning this ability. Yet if one of these masters had been called
upon to state in doctrinal form his theory of the vocal action, it
would probably have been something like this:
The correct use of the voice, that manner of vocal emission which leads
through practice to technical perfection, is naturally acquired by
exercise in the actual singing of correct tones. Provided the student
have a clear mental conception of the type of vocal tone which results
from a correct manner of tone production, the voice will gradually
adapt itself to the correct form of action, through repeated efforts
at imitating the correct tone as a matter of sound. In order to
practise singing effectively it is necessary only that the ear shall be
acquainted with the sound of a properly produced tone and that it shall
demand tones of this character from the voice. Faults of production,
whether throaty, nasal, or breathy tones be the result, will gradually
disappear as the student learns to hear his own voice with greater
keenness and accuracy. The correct use of the voice is gradually
acquired and there is no time in the course of this progress at which
any change takes place in the manner of directing and guiding the voice.
A high standard of musical beauty and vocal excellence was always
kept prominently before the minds of the pupils. The students were
required to know how a correctly sung passage should sound, and all
their practice was aimed at the imitation of this sound. The ear was
expressly recognized as the sole judge of vocal correctness. When a
pupil sang incorrectly the master would imitate the faulty tones, for
the pupil to hear what was wrong in the sound. Then the master would
sing the passage correctly, that the pupil might hear the perfect tones
and adopt them as a model for imitation.
So far as our present knowledge of the old method goes, it embodied
no definitely stated principles for the management of the voice.
Although the problem of tone production is, in present estimation,
the most important topic of voice culture, the older system seems to
have ignored this problem completely. It simply took for granted that
the voice will operate correctly if it is guided by a keen ear and
directed by a fine musical and artistic sensibility. No doubt it had
its failures, but we have a record only of its successes. These were so
many and so brilliant that we must accord to the old Italian method the
recognition due to a complete and satisfactory system of voice culture.
FOOTNOTES:
[4] _Cf._ Vol. I, pp. 167-172.
[5] For a fuller treatment of this phase of musical history, the rise
of ‘monody,’ see Vol. I, chapters IX and XI.
[6] _Cf._ Vol. I, chap. XI.
CHAPTER III
MODERN SCIENTIFIC METHODS OF VOICE CULTURE
The transition from the old to the modern system; historical
review of scientific investigation; Manuel García; progress of
the scientific idea; Helmholtz, Mandl, and Merkel--Diversity
of practices in modern methods; the scientific system;
breathing; laryngeal action; registers; resonance; emission
of tone; the singer’s sensations; correction of faults;
articulation--General view of modern voice culture.
I
Students of the history of voice culture usually consider that the
invention of the laryngoscope (1855) marks the beginning of the modern
scientific system of training the voice. It is of course convenient to
have a precise date to which any important change in human beliefs can
be referred. Yet in this matter it is hardly possible to fix upon any
one event as the only influence which brought about the change. As a
matter of fact, there was a gradual and for a time almost imperceptible
transition from the so-called empirical methods of the old school to
the modern methods.
Scientific investigation of the vocal mechanism began, so far as the
record shows, with Hippocrates, 460 B. C. His work on anatomy contains
references to the vocal organs, showing that he had some ideas,
rather vague it is true, about their structure. Aristotle (384 B. C.)
recognized the larynx as the point of production of the voice. Galen
(130 A. D.) wrote a valuable treatise on the anatomy of the throat. He
gave the name of glottis to the space between the vocal cords, and his
work was the standard authority on the subject for more than fifteen
hundred years. Fabricius of Aquapendente, 1537, published a work
embodying the results of his own dissections of the throat. He added
greatly to the materials of Galen, although his ideas of the operations
of tone production were hardly so sound as those of his classic
predecessor.
In 1741 a French physician, Ferrein, published a little treatise
entitled _De la Formation de la Voix de l’Homme_. This marks the
beginning of the modern interest in the subject of the vocal action, as
it was the first work on vocal physiology to receive any attention from
those interested in singing. Among other things Ferrein gave the name
of vocal cords to the edges of the muscles inclosing the glottis.
Dutrochet in 1806 compared the action of the glottis to that of the
lips in playing the horn. He asserted that the sonorous vibrations of
vocal sounds are generated by the muscles whose edges are formed by the
vocal cords, and not by the vocal cords alone. Liscovius, in 1814, and
Savart, in 1825, also published treatises, but their work served rather
to foster the growing interest in the subject than to add anything
of value to the general fund of knowledge. Johannes Müller, in 1837,
showed that a compass of two octaves can be obtained by forcing air
through an exsected larynx and varying the tension of the vocal cords.
In the early years of the nineteenth century the results of scientific
investigation of the voice began to attract the attention of the most
enlightened vocal teachers. There was indeed no dissatisfaction with
the methods of instruction then in vogue. Yet a general feeling can
be noted by a student of the literature of the subject as setting in
about that time, a feeling that systems of voice culture might be
improved by applying to them the results of the most recent scientific
discoveries. Two important works by vocal teachers may be cited in this
connection, _Die Kunst des Gesanges_, by Adolph Bernhard Mark (1826),
and _Die grosse italienische Gesangschule_, by Heinrich F. Mannstein
(1834). In both of these books the point of view generally held at
that time is clearly indicated. While the old Italian method was held
to be thoroughly satisfactory in every respect, there is a desire to
explain this method and to place it on an assured basis of demonstrated
scientific principles. No thought of direct vocal management as a
necessity, or even as a possibility, can be discovered in these two
works.
Manuel García (1805-1906), the vocal teacher who contributed most to
the promulgation of the scientific idea, had at the beginning of his
career exactly the same plan as Mannstein and Mark. His father, Manuel
del Popolo Viscenti, was one of the most eminent musicians of the time.
Famous as singer, teacher, impresario, and composer, the older García
was in possession of all the traditions of the Italian school. From his
father García received the traditional method in its entirety. Retiring
from the operatic stage in 1832, García took up actively the profession
of voice culture. Even as early as this he had definitely formulated
a plan for the improvement of vocal methods. Yet at that time he had
in mind nothing of the nature of a sweeping change. In the preface to
his first important work, _École de García_, 1847, he stated that his
intention was ‘to reproduce my father’s method, attempting only to give
it a more theoretical form, and to connect results with causes.’
With this seemingly modest program García could not rest content. His
ambition to penetrate all the mysteries of the voice led him to master
the anatomy of the throat, as well as what was then known of acoustics.
He was impatient to know what actually takes place in the larynx during
the production of tone. After several years of experimenting he finally
succeeded in viewing his own vocal cords by means of a little mirror
held in the back of the throat. His announcement of his invention was
published in the proceedings of the Royal Society of London in May,
1855.
By this time the idea of the improvement of voice culture was very
generally held. García’s invention was hailed as the beginning of a
new era in vocal instruction. It was coming also to be generally felt
that the only way in which the scientific knowledge of the voice could
be utilized in instruction would be by having the student of singing
cause his vocal organs to operate in the manner that science had shown
to be correct. While no one at that time stated this principle in
definite terms, it was generally assumed as a matter of course. Within
the twenty years following García’s invention the doctrine of the
scientific management of the voice had been almost universally adopted.
Against this tacit conviction in favor of the necessity of direct vocal
management the instinctive methods of the old masters could make no
stand. The old method gradually disappeared and the doctrine implied
in the empirical system--that the voice needs no guidance other than
that furnished by the ear--found no defenders. Since 1875 the belief in
the necessity of consciously governing the vocal organs has been the
dominating idea of vocal students and teachers throughout the world.
[Illustration: Manuel García]
_From a sketch from life by Pauline Viardot._
Of importance only second to García’s study of the vocal cord action
was Helmholtz’s analysis of the acoustic laws of resonance, especially
as they apply to tone and vowel formation. Merkel’s _Der Kehlkopf_
(1873) is the standard work on the operations of the larynx. Dr. Louis
Mandl, in _Die Gesundheitslehre der Stimme_ (1876), first announced the
principle of breath control. A vast number of other investigators have
contributed to the subject and it is safe to say that the vocal action
has been studied from every conceivable point of view. It is, however,
not necessary here to trace the development of vocal science and to
record the work of each student who has made original contributions
to the common fund of knowledge.
II
In our first chapter the generally accepted theories regarding the
operations of the vocal mechanism were outlined, and the same plan will
be followed in describing the scientific methods of instruction most
widely adopted. Modern methods of voice culture have indeed never been
standardized. While teachers generally have adopted very nearly the
same course, there is a wide diversity of opinion and practice to be
found concerning each one of the topics of vocal science. Almost every
one of these topics has indeed been the subject of controversy. Yet
within recent years the leading authorities have come into fair accord
in their application of the various principles. We shall therefore
describe the method which has in its favor a consensus of opinion
on the part of the best recognized teachers, without offering any
statement as to its soundness or adequacy.
First it will be necessary to point out the exact position which the
scientific element occupies in the modern system of voice culture.
Vocal science has never aimed at a complete revolution of the
practices of instruction in singing. Its purpose is rather to divide
this instruction into two stages and to take as its province only
the first stage. Starting with the well known fact that the voice
has only one correct mode of operating, it seeks to impart this
correct manner of tone production to the student as a preliminary to
the technical training of the voice, strictly speaking. This is the
only important point in which the modern system differs from the old
Italian method. The initial work of imparting the correct vocal action
is commonly called the ‘placing of the voice.’ To accomplish this
is the sole purpose of vocal science, and the scientific method of
instruction is designed only to apply to this initial stage. When the
correct management of the voice has been acquired through a course of
instruction according to scientific principles, the student is held
to be ready to undertake the technical and musical education of the
singer. This second stage of instruction is conducted almost exactly
according to the system of the old masters.
Four elements are included in the scientific system of vocal
training. These follow naturally the four distinct operations of
singing--breathing, laryngeal action, resonance, and articulation.
Exercises designed to impart the correct manner of breathing are
usually given first as toneless gymnastic drills. The student is
instructed to fill the lungs in a prescribed fashion (generally that
described in Chapter I), and to make sure that the expansion of abdomen
and chest takes place exactly according to rule. Practice in the
muscular control of the expiration is combined with these preliminary
breathing exercises, so soon as they can be performed with fair
facility. When the muscular movements of breathing have been mastered
as a toneless exercise, the practice is extended to exercises combined
with tones, on single notes and scale passages. In these attention
is paid to the proper attack and emission of the tone, as well as to
the correct management of the breath. A great variety of breathing
exercises have been formulated, but as their basic principle is always
the same they call for no extended description. Any one of an athletic
turn who has himself mastered the correct manner of breathing would
have no difficulty in devising exercises suitable for imparting this
system to others.
To secure the proper action of the vocal cords and laryngeal muscles
the entire throat must be held in a state of supple relaxation before
attacking a tone or phrase. In order to start a tone correctly a full
inspiration is to be taken, then the vocal cords are to be brought to
the degree of tension necessary for the desired pitch at the precise
instant the expiration starts. The tone must be attacked squarely on
the correct pitch and no breath allowed to escape before it starts. The
breath pressure is to be held evenly and correctly managed throughout
the entire expiration.
To secure this proper action of the vocal cords the so-called ‘stroke
of the glottis’ was advocated by García. The glottic stroke is an
explosive sound, formed when the vocal cords are forced apart suddenly
by a rather powerful breath pressure. Its most frequent natural
occurrence is in the action of coughing, of which it is the most
striking auditory characteristic. Although command of the glottic
stroke can be acquired without difficulty, it is utterly out of place
in finished singing. What García had in mind in advocating the glottic
stroke is declared by many of his graduate students to have been
something entirely different from a violent explosion of the tone. All
he sought was the starting of the tone without any previous escape of
the breath. The stroke of the glottis, strictly so called, has been
almost entirely abandoned by vocal teachers. Later authorities modified
this instruction somewhat by teaching the ‘slide of the glottis,’
which brings about the same action without the explosive sound of the
glottic stroke. Of recent years, owing to the better understanding of
the principles of breath control, it has been found that neither the
stroke nor the slide of the glottis is necessary. The same result can
be reached by bringing the vocal cords to the desired degree of tension
at the instant the expiration starts.
Much attention has been paid to the subject of registers, more probably
than to any other feature of the vocal action. For a long time it was
considered that each register of the voice must be trained separately
and controlled in a special way. Various statements have been made
by laryngoscopic observers as to the number of the registers and the
actions of the vocal cords in each one.
At present the leading authorities recognize three registers, chest,
medium, and head, corresponding to the lower, middle, and higher parts
of the range of the voice. Individual voices vary in their possession
of registers. Tenors usually have only the medium and head, the
falsetto (confined generally to this voice) being in most cases of too
effeminate a quality for use in artistic singing. Baritones usually
have all three registers, basses only chest and medium. Sopranos may
possess all three, although the chest register is seldom well developed
in this voice. Mezzos have the chest and medium, and in the majority of
cases the head register also. Contraltos possess the chest and medium,
but very rarely the head register.
Teachers have in most cases discarded the plan of giving precise limits
to the registers and training them separately. It is considered the
best practice to bring about the correct action of the medium part
of the voice, including command of the crescendo and diminuendo on
the single tone, before beginning to develop the higher and lower
portions of the range. The compass is then gradually extended upward
and downward, care being taken to avoid the breaks which almost always
resulted from the older system of training the registers separately.
Assistance is found in developing the low notes by the cultivation of
chest resonance. High notes are helped by the use of nasal resonance
and also by practice in attacking tones with the liquid or sonant
consonants. Both these topics will be considered later.
Three resonance cavities have to be brought under control, each of
which acts independently of the others. These are the chest, the
mouth-pharynx, and the nasal cavities. As a rule the influence of
chest resonance is most marked in the lower part of the voice. The
mouth-pharynx (in addition to its almost exclusive province of vowel
and consonant formation) reinforces the entire range, and the nasal
cavities contribute most to the high notes.
It must not be understood, however, that in artistic singing chest
resonance is to be used only on low notes and nasal resonance on high
notes. The special function of nasal resonance is believed to be the
imparting of brilliancy, point, and carrying power to the tones. While
its effect is more marked on the high notes, it must always be present
in some degree throughout the entire compass of the voice. Breadth and
sonority of tone are supposed to be contributed by chest resonance, and
these must also be present on all loud tones, whether high, medium, or
low.
Yet as brilliancy and point are more native to the high notes, nasal
resonance is always more marked in this part of the voice. In the same
way the qualities of tone due to chest resonance belong more properly
to the lower and middle tones. On the practical side this is of great
importance. It is vastly more easy to secure command of each form of
resonance first in that part of the voice to which it is native. When
this has been done it is a comparatively simple matter to extend this
command higher or lower as the case may be.
It is the usual practice to begin instruction in the management of
resonance with the mouth-pharynx cavity. For this purpose exercises
on the vowel _ah_ are generally first used. The position assumed by
the tongue for this vowel is peculiarly favorable for securing an
expansion of the lower part of the mouth-pharynx cavity. An increase in
the size of this cavity is sought for the purpose of bringing about a
corresponding increase in the volume and power of the tone.
While not directly a feature of mouth-pharynx resonance strictly
speaking, the emission of the tone is usually treated under this head.
After being generated by the vibration of the vocal cords, the tone
is to be directed to the front of the mouth, in such manner that it
impinges on the hard palate, just above the upper front teeth. This
has for its purpose the freeing of the tone from the vocal cords and
the bringing of it forward in the mouth, so as to secure the effect of
‘forward tone’ advocated by the old masters.
For acquiring the effect of forward tone, studies are also used on
tones begun with certain labial and lingual consonants. Exercises are
given on single tones on such syllables as _bah_, _bee_, _boo_--_ma_,
_mee_, _mo_--_la_, _lee_, _lo_, etc. These are practised on notes
covering a range of about one octave. Similar exercises are used for
obtaining command of nasal resonance. For this purpose the consonant
_n_ is especially favored and exercises are used on syllables such as
_na_, _nee_, _no_, etc.
Another means of acquiring command of the several forms of resonance is
found in certain characteristic sensations which the singer experiences
in singing tones of the various types. A tone strongly marked by
nasal resonance awakens a sensation of tingling in the forehead and
upper nose. A pronounced feeling of vibration in the upper chest,
particularly in the region of the breast bone, accompanies the right
use of chest resonance. The ‘forward’ tone is characterized by similar
sensations in the front of the mouth. When practising exercises for
acquiring command of resonance the student is instructed to feel the
appropriate sensations, thus bringing the tone into the proper position.
Each form of resonance is particularly favored by certain vowels. _Oo_
and _oh_ lend themselves most readily to the acquirement of chest
resonance. _Ee_ facilitates in bringing in nasal resonance, while _ah_
is the easiest vowel for obtaining command of the open throat and the
forward tone, the most important functions of mouth-pharynx resonance.
Two marked forms of faulty tone production often call for special means
of correction. These are the throaty and the unpleasantly nasal tone.
For the cure of throaty production relaxing exercises are generally
used. Sighing and yawning on the vowel _ah_ with a free expiration
furnish the basis of these exercises. Single tones and descending scale
passages are practised in this manner, the breath being allowed to rush
out freely and without control. Other directions are frequently given
for the correction of throatiness. These include instruction in the
support of the tone, the throat being relieved of pressure by a steady
and controlled expiration. Bringing the tone forward in the mouth in
the manner already described assists in this operation.
An excessive or a faulty use of nasal resonance is looked upon as the
cause of the unpleasantly nasal tone. Too great a degree of relaxation
of the muscles of the soft palate may bring about this condition.
The means most favored for the correction of this fault are, first,
muscular exercise in raising and lowering the soft palate, which gives
a better tonicity to these muscles; and, second, the imparting of the
correct idea of nasal resonance in the manner already described.
Another frequent fault of production, the tremolo, may result from
any one of several causes. A lack of breath control may cause
the expiratory pressure on the vocal cords to be unregulated and
intermittent. Faulty methods of breathing, particularly those in which
the upper chest is allowed to collapse at the start of the expiration,
may lead to a flabby or ‘wobbly’ condition of the muscles which hold
the larynx in place. A lack of support for the tone may result from
the column of vocalized breath being directed backward, instead of
toward its proper point of impact on the roof of the mouth.
For the cure of the tremolo the teacher must analyze in each
individual case and locate the seat of the trouble. When this has
been pointed out the fault is eradicated by applying the appropriate
instruction--controlling the breath properly, placing the tone in the
correct position in the mouth, etc.
A clear enunciation of the text is indispensable in artistic singing.
This is in one sense not a feature of tone production strictly
speaking. It is possible to enunciate with perfect distinctness and
yet to use the voice very badly, as is seen in the case of many
vaudeville singers. On the other hand, a correct production of tone
may be exhibited by a singer whose enunciation is too indistinct to be
understood. Yet it is the duty of the vocal teacher to train his pupils
in the clear delivery of words, as well as in the other elements of the
art of singing.
Special exercises and drills in the articulation of the various
consonants are not widely used. Experience has shown that the same
end can be attained, with vastly less of drudgery for the student, by
paying attention to clearness of pronunciation in the singing of songs
and exercises with words. Students sometimes have difficulty with some
one or two vowels or consonants. In cases of this kind the master
instructs the pupil in the correct position of the tongue, lips, etc.,
for the particular sound, and if necessary arranges special exercises
for the purpose.
III
How long a time should be allotted to a course in tone production along
the lines just described it is not easy to state definitely. Practices
in this regard vary greatly among vocal teachers. One reason for
this is that tone production is seldom made the exclusive topic of
study for any great length of time. Students of singing are generally
eager to sing, and teachers are therefore obliged to intersperse their
instruction in voice placing with songs and melodious vocalises.
Another reason is found in the fact that the musical education of the
student frequently devolves in great measure upon the vocal teacher.
A knowledge of music, sufficient at least to enable the student to
memorize songs and arias and to sing them in time and in tune, is
absolutely necessary before the advanced education in the singer’s art
can be undertaken. When teachers are called upon to impart instruction
of this kind, part of each lesson time must of course be used for the
purpose.
While a strict application of the principles of vocal science would
demand that the complete course in tone production be covered before
even the simplest songs are attempted, this system is almost never
carried out logically. The first few lessons are usually devoted to
breathing and attack; from then on about half of each lesson time is
spent on voice placing and half on songs. In the instruction given
on the songs attention is paid to the more strictly musical elements
of singing--style, delivery, interpretation, etc., as well as to the
formation of the tones. Technical exercises of progressive difficulty
are taken up about as soon as the student has acquired sufficient vocal
control to perform them. As a rule there is no precise stage at which
voice placing work strictly speaking ceases and the technical training
of the voice is begun.
It cannot be said that any one teacher or vocal expert has founded
an authoritative school of vocal science. There is not even anything
in the nature of a distinctively national school. Closely resembling
methods are followed in all European countries, as well as in America.
Every famous modern master has imparted his principles to many students
who in their turn have become teachers. Yet it is rather rare for any
one to take up the profession of voice culture without first receiving
some instruction from several recognized masters. This custom has
resulted in a general levelling of systems, each teacher selecting what
he considers best from all the methods which he investigates. Meanwhile
the old Italian method is still recognized as possessing elements of
great value, even in the department of tone production, in which its
principles are so imperfectly understood by the scientifically disposed
teacher. The great majority of teachers seek to apply some of the
principles of the old method, notably its oral traditions, which were
discussed a few pages back, in conjunction with the practices of vocal
science.
Modern voice culture cannot be believed to have reached its final
development. Even the most conscientious advocates of the scientific
doctrines feel that there is a certain lack of completeness in present
methods. Investigations are still being carried on in the various
topics of vocal science. It is possible that the near future will see
important discoveries in the means for control of laryngeal action and
resonance. Some authorities, on the other hand, look altogether in the
opposite direction. An abandonment of the doctrines of vocal science
and a return to the instinctive methods of the old masters is favored
by these teachers.
So far as the course of future events can be foretold, it seems
probable that a combination of the two methods, now seemingly opposed,
will eventually be brought about. The scientific investigation of the
voice has brought to light so much of valuable truth that it would
be ridiculous to throw its results lightly aside. At the same time
the success of the old method proves that it contained a satisfactory
solution of all vocal problems. How the two methods will be fused into
one it is not now possible to say. But the only marked tendency is in
that direction. We are justified in the hope that its accomplishment
will not be long postponed.
D. C. T.
CHAPTER IV
THE NATURE AND ORIGIN OF SONG
The origin of song--The practical value of primitive
song--The cultural value of primitive song--Biography
of primitive song--The lyric impulse--Folk-song and
art-song--Characteristics of the art-song; style, the singer
and the song.
I
‘In this or that Sicilian hamlet,’ says the Countess
Martinengo-Cæsaresco in her ‘Essays in the Study of Folk-Songs,’ ‘there
is a man known by the name of “the Poet,” or perhaps “the Goldfinch.”
He is completely illiterate and belongs to the poorest class; he is a
blacksmith, a fisherman, or a tiller of the soil. If he has the gift of
improvisation, his fellow-villagers have the satisfaction of hearing
him applauded by the Great Public--the dwellers in all the surrounding
hamlets assembled at the fair on St. John’s Eve. Or it may be he is of
a meditative turn of mind, and makes his poetry leisurely as he lies
full length under the lemon-trees taking his noontide rest. Should you
pass by, it is unlikely he will give himself the trouble of lifting his
eyes. He could not say the alphabet to save his life; but the beautiful
earth and skies and sea which he has looked on every day since he was
born have taught him some things not learnt in school. The little poem
he has made in his head is indeed a humble sort of poetry, but it is
not unworthy of the praise it gets from the neighbors who come dropping
into his cottage door, uninvited, but sure of a friendly welcome next
Sunday after mass, their errand being to find out if the rumor is
true that “the Goldfinch” has invented a fresh _canzuna_? Such is the
peasant poet of to-day; such he was five hundred or a thousand years
ago.’
Here is the original singer. He has existed all over the world in every
age, probably, since civilization began to dawn. We are very wrong
in thinking of songs as normally written by special composers and
sung by special singers in concert halls. Such a situation is not the
usual but the unusual one. For, generally speaking, it is not special
people who are singers but ordinary people. Artists have been in the
habit of thinking that the world is divided into ordinary men and
artists. William Morris startled them by declaring that ordinary men
_are_ artists--that to be artistic is the normal condition of ordinary
men. It is only our materialistic civilization, he said, that has
made men inartistic. And historically, at least, he is quite right.
It is only in recent times, and in certain nations, that it has come
to be regarded as unusual that an ordinary man should be a singer. In
all other ages, we may safely say, and in nearly all nations, it was
regarded as unusual that an ordinary man should _not_ be a singer.
Singing has always been as natural to man as running, or whistling, or
making love. It is only in these latter times that a man who sings for
the joy of it is thought ‘queer.’
The songs that have been written down on paper are of course only
the smallest fraction of those that have been invented. It is a very
unusual adventure for a song to get written down on paper. Not one out
of a thousand experiences it. Most songs are ‘made up’ by some ordinary
person at work or at play, remembered and repeated, imitated by some
one else and changed a little and passed on. They live from mouth to
mouth and in the hearts of people. Every nation, until it became too
lettered and too self-conscious, had its songs of this kind, many of
them beautiful enough to be known by thousands of people, some the
property of only a few. In Italy investigators have recently noted down
thousands of songs that never touched paper before, but they were only
a tiny part of the songs that were passing from mouth to mouth. So it
has been in every country. Greenland and Iceland have their songs which
originated no one knows where or when. We possess folk-songs of China,
Japan, and India. The phonograph has noted down hundreds of songs of
the North American Indians. And every country in Europe has yielded
songs innumerable.
We should be on our guard, then, against assuming that what we know
as ‘song literature’--the songs written by composers in their study
and printed on paper before being sung--is any very considerable
part of the song music of the world. It is merely the music chiefly
at the disposal of highly educated people--principally because it is
_printed_. And from a certain standpoint--that of the school-trained
musician--it is perhaps the ‘greatest’ vocal music. But remember that
the standpoint of the school-trained musician is only one standpoint.
The conscious composer has chosen to look at his musical materials in
a certain way and to judge the result accordingly. But by another test
his work is inferior; in its power to move thousands of human hearts no
song by Schubert or Schumann or Brahms can begin to equal ‘Auld Lang
Syne’ or ‘The Marseillaise.’ Of necessity this book will be chiefly
concerned with consciously composed ‘art’ music. But we should always
remember that this is only because art music represents the great
majority of all the music that has been noted down--and of course in
a measure art songs at their best contain in a sublimated form the
elements of folk-song.
The less civilized and conscious people are, the more readily they do
their own singing. There is little spontaneous song among us to-day
and yet we can occasionally hear a workman humming an aimless tune
under his breath. This was probably the normal state of things when
men were less educated. Everybody was a composer, partly because it
was easier to make up your own song than to remember somebody else’s.
Among the Indians songs were regarded in some tribes as the personal
property of the person who invented them and were not to be sung by
any one else unless that second person had acquired the rights in it
by gift or inheritance. But generally, as people became somewhat more
advanced, songs were freely appropriated from one singer to another.
And each singer who borrowed generally added something of his own
to the song--something to express his sense of beauty or artistic
fitness: a more effective phrasing here, or a simpler group of notes
there. Sometimes the song was so popular that it passed from tribe to
tribe, or from nation to nation. In this case each people gave its
individuality to the song, adding perhaps a little ornamentation if
its nature was gay and volatile, or making the melody more regular and
balanced if its soul was earnest and contemplative. Everywhere the
races, the nations, and the tribes have shown their souls to us in
their songs.
We must not suppose that these songs, which were so highly treasured,
were elaborate. Sometimes they were made of no more than two or three
tones of the scale. In thousands of songs there are no more than five
tones and certain octave reduplications (as, for instance, in ‘Auld
Lang Syne’). In most cases the more primitive popular songs are too
simple to make any impression upon us at all. But often that is our
fault and not theirs. Our taste has been somewhat spoiled by highly
seasoned food. After a little sympathetic study of primitive songs we
find them full of eloquence and pathos.
II
But whether or not the early songs would please us now, they were of
incalculable importance in the lives of early peoples. We are inclined
to regard singing as an amusement only. We forget that it once had
a practical importance that is hardly to be equalled by any single
institution in modern life. Men were shut up within valleys, or tied
by their work to the fields. It was by singing and poetry that they
became citizens of the world. For, before the days of newspapers and
postal service, it was the wandering bards who took the news from city
to city, from court to court, from nation to nation. They served as
historians, recording in verse the great events of their own nation
and others, and passing the record down to succeeding generations.
They served as public libraries, conserving the legend and sentiment
of nations for the reference of others. More, they conserved the
teaching of religious seers, the great unwritten laws of the nation,
from fathers to children. In short, all that passed between nation and
nation, and between generation and generation, was transmitted in song.
We wonder, of course, why these things happened in song, rather than in
plain prose. But the answer is simple: verse is easier to remember than
prose. All the stories, all the laws, all the culture of the nation
had to be _remembered_. People’s memories served instead of libraries.
And with such a mass of matter to remember, people developed memories
which are almost unbelievable to-day. To retain the equivalent of
hundreds of pages of prose was of course impossible. But once throw
the matter into verse and the remembering of it, to a primitive man,
became comparatively simple. The whole of the Iliad and Odyssey were
transmitted in this way through at least three centuries before they
were committed to writing. For verse somehow remembers itself; the
sound remains even after the sense is gone. Prof. G. L. Kittredge, of
Harvard, tells of some literary investigators in the Orient, who came
upon a blind beggar. They asked him to recite poetry, and he started
on a long epic of which he knew thousands of lines. It was not in the
language of the time, but an old and strange tongue. They asked him
what the lines meant. He did not know. He had heard them from his
father, and had remembered them by the sound.
[Illustration: Illustration from the _Roman der Fauvel_ (15th Cent.)]
It was, then, of the highest importance that all knowledge that was to
be preserved be cast in metrical form. A wandering minstrel was able
to tell one country about the battles of another country by making a
song about them. The nature of the Gods and the religious duties of men
could be preserved for succeeding centuries because Homer made a poem
out of them. And so poetry was a thing of incalculable value.
In these practical matters, of course, the music was not of the same
importance as the words. We do not know, in fact, to what extent music
entered into the reciting of the old poems. But it has been conjectured
that even the longest poems, like the Iliad, were usually intoned
and rose into something like a set melody in the more impassioned
parts. Certainly the shorter poems always tended to find a tune for
themselves. It is even quite likely that the bards invented words
and tune at the same time. The long Robin Hood poems of England were
usually sung and not spoken and we possess some of the curious tunes
with which they were traditionally associated. Among the earlier
minstrels much of the music was improvised in the course of the
recitation, though as the poems became old and widely spread it is
likely that they were associated with precise melodies or melodic
motives. On the whole, it seems that little of the metrical literature
antedating the art of writing was without music of one sort or
another. All early references, however, tend to regard the tune and the
words as one and the same thing. It seems to some, therefore, since
melody is not mentioned by itself, that music was of slight importance.
But the truth seems rather to be that the melody was inseparable from
the words and not to be thought of apart from them. And the music
seems to have been of the highest importance in giving dignity and
seriousness to the poem.
What the music of the earliest poems was like we have no exact means
of guessing. The writing of musical notes is of comparatively late
invention and there was no way to preserve the old tunes through the
changing centuries. When the traditional poems were committed to
writing the sacred marriage of verse and music usually ended in a
divorce. We have, however, a Finnish melody of great age, sung to an
epic fragment, which might be taken as typical. It consists of few
notes (which can safely be said of nearly all primitive tunes), but the
stanza is long and the winding melodic line is highly expressive. But
in general we cannot hope to know the earliest melodies of the European
nations. We can fumble our way back about a thousand years and then we
are met by the blackness of mystery.
But we know that the songs were there and that they gave to little
lives the opportunity of being big. We find it hard to realize how
important they were, now that telegraph wires have connected all parts
of the world, when a message can be sent from San Francisco to Moscow
and back in a day, when all that has happened the world over (and much
besides) is spread out before us on paper at our breakfast tables the
next morning, when all knowledge is classified and published and can be
found in any good public library. Imagine yourself living in a village
or working on a farm without these things. It is a day’s walk to the
next village. The next country lies beyond the mountains and there are
no passes over, and besides there would be no way of living if you
left your work, unless you went as a pilgrim. Every year a few young
men wander away seeking their fortunes and never come back. Every year
a few men come seeking their fortunes and stay. One or two men have
wandered the world and come back home, telling wonderful incoherent
tales of what happens beyond the mountains. But this is all the news
you get beyond the gossip of your town and the country around--except
that once in a while comes a wandering minstrel or juggler with tricks
and songs. He will tell you the political fortunes of the next kingdom
and whether its king is likely to go to war with your king and whether
you will thus be forced to serve in the army. He will tell you the
gossip and scandal of the courts. He will tell you the customs of other
people and will give you practical hints that may save you trouble in
your work. And, best of all, he will tell you new stories to vary the
monotony of the village gossip. So you will spend a wonderful afternoon
listening to him in the village square, and when he is gone you will
have something to think and talk about for weeks to come.
Thus the wandering singers served as newspapers. And their best songs
were remembered and repeated (and improved upon) to serve as history
from that time on. But history might also be made in another way. The
skalds of the northern races accompanied their chiefs on their battles
in order to sing of them afterwards. But they were there as historians,
not merely as poets. ‘Ye shall be here that ye may see with your own
eyes what is achieved this day,’ King Olaf is recorded to have told
his skalds on the eve of the battle of Stiklastad (1030), ‘and have
no occasion, when ye shall afterward celebrate these actions in song,
to depend on the reports of others.’ The skalds were there, that
is, as true witnesses of the events, as the specialized repositories
of historical information. We cannot suppose that their reports were
altogether truthful. They were doubtless expected to ‘forget’ many
things that might seem inglorious. But their songs often passed to the
people. And, if the king or chief had made a bad record with them, be
sure the songs became changed in people’s mouths to show him in his
true character. And very often the people, or their own singers, made
the narrative songs themselves, dealing out praise or blame by their
own justice without fear or favor.
In religion song was a matter of the highest importance, as it has
always been. A prophet might reveal the will of the gods, but, unless
he were a poet or had a poet to help him, he could not make people
remember it. And so in all primitive races the priests were poets and
musicians. By the beauty and impressiveness of their songs they proved
their right to interpret the divine will. And only in poems could they
preserve their doctrine for their successors. But in time the priests
generally had to give up their prestige to those who were first of all
poets and singers. The gods of Greece were interpreted and made known
to the people by the poets. The Teutonic and Norse gods were made
known in the epics and sagas. No one else spoke to the people with the
same religious conviction as the poet. And so the poets have always,
until the most recent times, partaken of a certain religious sanctity.
Dante and Milton served as interpreters of religion to their fellow
creatures--as beings set apart ‘to justify the ways of God to men.’
III
Thus song, then, was the chief agent of civilization to primitive
man. All that is supplied in our lives by railroads, telegraph lines,
telephones, newspapers, books, and libraries was supplied to primitive
peoples by song. But this still represents only half the value of
song. If it gave to primitive men all the practical service which
specialized inventions are rendering to us, it also gave them the
romance and beauty which we have largely lost from our lives. Every
simple, primitive person, we have said, sings--either his own song or
his neighbor’s. We have in great abundance the records of what their
songs were about. The subjects cover nearly the whole range capable
of artistic treatment, but chiefly the great human experiences--love,
pity, nature, death, the supernatural.
Slowly, after much imitating and experimenting, men learned to sing
their feelings. This achievement was so important that there is hardly
another one to be compared with it. For the growth of civilization
has been simply the growth in men of consciousness--consciousness of
themselves and their surroundings. And every new song that men were
able to make for themselves marked a new step in consciousness. To
us it seems quite obvious that a deer, for instance, has four legs.
But the fact is obvious only as everything else is obvious when it is
really looked at. The great difficulty is to get people to _look_ at
things. And it was probably a real (and most important) discovery when
the primitive huntsman realized that the deer he had been hunting had
four legs, and not three or five. He simply hadn’t thought about the
matter before. He hadn’t observed clearly. Now he had added one more
fact about life to his mental treasure house. He had become one more
degree clearly conscious.
Now, art has been the chief agent of this advancing consciousness
through the centuries. Our huntsman perhaps never thought about the
number of the deer’s legs until he tried to draw the deer with a bone
knife on the wall of his cave. But when he had to _create_ the deer
in a work of art then he _had_ to come to clear consciousness about
the matter. And the same is true of every song that simple people have
made. It necessitated true observation. It forced its author to _see_.
It may seem childishly obvious to say in a song that the bluebells
are blue, but most people pay little attention to the question. It is
something to have thought the fact worth mentioning.
But it was much more. It was not only an increase in consciousness. It
was an increase in experience. By singing over his little song about
the bluebell the peasant enjoyed the bluebell a second time in his
imagination. It is nothing against the song that the blueness of the
bluebell is obvious. Most of the beautiful things in life are obvious
but nevertheless go unrecognized. The important thing about the song is
that somebody enjoyed the blueness of the bluebell so much that he had
to sing about it.
The great use of these personal songs to people was that it helped them
to feel at home in the world. ‘The first poet of human things,’ says
the Countess Martinengo-Cæsaresco, ‘was perhaps one who stood in the
presence of death. In the twilight that went before civilization the
loves of men were prosaic and intellectual unrest was remote, but there
was already Rachel weeping for her children and would not be comforted
because they are not.’ Death as a mystery was a horror too great to be
borne. But death made into a song could be looked at and in some degree
known. The awful sense of helplessness as people stood beside a fresh
grave was alleviated by their singing of their grief. When the mystery
had become incarnated in a work of art they could face it and know who
their enemy was.
Every man who feels emotions craves expression of them. The ability
to express is perhaps what separates man from the animals. The man
who cannot achieve the expression of what he feels sinks back into a
spiritual numbness in which joy and sorrow are of less importance. But
the man who is able to see the things that are within him and about
him--to see them clearly enough to express them in songs--is able to
take his place in life and go on to more consciousness and more power.
Something like this is the service songs have performed to men’s souls.
But, most of all, of course, songs have taught men how to love. As men
began to realize that love must be more than a mere blind craving they
had to answer the question: ‘How much do I love her? How do I love
her?’ And the question had to be answered in some kind of concrete
terms. One old French lover says in his song that if King Henry gave
to him the town of Paris on condition that he give up the love of his
sweetheart, he would reply to Henry the King: ‘Take back your town
of Paris; I love my sweetheart more, heigh-ho, I love my sweetheart
more.’ And when we read the fine straightforward old French in which
the song is sung we know that he meant it. It is evident that the whole
estate of love and marriage has risen to a vastly higher level when the
lover, instead of saying, ‘I want my sweetheart,’ can sing, ‘I want my
sweetheart more than I want the town of Paris.’ So songs gave to life
definite meanings and values.
IV
In the beginning, as we have said, it is probable that everybody made
songs for himself. Helen Vacaresco noted a long song improvised by a
Roumanian peasant woman who was going mad; the woman was suffering
under a great sorrow and was trying to express it. Being simple and
without knowledge or fear of artistic forms and laws, she was able to
express it. And each day she wandered in the fields singing the song
she had composed, changing it little by little. It was not made for
the sake of making a song, but for the sake of expressing her sorrow.
It was, of course, only half a song and a half a mechanical repetition
of her troubles. But it had its beauty of word and something like a set
melody; it was an emotion objectified, put into a work of art where it
could be looked at and known.
Here was song at its very earliest beginning. It was spontaneous, it
was personal, it was utterly sincere. And, because it sought some
objective form, it was a primitive work of art. We may imagine the
earliest songs starting in just this way. Perhaps this Roumanian
peasant woman had her counterpart thousands of years ago. Her song,
or part of it, was heard and imitated by others who felt the same
sorrow. It was changed in passing from mouth to mouth. Needless words
were dropped, weak expressions were strengthened. As men became able
to look more clearly at their trouble the essential things in the song
were emphasized or put in a more emphatic position. Everything was
dropped from it that did not express the very heart of the emotion. The
lines perhaps became more rhythmical; the verses began to balance and
contrast with each other; the metaphors became more brilliant or more
precise. Soon all members of the tribe knew it, and when the young men
wandered away to other lands they took the song with them.
At the same time a similar perfecting process was going on in the
music. The original melody was perhaps little more than a chant of two
or three notes, the tune rising when the emotional pitch was raised and
dropping when the movement became more calm. The tune was at first not
thought of as a thing in itself. But gradually people became conscious
of the two or three notes in their relation and succession. And they
began to make them more varied, to express the changes of emotion
more accurately. The melody became divided into stanzas and lines
corresponding with the words and showed in itself where the thought
came to a partial stop and where it began again. Then people began
to notice peculiar figures which they had unconsciously put into the
melody. They made use of these, balancing or contrasting them to add
beauty to the tune. And gradually the melody came to have beauty and
meaning of its own.
This series of changes perhaps occupied centuries, for the artistic
power of primitive men advances very slowly. The singers had not yet
thought of putting this song in rhythm; and it was yet many centuries
before they would feel anything like a musical scale. Rhythm had
probably developed among people as a thing in itself, not directly
connected with musical tones. Rhythmic movement is common to all
men--in walking, in running, and in the beating of the heart. Dancing
must have arisen spontaneously from an excess of emotion. Such dancing
was perhaps accompanied by the clapping of hands, the beating of
sticks, or the pounding of some primitive drum. Then with the invention
of some primitive musical instrument the tribal musician began to play
a simple dance tune in rhythm, a tune of two notes, at first an aimless
shifting from one note to another, and later an organized melody with
tonal figures and balances and contrasts.
It is probable that these two elements--rhythm and melody--were
developed separately and were at first regarded as separate arts. At
least it seems certain that singing was at first without rhythm. It
must have been a wonderful day when somebody thought of combining
the two--of singing the old song with metre and accents. But this,
too, must have developed very slowly, being at first no more than an
accenting of each alternative note. At the same time the song had
probably been divided into line divisions. The singer then probably
developed his rhythm from both ends, so to speak, building a more
complex series of accents from the single group of two notes, and at
the same time subdividing the line into sections. After several more
centuries, perhaps, the tribe possessed a song that was fairly metrical
and regular.
All this time the notion of a scale--a set succession of notes from
which the notes of the tune were to be chosen--was entirely lacking.
It came comparatively late in musical development, though it is the
first incident in musical _history_. At first each melody was its
own scale. Then, as people began to observe similarities in the tone
relations between several melodies, they began to have a conception
of the regular succession of tones which was common to all of them.
Such a succession, a mode or primitive scale, was of but three or four
notes. By arranging the semi-tones several new scales could be formed.
And by here and there adding a note above or below the scales could be
enlarged.
With the enlargement of the scales melodies became enlarged in range.
More opportunities arose for the balancing and contrasting of melodic
devices. The tune became more complex, more regular, and more beautiful.
It was now several centuries since the song had first come into
existence. Since that time it had undergone perhaps a dozen
transformations, each so unlike the other that nobody would have
suspected they had any relation. But they were different forms of one
and the same song. For songs have ancestors and descendants just as men
do. Our song may have had a numerous progeny. As it passed from one
province to another certain phrases of the melody lingered in people’s
minds and found their way into other songs. Perhaps a line or two of
its words became common property and were used as the refrain for a
new song. Certainly as people made other songs they perforce made them
somewhat in the image of the great ancestor.
Thus for centuries--ten, twenty, or thirty, likely as not--the song was
growing and changing, or at least giving birth to children before dying
by the wayside. And folk-songs are still alive, growing and changing.
It seems possible that the years of their natural life may be numbered,
for it is becoming harder every year for them to live in their new
environment. But they are still in the land of the living and may
continue for centuries to come, and if so they are bound to continue
to grow and change. Thirty centuries of growth have not taken place
that songs may stop growing right here. Perhaps the songs of to-day may
seem as crude to people five hundred years hence as the songs of five
hundred years ago seem to us now.
V
We must always remember that songs of every kind are primarily composed
in the spirit of this typical folk-song. Even the most learned composer
is spiritually a descendant of the crazy Roumanian peasant woman, and
his songs, if they are real songs at all, are of the same spontaneous
kind as hers. However much he may be occupied with conscious scholastic
principles, if his music does not somehow sing in this natural, artless
vein it is but as sounding brass and tinkling cymbal. The impulse to
song is the soul of all true songs the world over.
What this impulse is has occupied the minds of theorists for many a
year. Their explanations are perhaps not important, since whatever
their conclusions we still posses the wonderful song literature which
is at our disposal. But their theories are at least interesting, if
only to prove that song, like love, is one of those human things that
can never be utterly explained.
Primitive people almost invariably attribute music to divine agency.
We know the story of Orpheus, who moved the beasts and even the rocks
and trees to tears by his sweet singing. We know also the story of the
competition of Apollo the harp player and Marsyas the flute player. The
Chinese say that they obtained their musical scale from a miraculous
bird. The legend is interesting as showing how people tend to invent
a supernatural explanation for the artificial laws which are felt to
need some sort of superstitious bolstering up. For it is recorded in
Chinese history that this scale has several times been changed by edict
of the emperor, who considers an orthodox scale a very important thing
to insist upon and wishes to have his word accepted as divine law.
The Japanese tradition is that the sun-goddess once retired into a
cave and the gods devised music to lure her forth once more. The story
suggests the practice of certain primitive tribes who sing and dance
during a solar eclipse, either to scare away the evil spirits or to beg
the sun-god back into their midst. The Nahua Indians of North America
say that the god Tezcatlipoca sent for music from the sun and made a
bridge of whales and turtles by which to convey it to the earth. The
Abyssinians have a tale to the effect that Yared transmitted music to
men, the holy spirit having appeared to him in the form of a pigeon.
But in the story of the Javans there seems to be a kernel of scientific
truth. They say that the earliest music was suggested to them by the
wind whistling through a bamboo tube which had been left hanging on a
tree.
The theories of the earlier musical philosophers of the nineteenth
century were not so unlike these legends as they seemed at the
time. These men had a limited historical outlook and were inclined
to discredit, when they did not ignore, the music preceding that
of Palestrina, just as the historians of painting before Ruskin’s
time tended to regard all Italian painting before Raphael as mere
experimental bungling. To these earlier philosophers music was a
thing _discovered_ rather than a thing _evolved_. In their view music
had always existed in a sort of secret treasure house instituted by
a beneficent creator for the edification of men. All melodies and
harmonies were piled in there awaiting the explorations of musicians.
The explorations were undertaken by the ‘inspired’ artists, those
who had been endowed with finer ears and more daring imaginations.
All musical history was a story of the development of music from
its imperfect state among the primitives to its perfect state with
Beethoven. This description may be exaggerated, but it is certain
that the earlier theorists considered music as a self-existent
thing, with its own laws and its own principles of beauty--laws and
principles which must be discovered by the elect among artists instead
of being evolved by the peoples. As to the impulse to song and to
artistic creation in general they laid it to that mysterious thing,
‘inspiration.’
Schopenhauer’s theory has a modern ring and is excellent poetry even
though it can hardly rank as science. He says that while the other
arts--painting, sculpture, and architecture--represent the Idea, which
is the reflection of the Will, music represents the Will itself. It is
pure energy, the nearest thing that exists among men to the essence of
reality.
With Darwin all this kind of speculation changed and the theories of
musical origins became more a matter of biology than of music. Darwin
traced the impulse to song to the love-making of animals and primitive
man. He showed how in Nature beauty is continually being made the
adjunct and servant of love--how the bird sings or the insect dances
to attract its mate. Many theorists have sought to explain the whole
of art as originating in the sexual impulse. But in this theory, as in
all, there are data on both sides of the question and the explanation
is interesting rather than valuable.
Herbert Spencer pursues the same biological line. But he traces the
impulse to song from the surplus of energy in living things. Nature,
as we know, is prodigal, producing thousands of eggs or seeds where
she expects only scores of insects or plants to grow. And so she gives
to each living thing more energy than is needed to keep it alive and
healthy--or at least more energy than is needed _all the time_. With
this surplus of energy something must be done. And that something
among men is art. When a wild rose-bush is put in rich soil it grows a
double rose and a larger one. And so, when a man has a little more than
enough for his material needs, he attempts to decorate and beautify
his surroundings. To Spencer the typical example of nascent art is the
child who dances out of pure joy of life. But others object to this,
saying that this dancing of the child (and all similarly spontaneous
art) is lacking in the very quality which makes art--namely, discipline
and control. It is selection and control, they say, which makes any
work of art more than a mere daub of color or conglomeration of sounds.
Certainly the biological theories have not satisfactorily explained the
second great element in artistic creation--the impulse to refinement.
We have seen that once our typical folk-song was invented by the
Roumanian peasant woman it could not stay as it was, but had to take
new forms, changing continually, and, as we see it, usually for the
better. What is it that makes men dissatisfied with a crude, formless
melody and desirous of making it regular and organic? Perhaps it is no
more than the impulse to play which children show when they arrange
pebbles in new and strange shapes on the sand or savages when they daub
their faces with new colors of war-paint. Again the surplus of energy?
Perhaps. Perhaps when people have become familiar with their primitive
melody they notice a peculiar turn of the phrase and take pleasure
in seeing what they can _do_ with it in the way of repeating it and
inventing contrasting phrases. At any rate, there it is, this impulse
to refinement, more mystery for the theorist and more entertainment for
the music lover.
On the whole, these theories probably err in trying to simplify the
case too much. More likely music has not one simple _cause_, but many
interacting _causes_. Like every individual man whose ancestors are a
multitude, song must be the result of many, many causes.
VI
We have been speaking chiefly of the folk-song, the fountain of all
vocal music. But the art-song, that is, the song for a solo voice with
instrumental accompaniment, which is quantitively but a small part of
vocal music, is the special study of this book. For convenience we
date the beginning of this art-song from Schubert, regarding the song
writers who preceded him as mere experimenters. Accordingly, at the
time of the writing of this book the art-song, one of the four or five
great divisions of modern music, is hardly a century old.
It is, of course, a somewhat arbitrary division that separates the
art-song from song as a whole. The arbitrary division is justified by
its convenience. Schubert may fairly be said to have infused a new
spirit into song writing and most of the songs written by established
composers since his time have been written in his spirit. So we find an
extensive and remarkably homogeneous song literature, the product of
the last hundred years, which in its form and intent separates itself
from the folk-song. The songs on the boundary line are few. The songs
before Schubert which give any evidence of this recent spirit are
hardly to be found at all. It is as though a new god had descended from
the skies and taught a new kind of art to his creatures.
What is this distinction we draw between the folk-song and the
art-song? The superficial elements of contrast are apt to be
misleading, for, while most folk-songs are simple, many art-songs are
simple, too; and, while many art-songs are irregular and peculiar,
their irregularities are rarely so great as are to be found in the
earlier folk-songs. The distinction must be sought in the spirit of the
songs. It becomes more eloquent the more we study the two sorts. It
forces us continually to seek further back for the true character of
each, so that at last it seems as though we needed two different souls
for the singing of them. The folk-song speaks for man in the mass;
the art-song speaks for man the individual. For the folk-song, let us
always remember, was composed not by an individual, but by a mass, each
member of which may have contributed one or more of its beauties. If it
had sung of a joy or sorrow which belonged exclusively to its original
singer, it would have held no interest for other people and would have
died with its composer. Those folk-songs were, of course, most popular
which spoke for the interests and emotions of the greatest number of
men. We can justly say that those folk-songs are greatest which sing of
the things that are common to all men in such a way that they can be
understood by all men. But in the composition of the art-song precisely
the opposite influences are dominant. The composer, if he is to make
his mark in the art world, must not write exactly like other composers,
but must distinguish his work in some way. He must call attention
to himself or his work by writing in a style that is not quite like
anybody else’s. Fashionable or critical audiences will pay little
attention to the man who seems merely to be repeating what a greater
man has written before him; these audiences continually crave a novelty
or a sensation. Everything forces the conscious composer in these days
to be as personal as possible. His song then expresses the feelings of
one individual in one particular style.
It has always been a nice question of taste whether one prefers to
observe the type or the individual. Would you have your love song one
that could be sung by every lover, high or low, or one that would ring
true for you alone? If you are quite honest you will probably have to
admit that you will swing from one to the other from time to time. At
times it will seem vulgar that you should be rejoicing in precisely the
same sentiments as those which are sending the Italian bootblack into a
seventh heaven; your delicacy, your sense of dignity will demand that
your love be your own, like no one else’s on earth. And, again, the
precious selfishness of cultivating your own soul with such conscious
care when it is such a tiny part of humanity--such a reaction will make
you praise heaven that you and the bootblack can sing the same love
song and feel the same love.
However you feel about it the art-song has chosen to specialize on
individuals. Not only on individual persons, but on particular feelings
of those persons. The folk-song expresses the type emotion--love,
sorrow, or patriotism; the art-song expresses some particular shade
or nuance of these emotions. The Scotch folk-tune which we sing with
Burns’s stirring words, ‘Scots Wha Hae,’ expresses magnificently the
defiance of patriotic bravery. It might be the song of anybody facing
odds in defense of his beliefs. Schubert’s song, ‘Courage,’ has exactly
the same note of defiance, but, so to speak, only a particular section
of the great general emotion. His defiance is that of a man broken down
with sorrow and misfortune, who in one superb moment vows to conquer
by pure force of will power--a vow which we know is impossible of
fulfillment. The modern French composers are especially apt at catching
a particular delicate phase of a mood or emotion and rendering it so
that it would never be mistaken for another phase, however much the two
resembled each other. Have you never caught yourself moodily looking
at the last glow from a sunset and wondered whether you have ever had
a moment just like that before--a moment which the slightest change in
the things about you would have spoiled utterly? Such a moment it is
the delight of the art-song to portray; it is almost unknown to the
folk-song.
The folk-song, again, presents an emotion in its sum total; the
art-song presents it in its component parts. With their capacity and
zest for exactitude song composers have continually, since Schubert’s
time, given more and more attention to accuracy of detail. In one of
the earliest of Schubert’s songs, ‘Gretchen at the Spinning-wheel,’ the
girl is musing of her lover while she is spinning. The whirr of the
spinning-wheel is in the accompaniment and enframes the whole song. But
when the girl sighs, ‘And, ah, his kiss!’ Schubert felt that she would
surely not continue her mechanical spinning. So he makes the whirring
stop in the accompaniment and in its place comes a lovely succession
of chords--one would say like a blush. Now a folk-song would have
paid no attention to such a detail. It would have caught and probably
caught with wonderful accuracy the spirit of the whole song. But the
variation of mood in the words would not have affected the music. It
could not, because the folk-song, unpublished and disseminated among
many untrained persons, must be easy to remember. It is accordingly
most often cast in a regular stanza form and the same melody is
repeated for each verse of the words, though the heroine change therein
from the noon of joy to the midnight of sorrow. The great majority
of art-songs, therefore, are not written in stanza form, but follow
the words with specially adapted music from beginning to end. (This
is the so-called _durchkomponiertes Lied_.) The form of the art-song
tends to be free in the extreme, while that of the folk-song is usually
strict and regular. In the art-song the tendency toward exactitude of
delineation sometimes goes to extremes. The music tries to be just to
each phrase, or even to each word, and the song as a whole is lost
in the details. But in general the good art-song shows not only the
emotion as a whole, by means of its formal or modal unity, but also
the component parts of the emotion placed side by side. We might say
that the art-song follows the impressionistic method of showing the
component colors on the canvas and letting the eye blend them into the
resultant, while the folk-song follows the older method of mixing the
components on the palette and showing only the blended result to the
eye.
The highest glory of the folk-song is to express what unites men. The
highest glory of the art-song is to express what differentiates men.
The folk-song includes; the art-song selects. The folk-song is general;
the art-song precise. The folk-song tells of life as man found it; the
art-song tells of life as man made it.
Nearly everything that is distinctive of the art-song involves
conscious planning. However spontaneous and unrestrained a _Lieder_
singer may appear on the concert platform, there is behind his or her
interpretation a whole conscious network of selection and rejection.
A good folk-song, as everyone has noticed, asks for no intellectual
comprehension--it ‘sings itself.’ But an art-song rarely ‘sings
itself.’ It must be _sung_. And this is precisely one of the beauties
of the art-song--the feeling that it has been achieved by art, that
it is the working-out of somebody’s intention, that it has been
_personally_ propelled.
VII
A good Lieder singer is like some weaver of a delicate design in silk.
Every crossing is planned and the worker must not let a single thread
slip through his fingers. Every detail of a song must be understood
before it can be interpreted. This does not mean that the singer
must have a ‘reason’--a logical argument in words--for everything
done. Usually words and arguments about a song only befuddle the
artistic sense. The song must be _understood_ in musical terms--by
comparing each phrase with similar phrases in the song, by trying
different tempos, different phrasings, different qualities of voice.
To _understand_ a song in the musical sense is to know when you sing
it that you could have sung it in ten or in fifty other specific ways,
but that you chose to sing it exactly in _this_ way. It requires a
great deal of attention to fix in your ear accurately all the little
beauties and peculiarities of the melody, the distinctions contained in
tiny variations of tempo, and so on. The facts are all obvious in the
song, but they demand attention. So the process is exactly that of the
primitive folk-singer who noticed, to his delight, that bluebells were
blue and that the deer had four legs. And, like the folk-singer, when
you have consciously noted a multitude of these obvious facts you feel
more at home in the world--you have completed a step in your education.
If the singer is obliged carefully to select and reject, he is only
doing what the composer did before him. For the song writer’s task is
one that will test the soundness of his musicianship and his art. The
song is short. It will probably be sung among a number of other short
songs. It has every chance of being forgotten. The composer can waste
no time. With little or no preluding he must strike a melodic phrase
that in smallest compass is worth hearing and worth remembering. He
has none of the opportunities of the symphonist or the opera writer.
He cannot lead up to his chief theme with a long expressive orchestral
crescendo. He cannot introduce it at the moment when his audience is
keyed up and receptive over a tense emotional story. If the melody of
the song is not worth the trouble, no amount of decoration can make
it so. If one phrase out of four in the song is good and the rest
mediocre, the song is as much a failure as though it had no single bar
of beauty. When the composer has written his song, he has committed
himself. He stands exposed to the universe without protection, without
excuse. He has chosen the test with which genius is tested--to be great
within narrow limits. If his music speaks to the heart it speaks in
words of one syllable.
If the basic materials of a song are so simple, it is evident that the
misplacing of a single note is a very serious error. The expressive
phrase might have stood in a dozen slightly different forms. It was
a delicate judgment and selection that chose exactly this one. The
phrase, if it is to express something of importance, must suggest
a great deal more than it can say. This is the problem of the
_lyric_--the personal song of the emotions--whether in words or music.
If a poet is to express the whole tenderness and fury of love in
eight, twelve, or sixteen lines he must select just the right details
that will suggest the whole epic of love that he did not write. The
structure and the language may be simple in the extreme. ‘My luv’ is
like a red, red rose,’ sings Burns in one of the most beautiful love
lyrics ever written. The poem is only a succession of the simplest
poetic figures, similes; impressive effects of rhyme and metre are
not to be found. But every one of the similes is a masterpiece,
suggesting in striking manner the variety and extravagance of the
lover’s feelings. ‘My luv’ is like a melody that’s sweetly play’d in
tune,’ continues the poet. ‘As fair art thou, my bonnie lass, so deep
in luv’ am I’--and from this point the imagery sweeps up and up with
increasing majesty and frenzy--‘And I will luv’ thee still, my dear,
till a’ the seas gang dry. Till a’ the seas gang dry, my dear, and the
rocks melt wi’ the sun; Oh! I will luv’ thee still, my dear, while the
sands o’ life shall run.’ We can imagine Milton building up a long and
magnificent description, in a whole blank verse canto, of the rocks
melting in the heat of the sun. But Burns dazzles our imagination by
just mentioning the gorgeous picture and then pressing on to another.
The themes of a good song are like this. They picture the heart of an
emotion that might be made the subject of an opera; they establish
instantly a mood that might dominate a movement of a symphony. They
picture one detail of the building and let it imply the whole vast
edifice.
Schumann, in the middle section of his song, _Widmung_, has such a
melody, one which leads us straight to the centre of a mood as profound
as one can find in many symphonies:
[Illustration: Music score]
Du bust die Ruh’, du bist der Frieden etc.
One can imagine Beethoven building a long, superb movement out of
this theme; the ’cellos would take it over rich bass harmony, the
counterpoint would grow deeper and more complex, a grand crescendo of
many measures would lead to a climax with the brass; the whole body
of violins would take up the theme in unison; it would be exchanged
between the wood-winds and strings; and the movement would fade away
on some magical effect with the theme in the high registers of the
violins. The theme is abundantly worth such extended and serious
treatment. Schumann uses it for two lines and then returns to his
original motive. If his purpose had been to get the greatest possible
effect out of given materials, such a procedure would have been
criminal wastefulness. But his purpose was to express the spirit of the
words. So he used the theme as the expression demanded, not begrudging
a motive which would have served him for a whole symphony movement.
And, thanks to this restraint, he made a perfect song.
And the restraint which the composer showed in using themes in naked
simplicity must be reflected in the delivery of the song by the
singer. Conscious restraint is foreign to the spirit of the folk-song,
excepting for the universal rule that every work of art must show some
reserve power. But in the art-song, artificed as it is with conscious
pains, reserve in the singer is a virtue in itself. Unless one feels
that every detail of the delivery is firmly under control one has an
uneasy sense that the singer may fly off the handle at any moment. And
this feeling robs us of any sense we might have that the singer has a
message to give.
Most concert-goers know only too well how little this principle is
regarded among Lieder singers. Is there one singer out of ten who
does not try to transcend his or her song? Is there one singer out
of ten who would not rather have his or her hearers at the end of a
piece exclaim: ‘A great singer!’ rather than ‘A great song!’ And to
force their personalities to the foreground singers will abuse their
songs from beginning to end. Often they do it intentionally, sincerely
believing that this is the only kind of singing that is effective. But
in a great number of cases, without doubt, it is done unconsciously, as
the natural and only way of singing. A special coloring on one of the
singer’s pet tones, a long pause on a high note, an exaggerated retard
in a sentimental passage--these sins against taste are being constantly
committed by singers whose only interest in songs is to advance
their personal reputations. In a way they are not to be blamed, for
competition is keen; a hundred fail where one succeeds, and that one
succeeds usually only by forcing his personality on the public; and the
public is inclined to be _blasé_, to demand picturesque personalities,
and to grumble if a singer is ‘ordinary.’ Singers need intelligent
audiences as much as audiences need intelligent singers.
But, whatever may be the lamentable state of actual conditions, a song,
if well sung, is sung with intelligent restraint. The ideal singer will
give a song as he believes it should be given, without concession to
the prejudices of the audiences, content to let the work of art speak
for itself and to allow people to forget the workman in their joy at
the work.
And as soon as the demand for restraint is met, the singer discovers a
new and kindred demand in the song, one which is quite as inherent in
the art-type. This is the demand for style. Style, as an artist uses
it, is a ticklish thing, one which cannot quite be put into words. But
every working artist feels it as a value. For, if the singer is to pick
and choose (as the composer picked and chose previously) in the singing
of a song, he must do so according to some principle. This principle,
if it be genuine and not arbitrary, will be the style of the song. It
will make the hearer feel that the interpretative details were not only
chosen carefully, but were chosen well. It is that subtle thing that
seems to make the song ‘hang together.’
Style, in short, is one more of the typical characteristics of the good
art-song. The style of a song is unique. No two songs, thoroughly well
sung, have exactly the same style. The style is developed out of the
music itself; it is implied in the notes as they rest on the printed
page; it has awaited the discerning eye of the interpretive artist. And
so when a song has been thoroughly understood and ‘lived in’ by the
singer, it will always have a personality or style of its own which
will hover above the song and embrace every note. An art-song which on
hearing does not reveal a unique style is either a bad song or a good
song badly sung.
[Illustration: Great Singers of the Past.
Top: Luigi Lablache and Giovanni Battista Rubini
Bottom: Maria Malibran and Angelica Catelani]
This type of art, the most delicate, the most personal, the most
self-contained, is laid in bewildering abundance at our feet. And some
fairly general acquaintance with modern song literature is a necessity
for the singer or the concert-goer. A singer can no more understand the
songs she sings without at the same time being familiar with others
than a student can understand the history of his own country without
knowing that of foreign lands. For such a singer to appear in public as
an interpreter is simply an insolence. If he ‘specializes’ in modern
French songs, the more necessity for him to know old German. You can
never appreciate any quality without knowing something of its opposite.
And the same rule applies to audiences. The first song one hears in
life probably goes unnoticed. The second gives the attention something
on which to base a comparison. And every new acquisition thereafter
increases the opportunity for comparison--increases the hearer’s
pleasure. How much more you have learned about Debussy when you have
heard a cycle of Moussorgsky!
And if a comparison is necessary between art-songs of one and another
lineage, how much more necessary it is of art-songs and folk-songs.
It is important for singer and audience to know various types of
art-songs. It is much more important to know art-songs and folk-songs.
When he does, all that is peculiar to the art-song becomes set off in
relief, and all that is common property becomes enhanced in value. A
knowledge of folk-songs is a knowledge of humanity in its simplest
terms. With it one can ‘walk with kings nor lose the common touch.’
CHAPTER V
FOLK-SONGS
The nature and value of folk-songs--Folk-songs of the British
Isles--Folk-song in the Latin lands--German and Scandinavian
folk-song--Hungarian folk-song--Folk-songs of the Slavic
countries; folk-song in America.
I
The brothers Grimm, profound students of popular lore, used to say
that they had never found a single lie in folk-poetry. This sounds
strange as we think of the giants and fairies who appear in it, along
with historical events given a completely new twist for the sake of
artistic attractiveness. Obviously the meaning of the brothers Grimm
was somewhat profound. And so, too, is the truth in folk-poetry.
For the imagination of folk-poetry is not the promulgation of lies, but
the interpretation of facts. The folk-poets meant something as they
sang their songs, though they may not have been entirely conscious
about it. Why, for instance, is there never a good stepmother in
folk-song? There have been good stepmothers, undoubtedly, but the
folk-poets knew that it is not in the nature of things that stepmothers
will be as good to children as natural mothers. Or why does Jack the
Giant Killer not make a pact with the giant when he holds the tyrant
finally at his mercy, and live in luxury on a part of the spoils
ever afterward? It would be a realistic ending. It would be true to
modern politics and correct according to the latest canons of art.
But Jack is a popular hero, and a popular hero does not betray the
people he fights for. If you want to know some fact in the history of
a people don’t go to the official records; they may be tainted by
the vanity of the king or by the personal bias of the recorder. But
go to the people’s folk-lore. If the fact is there, it is a truth as
solid as the mountains. The song may tell you that their good king
had thirty-seven horses shot under him in one day, that he fought and
killed, single-handed, ten men at arms who surrounded him. It may
tell you this, and you will perhaps suspect that the arithmetic is
faulty, but you will know that the essential statement--that of the
heroism and the popularity of the king--is true. The king’s minstrel
might have made a song making a coward and tyrant a hero and a popular
leader; but he could not have made people sing it. ‘The ballad-maker
only wields his power for as long as he is the true interpreter of the
popular will. Laws may be imposed on the unwilling, but not songs.’[7]
Written histories may tell you that under such and such a king the
people were happy--that the revolution which came afterward was a
factitious or fomented one. Go to your folk-song. Bujor the Red-Headed,
a Moldavian brigand and a popular hero, was ‘pitiless toward officers
of government and toward nobles; he was, on the contrary, most gracious
toward peasants and the unfortunate.’ This is historical evidence more
reliable than sealed parchment. The government of that land was _not_
good, the nobles were _not_ beneficent. No written history of a people
can be considered reliable as long as it conflicts with that people’s
folk-lore.
Truthfulness to facts--this is what the brothers Grimm claimed
for folk-lore. Goethe ascribes to it truthfulness to art. ‘The
unsophisticated man,’ he writes, ‘is more the master of direct,
effective expression in few words than he who has received a regular
literary education.’ The observation has been made hundreds of times
by competent judges. The simple mind has a wonderful power of seeing
the essential in a thing and expressing it briefly and exactly. To
have command over expression in the simplest terms--is this not the
beginning of art?
This power which is revealed by folk-poetry is also revealed by
folk-music. The people’s melodies have the same ‘direct, effective
expression’ in a few notes that Goethe noticed in their poetry. As
truly as the greatest composers, folk-songs can say universal things
in a few notes. Beethoven may have equalled, but he never surpassed,
the ‘direct, effective expression’ of ‘Auld Lang Syne.’ The majesty of
this song can hardly be equalled in the whole of musical literature.
Many people have noticed the peculiar effect of the refrain which makes
it seem as though a mighty and harmonious orchestra of trumpets and
trombones were joining in the chorus. And this with a melody denuded of
every merely decorative tone, written in a scale of just five notes!
Everywhere in folk-music we find this power of expressing the highest
things in the fewest notes. Only the very greatest of conscious
composers have been able to compete with the folk-song on its own
terms, within its rigid limitations. Art-songs have elaborated and
refined. But it seems as though the _essence_ is always in the
folk-tunes. Like the popular stories that furnished plots to the old
dramatists, these melodies have supplied the simple musical resources
which conscious composers have developed. Every sort of emotion is
expressed in the folk-songs, every degree of passion, every quality of
mood--provided only it is human, common to all men.
Do not think that folk-songs are an affair of the past, a subject
for the archeologist. One is inclined to think that it is so among
Anglo-Saxon people, especially in America. But folk-songs are not only
sung this moment in many a land, but are yet living and growing in
more than one country. The quantity of very recent Italian folk-songs
is enormous. Every year, at the fair of Piedegrotta, near Naples, the
popular singers of the city stand on a cart and sing the songs they
have composed in the past months. For hours these concerts continue,
the crowd moving from one singer to another. The songs are caught up
and sung by the listeners. At the end of the festival no vote is taken,
but everyone knows which song has been the winner in the competition.
It is being sung from one end of the city to the other. And the
successful songs of the year’s festival pass into folk-music of the
people.
It is true of these songs (as was not true of earlier folk-music) that
the composers are known and remembered. Indeed, the songs are promptly
printed and circulated. But the composers are nevertheless true sons
of the people. They have little knowledge of letters and musical laws;
they compose from the heart and from the instinct for fitness. The
music of such composers can justly be classed as folk-music, since it
is utterly in the popular spirit and receives the _visé_ of the masses.
It is more unfortunate that in Naples a phonograph firm has undertaken
to make commercial capital out of the Fair of Piedegrotta, and every
year takes records of the successful songs, which it circulates all
over Europe. Under such conditions the composers must necessarily soon
lose the celebrated ‘folk simplicity,’ if they have not lost it already.
It is fair to say that in Italy folk-music is still very much alive.
All that is new in life is celebrated by these folk-poets. The famous
‘Funicula,’ a modern Italian folk-song _par excellence_, was made to
celebrate the funicular or inclined railroad in the days when this
was a novelty. There is a well-known Neapolitan song in honor of
the telephone, and current events, such as the Turkish war, receive
generous attention.
In many other countries the _growth_ of folk-song has all but ceased,
though the songs of former times are sung with almost as much zest
as ever. But these songs (including most of those familiar to us) are
usually not of great age. At least they have generally been remade in
more up-to-date form and do not plainly show evidences of their age.
Generally speaking, we may be sure that any folk-song in the common
major scale is to be dated within the last two hundred years. It may
have been founded on an older song, but its modern changes have been
such as to give it a totally new flavor. This is not to say that all
old songs which remain living in the hearts of the people become
changed according to musical fashions. Those which have a strong enough
traditional hold may keep their ancient form after Debussy has been
forgotten. Thus many an English folk-song, startling and inspiriting in
its originality, is in a modal scale--with a minor that is not commonly
in use to-day, or else a shifting between one tonic and another which
carries us clearly back into the days when tonality was not yet felt
in scales. Yet these songs were not committed to paper in Henry VIII’s
or Queen Elizabeth’s time, when they attained their present form. They
have mostly been discovered by earnest searching only within the last
ten years. They lived, in unsophisticated, out-of-the-way places, in
their ancient form.
In general, of course, the question of the age or authenticity of a
folk-song is one for the musical archeologist, rather than for the mere
lover of music. The folk-songs that are in the hands of the general
public are in all stages of authenticity and purity. There was a time
when no publisher who knew his business would think of publishing a
folk-song in its true form. It was barbarous, not fit for the graces of
the drawing-room. So some composer of the fashion (or, failing such,
some hack) was hired to ‘arrange’ them and to supply an accompaniment
in approved style. And, naturally, under such a régime it was not the
most characteristic of a country’s folk-songs that were chosen, but
those most similar to polite music--that is, the least characteristic.
Often the songs had been transcribed by little-trained listeners or
else not transcribed at all, but only imperfectly remembered. There was
little of the national essence left in such music. And the composers of
the day discovered the fact and turned it to their account. Why go to
Sicily to pick up folk-songs when Sicilian folk-songs can be written
without stirring out of your study in London? And this is precisely
what Sir Henry Bishop, for instance, did. And it is to such a hoax that
we owe the tune of ‘Home, Sweet Home,’ which was at first published in
a book of alleged Sicilian songs ‘edited’ by Bishop, few, if any, of
which were genuine.
These days, however, are past. The modern attitude toward folk-songs is
one of respect, almost of reverence. The greatest of pains have been
taken to preserve the songs as they were actually sung, ‘mistakes’
and all. No tune of two notes is too slight to be worth the trouble
of accurate transcription. Especially since the invention of the
phonograph the scientific study of folk-songs has prospered. Thousands
upon thousands of songs have been taken down by the phonograph among
the Indians of North America, the negroes of Africa, and the Russians
of the Caucasus. The results, it is true, are likely to be regarded as
scientific--ethnological or psychological--data rather than as artistic
entities. But the tunes are accessible to musicians and often appear
in the art music of the time--as we well know from Russian symphonies
or even from Charles Wakefield Cadman’s interesting arrangements of
Indian lyrics. And the value of the accurate transcriptions as data for
scientific æsthetic theory cannot be overestimated.
However, most of the folk-songs available to the music lover have not
the stigma of ‘science’ attached to them. Nearly all that have been
published in the last ten years show some care of editing, some concern
that the tunes, if they be not exactly as they were in their habitat,
shall be true to the spirit of the original. Some editions give the
original unaccompanied form of the tunes, perhaps with interesting
variants. Few, in fact, try to pull the wool over the reader’s eyes.
Scientific or not, modern editions of folk-songs show a candor which
the subject has long needed.
Many folk-songs, like the modern German, approximate ‘art’ music in
their musical basis and can be understood as they stand. That is, they
have the prevailing scales and are sung with accompaniments in the
accented harmony. But most folk-songs are not sung with accompaniment.
And when the editors begin to supply accompaniments trouble ensues.
For the songs have their own style and will not coalesce with a type
of accompaniment made for another style. And editors, trained in the
schools, cannot produce a new musical style at a moment’s notice.
So the original melodies may be changed and adapted more nearly to
a diatonic scale which will fit a ready-made accompaniment. Or the
accompaniment may do its best to suit the modal or unusual style of the
melodies. Or both sides may be forced to make concessions. It would
be most satisfactory, if our ears could get used to it, to sing these
more unusual folk-songs without accompaniment and not try the barbarous
experiment of making the right foot fit the left shoe. But even when
they are altered, these melodies retain much of their beauty, and one
would much rather have them ‘edited’ than not have them at all.
We must also mention that great class of songs which are not strictly
folk-songs at all, but deserve to rank as folk-songs by every title
except the technical one. They are those songs written by conscious
composers, published and sold, but intended for wide circulation
and great popularity--those, in short, which by their simplicity
and genuineness evoke a human response similar to that evoked by
true folk-songs. Such are the immortal songs of Stephen Foster in
America--‘My Old Kentucky Home,’ ‘Old Black Joe,’ and the rest. Such is
‘Annie Laurie,’ one of the most beautiful of melodies. And such are the
German songs of Silcher--_Die Lorelei_, _Scheiden_, and many others.
Nearly all these composers have been without aptitude in the larger
musical forms--often persons of little education and culture. Very few
great composers have succeeded in thus writing folk-songs. Weber, of
all of them, is the nearest to the folk-spirit, and the slow movement
of Agathe’s aria, _Leise, leise_, from _Der Freischütz_, is now a
permanent folk-song with the best of them. Schubert’s _Lindenbaum_ and
_Heidenröslein_ have the same quality. Mendelssohn is a folk-composer
by virtue of his song _Es ist bestimmt_ in _Gottes Rath_. But in
general it has seemed next to impossible for a conscious and highly
trained composer to catch the spirit of the folk in simplest terms.
The most available folk-music for the average student is that which
is freely arranged and edited by a man whose name is a guarantee of
honest and musicianly work--such a man as Weckerlin, collector and
editor of French songs from the earliest to the most recent; or Cecil
Sharp, collector of forgotten songs in Somersetshire, England. Such an
editor may keep the songs intact or may vary them, may adopt some one
else’s accompaniment or write one of his own, but he will always do it
intelligently, altering only what it is reasonably necessary to alter,
and keeping always true to the spirit, if not to the letter, of the
original.
It should be borne in mind that the songs to be described in the
following pages are, many of them, sung quite spontaneously and
naturally to-day by the peasants and unsophisticated people of the
various countries. The writer, while crossing the ocean, once listened
for hours to the Dutch steerage passengers amusing themselves with
songs and dances. And he recognized among the songs the famous ‘William
of Nassau,’ probably centuries old. Thus simple people in European
countries are constantly singing enduring masterpieces of music along
with much, of course, that is ephemeral.
In the very brief survey which we shall make of folk-songs as the
student finds them to his hand to-day we shall be able to do no more
than suggest the national characteristics of each group. Anything like
a list of the fine songs of each nation, or an adequate appreciation
of its popular music, would be impossible in less than a volume.
Likewise, all the interesting questions of racial characteristics as
affecting art, of technical development and international interchange,
of æsthetic theory and melodic analysis, must be left quite to one
side until there shall be written the adequate book on folk-music
which as yet does not exist in the English language. The present
chapter attempts only to suggest the contrasting characteristics of the
different folk-song traditions and the amazing extent of the treasure
which has until so recently remained for the most part unknown, or
known only to be snubbed.
II
England, Scotland, and Ireland, now grouped together as the tiniest
part only, geographically speaking, of the British Empire, were in
early times as distinct and as antagonistic, nationally, as Germany
and France are to-day. The lack of means of communication and social
organization made it possible for very different social and artistic
traditions to flourish independently within a few miles of each
other. Thus there grew up in these countries highly distinct musical
traditions which have preserved their individuality even through
these days of printing presses and phonographs. Each of these musical
traditions--the English, the Scotch, and the Irish--had its roots in
the earliest times of which we have any record. And it is evident that
the musical life of these countries was vigorous in the extreme. The
beauty and individuality of the Scotch and Irish songs are familiar,
but it has been accepted as axiomatic until recently that England was
an unmusical nation--that she had neither the geniuses to create nor
the people to appreciate the finest and sincerest musical beauty.
Especially it was supposed that she had no truly creative folk-song.
Certainly it is true that England for centuries stifled her folk-song,
keeping it among the peasant classes, dumb and suppressed, where
Germany coaxed hers upward to illumine and inspire the whole nation
to great deeds. Recent investigators, notably Mr. Cecil Sharp, have
unearthed in Somersetshire and elsewhere a great wealth of popular
songs, most of them never before set on paper, but many of them showing
great antiquity and distinctive beauty. This folk-art existed for
centuries among the almost unlettered classes without the nation as a
whole being aware of the fact. Now that the songs have been noted down
and published it can never again be said that England, in the roots of
her, is unmusical or uncreative in popular song. These songs, which are
all the more charming for never having felt the influence of learned
music, are almost as peculiar and inimitable as those of Scotland or
Russia. Those of ancient origin--roughly speaking, from Elizabeth’s
time or previous--are modal in style. But the modes are not the usual
ones of the melodic minor or its most familiar variation, the Doric.
They are the queerest things imaginable to modern ears, strange scales
with raised sixths and lowered sevenths, melting from minor into major
and back again. The feeling for the tonic is often very vague, the
chief note of the scale being sometimes the second or the fourth or the
fifth. These unquestionable evidences of antiquity lend a strange charm
to the melodies. And the charm is one that is distinct from that of
every other national folk-music.
The earliest of the English songs, barring a few questionable
specimens, probably date from the time of Henry VIII (1491-1547),
who was himself an accomplished musician and composer of several
excellent songs. Among these are the Boar’s Head Carol, antedating
1521, still sung at Christmas gatherings; and the traditional tune
for Shakespeare’s lyric, ‘Oh, Mistress Mine.’ Some of the simple airs
to which the old Robin Hood ballads were sung also date from this
period. The traditional air for the Chevy Chase ballads dates from
the time of Charles I. But from this time on what passed in England
for folk-songs were usually nothing but popular songs of the moment,
published like any others and sung widely among the middle classes.
These songs will be treated in another chapter. For our purpose here
we must now skip more than three centuries and come down to the time
when the interest in folk-song and folk-dancing began to revive
in England. For the recent crop of folk-songs we are indebted to
the labors of investigators like Mr. Sharp, patient, painstaking,
sympathetic, and admirably equipped in point of musical technique.
These men combine the qualities of the artist and the scientist.
They have passed quite beyond the attitude of the eighteenth century
collectors of folk-poetry--such distinguished men as Bishop Percy and
Sir Walter Scott--who did their work out of personal enthusiasm but
felt obliged to apologize for the poems they found. (Herder, who worked
in Germany about the same time, was the one man who took the modern
attitude, which is equally scholarly, scientific, and artistic.) The
modern investigators feel their obligations to preserve the songs
exactly as they come from the lips of the people. When they publish
collections of these songs for popular use they supply accompaniments
which are sometimes sophisticated and, in Mr. Sharp’s case, scholarly
and delightful. But they seek always to preserve the letter and the
spirit of the melodies in their arrangements. Such singers as the
Misses Fuller, and Yvette Gilbert and her pupil Miss Loraine Wyman
have spread the knowledge of the folk-songs of England and France and
have demonstrated the great beauty of them to thousands who had never
suspected it.
The English songs, fine as they are from a technical standpoint, have
no very great emotional range. A few, like the famous ‘Willow’ song,
strike a deep note of sorrow, but by far the greater portion are
lively songs of the open-air or of festal gatherings. They reveal a
vigorous sense of touch, a whole-hearted joy in the primitive feelings
of the human body, in the invigorating English out-of-doors. They are
clear-cut and literal--recalling the type of life and feeling which we
associate with ‘the roast beef of old England.’ Their naïveté is that
of an exuberant joy in the commonplace joys of life. We may mention
such songs as ‘The Wraggle Taggle Gipsies, O!’ and ‘The Holly and the
Ivy’ for their inspiriting physical vigor. Such songs as ‘God Rest
Ye Merry Gentlemen’ (old tune), the Wassail song from Sussex, or the
Sheep-shearing Song from Somerset, are worthy of much study as fine
examples of the old English use of modal scales.
The Scotch songs, of all true folk-songs the world over, have for many
decades been the most familiar. No nation, except perhaps Russia, has
been more vigorously creative in its folk-music than Scotland. Many
excellent judges regard the Scotch folk-music as the finest in the
world. It is probably quite as ancient as any. It entered into the
lives of the Scotch people from the earliest times, when the Highland
bards sang their praises to little tribal chieftains or narrated in
rude verse the battles between one clan and another. There is a very
old harper’s tune in existence, probably much modified in the course
of the centuries but still eloquent of antiquity, which suggests the
majesty of the days gone by. (It may be found under its modern title,
‘Harp of the Highlands.’) A large proportion of these tunes have lost
their original words and taken on new ones. Robert Burns stimulated the
process by writing words of his own (among them some of the greatest
of his poems) for well-known melodies. The loss of the old texts,
which were often crude or indecent, is, on the whole, of little moment
from the artistic standpoint, especially since Burns, one of the
finest folk-spirits of all ages, wrote words which fit the mouths of
the people like their own. Perhaps, too, his words, as in the case of
‘Scots Wha Hae,’ helped to keep the old tunes alive and popular. Burns
is one of the rare instances of a conscious artist who has been able to
meddle with folk-art without making himself ridiculous.
A large number of the Scotch songs are written in the pentatonic
or five-note scale--our ordinary major with the fourth and seventh
omitted. Whether this was due to some early form of the Scotch bagpipe
or to the genius of the people is still an open question.[8] But it is
certain that the Scotch have given an individual flavor to their songs
by means of this scale without betraying the least embarrassment over
the absence of the two notes. Who imagines, for instance, until it is
pointed out, that the magnificent ‘Auld Lang Syne’ is wholly in the
pentatonic? The pentatonic feeling runs through nearly all the Scotch
songs and in a large proportion of them exists almost in full purity.
The occasional use of the fourth and seventh in the tunes of ‘Scots Wha
Hae’ or ‘The Campbells Are Coming’ is unessential and probably a recent
modification.
The range of feeling in the Scotch songs is almost equal to that of
music itself. ‘Scots Wha Hae’ ranks with the three or four finest
patriotic songs the world over. No grander hymn than ‘Auld Lang Syne’
has ever been sung; even _Adeste Fideles_, that treasure of the modern
hymnal, seems to take on a certain triviality beside its irresistible
rhythm. And what dance tune can be found that contains such an
inexhaustible supply of life as ‘The Campbells Are Coming’ or ‘A
Highland Lad My Love Was Born?’ Where can one match the pensive sadness
of ‘Loch Lomond’ or the sentimental tenderness of ‘Will Ye Gang Over
the Lee?’ Some of the Jacobite songs--‘Charlie Is My Darling’ or ‘The
Piper of Dundee’--are inimitable for high spirits. One who turns over
the pages of a book of Scotch folk-songs will find melodies of deep
emotion unsurpassed in all song literature. Scotch song has also been
materially enriched by conscious composers, though never, perhaps, by
eminent ones. We need only mention the impressive ‘Caller Herrin’,’ or
‘Annie Laurie,’ one of the greatest folk-songs of all times. A thorough
knowledge of Scotch folk-songs will acquaint the singer with almost
every fundamental type of lyric utterance.
The Irish folk-song, likewise, is very fine, but it has, on the whole,
neither the flexible range nor the supreme sense of artistic fitness
possessed by the Scotch. The dominant moods are two: one the lively
dance spirit, represented by the Irish jigs and reels; and the other
the richly sentimental and even tragic tone of the love songs. As it
happens, Irish folk-song has undergone the same process as the Scotch
in having a native poet supply in great abundance new words to the
old tunes. The ‘Irish Melodies’ of Sir Thomas Moore are pretentious
poems designed to supplant the homely words of the folk-poets. But if
Burns escaped being ridiculous in his attempt to supply his native
country with a new folk-art, Moore emphatically did not. Nothing could
be more incongruous than his pompous poems with their dreary romantic
paraphernalia of harps and fair ladies. As poems his lyrics have only
the virtues of the drawing-room, a mellifluous flow of words and a
certain sensuous grace. As folk-art they are a painful absurdity. They
evoke abstractions and conventional poetic phrases where the popular
genius goes unerringly to concrete fact. They have the dreary sameness
of the second-rate talent where the folk-poetry has all the variety
of the commonplace things of this world and of the ordinary people in
it. Yet Moore’s words are in many instances firmly wedded to the music
in the popular mind, and it is not likely that a divorce will ever
be achieved. This is doubtless because, false as the poet was to the
spirit of the music, he caught and persuasively stated the romantic
sentimentality of the Celtic nature.
Some of the older Irish songs have an archaic flavor not less marked
than the English. The Doric mode especially is used sometimes with
savage vigor. Indeed, the Irish as the race of warriors are represented
almost exclusively in the older songs--songs like ‘Remember the Glories
of Brian the Brave’ or ‘The Sword Shining Brightly’ (Moore’s words),
which in their crude martial frenzy can hardly be matched the world
over. The innumerable jigs and reels, some of which are of the finest
quality, are often close to the Scotch in physical energy, but in
nearly every case they preserve a certain note of sadness. Perhaps the
best of all the Irish songs are the sentimental ones. The fine tunes to
which Moore set his words ‘The Harp that Once Through Tara’s Halls’ and
‘When in Death’ strike a wonderfully deep chord of emotion. It is hard
to realize the great number of sentimental Irish tunes which are of the
highest beauty. They suffer, however, too often from excess. The long
drawn cadences are hard to render honestly; in their excess of feeling
they are apt to sound insincere. They lack the clear-cut statement
which makes the Scotch songs so unfailingly true to the highest demands
of art. Yet the folk-song of Ireland is a product of which any nation
might be proud. And, on the whole, the folk-music of the British Isles
is their worthiest contribution to musical literature. In former ages
these islands were not inferior to any country in Europe in musical
vigor. As the centuries have passed and left England far behind in
musical creation these songs have remained as a proof of the sound
healthfulness and the exuberant creativeness of her popular genius.
III
The French folk-song more than any other has contained from early
times the spirit of its conscious art. Or perhaps France’s conscious
art has, more than in most countries, been true to the genius of its
people as revealed in its folk-art. Its melodies are rarely rich and
luscious--rarely even emotional in the more strenuous sense of the
term. Often they seem, at first hearing, to be cold and thin. But such
a view is, of course, false. The French melodies have both emotion
and sensuous beauty. But it is in the famous French ‘taste’ not to
shout one’s message to the heavens. You do not appreciate the meaning
of these melodies until you have come to know and love them, just as
you do not appreciate the meaning of a child until you have come to
know and love him. You must be on the alert, sensitive to catch the
meaning of a whisper or a gesture. And, in addition to the meaning,
you must learn to love the formal beauty of a French melody. No nation
has carried perfection of form, even in the smallest things, to such
a pitch as the French. The opening phrase of a French folk-tune may
seem almost meaningless and pointless. But somewhere in it there is
a suggestion of something distinctive in it. Watch for this, then
follow it out in the other phrases--a gentle contrast, a delicate
indiscretion, a comforting restatement. In some moods we shall find
this whispered statement more stimulating, more thrilling than any
burst of Italian passion.
As early as the fifteenth century we have French songs which show
these qualities of restraint and delicate design. Of such we may
instance _Sy je perdoys mon amy_ and _Vray Dieu d’amours_. As we come
to later centuries we find a host of songs (collected in great numbers
by Weckerlin) which are scarcely to be distinguished from the simple
songs of the great French composers. The delightful _chanson_, _O, ma
tendre Musette_, is accredited to Monsigny, but it is an open question
whether the melody was not taken by him bodily from a folk-tune. Many
are the _villanelles_ and _musettes_ which are of folk origin. In no
other country are the folk-music and the art-music less distinct. A
few French songs, like _Le pauvre laboureur_, show the freedom and
irregularity of phrase which betoken a development independent of
art-music. This particular song is almost unrhythmical, probably a
development from one or two stereotyped phrases, like the street-cries
of Paris and of some of the Italian cities. But irregular songs are
unusual. The French popular genius seems to have the same sense for
design that has made the great men of France distinguished, and this
sense is shown almost universally in its songs. (See Appendix for
French-Canadian Folk-song.)
There could hardly be a more violent contrast than between the
folk-music of the two Latin countries, France and Italy. The Italians
are famous for their violent emotions, and these are revealed in their
folk-songs, puffing like a steam engine. The utmost of passionate
expression, by any means at hand--this seems to be the ideal of a
goodly portion of the songs. Where the French songs are reserved the
Italian are frenzied; where the French are delicate the Italian are
like a sledge-hammer; where the French use a needle the Italian use an
ax. This statement must be made with some exceptions, notably the songs
of Venice and certain other northern localities. The Venetian songs are
reserved and chiselled. Many of them might have been written by Mozart.
They never go to excess of emotion. They are often as formally perfect
as the French. The song known as ‘The Fisher’ (which has practically
become a folk-song in Germany) may be taken as a fair example of this
graceful and discreet type of lyric. As we go farther south the heat
and sensuousness of the land show more and more in the music: Naples
has a type of folk-song all her own. It sometimes shows the grace of
the Venetian song, but never its reserve. The lighter songs all have
an ardor of their own, for the Southern Italian is never abstract.
But their lightness carries with it a certain fickleness, as though
the lover expected to serenade at least a dozen fair ladies before
the night was done. _La Vera Sorrentina_ is one of the best of this
type. The Neapolitan are perhaps the best known of all the Italian
songs, and there are thousands of them that have been published. A
large proportion of these are not strictly folk-songs, having been
written by conscious composers (who, however, were of the people and
composed for the people). For it seems that the folk-genius of the
Italians was almost dormant in music for several centuries. But these
semi-folk-songs are among the best. The more modern ones nearly always
betray a certain vulgarity, a certain commonplaceness somewhere in
their outline--a fault which is not often to be charged against the
genuine folk-song. But one is willing to forgive them this, for
the sake of the loveliness which is beneath it all. The strains of
_Oh, sole mio_ have already gone round the world, and _Oh, Maria_ is
scarcely inferior. And when the Italian Song (especially the Sicilian)
breaks out in full passion it is not to be matched for crude emotional
power the world over. Any one of these songs, as, for instance, the
fine one known from its refrain as _O, Mama mia_, shows the inspiration
of the bloody Italian operas of the ’nineties.
Much of the Italian folk-music is enlivened with the most powerful
rhythm imaginable. The dance is cultivated in Italy as it is in
scarcely any other country in the world. Many of the Spanish rhythms
are to be found in the Italian songs, a relic of the times when the
Spaniards held Sicily and the southern parts of the peninsula. We
should not forget, either, the inimitable joke-songs of the Italians,
the clear source of the _opera buffa_, which has been cultivated
successfully by no other people. The love of the Italians for a joke
has been noted from the earliest mediæval times. We need only listen to
the Italian fruit-merchant trying to convince the ward politician that
Columbus discovered Ireland to know that the _tempo allegro giocoso_ is
as alive to-day in the southern Latins as it ever was. The innumerable
joke songs of Italy present a peculiar problem to the singer. They
must be sung with the most expert enunciation, with a fine technique
that conceals all art, and with a spirit bursting with fun. Perhaps it
would be truer to say that they are impossible to any but the Italian
born and bred. Their purely musical value, it must be admitted, is
usually slight; but they have none the less a high place in folk-song
literature. It is only fair to say that the musicianship of the Italian
songs is often careless and faulty. Especially is this likely to be
true in the accompaniments, which are always of the simplest possible
description and frequently become monotonous with their limited supply
of chords in regular succession. Yet this fault is only one more mark
of the Italian genius, to which the melody--that is, the voice part,
the human part--is all-important.
The Spanish songs are much less known than they deserve. Of Spain, as
of England, it can be said that its folk-songs are its chief musical
contribution. The pure folk-song of Spain, given to the world chiefly
through the researches of the composer Albéniz, is highly sectional and
local, primitive, almost untouched by the traditions of the great world
of music. Just across this low range of mountains there may be another
quite different type of song, with different scales and different
rhythms and a different type of emotional utterance corresponding
to the sectional variation of temperament. In addition to this pure
folk-song there is an extensive Spanish folk-music which is somewhat
more sophisticated and much better known. It is this class that chiefly
contains the wonderful dance-tunes which we associate with Spain--for
here rhythm is cultivated as nowhere else in the world. The chief
rhythms--those of the _Habañera_, the _Seguidilla_, the _Bolero_, the
_Fandango_, and the rest--have in the Spanish songs a poignancy which
it is impossible to analyze. The melodies seem built on and for the
rhythms. Both may seem simple and literal, yet there is a peculiar
fitness in this simplicity which is ever the mark of the folk-genius,
and which in this case gives the rhythms an unbelievable quantity of
physical drive. The chief geographical and political sections of Spain
have preserved their individuality in their folk-songs. The Castilian
song is light and sparkling. The Catalonian is sombre and intense. The
Andalusian is sensuous and passionate. In the singing of all these
songs there is scarcely a trace of the intellectual factor. They are
to be sung in a sort of divine frenzy. It is not too much to say that
they must be sung with the whole physical body. For their powerful
rhythm must be felt in every nerve and muscle, else it cannot be
expressed in the voice. Of all songs these of Spain demand the most of
the merely physical--of bone and nerves and muscles.
IV
The German folk-songs, because they are the best known of all, will
here be treated briefly. They have, as we shall so often have occasion
to point out, that faculty of concentrating intense and elevated
emotion in a simple phrase of a few notes. The great progressions
that ring in Bach, the great cadences which thunder forth in the
Lutheran chorale--these we feel in all German popular song. The number
of these songs is as the sands of the sea. The emotional range is
almost that of the human heart itself. The melodic organization is
much more complex than in the case of the Italian songs. Sometimes it
becomes even austere. But, on the whole, no nation has songs which go
so straight to the heart. They are not remarkable for rhythm nor in
general for the lighter qualities prized by the French and the north
Italians. Their character is, rather, homely and intimate. Some of
them reflect the vigorous and rather rough spirits of German youth.
More reflect the exaggerated sentimentality of German middle age. Yet
this sentimentality, while it is introspective, is never morbid. It is
founded deep in the heart of a magnificently healthy people and is no
more than the honest expression of a passing mood. From the time of
the Minnesingers and their charmingly graceful ditties the idealism of
the German people has been revealed in their singing. Frequently this
takes on a religious tinge, so that the Lutheran church could adopt
true folk-tunes for its hymns without incongruity. Often the spirit of
quite secular songs is essentially religious, as in that magnificent
song of Silcher’s--
‘Aennchen von Tharau, mein Reichthum, mein Gut,
Du bist mein Leben, mein Fleisch und mein Blut.’
Certainly these songs of Germany can, of all folk-songs, least bear
any insincerity or affectation. They seem to be a touchstone for
determining genuineness of soul--that quality which the Germans
call _Echtheit_. They, above all other songs, demand soundness of
musicianship and honesty of method.
Unwillingly leaving these songs with these few remarks, we turn to the
Scandinavian countries, which are closely allied to Germany in their
folk-music, yet show a definite though subtle individuality. The Danish
songs retain the sincerity of the German, but add, perhaps, a little
more lightness of touch, a little more feeling for delicacy of design.
Their relation with the songs of the northern Scandinavian countries is
tenuous but it can be noticed after a little study. The songs of Sweden
are much more individual, though they can hardly be said to surpass
the German in any particular. Most popular among them are the famous
‘Neck Polka,’ the spirited ‘Marching Song,’ and the old ballad, ‘Little
Karen,’ the last a melody wonderful in its combination of literal
musical statement with subtle artistic grace. Norway, most distant of
the three countries, has quite naturally shown itself most individual
in its folk-music. It is the individuality which many critics have
found in the music of Grieg. It bears an air of mystery; one hardly
knows whether of the past or of the future. It suggests at times the
downrightness of the old Vikings, and at others the ‘atmospheric’
quality of the modern composers. However one may feel about this, it
is certain that the spirit is healthy and stimulating. For variety and
interest the folk-music of Norway can rank among the best.
V
The folk-music of the Hungarians has been made universally popular
through the Hungarian Rhapsodies of Liszt, who was one of the first
to perceive its high artistic possibilities. It has been generally
supposed that this folk-music was invented by the Gypsies, who have
always been regarded as the Hungarian musicians _par excellence_.
Liszt regarded it so. Competent investigators agree that the melodies
themselves are the product of the Hungarian people and that the
ornaments and stylistic qualities alone have been added by the Gypsies,
who, according to this view, are incapable of true invention. It is
at least certain that the Gypsies are the representative musicians
of Hungary to-day and have wholly stamped Hungarian folk-music with
their individuality. It has been said that Hungary has no vocal
folk-music--no folk-_song_ at all. This, of course, is true only in
a limited sense. But it is certainly true that all the music has a
predominantly instrumental character and that the greater portion of
it is possible only on instruments. The Gypsies themselves, though
usually without formal musical education, are frequently marvellous
masters of the violin in their own way. Their love for long and
meaningless decoration is famous. No tune enters their keeping that
does not emerge covered from beginning to end with trills, shakes,
slides, turns, scales, and cadenzas. The _rubato_ instinct among them
is very strong. At the same time the rhythmical and dance instinct is
almost unsurpassed. And, as anyone familiar with the Rhapsodies well
knows, these three qualities--namely the instrumental, the decorative
and the rhythmic--have stamped themselves indelibly on all Hungarian
folk-music. The Gypsies tend to mutilate a tune past recognition by
their wanton decoration. But when they are able to keep their instinct
in control they leave the melody glittering with decorative richness
but firm and vigorous in outline.
The chief external characteristic of the Hungarian melodies,--their
accented grace-note (a feature scarcely to be found in any other
folk-music the world over, except to a smaller degree in the
Scotch)--is said to come from the character of the Hungarian language,
which is inclined to heavily accented first syllables. A more probable
explanation would be that it comes from the nature of the violin, on
which most of these melodies were doubtless composed. For in the case
of a short grace-note, the violinist’s bow has hardly time to take a
new stroke between the grace-note and the chief note; hence both are
taken on one stroke, and as the beginning of the stroke is the natural
place for the accent the grace-note, however short, tends to take on
all the accent of a true first note of the rhythmic measure. Yet such
abstract discussion is empty in the face of the melodies themselves.
Many of these are songs and excellent ones--whether composed for
the words originally or fitted out with words later makes little
difference. And many of them are distinctly singable, though they
demand a robust vocal mechanism such as few parlor-trained singers
possess. But whether sung or not they are all glorified dances. The
_rubato_ may be elaborate, but the feeling of rhythm is always present.
Many of the songs preserve the form of the national dance, the Czardas,
beginning with a slow Lassan and ending with the violent Friska, as
in the Hungarian Rhapsodies. There may be pauses and cadenzas between
the two, there may be pauses and long _ritardandos_ in the body of the
dance itself (as frequently in the well-known Brahms arrangements of
Hungarian dances), but the firm rhythmic sense is always there.
The beauty of the Hungarian melodies, merely as melodies, is
unsurpassed. The great melody which Liszt used in the Fourteenth
Hungarian Rhapsody, and which has since come to be used as the national
song, to the fine words which in the German version commence _Wenn dem
Ungarvolke Gott viel Leiden gab_--this has become a true folk-song by
adoption, though it is not one in origin. No country ever had a more
glorious hymn for its national praise. Several dance-tunes given by
Reimann[9] are of the highest quality--especially _Zigeunermusik_, _Der
Seele Spiegel_, and _Drunten im Tale_, and _Erwartung_, the last being
a melody which served Brahms for one of his ‘Hungarian Dances.’ Another
matchless tune is one translated by Reimann as _In Grosswardein_. Here
we see used to full value (in a melody of great simplicity) several
of the most distinctive qualities of the Hungarian music, namely the
accented grace note, the peculiar minor scale having a flatted sixth
and a raised seventh, and always emphasizing the skip between, and the
conventional phrase structure, which always repeats the first phrase,
note for note, in the dominant. Indeed, no songs are better worth
study for their clear and solid architecture. Francis Alexander Korbay
(born, Pesth, 1848; died, 1914) was one of the chief enthusiasts for
the Hungarian folk-song and has helped by his collections and editions
to spread the love of them. His arrangements are sometimes elaborate
and often not true to the spirit of the original, but they sufficiently
preserve the national spirit to foreign ears. And it has always been
true that folk-music must first go through a stage of adaptation and
arrangement before people are willing to listen to it in its purity. Of
the Korbay songs at least one fine example, ‘Had a Horse,’ has become
familiar in American concert halls.
VI
The Russian folk-songs, as rich in variety and intensity as those
of any country on earth, present more preliminary difficulties to
the foreign music-lover than any others. As in most other countries,
the real appreciation of folk-music in Russia is a matter of the
last half century. The Russian songs which were best known before
then bore the same relation to the genuine article that the popular
English songs of the eighteenth century bore to the Somerset songs of
which we have spoken--that is, they were rather civilized, perhaps
consciously composed, and contained far more of the conventional than
of the national. Such a song is ‘The Red Sarafan,’ a fine melody, but
far removed from the genuine peasant folk-song. Glinka, founder of
the modern Russian school of composition, recognized the distinctive
qualities of the Russian popular music, and introduced some of its
effects very tentatively into his operas and songs. Rubinstein hazarded
the statement that the Russian folk-song was more varied and profound
than that of any other land. But Rubinstein, being all German in his
training, did not follow the obvious moral. It remained for the great
group of ‘neo-Russian’ composers, under the inspiring leadership of
Balakireff, to make the Russian folk-song the source and standard
of Russian composition. Several of this group made researches among
folk-songs or collections of them and studied them in what we have
called the modern spirit, which is equally scientific, scholarly, and
artistic. More recently the Russian government has spent considerable
sums on scientific investigation among the peasants, and the results
of these researches, especially in the great work of Mme. Lineva, have
served as a standard in folk-research the world over. The earlier
collections of Balakireff, Rimsky-Korsakoff, and others, though as yet
untranslated, are sources of deep delight for the student who will take
a little trouble among dusty libraries.
The great body of Russian folk-songs is far nearer to the primitive
than is the popular music of Italy, Scotland, and Germany. Many of
the loveliest tunes are mere snatches of melody. The more highly
organized tunes are frequently irregular and crude. The scales are
usually distinctive, and the tonic is inclined to be very movable, if
not entirely absent. The minor, of course, predominates, as in all
primitive music. It is used with the utmost distinction, showing how
utterly Russian life (except in the highest classes) has for centuries
been isolated from the influence of Western Europe. The common
impression, because of the predominance of this minor, is that Russian
songs are all ‘sad’ or ‘moody.’ This is not just, for the minor, which
is an expressive means with us, is nothing more than a convention in
Russian folk-music. It is the material out of which the music is made.
It can be manipulated to express almost any emotion which the singer
can feel. Hence the notion that the range of Russian folk-songs is
narrow is quite false. They have a remarkably wide range, from the
deepest gloom, through the tenderest sentimentality, to the fiercest
exhilaration of physical life. The irregularity of the melodies, too,
is not necessarily a sign of crudeness, but often an instrument of the
highest expressive potency.
The brief studies which will be made later in this volume into
Russian art-song can have but little meaning, except in relation to
the folk-songs which are the source of it. The irregularity of metre
in Moussorgsky’s songs, the barbarity of some of Borodine’s and
Rachmaninoff’s, are the direct outcome of these composers’ studies
in folk-song. It is difficult to mention these songs by name, since
few of the texts have been translated into English. Yet it would be
a pity if the student were altogether debarred from a knowledge of
this wonderful literature on that account. The standard collections of
Russian folk-music are available, though somewhat difficult to obtain.
And though the words are printed in fearsome Russian, the music is
in an international language. And it is of course true that many of
the Russian songs are to be found in general folk-song collections
and may be discovered with a little searching. Those who read French
will find in Mme. Lineva’s work, published in two languages by the
Russian government, an admirable discourse on Slavic song, thoroughly
scientific, yet clear and without great technicality. In this work
the interested musical student will find one of the most fascinating
subjects imaginable--the growth of independent polyphony and
counterpoint spontaneously among the singers of the melodies, a thing
unthinkable to those of us who have learned counterpoint from dry text
books.
Bohemia and Poland, though Slavic in blood, are widely separated from
Russia in their art. The latter has for many centuries been Roman
Catholic in religion, and had attained a high degree of Western culture
and refinement when Muscovy was still semi-barbarian. In fact the
political rivalry between the eastern and western Slavs, intensified
by the difference in religion, led the Poles to look to the west for
their friends and their cultural models. Bohemia, too, as early as the
thirteenth century, was peculiarly western in its ideals. It possessed
the earliest real university, and nurtured the non-secular attitude
toward learning which later came to such glorious fruit in France and
Germany. Further, the Bohemians were the earliest Protestants and
free-thinkers, and showed the most enlightened political aspirations
in an age of darkness. So, in spite of blood and language, these two
nations show in their art a dominant kinship with Germany.
One of the earliest Bohemian folk-songs, _Sirotek_ (‘The Waif’), might
almost be taken for a German chorale of the sixteenth century. Other
popular songs, like _Wsak nam tak_ (‘The Sweetheart’) and _Dobromyslua
husicka_ (‘The Happy Gosling’), are almost Tyrolese in their
mellifluous facility. Still another fine song, _Na tech Kolodejskejch_
(‘Vain Regrets’), might in parts be a German children’s song. Again
the song, _Pod tim nasim okeneckem_ (‘Under Our Cottage Window’), with
its ‘snaps’ and sharp accents, suggest the melodies of Hungary. Thus
Bohemia, in her folk-music, shows the influence of her neighbors on all
sides, but scarcely a trace of the indigenous Slavic stock. Many of
the songs show a high degree of formal perfection, and the sentiment,
especially in the tenderer moods, is often deep and moving. Such a
lyric as the lullaby, _Hajej muj andilku_, may rank with the best of
any land in sheer beauty. If we look among the Bohemian songs for the
nationalism that reveals itself in strange scales and irregular rhythm
we shall find scarcely a trace of it. The metre and melodic line are
always mature and polished. But with our inner ear we may detect, in
the best songs, an endearing quality, a sweet lovableness, which speaks
with a distinct and national voice.
The qualities of Polish national music have been made known most widely
in the mazurkas of Chopin. These must not be taken as representing the
real qualities of the Polish folk-song, but they offer an excellent
point of departure. In some ways the songs of Poland show a racial
relation with the Russian. The swift-moving energy, the recurring
and pervading melancholy, find their parallels in the music of the
eastern Slavs. But the scale is nearly always the familiar major, or
a slightly modified minor. The western nations outgrew the uncertain
tonality of the old modes much earlier than the east, and Poland,
with her eyes always toward the west, doubtless adopted the technique
of music as she found it. Thus such a song as the _Krakowiak_ (an
irresistible dance movement), though it recalls in some vague way the
spirit of Little Russian music, lends itself perfectly to conventional
German harmonization. Another song, _Gdy wczystem polu_ (‘In Summer’),
might have been thrown off in one of Chopin’s idle moments. What these
songs have, above all other qualities, is grace. No nation, in its
folk-music, has used rhythm with greater delicacy. They recall to us a
Poland of the story-books, a land of dilettantism and social graces.
More than any other folk-songs, except the French, they demand in their
interpretation a subtle ear and a firm artistic control.
The United States of America has its own folk-music of a sort, a
part of it quite indigenous. This part is the music of the North
American Indians, which is more primitive than any other large body of
folk-music in our possession. There are, also, the songs of the western
cowboys, the ‘Spirituals’ and slave-songs of the southern negroes,
and the songs of Stephen Foster, all of which are worthy to rank as
folk-songs. All these examples of American music have been exhaustively
treated in Volume IV (Chapter XI).
FOOTNOTES:
[7] Countess Martinengo-Cæsareseo.
[8] _Cf._ Vol. I, chap. VI.
[9] Heinrich Reimann: _Ausländische Volkslieder_.
CHAPTER VI
THE EARLY DEVELOPMENT OF SONG
Song in early Christian times--The age of chivalry--The
troubadours and trouvères--The minnesingers--The mastersingers;
the Lutheran revival--Polyphonic eclipse of song.
I
We think of the first eight or ten centuries of the Christian era as
a chasm between the ancient and the modern. But this is of course not
strictly true, least of all in folk-music. In the church, indeed,
music struggled slowly and painfully, surrounded by doctrine and
law. But in the music, as in the customs, of the people, there was
no break. The apostolic succession of song continued unbroken from
the time of the Greeks to the time of Schubert. Through all the
mediæval period folk-music was flourishing, growing in richness and
in influence steadily up to the time when it entered art music by the
back door, so to speak, stealing into the Catholic ritual. For many
centuries the songs of the old world continued in the new. For the
Christian era did not come all at once. It attained formal dominance
when Constantine adopted it as the official religion of Rome. But it
needed many centuries more before it could attain complete sway over
people’s hearts. Pagan customs and pagan songs were still living and
beautiful. The Christian missionaries gained their hold over the people
by compromising with the past. The old festivals were not rejected
in favor of the new; they were merged with the new. Thus Christmas,
among the Germanic nations, was made to absorb an older festival of
the turning of the sun, and the mistletoe, which had had a profound
religious significance for the Pagans became one of the minor symbols
of the Christian feast and continues to-day an essential part of the
Yuletide festivities, as we know.
And thus it was with the people’s songs. Men’s beliefs were
Christianized, but men’s feelings remained Pagan. And the two existed
side by side for centuries without trouble. Charlemagne ordered a
collection to be made of German songs (all of Pagan origin) and did
not feel that there was anything impious in his action. The Pagan was
honored along with the Christian just as, some five centuries later,
the Classical was honored in the Renaissance. But the millennial year
was approaching, when men expected the world to end, or Christ to come
and take personal charge of his Kingdom. And throughout all Christendom
there arose a desire in men to make themselves perfect for the second
coming. And so arose a mania for exterminating all that remained of the
old world. Charlemagne’s son, Ludwig the Pious, despised the German
songs his father had collected. And it was so all over Europe. In
these years the last vestiges of Paganism were stamped out, except for
the sweet souvenirs of it which the institution of the mistletoe and
similar symbols have retained.
Pagan songs of the early Christian period were mostly in the hands of
wandering minstrels and storytellers who roamed the world in great
numbers. These men, like the songs they sang, were direct descendants
of the Pagan world. One well accredited theory says that the Italian
minstrels were the gladiators of Roman times, and their descendants.
The last of the Roman gladiatorial shows was held about the beginning
of the fifth century. After that Christian sentiment forbade these
bloody entertainments, and the gladiators, the entertainers _par
excellence_ of Roman times, found themselves without a means of
livelihood. They wandered from town to town, giving exhibitions of
strength and agility in the market places, just as the acrobats do
to this day in European cities. They became a separate caste, almost
a separate race. Inevitably they invented or appropriated songs with
which to entertain their admirers between the acts. Some of them became
itinerant merchants, selling molasses or some other delicacy and
attracting the crowds by their music. Sometimes they had dancing bears,
or camels, or trick monkeys.
In the more serious northern countries--Germany and England--they
were probably the remnants of the old priesthood. Religion has always
needed music as a support, and the old priests were themselves bards,
or had bards in their service to sing their doctrines. As they fell
into disrepute with the advance of Christianity, they had to seek their
living as best they might, and they became minstrels, singing the old
sagas and stories which people still loved. Often they became attached
to the service of the courts. The chronicler Robert Ware says that
the battle of Hastings, in which William the Conqueror subjected the
Saxons, was opened by the minstrel or _jongleur_ Taillefer, attached to
the Norman army, who advanced singing of the fabulous exploits of some
hero of the time and performing feats of agility with his lance and
sword, which struck terror into the Saxons, who thought his dexterity
must be the effect of witchcraft. But more often the minstrels were
popular entertainers, with a collection of tricks--hence the name of
_jongleur_, which means player or trickster, and gives us our English
word ‘juggler.’
Their music had no very exalted status, since it was only a ‘side-line’
to their merchandise or performance. But to the people of the time it
was as important as our orchestral concerts and operas are to us.
For it effected the interchange of art and ideas between province and
province and between nation and nation. The minstrels were rarely the
inventors of the songs they sang. The music of the time was genuine
folk-music and the minstrels only learned and disseminated the popular
songs. But they represented the whole institution of secular music in
the early Christian age.
In their roving life, the minstrels tended to become wretchedly
immoral. They sometimes formed themselves into bands for the acting of
plays, taking women along with them, and these bands became the synonym
for dissolute living. Sometimes they were beggars pure and simple,
willing to get money by any means except working, and purchasable
equally to spread a scandal or commit a murder. They had no home and
no citizenship. In 554 A. D. Childebert promulgated very stringent
laws for the suppression of their licentiousness. Philip Augustus,
King of France, caused them to be expelled from his domains. They were
outside the law and its protection. For centuries they were regarded as
the evil children of another race. A citizen might attack or insult a
minstrel and the latter had no recourse in law, except the privilege of
striking his opponent’s _shadow_. This outlawing of musicians continued
(in the statute books, at least) for many years. There are traces of
it still in certain lands. Even New York state, it is said, has an
unrepealed statute somewhere in its dusty books authorizing the arrest
of ‘common showmen.’
This prejudice, in the early years, seems to have been generally
justified. The lives of the minstrels were certainly dissolute. Their
personal characters had all the unattractive qualities of an inferior
race--to dying for money or favor, fickleness and vindictiveness.
They had to truckle to the great, and flatter the prejudices of the
masses. They had, moreover, the means of making themselves feared
by the knights and barons of whom they demanded money in return for
their music. For if they were allowed to leave the castle disgruntled,
nothing was easier for them than to spread abroad among the people
scandals concerning the great men and ladies, the tale that Sir Knight
was a wife-beater and that his lady was having an affair with her page.
A certain jongleur, Colin Muset, who plied his trade in Lorraine and
Champagne in the thirteenth century, once had occasion to sing the
following ditty to the noble of whom he had asked largess:
‘Lord Count, I have the viol played
Before yourself, within your hall,
And you my service never paid
Nor gave me any wage at all;
’Twas villainy.’
It is not difficult to catch the implied threat in these lines.
But the fickleness and flunkeyism of the minstrels served them well.
When they had been expelled from France because of their libellous
tongues, many of them were invited over to England by William de
Longchamps, bishop of Ely, who governed the kingdom during the absence
of Richard the Lionhearted, and who, anxious to blind the people to the
vices of his régime, hired these singers to proclaim his virtues to the
public. Thus art is continually being called to the glorification of
vice and tyranny. But for such services the minstrels had their reward.
So useful did they make themselves, wherever they went, that they
received increasing marks of respect. When the Christian revival of the
tenth and eleventh centuries came, they made themselves its apostles,
singing the new songs in place of the old. The acting troupes presented
miracle plays on Biblical or traditional religious subjects and were
presently invited by the clergy to perform on the church steps or
even within the church itself. Centuries later they had attained such
dignity that they could organize themselves into guilds under the
protection of the reigning prince. They had their aristocratic and
exclusive labor unions, were employed to organize town bands, and in
many places formed the nuclei for court orchestras.
Of the music of these minstrels in the early centuries we know next
to nothing. There existed nothing at the time that could be called
musical notation, and tradition, if it has brought any of their songs
down to us, has changed them in the course of the centuries. We have,
it is true, a spirited song, supposed to have been written on the
death of Charlemagne, calling on Franks and Romans to lament and honor
the lost sovereign. But this was probably not purely popular in its
origin, else it would not have attained to writing. The words of a few
ditties have been preserved. The celebrated ‘Song of Roland,’ dating
from Charlemagne’s time, was supposed to have been sung as late as the
battle of Poitiers in 1356. But what chiefly assures us of the vigor
of the popular music of the time was the wide variety of types it
contained--patriotic songs, love songs, songs satirical and historical,
and many others. We know also that the music was original and alive,
quite in contrast to that of the church. For when the popular tradition
was taken up by the aristocratic Troubadours and Trouvères in the
eleventh and twelfth centuries, the melodies had an independent
character that proves a vigorous antecedent development. The old
modes continued to dominate church music up to the fifteenth and even
sixteenth centuries. But the songs of the Troubadours and Trouvères are
often written in the modern major scale. The popular music of the ninth
and tenth centuries had undergone the development that the church did
not attain until five hundred years later.
We know rather more concerning the instruments used by the wandering
minstrels. They were of all the types which have since furnished out
the modern orchestra. The harp, a remnant of the very earliest times,
was favored by the more aristocratic musicians and steadily became
enlarged as the technique of music widened. The lute (much like the
modern guitar), most popular of amateur instruments in the time of the
Renaissance, was widely used. All kinds of pipes, ancestors of the
wood-wind instruments of our orchestras, flourished in a great variety
of styles. And the incipient violin was represented by the rota, rebek,
and vielle, figuring under a multitude of different names. Like the
Saxon language during the Norman domination in England, popular music
developed in the dark, without official sanction, finally coming forth,
strong and mature, from its hiding and carrying everything before it.
II
With the approach of the millennial year we find the beginnings of
that institution which was to enframe all the life of the later middle
ages--Chivalry. The first military games and tourneys appear in the
reign of Charles the Bald, in the ninth century. From that time on,
life became more pretentious, more individual, more refined. The
chivalric ideal was professedly Christian. It preached what the Pagan
could never have understood--reverence for womanhood and respect for
the weak. Knights gained the church’s special sanction when they
devoted themselves to righting wrongs and rescuing women in distress.
The tender poetry which in early mediæval times became attached to
the figure of the Madonna, was now extended to all women--at least to
all women of social standing. Because a woman had been chosen as the
Mother of God all women were regarded as holy in her likeness. With
this changed attitude toward the weaker sex there came a multitude of
delicate shades of sentiment and an exaggerated devotion that would
have seemed childish to the ancient Greeks. It was common for the
Troubadours to profess the most ecstatic love for some woman of high
rank, who was hardly expected to do more than smile in return. Love, in
its more fanciful aspects, became the mania of the age.
It is not surprising, then, that the nobles of the time took up love,
one might almost say, as an avocation. They had nothing to do, much of
the time, but cultivate the fine arts. They caught the trick of making
verses and melodies. It was natural that love should be the chief
theme of their songs. And in Provence, the southeastern part of modern
France, there arose toward the end of the eleventh century, the cult or
institutions of the Troubadours. The Troubadours were primarily nobles,
cultivating the arts as a pastime. But many men of lower rank also took
up the fashion, winning their way through the beauty of their song. All
that we regard as most typical of French art was in their music and
verses--delicacy of wit and fancy, beauty of form, purity of diction.
They represented the utmost refinement to which their age attained.
They did not, like the jongleurs, accept money for their singing,
though they were proud to receive gifts from lords and ladies whom they
praised. But they often retained the jongleurs in their service. They
seem to have had ambitions of spreading their reputations as composers
and, as it was unbecoming their rank to sing in the market-places, they
hired jongleurs, as personal servants, to do it for them. Thus the
wandering minstrel of the ninth century, while losing something of his
artistic preëminence, gained no little in social dignity. Some gained
high reputation. We recall the story of Blondel, minstrel to Richard
the Lionhearted, who, when his liege lord was a prisoner in Germany
on his return from the Holy Land, sought him far and wide and made
himself known by his singing outside the castle, later bringing help
and liberty to his king.
In the north of France flourished the Trouvères, similar to the
Troubadours of the south. They were less delicate in touch, less
polished, but far more serious, frequently composing, in their own
fashion, works of science and history, theology and philosophy. Among
the Troubadours and Trouvères were Count Guillaume of Poitiers,
Count Thibaut of Champagne, King of Navarre, and Adam de la Halle.
The last named was not of noble blood, but gained high standing as
singer to the Count of Artois. In Spain, as well as in France, the
institution of courtly song took root and the noble singers were known
as _Trobadores_. In Italy the singer was known as _Trovatore_, though
the Provençal song did not gain much vogue in the land which was being
stirred by the awakening of the Renaissance. The Trouvères, through the
Norman court of London, influenced the native minstrelsy of England,
thus spreading over half of Europe the fame of the Provençal song.
The variety of artistic forms cultivated by the Troubadours and
Trouvères was great. Of them we can distinguish the dramatic works,
the romances, the stories or _fabliaux_, and the lyric works proper.
All of these, excepting, perhaps, the dramatic works, were at least in
part sung to the accompaniment of a musical instrument. The romances
sometimes approximated the length of epics, extending to 20,000 lines
or more. Of the romances there is one charming and widely known example
in ‘Aucassin and Nicolette,’ a long story of love and adventure,
frequently interrupted with a lovely song. It is probable that these
romances were recited in a somewhat formal manner through the more
narrative parts, perhaps chanted in the emotional sections, leading
up by means of a more and more musical delivery to the lyrics, which
undoubtedly had their set melodies. The fabliaux were short and witty
stories, usually satirical when not actually indecent. The lyrical
poems were divided by their singers into many classes, the distinctions
being largely nominal or fanciful. We can recall the canzonets, or
love-songs, including the serenade (the ‘evening song’) and the aubade
(‘morning song’). The _pastourelle_, or conventionalized song of
shepherd life, became the Pastoral of the Golden Age of France, one
of the most typical art-forms of the pre-Revolutionary period. There
were further the _sirvantes_, written to praise some beneficent prince;
the roundelays, with a set refrain after each verse or stanza; and the
dance songs, intended to be sung actually during dancing. Then there
were the _tenzone_, contentious songs, usually in dialog, often set
debates on some nice point of love. Sometimes the _tenzone_ were little
masterpieces of satire. One, composed by a monk, has been preserved
to us. It represents a debate or trial, in which the monks accuse the
women of having stolen the art of painting invented for ecclesiastical
purposes and having applied it to their cheeks. The women reply that
the monks are no worse off because their sex is able to cover the
wrinkles under their eyes. Finally St. Peter and St. Lawrence adjudge
that the women shall be allowed from the ages of twenty to thirty-five
to paint in. But, adds the poet, ‘the contract was soon broken by the
women: they lay on more red and white than was ever used for a votive
painting and have in consequence raised the price of saffron and other
dye-stuffs.’
We should not leave the Troubadours without referring to the _Cours
d’amour_, or Courts of Love, which were supposed to have been held, in
all solemnity, during the middle ages. This institution, constituted
like a court of law, heard nice questions as to conduct in love, and
gave decisions for one or the other party, decreeing how the lover
and his lady should act in all conceivable situations. As a matter of
fact, it is extremely doubtful whether such courts were actually held,
but they were at least a fanciful institution of the time and are
represented in many of the songs. It has been thought by some that the
courts were actually convened and that noble ladies and their courtiers
came from all over Europe to submit the fruits of their experience
and pass upon some such solemn question as: ‘Is it between lovers, or
between husband and wife, that the greatest affection, the liveliest
attachment, exist?’
At all events, the courts of love existed in the songs of the
Troubadours. For instance, one complainant brings the following
question, presented in the form of a song by a Troubadour:
‘A knight was in love with a lady who was already engaged, but she
promised him her favor in case she should ever happen to lose the love
of him who was then her lover. A short time subsequent to this the lady
and her adorer were married. The knight then laid claim to the love of
the young bride, who resisted the claim, maintaining that she had not
lost the love of him who had become her husband.’ The judgment in this
case was supposed to have been passed by Queen Eleanor of Aquitaine,
who was later to become the wife of Henry II of England. She refers
to a previous judgment, which is regarded as having all the force
of a precedent in law, and says: ‘We venture not to contradict the
decree of the Countess of Champagne, who, by a solemn judgment, has
pronounced that true love cannot exist between a married couple. We
therefore approve that the lady in question bestow the love which she
has promised.’
III
Germany, at this time, was hardly behind France in civilization and
refinement of manners. It was natural, then, that the courtly song
should find its way into Germany. In South Germany--Bavaria and
Swabia--the indigenous folk-song continued to dominate. But in the
northern provinces the influence of the Trouvères was strongly felt
by way of Flanders and the Lower Rhine. The noble singers here called
themselves _Minnesinger_--or ‘Singers of Love.’ Their songs are almost
as pure and refined in artistic structure as those of Provence, but
their subject matter is more earnest and scholarly. In place of the
fanciful courtly compliments paid by the southern French singers to
their ladies, we find that deep and sincere reverence for womanhood
which Tacitus noted among the German barbarians and which continued
through the centuries.
The lyrical songs of the Minnesingers were divided into three classes:
the Lied, or song; the Lerch, or lay; and the Spruch, or proverb.
The difference, musically, was mainly a matter of form, rigid laws
governing the formation of the strophes. The Lied was the mostly purely
lyrical of the three. The Lerch was more general in subject-matter,
partaking sometimes of the narrative. The Spruch was essentially one of
the German proverbs which so richly fill the language even to this day,
but it was usually developed to make a somewhat lengthy stanza. The
central idea of the proverb, its simile or its ethical substance, would
be repeated and enlarged upon, becoming lyrical in character though
retaining the idiomatic directness and simplicity of the original. Thus
the Minnesong tended to keep a homely character which the Provençal lay
never had.
Among the famous Minnesingers (who were also poets in the modern
sense) were Wolfram von Eschenbach and Walther von der Vogelweide. Both
are familiar to all lovers of Wagner. The former is one of the chief
characters in the opera _Tannhäuser_. He appears as the pure lover of
Elizabeth, in contrast to Tannhäuser, whose sensual and pagan character
is shown by his affair with the unholy goddess Venus. In the second
act of the opera is shown one of the tournaments of song which were
characteristic of the age. Tannhäuser, Wolfram, and others, sing the
praises of love, each revealing his personal character in the attitude
he takes toward the great passion. Wolfram is the genuine Minnesinger,
idealizing the object of his devotion, insisting upon her divinity (her
likeness to the Virgin Mary), and upon the fleshless, unsensual nature
of love in its true estate. One gathers, also, from a hearing of the
opera, that he was a typical Minnesinger in that his song was something
of a bore. Certainly the Minnesongs, in their ambling lengthiness,
would bring sleepiness to a modern audience. But Wolfram, we must
remember, was not only a courtly minstrel, but a great epic poet, one
of the great figures in German literature.
Walther von der Vogelweide, perhaps the most inspired lyricist of
his time, figures by name in _Die Meistersinger_. Walther, the hero,
candidate for the degree of Meistersinger, is asked who taught him his
art. He replies that he learned it from Walther von der Vogelweide and
from the birds. This causes the Mastersingers to shake their heads, for
inspiration has little part in their formal music.
The last of the Minnesingers, and one of the most famous, was Heinrich
von Meissen, called Frauenlob--‘Praiser of Women.’ His songs were so
ardent in their idealization of womanhood that it is related how the
women of Mayence, when the singer died, bore him to his grave and
poured over it, mingled with their tears, the richest of Rhenish wines.
Not a few of the songs of the Troubadours, Trouvères, and Minnesingers
have been preserved to us and have been deciphered with great care
by students. It seems certain that the decipherings are in the main
correct. The songs are well worthy of study. Naumann, in his ‘History
of Music,’ gives four harmonized according to modern principles. Unlike
any of the church music of the time, these songs are in the modern
major scale. They are, probably, the earliest melodies preserved
to us which seem to have an affinity with modern music. All music
preceding them, as all the church music following them for at least
two centuries, sounds strange to our ears; we cannot grasp it, much
less enjoy it, without making a conscious allowance for its seemingly
outlandish construction. But the songs of the courtly minstrels might
almost have been written by Schumann or Brahms. It is possible, of
course, that they have been somewhat modernized in transcription. But
the fact remains that they are predominantly in the modern major scale
and that their turns of phrase show a feeling for melody as such in a
way never revealed by the church composers until after Palestrina’s
time.
The loveliness of these songs grows on one. We must, perhaps, make a
preliminary allowance for the length of their lines and for a certain
aimlessness which seems to reside in the melody. The musicians of
the time did not feel accent and metre so strongly as we do and the
regular sing-song of contrasting lines (which sometimes mars modern
lyrics) was hardly felt in their songs. They flow lightly and smoothly;
their phrases are distinguished by a pause rather than by a system
of balancing and contrasting. They must be delivered with the utmost
repose, in transparent flowing tones that never betray the breath
behind them. There must be hardly any accentuation and very slight use
of dynamics. Artistic construction, in the more rigid modern sense,
is not to be found in them; they have no ‘climax point,’ obviously
prepared, with passages leading ‘up to’ and ‘down from’ it. They are
rather like the softest breeze in the morning of a sunny summer day.
They breathe the spirit of the following lovely verses by Walther von
der Vogelweide:
‘Love is neither man nor woman,
Soul it hath not, nor yet body,
And no earthly sign or token;
Though the tongue of man hath named it,
Never mortal eye hath seen it.
Yet without it can no creature
Win Heaven’s pitying grace and favor;
Nor where love is will there linger
Aught of fraud or baseness ever;
To the traitor, the false-hearted,
Love hath come not, cometh never.’
But a profound change was coming over society, which wiped out all
vestiges of chivalric song. The complete failure of the Crusades
was one of the obvious blows dealt the institution of Chivalry. The
religious upheavals against the dominance of the church of Rome--those
of the Hussites in Bohemia, in the fifteenth century; of the Lutherans
in Germany and of the English under Henry VIII in the sixteenth--these,
apart from their religious aspect, denoted a spirited rising of the
populace to self-consciousness and concerted action. The spread of
knowledge and intellectual curiosity established lines of communication
all over Europe and diminished the importance of the courts as centres
of culture. With this came a growth of manufacture and commerce
which raised to importance people very different from the gentle
Minnesingers. In the Germany of the sixteenth century the mercantile
middle class came to be of social importance, and around them grew up a
new art of song.
IV
The era of the middle-class or Burgher dominance in the German cities
is represented, in music, by the institution of the _Meistersang_
(master song). The Meistersang was the middle-class replica of the
Minnesang. It arose shortly after the natural death of the Minnesang,
early in the fourteenth century, originating, strangely enough, at
Mayence, where Heinrich Frauenlob, the last of the great Minnesingers,
died. The Minnesang, in fact, provided most of the forms and ideals
for the Mastersong--at least in the beginning. But the era of isolated
castles and wandering minstrels was not that of mercantile Germany,
with strongly walled and independent cities, serving as stopping places
for immense caravans coming from Italy and the far east. For these
cities the merchant and artisan class held the purse-strings. They were
the urban aristocrats. The Muses had perforce to eat from their hands.
The Burghers, being not only shrewd and practical, but prevented by
business reasons from wandering the earth in search of fair ladies,
organized their music in very formal fashion. They held regular singing
contests at which aspiring musicians were heard and criticized. When
these aspirants had proved their ability both to compose and to sing to
the satisfaction of their elders they were admitted as Mastersingers.
But the examination was rigid and the organization or guild of the
Mastersingers was jealous. Inasmuch as it controlled the acceptance
or rejection of candidates, it could set the rules. And, being thus
constantly called upon to exercise its superiority, it tended to
solidify its artistic principles into set rules of the most rigid
character. The verses of each type of song must be organized in a set
way. The music had to be made in accordance with the accepted practice.
Certain transitions and ornaments were prohibited--not only regarded as
less desirable than others, but ruled out under all circumstances. At
the trials, which were usually held in the churches, the candidate’s
song was judged by from one to four judges, called Markers, who were
concealed from his view by a curtain. The judgment was delivered not
according to the _beauty_ of the song, but strictly according to the
number of mistakes the singer had made, with reference to the rules of
the guild. It is hardly to be wondered at, then, that the songs of the
Meistersingers were dry and uninspired. To musical learning they may
have contributed something. But to the art of music, on its poetical
side, they gave next to nothing. They show, however, a certain clumsy
fancy, as in the titles of the following songs: ‘Maidenly Grace,’ ‘The
Nightingale,’ ‘The Glutton,’ ‘A Monkey Tune,’ and ‘The Pointed Arrow.’
The institution of the Mastersong, beginning in Mayence in the
fourteenth century, spread over the greater part of Germany, as far as
the Baltic Sea, and flourished for nearly four centuries. One guild was
in existence at Ulm as late as 1839. The most famous of all the guilds
is of course that of Nuremberg, one of the richest German cities of
late mediæval times. And the most famous of the Mastersingers is the
Nuremberg poet, Hans Sachs, ‘_Schumacher und Poet dazu_.’ Sachs, like
Wolfram von Eschenbach, is a landmark in German literature. His output
of vigorous homely poems was enormous, and the support he gave to the
Lutheran Reformation in its early days contributed in no small measure
to its propagation among the simple people.
But though the mastersong was musically sterile, the German folk-song,
which had been vigorously developing through the centuries, now came
to brilliant flower. The Lutheran Reformation was, as we have said, a
popular movement. Without the hearty support and understanding of the
masses it could never have succeeded. And Luther, understanding this,
sought to draw the congregation as closely as possible into the church
service. His chief means were the reading of the Bible and the liturgy
in the native tongue instead of Latin, and the congregational singing
of chorales. Hymns, as they are sung now in Protestant churches, were
almost unknown in the Roman church. Their introduction was a complete
innovation of the Lutheran movement. But Luther understood that
congregational hymns could not be imported from another country and
engrafted on his people. So he took the folk-songs that were actually
being sung by the people and wrote devotional words to fit them. He
caused many other tunes to be written in the folk-manner and in all
probability wrote some himself (including the famous ‘Luther’s Hymn,’
‘A Mighty Fortress is our God’). These hymns spoke with a familiar
voice of the people and were one of the powerful sources of strength to
the church in its early days of persecution.
The purely musical results of this introduction of folk-song into
the church service were very great. From Luther’s time onward the
chorale--profound, dignified, and solemn--was the spiritual basis of
German music. By it German music became emancipated from the Italian.
The German church mothered its own musicians, greatest of whom was
Johann Sebastian Bach. And the German chorale was one of the two great
influences on later German song. From the ‘Spiritual Songs’ of Johann
Sebastian Bach, which are nothing more than solo chorales, through the
songs of the same name composed by his son, Carl Philipp Emanuel, to
the direct precursors of Schubert, we see a direct line of succession.
If the German music preceding Schubert was serious, closely knit,
firmly based, we must lay it in large part to the influence of the
German folk-song which had the same German qualities--and especially
those of simplicity and honesty.
It was not solely in German Protestant music, however, that popular
song became merged. Much earlier than this time it had exerted its
influence on the music of the Roman church. As early as the fourteenth
century it had become the fashion among church composers to use popular
tunes for their masses. It is hardly probable that the motive was to
draw the people closer into the church service by giving them a tune
they were familiar with. In fact, the church had several times been
obliged to rule that the people should not sing in the service, except
on certain days, before and after the ritual. But the church composers
of the thirteenth century and after were in the habit of writing florid
counterpoint around a set melody, called the _cantus firmus_, and it
became the fashion not to invent the cantus firmus for one’s self but
to borrow it from any source at hand. In the course of time composers
hit upon the scheme of borrowing secular tunes. Dufay, at the beginning
of the fifteenth century, used one of the tunes of the people, _L’homme
armé_, which has been called ‘the most popular tune of the Middle
Ages.’ Such a universal favorite did it become that it was used in
masses by nearly every church composer from Josquin de Près to Orlando
di Lasso.
V
It is quite possible that the presence of popular tunes in church music
did something to aid the approach of the modern major modes (which had
already been widely used by the Troubadours and Minnesingers). But
their influence was at first disguised, for the _cantus firmus_ was
usually sung very slowly, in order to allow the florid counterpoint
to grow around it, and hence usually became indistinguishable to the
hearer. Certainly here the popular art had no such direct and inspiring
effect as in the Lutheran revival. Forces were working slowly toward
a great change in men’s art, as in men’s life and thoughts. Popular
art underwent an eclipse for a time, to emerge later in a new world,
dominant and victorious.
The eclipse came on slowly,--a general twilight all along the line of
battle. Beginning with the twelfth (even the eleventh) century, men had
been experimenting with counterpoint and polyphony, working out Chinese
puzzles in the combination of two and more voices. Gradually they
learned how to make these puzzles beautiful as well as ingenious. Then
came the age of the great Catholic church composers, of whom Orlando di
Lasso and Palestrina are the most famous. With them melody no longer
had its former place. There was much more to think of than the beauty
of a single voice. The whole art was more austere and more ethereal
than popular songs had been.
And the polyphonic art began to dominate secular music. In place of the
fluent melody of the Minnesinger came the part-song and madrigal. This
was built on the same principles as the sacred mass, but its character
was naturally lighter and more lively in movement. The part-song was
the ‘catch’ of Shakespeare’s time and its popularity is shown by the
frequent reference to it in Shakespeare’s plays. In ‘Twelfth Night’ Sir
Andrew, Sir Toby, and the fool commence a catch (doubtless known to
the audience): ‘Hold thy Peace, Thou Knave,’ Sir Andrew expostulating,
‘How can I begin if I hold my peace?’ The madrigals were not always
of so sportive a character. Sometimes they were love-songs or songs
of nature, showing keen poetic feeling. Often they were masterpieces
of polyphony and canon. But though much learning went into their
construction, their spirit was that of the popular song. The most
interesting of early part-songs is one known as ‘Sumer is icumen in,’
a Northumbrian canon for six voices, which has been proved to have
been composed not later than 1228. It is a delightfully melodious
piece, written in fairly good harmony, in the major mode, typical of
the freedom and gracefulness of popular music of the time in contrast
to the rigor of the ecclesiastical works. From the early part of the
thirteenth century to the middle of the seventeenth madrigals were
written and were the principal form of secular vocal music.
During this time, of course, folk-song continued. But it was, as it had
been several centuries earlier, but a poor relation of music, dwelling
among the despised and rejected of men. It was doubtless during this
period that the earlier specimens of the folk-songs now preserved to
us assumed something like their present form. But so far as outward
history is concerned secular song is contained in the madrigal (which
is not ‘song’ in our sense), and in the mastersong of Germany, which
was almost wholly lacking in inspiration. When the homophonic song once
more awoke to its place, the world had experienced the profound changes
of the Renaissance and the Reformation. Secular life had outstripped
the religious in variety and intellectual interest. The church was
powerful still, but it was no longer the centre of gravity for all
men’s activity. So song found itself drawn into the vortex and forced
to serve men’s pleasures and vanities in innumerable forms. What these
forms were and how they tended to the Song proper we shall see in the
next chapter.
CHAPTER VII
THE CLASSIC SONG AND THE ARIA
Italy and the monodic style--Song in the seventeenth century;
Germany; France--Song in England--The aria--German song in the
eighteenth century; French song in the eighteenth century;
forerunners of Schubert.
I
The last half of the fifteenth century was a period of unrest and
profound change in music. As we have seen,[10] it was in this period
that the old pure style of church music reached its highest perfection
under Palestrina, and, because the resources of the style had been
exhausted, began to give place to the style which we know as modern.
Out of this change grew directly most of the modern musical forms--the
opera, the oratorio, the independent orchestral piece with its
searching out of instrumental resources, and--the Art-Song.
It is one of the vagaries of history that the Art-Song, though it
commenced with definite consciousness about the year 1600, did not
become a firmly established art form for full two centuries. By all
the signs of the times it seems as though it should quickly have
risen to maturity. The humanistic enthusiasm of the Renaissance had
sensitized people to individual emotions and moods--the very material
of the art-song. Singing was universal and had attained a high degree
of technical excellence. And the earliest composers of opera of the
time had hit upon the very principles which Schubert exemplified two
centuries later--the accurate following of the words by expressive
music, independent of ‘pattern’ form. But for various reasons, which
we shall examine presently, the art-song became side-tracked. Within
twenty years of its birth it had been exiled to a dark cellar of
history and its feeble attempts at growth had been smothered by an
institution which presently captured the whole civilized world--the
opera.
So the history of song from 1600 to 1800 is not unlike that of the
five centuries preceding--a delving into the out-of-the-way places
where there is to be found much that is charming and interesting, but
little with broad and conscious artistic drive. Nevertheless, song in
this period does show organic development. The outcast infant in the
cellar does grow and become beautiful. But its growth is that of music
in general. As technical materials and artistic consciousness develop,
song partakes of the common benefits, but only secondarily, here and
there, as the servant picks crumbs from the master’s table.
First of all, in common with music in general, song partook of the
change from the old modes to the major and minor scales. And here,
indeed, it was a leader rather than a follower. We have seen in the
previous chapter how the folk-songs of Provence and of the Rhine
blossomed into a gentle and flowing major mode centuries before the
ecclesiastical music had achieved anything like a feeling for the
tonic. And it was perhaps partly because of the introduction of
folk-tunes into church music that the latter presently began to show
evidences of the change. In all countries we can see how the folk-song,
increasing its hold over conscious composers, began to set the spirit
for all secular music.
[Illustration: Great Singers of the Past.
Top: Pauline Viardot-García and Wilhelmine Schröder-Devrient
Bottom: Adelina Patti and Jenny Lind]
In Italy, where the change from the old style to the new was most
marked and dramatic, the art-song grew gradually out of the madrigal
and part-song. While we have no traces of the folk-song of the
sixteenth century, we know that composers began to write their
part-songs in the folk-spirit. This meant, besides the predominance
of the major mode and the tonic feeling, a stressing of the upper or
‘melody’ voice, whereas in the older contrapuntal music it was the
tenor which carried the chief tune. The _frottolle_ of the time were
ballads popular both in words and melody; the _villanelle_, or ‘village
songs,’ sought to preserve an artless and rustic flavor; and the
_villotte_, or drinking songs, were filled with the high spirits for
which the Italians are famous. All these were essentially folk-like
melodies treated contrapuntally. Gradually the counterpoint became
simpler, reflecting perhaps the growing simplification of church
music, and with Perissone Cambio, in 1547, the part-songs assumed
the nature of melodies harmonized in four parts with a free use of
passing notes--much as in the four-part chorales of J. S. Bach. The
simplification continued, and with Giacomo Gastoldi, in 1591, we have
true ‘chord-for-note’ harmonizations of melodies in the modern style.
With this, the song element has been liberated. The melody has gained
complete mastery, and the harmony is used simply to enrich and support
the upper part.
And as we have seen in another chapter[11] singers quickly seized the
import of the new developments. As early as 1539 Sileno is recorded
to have sung the upper part of a madrigal, with wind instruments for
the lower voices. Of course these madrigals were still essentially
polyphonic, but the composers of the time steadily continued to stress
the upper voice for its melodic value and to simplify and suppress the
inner voices until they became a mere harmonic support. It was this
‘one-voiced madrigal’ which became the parent of the _airs du cour_ and
the simple solo songs and romances of seventeenth century France.
But the abortive development of the art-song was an entirely different
matter. It had little or nothing to do with the tendency to stress a
madrigal melody, or with the liberation of the seventeenth-century
romance. The style called monody, or the _stile rappresentativo_,
which might have produced a true art-song in the seventeenth century,
was invented or revived quite in opposition to the madrigal and its
spirit. The one thing it had in common with the new madrigal was the
‘chord-for-note’ harmonic style. This, thanks to the popularity of
the new madrigal, had become common property. When the Florentine
innovators began their experiments, they found it ready to hand. But
the true monodic style was, so far as song is concerned, a wholly
abortive affair. Its history has been traced elsewhere.[12] We know of
the painful efforts toward monody for nearly two centuries previous
to the Florentine experiments; we know of the solo songs of Vincenzo
Galilei in the last decade of the sixteenth century, and of the songs
in Giulio Caccini’s _Nuovo Musiche_, published in 1600. We dimly feel
that a musical style devoted to the conscientious reproduction of
the spirit of the words, detail for detail, should have resulted in
a vigorous tradition of art-song. And yet we see the whole force of
monody veering into the opera, quickly being caught up in the _da capo_
aria form, and in an unbelievably short time forgetting all about its
early ideals of textual fidelity and serving only as an exposition
gallery for vocal virtuosity. Within a quarter of a century monody had
forsaken one ideal for its polar opposite. The true ‘representative
style’ had been left high and dry. It remained neglected and forgotten
until Beethoven wrote _An die ferne Geliebte_, or Schubert his
_Gretchen am Spinnenrad_.
Why was this? How could an art-form, which had caught the very essence
of the modern song, thus sell its birthright for a mess of pottage?
Reason enough. The mess of pottage was very attractive. For the
monodic experiments of the Florentines were the play-things of a set
of dilettantes. They were artificial and exotic. They had consciously
no use for the true musical tradition, the folk-song, which was living
and throbbing among the people. The body was there but the soul was
missing. The Florentines were chiefly interested in decorating the
lives of the aristocracy, in arranging court masques and private
theatricals. Aristocracy is always weak when it exists in opposition
to and at the expense of the life of the people, as it did in the
decadence of Renaissance Italy. The art which such an aristocracy
produces may be brilliant, but it is empty. It tinkles and it clatters,
but it does not resound. For the isolated aristocrat is not interested
in humanity, but in his own glorification. The joys and sorrows of the
people are repulsive to him: he seeks to escape sorrows, and he longs
for some more highly colored joys. He floats on the surface of life
as he floats on the surface of society. His art tends to become the
maximum of show and the minimum of meaning.
So when the aristocracy of the time discovered the new monodic style,
it sought to make use of it for theatrical entertainment, neglecting
the more human and personal song. Vocal coloratura provided aristocracy
with precisely the thing it had unconsciously been seeking--the maximum
of show and the minimum of meaning. The skilled singers of the time
caught the trick of introducing impromptu embellishments on the simple
monodic recitative. Monteverdi hit upon the device which would give
such coloratura singing a centre of gravity--the _da capo_ form. Monody
as heightened speech was wholly forgotten, except for the debased
_recitativo secco_, which bridged the gaps between arias, and tinsel
opera became the furore of the leisured class. The middle class of
Italy, becoming prosperous in business and always anxious to ape its
betters, flocked to these entertainments as soon as large opera houses
began to spring up, and opera as an institution overshadowed all other
musical forms. The oratorio, presumably devotional in spirit, became no
less debased in its display. Song, as a great art-form, was strangled
for another century or two, receiving no new ideals and serving as a
mere diversion for composer and singer. Thus does the easy convenience
of abstract form often stifle poetic expression.
We have spoken of the _da capo_ form and its unfortunate influence on
the monodic style. Strictly speaking, the term _da capo_ was not used
until Tenaglia used it in his opera _Cleano_, in 1661. But the ordinary
statement that the _da capo_ was invented by Tenaglia (or by Alessandro
Scarlatti, as is more frequently said) is quite misleading. Tenaglia’s
_da capo_ aria is of little historical importance. The composer used
the term probably not out of a sense of form, but out of pure laziness,
preferring not to copy out the opening section a second time. The
real _da capo_, which in its more developed state becomes the sonata
form, can be traced back vaguely into primitive music, and exists in
miniature perfection in many folk-songs. It becomes a recognized mold
for musical composition about the time of Monteverdi. With the later
opera and oratorio composers we find it in a debased state, where it
exists not as an artistic form but as a mere stenographic convenience.
This debasement is typical of the cheapening of opera which continued
pretty steadily up to the time of Gluck. The coloratura aria
obscured to all minds the expressive possibilities of the _stile
rappresentativo_, and left to song nothing but the old madrigal
tradition fused with certain elements of popular feeling. The many
arias, ariettas, _canzoni_, _cantate_, and even one-voiced madrigals,
which were published by the fashionable composers of the seventeenth
and eighteenth centuries showed little regard for dramatic or precise
emotional expression, but continued to sing with the placid lyrical
feeling of the great madrigal age. They were only obliged, with the
growth of solo singing, to become clearer as to form, more regular in
metre and line. For their ability to achieve this they had the popular
song almost wholly to thank. Scarlatti’s beautiful _canzonetta_, _O
cessate di piagarmi_, with its simple guitar accompaniment, might pass
for a Neapolitan folk-song of to-day. Yet, on the whole, the solo songs
of this period failed to fulfill the high artistic promise of the early
seventeenth century.
There was a great quantity of these lyrical pieces, however, and
they gained a high popularity. For the most part they remain to-day
in their original state, published with the curious notation and the
archaic clefs of the time, unknown except to the savants. But certain
anthologies have presented a few of the songs to the general public,
and these have astonished hearers with their strange placid beauty.
In some ways it is the best genius of the time which we find in these
songs. In them the lyric impulse of the Italians came out in its purest
form. The flashy ideals of the opera house were far removed from their
tender strains. Their beauty is like the sunlight of an early spring
morning, which illumines all things and exaggerates none. The words,
though naïve and somewhat conventional in their continual playing with
sentimental love, are not without their grace and beauty. And the music
is remarkably varied. Among these songs we find lullabies, fanciful
dialogues, dance songs, gentle laments, and delightful musical jokes.
There is among them much less of pure convention than in the operas of
the period, and at times there is a sensuous or emotional quality which
seems to look forward many decades. To the singer these songs are
especially valuable, since they represent at its purest the old Italian
ideal of _bel canto_, free from either declamatory or coloratura
influence. There can be no better school for the formation of purity of
tone and fluency of phrasing than these early _canzoni_.
Their general character, as contrasted with that of modern music, is
strikingly illustrated in Strauss’s opera _Der Rosenkavalier_. In the
first act of this work the court musician sings a few strophes of
a song which is supposed to be of the period of the opera, and the
composer has deftly imitated the music of the time. The song shows no
touch of emotional agitation or harshness. It has no climaxes, scarcely
any variations of tonal power. It is merely a lovely melody, sung
purely and smoothly, somewhat aimless in melodic formation, in long
fluent phrases and gentle melancholy cadences. To hear this _canzone_,
contrasted with the agitated modern music which surrounds it in the
opera, will demonstrate most eloquently the spiritual difference
between the music of the seventeenth and that of the twentieth century.
The song composers of this period are those whose names we meet in
the history of opera and oratorio, for it continued to be the part of
every popular composer in the larger forms to maintain and broaden his
reputation by means of small and popular pieces. Further, some of the
best of the songs are taken from the larger works. Not all the arias
were of the coloratura type. Often, especially in the seventeenth
century, charming _canzoni_ and ariosos found their way into a long
choral or stage work. The harmonic support (in many cases supplied by
the modern editors from the original figured bass) is at the beginning
simple and somewhat angular. But as the seventeenth century wears on
we find Monteverdi’s great discovery of the unprepared dissonance
working more freely into the texture of the accompaniment. The lower
voices of the accompaniment become more connected and song-like as the
_rappresentativo_ feeling gives way to the lyrical. And long before
the end of the century the simpler vocal numbers begin to look very
much like those of the early Handel operas. With Alessandro Scarlatti,
working at the end of the century, the change from the madrigal
style of Palestrina’s time is complete. In place of pure, motionless
triads and solid, block-like architecture, we have the movement and
flow of song in all the parts. Music becomes sharply differentiated
in character by the nature of the emotion or feeling it is intended
to express. What we miss, judging by modern standards, is a definite
rise and fall of the feeling. The phrases seem too long, too little
differentiated. There is no definite climax-point in the whole. There
is too much linked sweetness. But this is precisely the virtue of the
songs. They are the canonization of _bel canto_. They seek before all
else perfect purity of tone and style.
From the Monteverdi operas, much talked-of but little known, we should
mention the famous arioso from _Arianna_, the so-called ‘Ariadne’s
Lament.’ In all the Italian music of the time no more poignant
emotional utterance can be found. In its freedom and directness,
it seems to be a foreshadowing of the opera of the late nineteenth
century. But as the line of opera composers continues the pure _bel
canto_ ideal gains the upper hand. This we find represented in the
one-voiced madrigals of Monteverdi’s contemporaries, as, for example,
in the charming _Amarilli_ of Caccini. Cavalli, who continued the
operatic tradition of Monteverdi and gave greater freedom to the
aria, gives us a type of song which contains many elements of the
popular. Carissimi, first writer of oratorios and founder of the
great Italian coloratura tradition, writes more brilliantly. One of
the best known songs of the time is his _Vittoria_,[13] which has
an irresistible verve and energy. Marco Antonio Cesti, follower and
disciple of Carissimi, was by nature more of a lyricist. His style is
wonderfully suave and melodious, often appealing in a striking way to
the sentiments and the senses. Though he was primarily a religious
composer, his many madrigals and secular ariettas bring to us the sunny
sensuousness of the south. Many more of the popular composers of the
time are all but unknown to us.
Antonio Caldara (1671-1763), a _maestro di capella_ in Mantua and
Vienna, wrote secular songs, of which one, _Come raggio di sol_,[14]
has preserved his fame. This, with its fine sostenuto melody over
a throbbing accompaniment of repeated chords, carries eloquently a
delicate rise and fall of feeling which seems to be of the age of
Schubert. A certain G. B. Fasolo, whose dates are not even known, has
left us a charming song of sentiment, _Cangia, cangia tue voglie_,
which in its delicacy of workmanship suggests the French songs of the
eighteenth century. Giovanni Battista Bassani (1657-1716), _maestro
di cappella_ at Bologna and Ferrara, left a number of love-songs
of exquisite grace and tenderness, of which the lullaby, _Posate,
dormite_, will serve as an example. Other song-writers, most of them
more or less known for their work in the larger forms, were Antonio
Vivaldi, Alessandro Stradella, Francesco P. Sacrati, Paolo Magni,
Jacopo Perti, Antonio Lotti, Niccola Jomelli, Domenico Sarri, Raffaello
Rontani, Benedetto Marcello, Pier Domenico Paradies, Francesco
Gasparini, Andrea Falconiere, Francesco Durante, G. B. Bononcini,
Arcangelo del Leuto, and S. de Luca. Some of these men are no more than
names in musical history, who are known at all only because some dusty
manuscript preserved their fame. For some the primary biographical
facts are missing.
Others, of course, were men of wide influence, who have made a place
for themselves in musical history. But the excellence of the work of
the obscure men reveals to us how widespread was the art of musical
composition at the time, how excellent the tradition that was rooted in
the whole nation.
Easily the greatest song-writer of the period was the distinguished
opera composer, Alessandro Scarlatti. He was a notable innovator in
many forms, and this power of origination is shown in the poetic
variety he has given to his songs. We have already mentioned his
folk-like song, _O cessate di piagarmi_, which combines with the grace
of the dance the sweetness which invites to tears. In a quite different
vein nothing could be finer than _Su, venite a consiglio_, in which the
author holds a dialogue with his Fancies--a smoothly-moving allegro of
the utmost delicacy. Scarlatti’s emotional style is represented in the
arietta, _Sento nel core_, and as a pupil of the worldly Carissimi he
can, of course, show numberless arias in the brilliant bravura style
which was so popular at the time.
Pergolesi, the brilliant composer of _opera buffa_, whose early death
robbed music of one of its most promising votaries, is known to singers
everywhere by his song _Tre giorni_. The purest Italian lyricism also
flows in his andantino song, _Se tu m’ami, se sospiri_. Coming down to
a later date we find the extremely popular song-writer and composer of
_opera buffa_, Giovanni Paesiello (1741-1816), whose arietta, _Caro mio
ben_, is one of the purest examples of _cantilena_ in all music. We
may also notice the delicate gypsy song, _Chi vuol la Zingarella_. In
Paesiello we find all the traditional Italian virtues in the highest
degree--simplicity, grace, expressiveness--together with a sympathetic
understanding of the voice which has rarely been surpassed in Italian
song-writing.
II
One thing, however, the ‘representative style’ had contributed to song,
in common with all other forms of seventeenth century music. This was
the unprepared dissonance in harmonic writing. The dissonance, which
gave immensely greater freedom to the leading of voices, provided
especially a means of poignant emotional expression, wholly lacking
in the old church music. And such art-songs as were written in the
seventeenth century made a limited use of the dissonance, particularly
the dominant seventh, which enabled it to keep mildly abreast of
musical progress.
In Germany, in the early part of this century, Hans Leo Hassler
(1564-1612) was the chief exponent of song. Hassler had studied in
Italy and brought back to his native land something of the Latin
lightness of touch, as well as the technical innovations which he had
seen in process of development during his student days. At his hands
the heavy and earnest German folk-song became lighter and the melody
more prominent, especially in his dance songs. About this time many
song collections made their appearance, testifying to the growing
popularity of solo song. But it was Heinrich Albert (1604-1651) who
gave the true national touch to German song and justified the title
which later generations have given him, ‘Father of the German Lied.’
Germany, in the early part of the seventeenth century, was suffering
from the effects of severe religious wars and was in one of its
periodic states of national and cultural depression. Placed as it was
in the centre of enemies, disrupted in political adherence and torn by
fratricidal quarrels, it was peculiarly liable to lose its indigenous
culture and to adopt its manners and art from surrounding nations. This
was its estate in the first half of the seventeenth century, when the
‘poet patriots’ sought to revive national spirit in poetry. The group
had much in common with that of more than a century later[15] which
sought the same renaissance of German national life, but the time was
not yet ripe for their full success. Germany was disrupted spiritually
as well as politically and for still another century French letters and
art dominated the upper classes. But beneath the superficial culture of
the aristocracy there was the true national life of the common people,
the force which has kept Germany one through darkest days and nights
and has in the last fifty years brought to fruition such a glorious era
of national culture. And it was to the folk-element in German culture
that the ‘poet patriots’ were forced to appeal. Heinrich Albert, in
setting to music the poems of this group, chose the German folk-song
style, rather than that of the Italian aria. By this choice he made
his work count for something in history. He may be called (at least so
far as Germany is concerned) the creator of the _volkstümliches Lied_.
This is the song which we meet with continually in the next century
and a half--the song which is composed consciously and with a definite
artistic effect in mind, but with the materials which are common to
the people and capable of being understood by all. The ‘folk-like’
song, in fact, becomes a goodly share of the folk-song treasury of the
succeeding generation. At its best it is little below true folk-song
in quality. Often it fills a whole gap in the life of the people which
true folk-song had neglected to fill. We may get a very fair estimate
of the place of Heinrich Albert’s _volkstümliches Lied_ in the life of
the people if we recall the work of Stephen Foster in America,--a work
which is now the common property of people from one end of the land to
the other.
But, as we have said, German national life was not vigorous in the
seventeenth century, and the work of the ‘poet patriots’ passed into
comparative oblivion. Italian opera quickly became established in all
the court centres of Germany, and its ideals, nurtured especially by
Reinhard Keiser in Hamburg, dominated the conscious musical life of the
nation. French refinement entered in, to the detriment of indigenous
art. The songs of the time, written by J. G. Graun (1698-1771), G. P.
Telemann (1681-1767), Agricola, and others, were called odes and arias,
imitating the French and Italian names as they imitated the French
and Italian forms, and the _volkstümliches Lied_ as well as the true
art-song was again in disrepute. We should mention, however, the few
secular songs of J. S. Bach, which reveal, in spite of their lack of
originality in form, a delicate poetic sense, especially in the little
love-song, _Bist du bei mir_. For the true art-song Germany had to wait
until it had achieved some amalgamation of the social and cultural life
of the nation.
Much the most grateful song literature of the long transition period
is to be found in France. There, Gallic taste restrained opera from
the worst excesses of the Italian school, while the French sense of
grace and proportion produced a multitude of trifles which have by
no means lost their charm to this day. Moreover, as the eighteenth
century wore to a close there arose a wonderful tradition of patriotic
and idealistic songs which outshone the similar songs of Germany in
brilliance if not, on the whole, in stark emotional power.
At the end of the sixteenth century the folk-songs of France, like
those of England, were still largely in the modal scales. But this was
not in imitation of ecclesiastical music. Folk-songs have borrowed very
little from church music, in any age, while the debt on the other side
is enormous. The modal character of the early folk-songs is proper to
them and extends back far into the early morning of music. If church
and folk-music were similar in their scales, it is rather because they
arose from a common stock. Certainly the songs of early France were
thoroughly of their own and not of any borrowed character. But the
universal trend toward a standard major scale and a tonic centre was
felt in France as in other countries, and by the end of the sixteenth
century was well developed. The folk-tunes of the time were vigorous in
the extreme, probably as little like the dainty and restrained songs of
modern France as the stolid songs of nineteenth century England were
like the Elizabethan songs, with their abounding energy. The Lutheran
movement in music, which adapted folk-tunes as settings to devotional
hymns, found an exact parallel in France as early as 1539, when Marot
translated the psalms into metrical form in the vulgar tongue and set
them to the songs of the street. The settings instantly became popular.
It is said that the court, being fascinated with the freshness of the
songs, became thereby more familiar with scripture than it had been
for many a year. The strict church party violently disapproved of
the practice and issued its own set of rival songs to stem the tide
of popularity, but even these, which were obliged to be popular in
character, only added to the vogue of the street-tune settings. In the
following century the same thing happened in the political field. The
Cardinal Mazarin, who was immensely unpopular among the people, was
made the butt of endless satires in verse set to tunes which everybody
knew. No fewer than four thousand of these ‘Mazarinades’ were later
collected and published.
The songs of the late sixteenth century, apart from folk-songs,
were largely dance tunes set to lively words and supported with a
polyphonic accompaniment. But slowly the polyphony became more simple
and in the beginning of the seventeenth century the ‘chord-fornote’
accompaniment was adopted from Italy and came to most charming flower.
With the French sense of grace and fitness the French composers made
their _airs du cour_, or ‘court tunes,’ lyric and flowing, keeping
the accompaniment in its proper place as a mere support to the melody
and rounding off the pieces by means of a subtle and satisfying
architecture. The many names under which the French aristocratic songs
went are hardly to be distinguished with definiteness. The term _airs
du cour_ covered almost any songs of a restrained, polished character.
The _chanson_ was nearer the people, sometimes a ballad, very often a
dance tune, and not infrequently a gross or indecent piece of little
artistic value. The _romance_, which dates from the Troubadours, was
touching and graceful, almost wholly confined to the tender sentiments.
The _brunette_ was a simple love song, not very distinct in genre, the
very name being a matter of doubt. The _bergerette_, in which class
belong some of the most delightful of French songs, was a lyric of
pretended pastoral nature, in which lovers carried on their romances in
the guise of shepherds and shepherdesses. The _musette_ was written in
supposed imitation of a street organ, invariably over a ‘drone bass,’
usually in fifths. The _vaudeville_, less distinguished in character
than any of the others, was a mere adaptation of current street tunes
(whence the name, _voix de ville_). These types of song found their way
in great abundance into later French opera, especially that admirable
achievement of the French, the _opéra comique_, and many of the best
French songs of the eighteenth century are to be found in opera scores.
But in the operas of Lully, the chief French dramatic composer of the
seventeenth century, the lightness of touch which distinguishes the
French had not yet come into its own and the somewhat ponderous classic
tradition still dominated. Songs during this period were usually
written independently, but they grew in popularity so steadily that
the composers of light opera in the following century were forced to
include one or more _romances_, _brunettes_, or _bergerettes_ in their
works to insure their popularity.
III
In Elizabethan England in the sixteenth century the strolling
minstrels and ballad singers had already largely adopted the Ionian
or major mode for their songs. This mode was in high disfavor
among the educated musicians of the time, who called it _il modo
lascivio_, the ‘lascivious mode.’ It is interesting to recall that
the Greeks, including Plato, brought the same charge against their
Lydian mode, which was the one of the four original modes which was
most predominantly major in its feeling. In the England of Elizabeth
and James the madrigal had nearly as much vogue as in Italy and the
madrigal writers, chief among whom was Orlando Gibbons (1583-1625),
were highly regarded. Not a few of the solo songs from this period
have continued in favor to this day, but the more familiar ones were
in most cases the work of educated composers writing in the popular
style. In fact, the pure English folk-song was so inhospitably received
among its own folk during the Commonwealth and after, that, until
recently, it was popularly supposed that England had no folk-song of
consequence. But the folk-songs were there and have continued from
generation to generation through the centuries, to be discovered of
late years by conscientious investigators. Though they are dying out
in modern industrial England, they still exist in such numbers and of
such distinctive beauty that they prove, more than all records can, the
genuine musical quality of the England that existed before the great
Rebellion. From among the ‘folk-like’ songs of this period we have,
preserved in full popularity, a number, notably the ‘Carman’s Whistle,’
‘The British Grenadiers,’ ‘The Bailiff’s Daughter of Islington,’ the
‘Willow’ song which Shakespeare introduced into ‘Othello,’ and ‘The
Friar of Orders Gray.’
During the Commonwealth secular music flourished, but chiefly on the
Royalist side, since the Puritans, in their idle moments, were largely
engaged in singing hymn tunes. From this period we have the stirring
song ‘When the King Enjoys His Own Again.’ With the return of the
Stuarts and the reign of Charles II the influence of France, where
Charles had spent his years of exile, became dominant. The dance, not
the dance of the people but the stately dance of the court, asserted
its sway over song, and the flesh and blood, which had throbbed so
richly in Elizabethan England, all but dropped out of the later English
product. The songs which are preserved from the period occurred
chiefly in the masques which were performed at court, which were
French to the core. The chief song writer of the time, and of that
just preceding, was Henry Lawes (1595-1662), who wrote the music to
Milton’s immortal masque of ‘Comus.’ Lawes was a true musician, though
not a great one, and he did much for English song in making the music
respect the poetry. He loosened formal bonds and introduced something
of the Italian recitative style. Along with the Restoration we have
semi-folk-songs of a light character, though without the freshness
of preceding decades. We may mention two of the most popular, ‘Come,
Lasses and Lads,’ and ‘Barbara Allen.’ Pelham Humphrey (1647-74), whom
Charles II sent to France to study under Lully, brought back to England
with him the French grace and refinement and helped to set the keynote
for English song for the next half century. This much the returned
Stuart dynasty did for English music, in bringing French traditions
across the Channel, but the more stolid English disposition of the
time never hospitably absorbed the new influence. And in 1688 the
Stuarts were ushered out to the strains of a most remarkable tune,
‘Lilliburlero.’ Of this song it has truly been said that it ‘drove
King James II out of England.’ It was not a patriotic or warlike song,
however, but merely a satire. The ribald words may seem the worst of
doggerel to us now, but their rough satire awakened all England when
the impudence of the Stuarts had become unbearable and the energetic
melody carried them in a flash from one end of the country to the
other. The upheaval of 1688 was the ‘bloodless revolution.’ King James
succumbed to laughter.
And, curiously enough, this loose and somewhat commonplace tune
introduces us to the greatest and most sincere of all English musicians
(unless recent years have produced his peer) and to the song writer of
whom, above all others, England has a right to be proud. This man was
Henry Purcell. The tune of ‘Lilliburlero’ was written as an innocent
dance in a book of virginal pieces and thence was brought into the open
air to support the high spirits of the satiric verses. It is quite
certain that Purcell never intended himself to be made immortal when he
wrote it, or to be an instrument in the downfall of King James, to whom
he wrote one of his many ‘odes.’ But into some of his other songs he
put the best he had. They are graceful in the extreme, often decorated
with the vocal turns and embellishments which were the fashion of
the day, but never lacking in the musician’s touch. Their melodic
facility is charming; their appropriateness to the spirit of the words
is convincing; and their delicate architecture makes them, apart from
their vocal quality, polished works of art. Purcell still frequently
(and justly) appears on song programs. Among his many lyrics which are
worth knowing we may mention ‘Full Fathom Five’ and ‘Come Unto These
Yellow Sands,’ to Shakespeare’s words, and ‘I Attempt from Love’s
Sickness to Fly.’
But after Purcell English music showed a falling off in originality
and spontaneous quality which has astonished and mystified historians.
And English song suffered the same fate along with the rest of English
music. Vigorous semi-folk-songs date from the early eighteenth
century--notably ‘Down Among the Dead Men,’ ‘The Vicar of Bray,’
and ‘Pretty Polly Oliver’--but as the century progressed the song
output became more and more vapid and superficial in spirit. This
was doubtless in part due to the vogue of Italian opera which held
fashionable England fascinated and smothered the creative work of
native composers. And as people became disgusted with the fad they
turned to the next best thing at hand, the ‘ballad opera.’ This was
not a very exalted form of art, but it was at least fresher and more
musical than the exaggerated vocal virtuosity of opera, with its
conventionalized arias and its ‘castrati,’ or male sopranos. The
ballad opera came into fashion in 1727, with the enormous success of
‘The Beggar’s Opera,’ a success comparable to that of ‘Pinafore’ a
century and a half later. The ballad opera was strictly not opera at
all, but only a lively and merry farce (often suggesting the operetta
librettos of Sir William Gilbert) interspersed with songs and duets.
These songs were at first but popular melodies of the street or
countryside, adapted to new words, assuring the popularity of the
opera because the tunes were favorites. As the number of native tunes
seemed insufficient to supply the enormous number of ballad operas,
the writers engaged well-known musicians to write original tunes in
the same manner--sometimes as many as eight or ten composers for one
work. The songs never appeared as organic parts of the action and hence
offer no analogy to the arias of true opera, but they were usually
made vaguely appropriate to the dramatic situation and were introduced
in such a way as not to seem out of place. Among the host of these
melodies which have come down to us there are indeed many which are
fresh and attractive. But the great majority have the cheapness of the
street without its abundant life. And they nearly always have a strain
of the extreme sentimentality which has remained a blot on English
song literature until recent times. On the whole, if the ballad operas
delivered England from the pompous inanities of the Italian craze,
they also seduced English taste from the exquisite manner of Purcell.
The better part of musical England turned to the noble oratorios of
Handel and against his thundering chords all minor lyric strains were
fruitless.
The song writers of eighteenth-century England are a depressing crew.
Henry Carey (1685-1743), to whom the melody of ‘God Save the King’ has
been attributed, was a fruitful writer of ballad operas, though he
is nowadays best known by ‘Sally in Our Alley,’ a tune which is the
essence of awkwardness--a tune, in short, which could have happened
nowhere but in eighteenth-century England. Thomas Arne (1710-78) was
much more of a musician and a scholar, but also much of a pedant. Even
such a dainty song as ‘Where the Bee Sucks’ is marred by its awkward
overlaying of _fiorituri_. The song by which Arne is best known, ‘Rule
Britannia,’ is indeed a stirring melody; but the fact that a man of
Arne’s standing could write such a tune to the given words and that
England could accept the two as belonging together proves to what a
depth the country had sunk in musical matters. We need only quote the
first line:
[Illustration: Music score]
When Britain first at Heav’n’s command
Wagner said that this phrase contained the whole spirit of the English
people. But what about the words and that ridiculous ‘fir-r-r-r-rst?’
Samuel Arnold (1740-1802), Charles Dibdin (1745-1814), James Hook
(1746-1827), and John Davy (1764-1824) need only be mentioned and
forgotten. Henry Bishop (1788-1855) was a man of more artistic sense
and a composer of graceful and emotional melody, but without his
operas he would scarcely be remembered. The tradition of awkward and
sentimental melody which these men established or maintained continued
to disgrace English song until the close of the nineteenth century and
even to-day in the half-conscious English popular ballad we seem to
hear the debased strains of the ballad opera.
IV
During all this period song, as we have tried to show, was under
a cloud. It was the aria, illegitimate child of the _stile
rappresentativo_ and dearest daughter of sunny Italy, that held
sway over the nations. Vocal music was commonly thought in terms of
the aria. All else was little better than a diversion for an idle
moment--understood, of course, that we are speaking of polite culture.
What aria meant to the seventeenth and especially to the early
eighteenth century was chiefly vocal display of one sort or another.
But formally we may distinguish it by the _da capo_ form. _Da capo_,
meaning ‘from the beginning,’ was the open sesame into the mazes
of vocalization. Monteverdi must get the credit for it. He lit the
fire. Numerous rubbish piled on by other hands furnished the smoke.
For Monteverdi was, above and beyond the innovator in him, a skilled
and sensitive musician. He felt, and felt truly, that the _stile
rappresentativo_ made his beloved music decidedly a second best. Very
well to reveal the emotional qualities of the text! But if the music
cannot itself hang together there is something wrong. And it was with
one of those very keen and very simple devices that Monteverdi righted
matters. ‘Represent’ your text to your heart’s content, he said, but
before you have done go back and sing a little of the beginning over
again. Thus you give the musician a chance; for you mark off the
music as something having its own architecture. And, moreover, you
‘represent’ all the more truly, for you mark off at the same time
the lyrical emotion and make a musical unit of what is properly also
a unit of drama. This Monteverdi did in simplest terms in the first
of arias--‘Ariadne’s Lament,’ in his opera _Arianna_, and this same
Lament, it is recorded, very properly moved the audience to tears.
The aria is beautiful still. Monteverdi’s dissonances have not lost
their emotional expressive value. And the _da capo_ repetition, which
enters so unobtrusively, underscores the emotion as nothing else could.
But Monteverdi was not the inventor of this form. Needless to say the
folk-song had been there before him. And, as always happens, when the
art of the people had been commandeered for a single well-chosen one of
its treasures, it gave gold where silver had been asked.
Nevertheless gold can be put to base uses. Scarcely had dilettantes
discovered that the _da capo_ form could be used to give unity to some
vocalist’s singing than they used it to give form to all sorts of
formless things. We cannot at this distance imagine the vapidity of
endless runs and roulades which passed in the seventeenth century for
vocal music. Or at least we cannot until we see the actual fact on a
cold printed page. And then, to do the seventeenth century justice,
we cannot imagine the brilliancy of these same runs and roulades when
brilliantly sung with the incomparable Italian vocal art of the time.
Brilliancy of a kind! Let us call it brilliancy merely, and not plague
it with the name of music. However that may be, we certainly cannot
imagine the hold this institution of the aria had over the imaginations
of the people of the time. To them it must have seemed the Muses on
wings as compared with the Muses on foot. Aria became a science. More,
it became a code of honor. Its nuances and conventions were tabulated
as nicely as those of fencing or love making. A sin against the code
was the unforgivable sin. There were, scientifically accredited,
certain classes of arias with certain subdivisions thereunto
appertaining. An opera must contain so many of each sort. Each major
singer must have so many, no two alike and all equitably distributed.
No aria must fall in the same class as that just preceding. There were
many rules such as these, and more of the same sort which are well
buried in dusty dictionaries. And if there were any to protest against
such a condition they were promptly silenced by the statement that the
arrangement was excellent for the singers.
Those who studied this deep subject most profoundly at the time agreed
that the aria was to be divided into some five classes, to wit: _aria
bravura_--brilliant, rapid, difficult; _aria cantabile_--smooth,
long drawn out, designed to exhibit purity of tone and manipulation
of the breath; _aria buffa_--humorous; _aria di portamento_--simple
in outline, playing with the singer’s trick of swelling out on
long-sustained tones; and _aria parlante_--simulating rapid spoken
speech, a type peculiarly grateful to the Italian language. These
classes had their subdivisions, as, for instance, the _aria parlante_,
which might be _agitata_, or _infuriata_, or _fugata_, or what not. The
lore of aria was endless. Except that the form continued into Italian
opera of the middle nineteenth century it would scarcely be worth
recalling. But the greatest of the arias (with considerable musical
value added) are among the latest. The ‘Factotum’ aria which opens
Rossini’s ‘Barber of Seville’ is a perfect example of the _buffa_
and might also come under the head of the _parlante_; and Leonora’s
first aria in _Il Trovatore_ is in the true manner of the _bravura_.
In addition to the arias proper we should mention the _cavatina_ and
the _arioso_; the former a short aria, rather more musical and graceful
than was considered necessary in the longer forms; and the latter a
brief lyrical strain, free as to form, planned truly to express an
emotion in its momentary passing. All these forms have little more
than an archeological interest to us now (though the _da capo_ idea
remains one of the most fruitful in all music), except for the purposes
of vocal study. But this exception is considerable. The arias were
designed to exhibit the utmost of vocal virtuosity. They serve to-day
to develop and exercise the same, so far as modern music and musical
taste demand it, for the rather more artistic purposes of the twentieth
century.
V
The ‘odes’ and ‘arias,’ which in early eighteenth-century Germany
stood in the place of songs, began to give place toward the middle of
the century to music of a more national character. The work of Johann
Sebastian Bach, though not widely recognized at the time, spoke for a
solid tradition of native German singing. And the wars of Frederick the
Great, who reigned from 1740 to 1786, did much to arouse patriotism
in outward life. Any vigorous cultural life in Germany during these
wearing conflicts was, of course, impossible, but after the close of
the Seven Years’ War (1756-63) Prussia and Saxony began to revive,
and with them revived a consciousness of German nationality and
German identity. The courts were, of course, thoroughly Parisian, but
the middle class was more than ever national in feeling. And among
this class in the last third of the century arose a type of dramatic
entertainment which corresponded to the _opéra comique_ in France and
was quite as national--the _Singspiel_. The founder of this type was
Johann Adam Hiller (1728-1804), first director of the famous Leipzig
Gewandhaus orchestra and one of the most noted musicians of his day.
The _Singspiel_ was not greatly unlike the English ballad opera in
form, though much more sincere in spirit. It was a simple play,
usually light in character, with frequent interspersing of songs and
choruses. The plot was usually drawn from German village life and the
characters were all familiar types. These were, on the whole, so truly
observed that the _Singspiel_ became a truly national art. Moreover,
its artistic value was often high; the songs and choruses were usually
organic parts of the action, and the best musicianship frequently went
into their composition. The _Singspiel_ was the direct parent of German
opera, as has been narrated in another place.[16] But its value to the
art of song was even more important. For, while in the _Singspiel_
the nobles and aristocratic characters sang arias modelled on the
French style, the peasants and middle class people sang true songs
in the spirit of folk-music. Accordingly the _Singspiel_, with its
immense popularity, spread abroad the knowledge and love of the German
_volkstümliches Lied_. It was for more than a quarter of a century the
direct continuer of the tradition of German song.
But Hiller’s place in the history of song is even more distinctive than
this. For he is generally conceded to have been the first composer of
the _durchkomponiertes Lied_. _Durchkomponiert_, which literally means
‘composed all the way through,’ is used to describe that type of song
which does not follow any abstract formal scheme but fits the words
in all their variations of meaning, leaving each song to find its own
form according to its own requirements. Thus the aria form which
would require the repetition of the first section at the close of the
song would be wholly unsuitable for a poem which showed an emotional
development from joy to sorrow, or from sorrow to joy. In the same way
the strophic form, which sets each verse of the poem to the same tune,
would be unsuitable for a poem expressing contrasting emotions in its
verses. A true regard for the spirit of the words required that the
song composer should be free to write expressive music according to the
requirements of each line of the poem. This was first done, tentatively
enough, it is true, by Hiller. From that time on German song writers
showed a certain amount of freedom in their song forms. It must be
admitted that they did not make much use of their freedom, since they
did the greater part and the best part of their work in the strophic
form. But Hiller has the credit of originating a type of procedure
which was further developed by Beethoven and brought to glorious
fruition by Schubert.
Gluck, with his unfailing artistic sense, has supplied a bit of the
literature of song development in his letter, written in 1777 to La
Harpe, accompanying his settings of some of Klopstock’s poems, in
which he said that ‘the union between air and words should be so
close that the poem should seem made for the music no less than the
music for the poem.’ Unfortunately, however, these ‘odes,’ the only
true songs Gluck wrote, are dry and pedantic. Joseph Haydn, though he
contributed nothing to the development of the art-song, has left a
few lyric settings that are known and loved to-day. His earlier sets
of songs (one group of twelve in 1781 and another in 1784) were so
popular in England that he was besieged by the publishers with requests
to write more. The result was the twelve famous ‘canzonets,’ of which
the best known are the ‘Mermaid’s Song’ and ‘My Mother Bids Me Bind My
Hair.’[17] The latter, though still undimmed in musical beauty, is
by no means a step in a forward direction. It is written in true aria
style and the melody, while appropriate to the spirit of the words, is
almost instrumental rather than vocal. The song might, in fact, have
served as the allegretto to a symphony.
The other supreme German composer of the time, however, saw to the
heart of the _durchkomponiertes Lied_ and produced at least one song
that wholly anticipated Schubert. Mozart published in all thirty-four
songs that can justly be distinguished from arias. Most of them, like
‘The Song of Freedom,’ are little different from the ordinary strophic
songs of the day. But Mozart’s setting of Goethe’s poem, ‘The Violet,’
is a miniature masterpiece of the art-song.[18] Retaining the delicate
sense of architecture which Mozart’s work never lost, it still follows
the import of the words with faithful accuracy. The violet loved a
maiden who came daily to walk in the meadow. It hoped that she would
notice it. She never did. But one day she stepped on it and crushed it.
And the violet was happy to meet its death through its loved one. The
short, gasping phrases on the words _es sank, es starb_ (‘it sank, it
died’) are imitated in the accompaniment so suggestively that one might
almost call it realism. On the words, ‘_und sterb ich denn_’ (‘and
though I die’) the music becomes quicker with the growing emotion of
the dying flower. _So sterb ich doch durch sie!_ continues the flower
in ecstasy, and on the beloved word, _sie_, the voice attains its
highest note and its emotional climax.
VI
The last half of the eighteenth century in France gave the world some
of the loveliest songs of the age. The types continued for a time
to be those mentioned above, but the gain in grace and fluency
over the preceding century was enormous. _Opéra comique_ was filled
with _romances_ and _brunettes_ and _bergerettes_. Not a few songs,
also, were composed independently. Among the latter class we should
mention those of Jean Jacques Rousseau (1712-78), literary adventurer
and musical dilettante, who entwined himself so strangely into the
whole cultural life of France. Rousseau never had an adequate musical
education. He had served as tutor in music in Switzerland and did not
improve himself much with his desultory self-education after he came to
Paris. But he was a true journalist, and no inadequacy of preparation
could daunt him. He had that rare journalistic gift of knowing what
people wanted ten years before they themselves knew it. His _opéra
comique_, _Le devin du village_ (1752), still occasionally played, was
the lightest of theatrical entertainments, but continued in unabating
popularity for sixty years. Its success played no small part in setting
or maintaining the tone of _opéra comique_ for the next half century.
Its songs were chiefly the romances which were popular in Paris; they
showed, perhaps, no great creative ability, but were extraordinary,
like all Rousseau’s work, in catching a certain popular quality which
escapes analysis. The composer’s activity as essayist and novelist,
which places him as one of the greatest social forces of modern times,
prevented his ever doing much work in music and the world is perhaps
not much the loser. But in his musical activity he was at least
important as a fashion-follower and a fashion-setter. In 1781, after
his death, there were published the hundred romances and duets which
he called _Les Consolations des misères de ma vie_, containing some of
his most typical melodies. Among them is the famous romance on three
notes--_Que le jour_--which does not, indeed, escape a sense of melodic
poverty from its limited compass, but reveals a delicate grace which
makes it worth remembering apart from its interest as an experiment.
[Illustration: Mozart’s Manuscript of the first page of his setting of
Goethe’s ‘_Das Veilchen_’]
But far greater than Rousseau in actual musical value are, of course,
the great French writers of _opéra comique_, Monsigny (1729-1817),
Philidor (1726-95), Dalayrac (1753-1809), and Grétry (1741-1813).
In technical learning these men, especially Grétry, were all
deficient. But in a certain subtle melodic grace their _romances_
and _bergerettes_ have never been surpassed the world over. At first
singing they may seem trivial or meaningless or dry. They always lack
that rich strain of human genuineness which characterizes the German
Lied. Without doubt they are artificial, not spontaneous in the more
human meaning of the word. But if they are artificial it is in the
best sense. They represent the most delicate conscious artistry, the
nicest adjustment of the means to the end, the more expertly for being
achieved with the simplest materials. The singer needs a quite special
faculty to understand them. The joy of them is that of perfection in
limited space, of work well done. The singer must have a complete
command over detail, must be conscious of the relations of each note he
is singing. The beauty of these songs is that of perfect good taste.
They do not obtrude themselves, they do not assume a higher value than
they possess, they do not seek undue praise. They are restrained as a
well-mannered hostess is restrained in talking of politics or religion
to her guests. It is not that she is insincere, only that she feels it
is not the time for unrestrained sincerity. Like a true gentleman of
the world, these songs hate the too obvious. Like a true aristocrat,
they refrain from laying bare their souls; they value themselves too
highly to exhibit their own virtues. They seek to be elegant and suave
and courteous. In short, they seek to be ‘good form.’
But a very different ideal from that of good form was about to burst
upon French national life. Rousseau’s highly colored writings had
carried with them the germs of the great Revolution. A few of the
best observers were able to see that conditions could not stay as
they were, that human emotions, long inarticulate, must soon spring
to violent expression. The lovely romance, _Plaisir d’amour_ (1785),
mingling with such an innocent military song as _Malbrouk’s s’en
va-t-en guerre_, could show no hint of the completely changed state of
the public emotions five years later. In 1789 the storm broke. Europe
realized that the people had entered the institution of government.
And soon, too, in their crude way, the people had begun to enter the
institution of French musical art. A certain fiddler-beggar, playing
daily for _sous_ on the _Pont Neuf_, one Ladré by name, picked up a
lively dance tune, heaven knows where, which he played daily on his
fiddle and presently published under the name, _Carillon national_. And
some one, even more obscure to history, set words to it, beginning with
the immortal phrase which Benjamin Franklin had repeated continually
in France in reference to the American Revolution--_Ça ira!_ (‘It
is coming!’). These words shall not here be called poetry. Yet they
had certain of the supreme virtues of poetry, namely, simplicity of
language and utter sincerity of statement. ‘_Ah, ça ira, ça ira, ça
ira!_’ sang the mob as it led its captives to their death. ‘_Les
aristocrats à la lanterne_’ (‘Hang the aristocrats!’). Such sentiments
were not exalted. Their statement was far from delicate. Similar
sentiments toward the peasants had many a time been expressed with
infinite grace and good taste in the court of Louis XVI. But when
the mob had achieved the ability to think ‘Hang the aristocrats’ and
to make a song of it and to sing that song aloud on the streets a
new force had entered into the life of men. And, what is more to our
purpose, a new force had entered into the art of song. Never before
had emotion been expressed so directly or so violently. The tune is
something like our ‘Dixie,’ though without its joyousness. It is
a fiddler’s tune, distinctly unsingable, especially since it was
ignorantly arranged so as to lie in places far above the compass of
the untrained voice. But its spirit was that of flowing blood and
clattering iron. To this day _Ça ira_ produces an effect of emotional
savageness which can hardly be duplicated in all song literature.
And Paris presently gained, from some unknown source, another tune,
almost equally effective and with words equally to the point. It was
the _Carmagnole_, with its grim refrain, _Vive le son du canon_ (‘Long
live the sound of the cannon’). This was sung daily in what is now
the beautiful _Place de la Concorde_, where, during the ‘Reign of
Terror,’ scores of aristocrats and political suspects were executed
daily. The mob liked to see the blood flow and, joining hands in a
great circle, would bellow this very singable tune and its sentiments
to the just Heavens. But this song was overshadowed in popularity by
another--the famous _Marseillaise_, which has been called, perhaps
justly, the greatest of all songs. Rouget de Lisle, a military engineer
and dilettante musician, wrote the poem and the melody one night in
Strassburg, early in 1792, for the troops to sing at the review the
next day. He called it _Chant de Guerre_. The song made its way to
Marseilles and was taken up by the body of Republican volunteers on
their forced march to Paris in July, 1792. It instantly spread in the
capital, being known as _le Chant des Marseillais_. The Marseillians,
with this song on their lips, were among the foremost in the storming
of the Tuileries a few days later, when the king finally became the
helpless prisoner of the people. Thenceforth it accompanied the
Republican armies on their victorious marches through Europe. It is
part of the irony of such things that de Lisle, who wrote the great
Republican song of the Revolution, was born a royalist and remained
one till his death. Patriotic songs, during the revolutionary period,
appeared in great abundance, but the great majority of them, as always
at such times, were vapid and artistically insignificant. From among
them, however, have remained two or three of exceptional quality.
One is Gossec’s ‘Hymn to the Supreme Being,’ designed as a religious
song which an anti-ecclesiastical government could use without
inconsistency, and Méhul’s noble _Chant du départ_, written to be sung
at the departure of the armies, and still so used. This song, which was
Napoleon’s favorite (he forbade the _Marseillaise_ as too violent),
represented the pure Republican element of the Revolution, as opposed
to the more violent communistic elements. In its elevation of style, in
its perfect fitness of words and music, it remains one of the greatest
patriotic hymns of the world.
VII
Leading up to and even post-dating Schubert’s time we find two names
which must enter into every history of song. The first is that of
Ludwig Spohr (1784-1859). Spohr presents a peculiar problem. One of the
most eminent musicians of his day and a man known before all else as an
innovator, he has come to be the merest dead wood of musical history,
a part of the gigantic tree, but a part which has become useless while
other parts are still flourishing. Spohr felt, as Beethoven felt, that
the old harmonic order had reached its zenith and that the time was
ripe for freer and more daring expression. He was constantly straining
to achieve this, but he lacked sufficient genius and his effort
remains--only straining. He was always searching for expressive nuance,
but his stock of tricks was limited and his emotional range slight.
His many songs have completely dropped out of sight. In them detail is
elaborated until one loses all sense of form and outline.
The other song writer who must be mentioned here is, of course,
Beethoven. Beethoven’s songs do not often find a place in song recitals
nowadays, but they are an organic link in the great German hierarchy
from Heinrich Albert to Schubert. In addition to three songs of finest
inherent quality we must credit him with the practical invention of the
song cycle and the cultivation of free form and expressive detail in a
way that clearly foreshadows Schubert. The three great songs mentioned
are: ‘The Glory of God,’[19] _In questa tomba_, and the _Busslied_. The
first is as noble a strain as anything in the great symphonies, a finer
product because a simpler one than Schubert’s _Die Allmacht_ in the
same spirit. The _Busslied_ has a long, half declamatory introduction
following the words with faithful accuracy, presently, as the lyric
element becomes more marked, settling into a measured song, over an
impressive bass which is instinct with religious dignity. The second,
_In questa tomba_, concentrates in a few lines of music the grim
seriousness of the words. _An die ferne Geliebte_ (‘To the Far-off
Loved One’) is a true cycle, as Schumann later understood the form. The
songs are connected by modulating intermezzos on the piano and the last
song is followed by a piano postlude which introduces the melody of the
first. The songs themselves are not of first quality, but the form and
intent of the cycle are yet another proof of Beethoven’s astonishingly
progressive genius. This cycle seems to look forward to Schumann
rather than to Schubert. It uses, in fact not a few of Schumann’s own
tricks--especially the deceptive cadence--to lend an ‘atmospheric’
quality to the music, or to prevent too great a finality in a musical
phrase which accompanies an unfinished thought. The piano part shows
a conscious effort to make the separate details expressive in their
own right. Beethoven, in this cycle, was emphatically writing in the
new and not in the old style. The singer should be familiar with this
remarkable group if he is to appreciate the later work of Schumann.
(The final song, _Nimm sie hin denn, diese Lieder_, is well worth
knowing for its own sake.) Though Beethoven is not one of the great
names in song literature, these pieces show eloquently that the great
symphonist touched no form that he did not enrich.
FOOTNOTES:
[10] Vol. I, Chapter IX (p. 258 ff).
[11] Chapter II (Sec. IV).
[12] Vol. I, Chapter IX.
[13] See Musical Examples (Vol. XIII).
[14] See Musical Examples (Vol. XIII).
[15] See Vol. II, Chapter VI.
[16] _Cf._ Vol. II, Chapter X.
[17] See Musical Examples (Vol. XIII).
[18] See Musical Examples (Vol. XIII).
[19] See Musical Examples (Vol. XIII).
CHAPTER VIII
FRANZ SCHUBERT
Art-song and the romantic spirit--Precursors of
Schubert--Schubert’s contribution to song; Schubert’s
poets--Classification of Schubert’s songs--Faults and
virtues--The songs in detail; the cycles--Schubert’s
contemporaries.
If the art-song begins with Franz Schubert there are two reasons for
it. The first is the comparatively accidental one that Schubert was
the greatest of lyric geniuses--the song writer _par excellence_. The
second is that just as he arrived upon the scene the romantic element
in music began to gain the upper hand.
For modern song is nine-tenths a romantic product. There might be
such a thing as a classic art-song, but its existence is hardly more
than hypothetical. Almost by definition the art-song is opposed to
what we call the ‘classic’ spirit in music. For the art-song, let us
recall, is, above all, a personal, detailed expression. It is intimate,
subjective, predominantly emotional. The classic spirit (in music as
well as in the other arts) avoids the emotion that is too personal and
too subjective as something immodest--much as a young girl would avoid
telling the details of her love affairs to strangers. The classic is
always inclined to stress the formal elements. But the very definition
of the _durchkomponiertes Lied_ (which is almost synonymous with the
term ‘art-song’) is that it does not adhere to a common form, being
free to formulate itself according to the requirements of the text.
It must be more than a coincidence, then, that Schubert, the master
song-writer, came at a time when music was bursting forth into
romantic expression. Romantic song could not have been born much
earlier. For music, as an instrument of emotional expression, did not
come to maturity much earlier. Emotion we do find expressed in Haydn
and Mozart certainly, but it is subordinate, restrained, and not very
precise. It rarely seems to be the prime object of the music. The prime
object seems rather to be the giving of pleasure through the beauty of
musical patterns. The music must not be obviously inappropriate to the
words of an aria, but it is not thought of as expressing their sense in
itself. The movements of a Mozart symphony may have for us some mild
emotional connotation; but in the composer’s mind, in all probability,
it was not the emotion which germinated the music, but the music which
germinated the emotion. The music of the long period before Schubert
was predominantly formal. It became increasingly complex and refined.
It greatly enlarged musical technique and the means of expression. From
the emotional point of view the eighteenth century was _storing up_ the
technical materials which the nineteenth was destined to _use up_.
It was Beethoven who developed the expressive power of music to its
grandest proportions. Never has emotion been shown more powerful,
beauty more dignified, than in his symphonies. The art of music, as
it passed from his hands into those of younger men, was a grand and
universal instrument, equal to any emotional demand men might want to
make upon it. But, if Beethoven had developed all these capacities in
music, he had by no means used them all. Emotion in his music is that
of the epic poet, broad and grand, rather than that of the lyricist,
personal and subtle. He had developed his instrument to marvellous
perfection. He had played upon it only a few of its tunes. The greatest
of the classicists, he was the man who taught the romanticists their
trade. He indicated how music could be used primarily for emotional
expression. But the doing of it he necessarily left largely to those
who came after.
Among the first and the greatest of these was Schubert. He was born to
sing. He loved a beautiful melody beyond anything else. In some ways
he was like a woman, responding with infinite tenderness and delicacy
to the impressions that came to him from without, divining shades of
feeling which a man can rarely catch.
And, just when this man came, burning to write personal and emotional
songs, Beethoven had forged the finished instrument for the purpose. By
this time all the conceptions of rhythm and design had been agreed upon
among musicians. The scales and the modes had been adopted, the sense
of the tonic deeply inculcated in every hearer, the independence of
all the keys had been established and their relation agreed upon. All
the ordinary positions of chords had been tested, and all the normal
progressions agreed upon. Composers had experimented with many forms
and had worked out the capacities of each. In short, men had come to
an almost complete agreement concerning the conventions of musical
technique. If this had not been so, it would not yet have been time
for romantic song. For, just as a poem can have no precise meaning
until all matters of words and syntax have been agreed upon, so music
cannot become accurately expressive while people are vague in their
minds about the identity of this or that chord. In the same way freedom
of form could have no meaning for people until the laws of form were
wholly understood. The subtleties of emotion could not be expressed
until people generally had begun to feel in music the emotions to be
subdivided.
The things that Schubert did with music in 1815 were hardly dreamt of
twenty years before. There were occasional foreshadowings, nothing
else. Mozart, always technically flawless, did not approach his full
creative maturity until toward his death, when he gave evidence of
becoming one of the greatest of innovators. And it is Mozart, whose
music Schubert knew well and admired beyond measure, who chiefly
foreshadowed romantic song before Beethoven’s great period. In the
famous ‘Statue’ scenes of _Don Giovanni_ Mozart seems suddenly to have
peeped into a whole new world of music--the world of primary emotional
expression. The same sense of half-discovered expressive possibilities
we catch in some of his later symphonies. And in his last opera, ‘The
Magic Flute,’ there are songs preserving the emotional richness of
the best German folk-songs. Such arias as _In diesen heil’gen Hallen_
or _Isis und Osiris_ are the last word in song before Schubert broke
through the bonds of form and established the _durchkomponiertes Lied_.
I
But song proper before Schubert is largely in the hands of men who by
no means hold a primary place in musical history. Of course, it can
nowhere be said to have a beginning. But we can sense the feeling for
romantic song as far back as the _Geistliche Lieder_ of Philipp Emanuel
Bach, published in the middle of the eighteenth century. The preface to
these songs is a remarkable document. Bach says that he has tried to
set fitting melodies to the words; that where the various stanzas of a
song were so different in spirit that a single melody could not express
both with equal faithfulness he has tried to strike an average between
all the stanzas and to compose the tune which will be most appropriate
to all; that he considers it unjust to the poem to compose a tune
which is suitable only to the first stanza, as is the usual practice;
and, finally, that he realizes that Gellert’s poems, being didactic,
are not of the sort best suited for musical settings, yet the high
earnestness of the poet’s work justifies musical treatment.
These remarks foreshadow the romantic spirit in more than one respect.
First, Bach recognizes the importance and integrity of the text: the
music exists in order to enhance the poem, not the poem in order to
sing the music. Next, Bach feels the power and the obligation to
express the spirit of the words in detail. Further, he clearly feels
the contradiction inherent in the strophic form--making one tune do
service for various dissimilar stanzas. Finally, he feels that song is
at its best when it is emotional. In all this he is entirely at one
with the romantic song writers, from Schubert on. In his criticism of
the strophic form he has put his finger on the central problem of the
art-song. It is true, his solution of the difficulty was different from
that of the romanticists, as was inevitable with a composer who came
half a century before the problem was ripe. But he shows in his preface
that he regards his solution as no more than tentative.
The songs themselves are not remarkable. They are much like the
_Geistliche Lieder_ of the composer’s great father, except that
a subtle and almost indefinable change has come over them in the
direction of the ‘intimate.’ They are short melodies, much like a
German chorale, except that they have a gentler, smoother movement.
The strophes are sometimes in one of the recognized melodic forms and
sometimes comparatively free. When closely compared they reveal not a
little individuality (which is undoubtedly what the composer was aiming
at), but, taken as a whole, they seem too much like short cantata arias
to suggest expressive song.
The real spirit of song was preserved in the German _singspiele_. These
were lively dramatic entertainments, interspersed with songs, like the
English ballad operas, except that the music was usually composed
especially for the piece. The _singspiele_ were not taken seriously by
the educated classes, hence the lightest kind of joyousness reigned in
them, and the music was that which would appeal most quickly to the
hearts of the people. The tunes were, in fact, generally as much like
true folk-songs as their composers could make them. _Singspiele_ were
written and performed by the hundreds during the eighteenth century.
Many of the more popular songs were remembered and sung by the people
as half-naturalized folk-songs, and the successful composers were
usually fertile producers of songs independent of the _singspiele_.
This was the true song-tradition of Germany before Schubert’s time.
It grew out of the art of the people and spoke familiarly to all. It
was a dignified and firmly established art institution, though it was
given hardly more recognition by the great musicians of the time than
the symphony composers of to-day give to operetta. The _singspiel_
folk-song type, moreover, was the type which was called into service
for the setting of the works of the standard poets of the time.
Zelter’s settings of Goethe’s poems were scarcely to be distinguished,
in point of form, from the songs that were sung in the cheap theatres.
Among the best of the _singspiel_ composers was Johann Adam Hiller
(1728-1804), also distinguished as the first director of the famous
Gewandhaus concerts in Leipzig and as perhaps the first writer of true
_durchkomponierte Lieder_. His songs kept the popular flavor, but
strove for vigorous expression of the text and, in doing this, broke
out of the simple strophe or stanza form. The spirited character of
Hiller’s _singspiele_ is suggested by the names of some of them--‘The
Devil is Loose,’ ‘The Hunt,’ and ‘The Village Barber.’ Johann André
(d. 1799), fertile composer of _singspiele_, has a place alongside
of Hiller as a pioneer in that he was probably the first to adapt
the _durchkomponiert_ style to the ballad, setting Bürger’s famous
‘Lenore’ soon after it appeared in 1775. The true ballad style,
however, was more freely cultivated by Johann Rudolph Zumsteeg (d.
1802), commonly known as the inventor of the ballad form. He composed
settings for several poems to which Schubert and Löwe later set their
hands, notably Schiller’s ‘Ode to Joy,’ _Des Pfarrer’s Tochter_,
and _Ritter Toggenburg_. Johann Schulz, who was another prolific
_singspiel_ writer, is chiefly famous for his beautiful ‘Songs in the
Folk-Manner,’ which appeared between 1782 and 1790, when Herder’s
pioneer collection of _Volkslieder_ (words only) had just commenced to
create an interest in the subject of popular song.
But the most famous _singspiel_ composer of the time, and one of the
most interesting personalities among the lesser musicians, was Johann
Friedrich Reichardt (1752-1814). Unlike most musicians of the age,
Reichardt was a man of wide interests and excellent education. At the
age of twenty-three he became royal choirmaster under Frederick the
Great at Berlin. But he was a radical by temperament and seems to have
caused the head that wore the crown to lie uneasy. His visits to Paris
gave him such a sympathy with the approaching French revolution that he
later lost his position in Berlin on account of his radical politics.
For a time he was choirmaster at Cassel to Jerôme Bonaparte, Napoleon’s
brother, who was anxious to pose as a patron of art. Reichardt caught
the ‘folk-manner’ in his _singspiele_, but he was not a naïve musician
in the technical sense of the word. His choruses and concerted pieces
sometimes show a grace and artistry which suggests Mozart, and his
songs are always organically and artistically conceived. He set in
the simple strophe style some sixty of Goethe’s songs and Goethe’s
delightful _singspiel_, _Erwin und Elmire_ (as did also André). We must
give Reichardt praise for working in musicianly style, with a fresh
vein of melody and a graceful sense in the organizing of it. But we
should make a mistake if we gave him a very high place in the history
of the development of song, for Schubert’s earliest efforts tower far
above his and they surely owe but little to them.
[Illustration: Precursors of Schubert.
Top: Johann Zumsteeg and Johann Adam Hiller
Bottom: Johann Friedrich Reichardt and Carl Friedrich Zelter]
Schubert’s admiration for Zumsteeg and for his use of the ballad form
(to which we doubtless owe ‘The Erl King’) was extended to another song
writer of the time, Karl Friedrich Zelter (1758-1832). This composer,
who did a notable service as director at the Berlin _Singakademie_,
was a personal friend of Goethe and had an extensive correspondence
with him, which has been preserved and published. He set a great number
of Goethe’s songs in the simple and unpretentious style of Reichardt.
This much pleased the poet, who was professedly not much of a musician.
In fact, it seems likely that Zelter frankly directed the great man’s
musical tastes. Zelter’s songs, some of which are still sung by German
singing societies, are spirited and musicianly. In their manly and
straightforward way they compel one’s liking. If they do not figure as
an element in musical history it is because their simple form offered
little that was of service to the genius of Schubert.
II
This genius was, along with that of Mozart, the most spontaneous
the world of music had ever seen. It seemed to work by a sort of
divination. Whereas Beethoven’s musical ideas developed slowly and
under great mental pressure from themes of little value, Schubert’s
songs often came into his mind almost in an instant complete from
beginning to end. From the age of thirteen (and probably earlier)
he was continually writing songs. Often he would compose as many as
three or four in a single morning, especially when he was unusually
pressed for money. Most of the time he did but little revising. If
the musical idea as it came was not of fine quality, then it could go
to the scrap-basket or to anybody who cared for it; there were plenty
more good tunes where that came from. Schubert’s supply of beautiful
melodies was inexhaustible. He never had to nurse and pet a tune in
order to get the maximum of musical service out of it. More than any
other song-writer Schubert ‘sings himself.’ And his songs, for the most
part, ‘wrote themselves.’ The poet would pick up a book on a friend’s
table and, discovering therein some lovely poems, would be seized by
musical settings for them. Sometimes he wrote as though in a trance.
The music seemed to come from some anterior source, and, passing
through his brain on its way to the paper, to make him intoxicated.
When he died at the age of thirty he left behind him some eleven
hundred musical works, of which more than six hundred were songs of all
descriptions. This was the product of scarcely more than fifteen years
of activity. It is obvious there could not have been much revision. But
this is hardly evidence that Schubert was incapable of self-criticism.
He had his favorites among his songs and doubtless realized that many
were as worthless as later generations have found them. And he did, in
certain cases, spend considerable effort in revision; there exist, for
instance, several different versions of ‘The Erl King’ in Schubert’s
handwriting. But his lack of revision was a result of his overpowering
fertility rather than of carelessness. If he kept on writing new songs
he might strike a masterpiece any time. Why waste his time polishing
second-rate pieces?
Briefly stated, what Schubert did for song was to establish it as one
of the great departments of music. We know what it was before his
time--an unpretentious amusement, considered appropriate chiefly for
the vaudeville theatres and the banquet tables of roistering students.
Among the educated classes song was loved, but hardly respected. The
great composers wrote songs only as bagatelles for their amusement or
for a special occasion. It was hardly realized that the song form,
so slight and so modest, could receive the burden of great ideas and
radical innovation.
Schubert, by force of genius, proved that the song could be as great
intensively as an opera or oratorio could be extensively; that to write
a perfect song was as difficult and worthy a task for a great artist
as to write an oratorio. To prove this he showered all the riches of
his artistic equipment on the song. First of all, he gave to it great
melodies. The melodies of the best art-songs before his time could
not be compared with the great melodies which musicians had put into
symphonies and operas. Musicians had felt that songs were not worthy of
their best melodies, but only of their second and third best. Schubert
gave to song his very best.
Next, Schubert chose (among his many texts) some of the greatest
short poems in German literature. Musicians previously had generally
considered the words a very unimportant part of vocal music. True, the
music of the eighteenth century (especially in Germany) is full of
exceptions to this rule, but the exceptions occur as if by accident
and prove that composers either didn’t care or didn’t know which texts
were better and which were worse. It is true, also, that Reichardt
Zelter, and others set the poems of Goethe to music, but their settings
were unpretentious and hardly aspired to be in themselves adequate to
express Goethe’s thoughts. With Schubert, for the first time, we find
the greatest poetry married to the greatest music. It must be admitted,
also, that Schubert’s taste was not highly critical in the matter of
poetry. Among his six hundred songs are a great many with insipid or
pompous words. But some of these texts were written by Schubert’s
personal friends (such as his room-mate Mayrhofer) and were set as
a personal compliment. Further, Schubert, who worked daily, did not
always find the best of poems at hand, and was obliged to take what he
could get, though he probably knew which were better and which were
worse. And, finally, he was generally best inspired by the best poems,
which should be a proof of his sensitiveness to poetic excellence. At
any rate, one finds the texts of Schubert’s songs almost an anthology
of the best German lyrical poems written in the century before his
death. And with some of the verses is music that seems to have been
made by one and the same master artist to fit for all time. On the
whole, though Schubert was not a man educated in _belles lettres_, he
showed a vivid appreciation of poetic excellence which has been a mark
of great song writers ever since.
Next, Schubert showed a marvellous sense of poetry in music. The music
before him had been, as we have said, predominantly formal. With
Beethoven it had reached its most perfect formal development and with
the symphony and sonatas of Beethoven’s later years broke through
formal bonds in its search after more intense expression. The violent
conflict between form and expression is the glory (and to some minds
the defect) of Beethoven’s later work. But Schubert in his songs seems
to feel nothing of this struggle. It is as though he had been born on
the other side; as though Beethoven had done the fighting for him.
Or it is as though a mountain stream had struggled through rocks and
over a precipice to reach the quiet level of the plains below. With
Schubert we feel only joyous spontaneous expression of the words. The
expressive resources of music which his forerunners had prepared are
laid at his feet, and from them he chooses with wonderful acuteness
the details and devices he needs. This sense of poetry could hardly be
found in the songs of Reichardt and Zelter. Sung with the words their
music would doubtless seem appropriate. But played without the words to
point the meaning they would seem pleasing but colorless. On the other
hand, if you play the songs of Schubert on the piano you will get, to
a surprising degree, the feelings conveyed by the words. It is not too
much to say that before Schubert song music was appropriate only; with
Schubert song became _expressive_.
Finally, Schubert gave to the art-song that freedom of form which has
been a characteristic of it ever since. Not that he was the first to
write the _durchkomponierte_ song or any of the other freer forms, but
he was the first with the genius necessary to establish such forms
(or formlessness) for all time. Schubert’s predecessors had not been
pedants. Within their limited capacities some of them had been genuine
poets of sentiment. But form had nevertheless retained its hold on
the spirit of their song writing. The regular recurrence of measured
lines, or the building up of the song according to a scheme of regular
repetitions or alterations, had been to them a matter of second nature
(except when a Hiller or a Zumsteeg tentatively broke through for
experiment’s sake). Such a song as Schubert’s _Aufenthalt_ or the early
‘Gretchen at the Spinning Wheel,’ in which there is no discoverable
scheme yet a most cogent unity, would have been hardly conceivable to
these early pioneers.
Schubert, then, with a marvellous fund of melody, a sense of poetic
values in words and music, and a free instinct for expressive form,
did for the song what Haydn had done for the symphony--put it on the
musical map. He was able to do this not alone because he was a great
musician, but because there were great poets in Germany whose lyrics he
could set. Let us see who and of what character these poets were.
The poets whom Schubert set to music (over 100 in all) represent
several stages of a tremendous upheaval in German life and
literature--roughly, the period of the French Revolution and the
Napoleonic wars. For convenience we may divide them into three
classes--the ‘Storm and Stress’ poets, the Romantic poets, and the
‘young-German’ poets. The _Sturm und Drang_, or ‘Storm and Stress,’
tendency was the German equivalent of the pre-revolutionary upheaval
among the educated classes of France. Its ideal was that of the highest
perfection for the individual--personal rights rather than social
duties. The so-called Romantic movement (in the narrower meaning of
the term) was at its height during Napoleon’s period of power. It
was double. On the one hand, it was _Sturm und Drang_, individualism
carried to its extreme, with a high premium set on the imagination and
a morbid interest in what we should to-day call ‘psychology.’ On the
other hand, it was the growth of the social and national spirit which
aroused a sense of nationalism in Germany under Napoleon’s tyranny
and enabled the Germans gloriously to shake off the French yoke. The
third period, in which Schubert did most of his actual work, was that
of disillusionment, when the liberal dreams of the German enthusiasts
had been met by the stupid reactionism of the German princes and
the Congress of Vienna. The German uprising against Napoleon had
been synonymous in the minds of most with a movement toward liberal
institutions and political freedom. Under the royal houses of Germany
the people were forced back, at the point of the sword, to a state
little better than mediævalism. The poets of the ‘young-German’
movement saw that the dreams of the previous generation had been made a
fiasco and turned to cynicism, with just a shadow of a bitter dream of
vengeance stored up for the future.
The great poets of the _Sturm und Drang_ movement were, of course,
Goethe and Schiller. Goethe, one of the most universal minds the
world has ever known, was able to enter into a situation or a human
emotion so intensely that he was an ideal lyric poet. His command
over the music of the German language was complete. All Germany was
dazzled by the wealth of color and nuance which he found in life and
reflected in his poetry. Schiller was in every way his inferior. His
inflated rhetoric always stole the lyric quality from his poems, which
never pictured truth, either outer or inner. But by the sheer energy
of his spirit Schiller was a man of the time. It is worth noting that
though Schubert set nearly fifty of his texts, not a single masterpiece
resulted. For there is in Schiller, properly considered, little or
nothing to inspire a genuinely lyric poet. And, as is often the case
in lyric poetry, the minor men do some of the best work. Some of
Schubert’s best texts are supplied by Claudius, Schubart, Stollberg,
and Hölty, minor members of the fraternity which stirred up all Germany
to the expectation of a profound revolution. These men were crying
out against the vices of the aristocracy, or praising the simple
life of the peasants, as Herder had taught them. Their songs were a
glorification of the individual, proclaiming the intensity and beauty
of his spontaneous feelings--ideal lyric material.
The era of the Napoleonic wars brought a new generation of poets
to Germany. It was the period when the vision of great deeds was
stirring every one to demonstrate his own power. This side of the
movement, represented in Schubert’s songs by the brothers Schlegel,
was decidedly morbid. But there was another side. For Napoleonic
oppression had aroused a new sense of dignity and national solidarity
in German hearts, and there arose a group of poets to sing of it. Most
typical is Körner, author of the famous sword song, who volunteered
for the army, saying to his father: ‘Germany is rising; my art sighs
for her fatherland’--and died in battle. This adoption by art of a
new fatherland was signalized by a new return of poetry to all that
was popular and traditional in German life and history. It is to this
inspiration that we owe poems by Uhland and Müller, which Schubert set
to music.
The third era was that of disillusionment, when Platen could write
‘... man kann hienieden
Nichts Schlech’res als ein Deutscher sein.’
The lyric poetry of the time became either a cynical grasping of
selfish interests, as often in Heine, or a renunciation of the outer
word, a peace which is to be found in contemplation and humble love, as
in Rückert.
In translation, also, Schubert was familiar with the work of certain
foreign poets, notably Shakespeare and Walter Scott. To the inspiration
of the former we owe at least two masterpieces, ‘Who Is Sylvia?’ and
‘Hark, Hark, the Lark!’ From the latter we have the wonderful ‘Ave
Maria.’ We should not forget, also, the songs of Ossian, now almost
forgotten. These were forgeries (in all probability) by a Scotch
schoolmaster, purporting to be translations from the Gaelic of the
songs of the minstrel Ossian, who had been no more than a tradition for
centuries. The literary world took them in earnest, and such men as
Goethe became enthusiastic over their wild and rugged imagery. But to
us they seem rhetorical and far removed from the simplicity of genuine
folk-poetry. And Schubert seems to have felt this, for, though he set
eight of the long Ossian songs, not one of his settings is memorable.
Again the absence of the true lyric spark had left him cold.
[Illustration: Poets of the Romantic Period.
Top: Goethe and Hugo
Bottom: Schiller and Heine]
III
Among Schubert’s songs we find an extraordinarily wide range of form
and subject-matter--so wide that all song writers since his time have
not been able much to enlarge it. We have said that he was the first to
apply musical genius to the _durchkomponiertes Lied_. But he was not a
specialist in this form. He seems to have had no especial preferences,
but to have been guided by the nature of his poem. A number of his
songs are in the strophe form--simply contrasting phrases of the music
forming the tune, which is repeated without change for each stanza of
the words, as in the simple folk-tune type. Of this class are some
of Schubert’s best songs, such as ‘The Heather Rose,’ ‘The Fisher,’
‘Praise of Tears,’ ‘Wandering,’ ‘The Brook’s Lullaby,’ ‘Hark, Hark, the
Lark!’[20] and many others.
Next we find what we might call the ‘developed strophe’ form, in which
the simple stanza organization is preserved in spirit, but some change
enters into the make-up of the whole song in accordance with the
demands of the text. Examples of this are the famous _Du bist die Ruh_,
in which the final strophe is much altered to express the intenser
feelings of the poet; or the _Gute Nacht_, from the _Winterreise_
series, in which the melody of one stanza is sung in the major to
convey the contrasting effect of calmness; or the ‘Serenade,’ in which
the repeated strophe is followed by a free coda necessary to give
completeness to the idea. In the class of the ‘developed strophe’ form
we might group such pieces as ‘Her Portrait,’ which repeats the main
strophe after a contrasting middle section. Or there are such songs
as ‘By the Sea,’[1] which are almost in the strict strophe form, but
varied here and there in some minor detail, proving that however much
Schubert felt the beauty of form he did not feel its dogma.
Finally, there is the quite free or _durchkomponierte_ form. The
examples of this are innumerable in Schubert’s works: we recall
easily the famous _Aufenthalt_ (‘Abode’) and _Doppelgänger_ (‘The
Double’),[21] _Der Wanderer_, and _Das Wirtshaus_. In these songs
there is every variation from a deceptive strophic form to the utmost
dissimilarity, and yet there remains always a _sense_ of unity which is
the work of a master.
Besides the pure lyrics Schubert wrote ballads and scenas. The former
are simply stories told in verse. Unlike the lyric, the ballad is
highly objective, seeing the characters as things apart and as
acting for themselves; yet like the lyric it is highly sympathetic
with emotions, and sometimes identifies itself alternately with one
character and another as completely as though it were a lyric. This is
because of the dramatic quality implicit in every story,--a quality
which is particularly attractive to the primitive imagination. The
ballad, in short, is a miniature drama, in which the characters speak
in their own words with each other, and in which rapid and vigorous
action is abundant. Examples of this form in Schubert’s songs are
Schiller’s ‘The Diver,’ and of course ‘The Erl King.’
We should also distinguish a third class of songs--the _scena_. This
is a combination of the lyric and the ballad; it is essentially an
emotional utterance, but it usually pictures the characters and the
scene, and often involves some sort of dramatic action. The Ossian
Songs partake of the nature of the _scena_, but the best example
is Schiller’s _Erwartung_, in which the singer is waiting for his
sweetheart to come to him, and is beguiled by various noises of the
night into thinking it is she.
The scenas and the ballads involve not a little of the declamatory
style, which is quite unlyrical. Declamation in song is familiar to
us in the recitatives of the older operas, but declamation in the
true sense is more melodious than dry recitative. It is, in fact,
genuine melody, with all elements of melodic beauty, except that it is
independent of strict measure and rhythm, receiving all its accents
from the words which it follows with greatest nicety. The possibilities
of this style of music have only begun to be developed in the last
two or three decades. In Schubert declamation is usually on the right
track, but is pretty likely to be uninteresting. We must make an
exception, however, of such masterly bits of declamation as the last
line of ‘The Erl King,’ in which the half-spoken announcement, ‘Lo,
in his arms the child was dead,’ closes the ballad abruptly and seems
to frame it off from the workaday world; or the last line of ‘The
Wanderer,’ in which Schubert’s poetic sense reinforced the emphatic
word with an emphatic melodic note: _Dort, wo du nicht bist, dort ist
das Glück_. But on the whole we must admit that the whole body of
Schubert’s declamatory and dramatic songs is hardly worth the trouble
of study, except for the purpose of enlarging one’s knowledge of the
composer. If it were not for the wonderful ‘Erl King,’ greatest of
ballads, people would doubtless be saying that Schubert was a lyric
song-writer only, and had no feeling for the ballad form.
IV
Of Schubert’s six hundred songs, as we have said, many are of little
or no musical value. Sometimes the melody seems too facile; it
expresses nothing; it is like every other ordinary tune. And sometimes,
especially in the longer ballads and scenas, there is a lack of any
musical character; commonplace chords and scraps of indifferent melody
succeed each other to fatigue. The length is sometimes enormous. ‘The
Diver’ occupies nearly forty printed pages, and many others between
fifteen and twenty.
It is more regrettable that some of the songs should be sad mixtures
of greatness and triviality. ‘Death-Music’ is such a song. The opening
bars have a deep solemnity, which is almost equal to the dignity of
the theme, but seems just a little too thin or facile. Then on the
words _Hebe aus dem ird’schen Ringen_ comes a passage which is one of
Schubert’s great moments, and this is repeated in finer development on
the words: _Alles grosses werd’ ich sehen_, until one can almost feel
one’s self carried into the mysteries of death. But then follow three
pages of melody which are irritating, for they have much beauty and
expressiveness, but seem aimless and disorganized. In ‘Viola,’ which
is a matter of twenty-one pages, there are one or two of the most
gracious melodies Schubert ever wrote, but the song as a whole, what
with length and formlessness, is hopeless. _Fülle der Liebe_, again,
is both beautiful and expressive, altogether a distinguished piece of
work, except that its movement soon becomes so monotonous that it is
unendurable.
So Schubert is often betraying the rapidity with which he worked. But
he has left us at least one hundred songs which are immortal. First
of all, they are worth knowing for their wonderful stock of melodies,
as pure and rich as any composer in the world has ever given us. The
enchantment can hardly wear off with such melodies as those of ‘Praise
of Tears,’ ‘The Trout,’ _Du bist die Ruh_, ‘The Linden Tree,’ ‘The
Inn,’ ‘To Sylvia,’ ‘Litany,’ and ‘The Serenade.’
It is by no means the melody of the drawing-room. The dainty, snobbish
grace of the French _bergerette_ is foreign to Schubert. He seems
anxious to sing with everybody. It is recorded that one of his favorite
pastimes was walking out with a friend on a Sunday afternoon to one of
the villages in the neighborhood of Vienna, and watching the peasants
dance and hearing them sing their songs. This popular sense persists in
all Schubert’s music, however delicate may be his delineation of mood.
He had nothing of the aristocrat in him. The son of a schoolmaster,
accustomed to poverty, and accustomed to teach in an almost menial
capacity in the house of Count Esterhazy, he acquired none of the
tastes of the aristocrat and was content to take his pleasures as
other people did. Besides, the whole tradition of German music has
been remarkably close to the people. Even Mozart, the most polished of
composers, wrote in ‘The Magic Flute’ music that would have delighted
any peasant. So we are not surprised to find in Schubert’s lyrics a
strain of folk-song, especially in the cadences and progressions which
the Germans love so well. Take, for instance, the continually recurring
cadence of the song _Sei mir gegrüsst_, or that of ‘Praise of Tears.’
It sets the spirit for the whole of the song. And it is taken from the
very bone and sinew of German music. Or take the short middle section
of ‘The Wanderer,’--in which the Wanderer cries out, ‘Where art thou,
Where art thou, My beloved land!’--or the first of the Erl King’s
songs in the ballad ‘The Erl King’; or the whole strophic tune of ‘The
Fisher.’ Hum these over two or three times. Then take at random two or
three German folk-songs--_Ach du lieber Augustin_ and _Immer langsam
voran_, or what not, and hum these. And then two or three French
_bergerettes_. The relationship of Schubert will then be quite clear.
These matters of musical analogy are subtle and slippery. They cannot
be established by analysis. But they can always be proved or disproved
by the sympathetic ear.
But Schubert was writing art-songs, not folk-songs. Accordingly
he was obliged to give more precise meanings to his melodies than
folk-songs choose to give. He must not sing only of love or sorrow,
but of a certain mood of love or sorrow. This is what we mean by the
refinement of melody. Not that the unrefined melody is less worthy or
less beautiful, only that it is less precise. In refining his tunes
Schubert’s delicate artistic sense stood him in glorious stead. The
_Ave Maria_ is first of all a beautiful German melody. But it is
also a delicate, sensitive melody, which might have been sung by the
essentially aristocratic Ellen. Or notice the delicacy of mood implied
in Heine’s poem _Ihr Bild_. It is essentially a civilized mood, one
which comes over a person inside of a house with the lights turned
low, a mood which a folk-song would never be called upon to express.
Schubert catches it in a few simple notes. He does not strain his
melody in order to make it express an unusual mood. He selects his
notes--that is, refines the melody--until its expression has become
specific and accurate instead of broad and general.
This matter of melodic refinement (which must be divined by a sort
of sixth sense) leads us to one of the essential characteristics of
Schubert’s songs (and of art-songs in general)--namely, detailed
expression. Here we can be more specific. Compared to later
song-writers, Schubert makes very little effort to emphasize details
in his texts. He is never willing in his lyrical pieces to distort or
disturb the flow of the melody or the design of the whole, in order to
illustrate a detail. But a slight study of his songs will show that he
is never overlooking these details. And when it seems to him proper to
give them precise expression, the device is always at his finger-tips.
Take one of the loveliest of all his songs, _Das Wirthshaus_--‘The
Inn’--from the cycle _Winterreise_. The whole song should be played
through first to get the mood of weariness, of spiritual hunger and
thirst, that pervades it. Then on the words _die müden Wandrer_--‘tired
wanderers,’ comes this progression:
[Illustration: Music score]
die müden Wandrer laden ins kühle Wirtshaus ein
Notice the wonderful D flat of the accompaniment. And notice too with
what magic the simple chords of the next measure seem to fit the word
_kühle Wirtshaus_,--the ‘cool tavern.’ A little later, on the words:
_bin matt zum Niedersinken_--‘tired to exhaustion’--is the following
passage:
[Illustration: Music score]
bin matt zum Niedersinken und tötlich schwer verletzt
Notice the G flat of the accompaniment, how it creeps into the harmonic
framework and gives poignancy to the expression. And then four measures
further on, on the words: _doch weisest du mich ab?_--‘and do you turn
me away?’--there is this very simple musical passage:
[Illustration: Music score]
Doch weisest du mich ab
Only one altered chord, that containing the B natural, but what pathos
lies in it!
An even finer instance of musical delineation is the song _Der
Doppelgänger_, the last but one that Schubert ever wrote. Mr.
Henderson, in his ‘Songs and Song Writers,’ justly says that this
wonderful song anticipates Wagner’s theories and methods. Here we have
the continuous melody, the leit-motif (the first four measures of
the accompaniment), the declamatory voice part, and the ‘orchestral
comment’ which we associate with the Wagnerian music-dramas. We cannot
fail to notice in this song the ghostly effect of the thick chords kept
in the bass section of the pianoforte’s range, nor the uncanny effect
of the short, almost gasping, phrases for the voice, nor the fierce
picturing of terror on the words _meine eigne Gestalt_. What couldn’t
Schubert have been in the history of music, asks Mr. Henderson, if he
had lived!
Schubert’s command over modulation is facile and abundant. Sometimes
there is no rest in the matter of modulation. Yet the changes of key
and mode never seem strange. Tonalities melt into one another, and
voices lead as naturally as they do in the simple key-schemes of Haydn.
The best of examples is the wonderful song, _Die Allmacht_. Nominally
in the key of C major, it remains actually in this key for only about
a fifth of its length. The astonishing simplicity and inevitableness
of Schubert’s modulations are well exemplified by the change from F
major to G flat major on the words _Gross ist Jehovah der Herr_ (at
their next to last appearance). Wagner used precisely this modulation
about ten years later for the climax to the great prayer in the opera
_Rienzi_. But we find it no uncommon thing to discover that strokes of
genius in other composers have been anticipated in Schubert.
But the richness and smoothness of Schubert’s modulations, which are
everywhere to be discovered in his songs, are not the most important
qualities from the artistic standpoint. The important thing is the
marvellous deftness with which the composer uses his modulation for
expressive purposes. Let us return to _Das Wirtshaus_, a thorough
knowledge of which is a liberal education in Schubert’s art.
Modulation here is like flowing water. But notice especially the last
(repeated) line of the poem: _Nun weiter denn, nun weiter, mein treuer
Wanderstab_--‘then on again, my faithful wanderer’s staff.’ The
first half of the line is in C minor. Then on the words _mein treuer
Wanderstab_ it goes again into its original F major. The effect is
past all analysis. We feel the tragic vista of life ahead of the man,
the eternal trudging along white dusty roads. The human pathos of the
modulation is intense.
It is interesting to notice, in passing, that Schubert gets his most
tragic and pathetic effects out of the major mode rather than out of
the minor. Besides the example just quoted one recalls the entrance
of the major in _Ihr Bild_,--an effort of most delicate pathos; and
the ending of ‘Death and the Maiden,’ in which the coming of the minor
brings with it the feeling of deep human tragedy as contrasted with the
somewhat spooky tragedy of the preceding minor. Schubert’s effects,
though usually very simple, rarely come from a reliance on conventional
means.
Another of Schubert’s expressive devices is famous. It is the
dissonance of D flat against D against C (or a corresponding
combination), recurring in ‘The Erl King’ when the boy shrieks in
terror at the sight of the evil ghost. It was strenuously objected to
by certain ones who heard it in Schubert’s time, and it is recorded
that one of the objectors withdrew his criticism because the compound
dissonance resolved so smoothly. The justification, if justification
is needed, is something other than this. It is that the device is
tremendously expressive.
In ‘The Erl King’ we cannot fail to notice how the triplet motive in
the accompaniment binds the song closely together. In nearly every case
Schubert finds some means of accomplishing this end, when the free form
of the song might threaten to distract one’s attention. In a number of
the _Müllerlieder_, in which the brook figures constantly, the rippling
water is suggested (not imitated) in the accompaniment. The devices by
which the suggestion is accomplished seem naïve to us to-day, but it is
perhaps more artistic than an attempt at imitation would be.
Suggestive devices are innumerable. Note the movement of the breeze in
‘Suleika’s Second Song’; the opening chords, suggestive of deepening
night over the sea, in _Am Meer_; the delicate will-o’-the-wisp figure
in _Irrlicht_; the bass figure that suggests huge weight in _Atlas_;
the leaping triplet figure in ‘The Trout’; the tragic snatches of
melody in the bass of _Aufenthalt_, and so on without limit. It must be
remembered that such details as these were much more of a novelty in
Schubert’s time than now. A century ago the use of music for detailed
expression was comparatively strange.
We should bear in mind, also, how slightly this attention to detail
in Schubert affects the external unity of the song. Schubert’s method
(except in the long declamatory pieces) was essentially lyrical. He
wanted to write a piece of music which, while truly expressive of
the words, would be a beautiful piece of music even without them. He
kept the organization and proportion of his music, as such, always
in view. The whole course of song after him illustrates the conflict
(which was the origin of the art-song in the first place) between this
formal design and accuracy of expression. A simple strophic song can,
as we know, be quite perfect in design. But only rarely can it also
be quite accurate in the expression of the words. The musical realist
will seek to make the music detailed and expressive at all costs. The
many to whom beauty comes first, on the other hand, will admit the
realistic detail only when it accords with the beauty of the pattern.
It is instructive to note how Schubert solves the problem. While he
was never a formalist in the stricter sense of the word, his sense of
pattern beauty was such as would be pained at a realistic detail that
was detrimental to form. Judged by modern standards he was conservative
in his procedure. But considering his conservatism he managed to get a
wonderful amount of detailed expression into his songs. No song-writer
has ever had a more delicate and accurate feeling for these details of
human realism.
V
Schubert’s genius will never be known to people who imagine they know
it from the half dozen hackneyed songs that are most famous--the
‘Serenade,’ ‘Hark, Hark the Lark!’ ‘Who Is Sylvia?’ and one or two
others. There is a little group of Schubert songs which are rarely
heard and almost forgotten, which are of great beauty, such as the
_Wiegenlied_, _An die Sonne_, _Gretchen’s Gebet_, and _Clärchen’s
Lied_. And there are scores of others, which are known in a vague way,
but not well known to many a singer. No singer should attempt to sing
one of Schubert’s songs in public without being familiar with most of
these other lyrics.
Schubert reveals the folk genius in being able to achieve the highest
beauty within the smallest compass. Such a snatch of melody as the
first line of the ‘Litany’ is a work of pure genius. They say that
the test of a picture is its ability to be ‘lived with.’ The same is
true of a melody. The first line of the ‘Litany,’ as well as the whole
of it, can be sung each day and never lose its charm. It has all the
suave grace of a tune out of Italian opera. It might become cloying
and sentimental. But it does not. It remains dignified and sincere. It
reveals ever new beauties and adorable traits of character which could
not be suspected at first glance. This kind of genius is beyond the
analytical powers of the musical theorist to explain. The greatness
of large forms--for instance, a symphony by Beethoven--can in part be
explained, just as a very correct symphony can be written by a man
without talent. But to write greatly within half a dozen bars--this is
a miracle. Only the folk-composer and the highest conscious genius can
achieve it.
We see the same genius in the final measures of ‘Death and the Maiden.’
The Maiden sees Death approaching, and begs him to pass by. He replies
that he has not come to cause her pain. He is a friend and will
give her peace and joy. And the music, a succession of the simplest
chords, glides gradually into a major that seems to wring the tears
by main force from the eyes. Every now and then Schubert introduces
unexpectedly such a musical phrase, which seems to concentrate into
half a dozen notes all the sincerity of the German genius. We find it
in the ‘Second Harper’s Song’ of the Mignon series, on the words: _Ihr
lässt den Armen schuldig werden_:
[Illustration: Music score]
Ihr lässt Armen schulig werden
or in the ‘Praise of Tears’:
[Illustration: Music score]
aler lenza und Jugendlust
or in _Der Lindenbaum_:
[Illustration: Music score]
so manches liebe Wort
Of the songs that ‘sing themselves,’ Schubert has written many. We must
mention ‘The Fisher,’ which is unusual in song literature as being a
true ballad in strophe form; the ‘Heather Rose,’ which retains the
quality of Goethe’s words in that it must be intimately known to be
appreciated; _Wohin_, from the _Müllerlieder_, in which the tune seems
to flow as inevitably as the brook which is the motive of it; ‘The
Trout,’ the melody of which Schubert used as the theme of the last
movement of his famous string quartet; and the ‘Lullaby,’ mentioned
above. The flowing quality of these songs is due to the fact that
they are closely in accord with the felt traditions of German music,
containing a maximum of the usual and a minimum of the unusual, while
remaining unique and creative as a whole. In other words, they have
an abundance of the expected and nothing of the commonplace. And this
is why it is of such extreme value for every musician to be familiar
with a quantity of songs. Simple songs which are great in their human
appeal have concentrated within themselves all that people throughout
the centuries have agreed upon as beautiful. They contain in the
simplest form the elements of all great complex music. The singer who
can appreciate and love the simple song is not likely to go astray in
singing the works of Strauss and Reger.
But Schubert’s particular historic claim to greatness is his
introduction of precise musical expression into the Song. This takes
all forms--a variety as broad as his wonderful genius. In ‘Sea Calm’
it is a succession of quiet and slow chords, which preserve the
evenness of the calm sea without its monotony. In ‘The Wanderer,’
it is a succession of slightly different emotions, each lyrically
expressed, culminating in the impressive recitative. First the Wanderer
announces that he has come from the mountains, ever searching for
something. Then the lovely melody which Schubert later used in one
of his quartets--the motive of unsatisfied wandering. Then, with a
change of sentiment, comes the cause of the unrest--‘Where art thou,
My Native Land?’--a mere snatch of rich song. Then a quick movement as
the Wanderer sees in his mind’s eye the fresh greenness of his native
hills. Then the moody wanderer’s motive once more. And finally the two
lines of recitative--with all the beauty of poetry and all the force of
prose--‘There, where thou art not, there is happiness.’
‘The Young Nun,’ though it has perhaps been overrated, shows a
powerful dramatic expression of the singer’s feeling as interpreted by
surrounding nature (a favorite device of the Romantic poets). The song
rises into religious exaltation, with the thunderstorm outside, as the
nun returns resignedly to the praise of her religious contemplation.
_Die Allmacht_ is a song in the most exalted style of Beethoven, but
executed with a technique which is utterly of the romantic school. God
is praised by all his works, by the storm no less than by the devout
heart in prayer. Each is expressed by Schubert in a musical passage
of great beauty. Yet each section is but an inextricable part of the
symphonic movement--for religious adoration is not a collection of
separate feelings, but a great emotional synthesis. The music for
Goethe’s wonderful ‘Wanderer’s Evensong’ is no less remarkable for
the musical blending of shades of emotion. But it is something more,
something which is in the highest degree typical of the art-song. For
it follows the words, not only in expression but in accent, so that
not a syllable is falsified. No recitative could be more just to the
spoken value of the words. In fact, this song can be read as a pure
recitative, in which the words, spoken sincerely and unaffectedly,
correspond exactly with the music. And yet, looked at from the other
side, it is a perfect melody. This blending of the declamatory and
lyrical elements in a perfect synthesis is true to the spirit of the
art-song. For no art-song is good that does any sort of violence to the
text, as it would be spoken. And yet no art-song is a song if it has
not a musical beauty of its own. And it is one of the highest tests of
the trained singer to give full value to both these elements, without
letting either crowd out the other. ‘Gretchen’s Prayer’ is another
fine example of this, less simple but no less perfect. Here, as the
supplication rises into emotional entreaty, the music becomes more
independently lyrical, floating in air as though to bear the petition
to a higher sphere.
Schubert is the great exemplar of a form which has been cultivated
by almost every composer since his time--the song-cycle. He was not
the originator of the form, for Beethoven (in addition to others) had
written a true song-cycle in _An die Ferne Geliebte_. But Schubert was
the first to show the full possibilities of the song-cycle.
He has left us three such works--the _Müllerlieder_, of twenty songs;
the _Winterreise_, of twenty-four; and the _Schwanengesang_, of
fourteen. The last was not planned by the composer as a cycle, but was
issued as such by his publisher just after his death, when (as has so
often been the case) the Germans had waked up partially to the genius
they had lost. And for once the commercial publisher was justified. For
the songs were actually Schubert’s swansong, being written in the last
few weeks of his life (the final one of the series was the very last of
his compositions). Moreover, they are of a pessimistic character which
is rarely betrayed in Schubert’s earlier works.
The _Müllerlieder_, or ‘Miller’s Songs,’ were composed by Schubert in
his first enthusiasm over Wilhelm Müller’s poems. It is related that
he went to call upon a friend one evening, found the friend out but
discovered the book lying upon his table, became immersed in it while
waiting, and finally walked away with it in his pocket. The next day he
apologized for the borrowing, pleading that the poems had inspired some
beautiful melodies, and he felt he had to write the music for them all.
The friend forgave him, as have all who have since learned to know the
songs he wrote to those words.
The Miller Songs tell a connected story, after the manner of Tennyson’s
‘Maud,’ by making each one of the poems the lyrical expression of the
hero in his successive moods. The hero of Müller’s cycle is a typical
figure of the German romanticism. He is a wanderer on the face of the
earth, a sensitive, introspective man, a friend of sorrow and in love
with unhappiness. To us he seems a rather ridiculous figure. But he
was taken seriously enough by the Germans of the time, who had good
cause to be pessimistic over the disorganized state of their country
and their national life. This miller hero is suffering from unrequited
love, which was a favorite theme of the romanticists. But, above all,
in the spirit of the time, he is a lover of nature. He sees in nature a
reflection of his own moods and sorrows. Nature seems to us to be one
of the staples of lyric poems--worn to the bone. But, as a matter of
fact, nature is a rather recent invention of civilized man’s. The Alps
were ‘discovered’ by the poets no earlier than the eighteenth century.
Certain early poems, notably the Iliad, show a feeling for natural
beauty. But the study of nature as a cult, the conscious effort to find
moods and meanings in her, is hardly more than a century and a half
old. Folk poetry contains very little of it, and then usually only in
sentimental connotations. In Schubert’s time nature was still a recent
discovery and a thrilling one. So Schubert’s contemporaries, apart from
their pessimism, were able to immerse themselves in such poetry as
that of the _Müllerlieder_ and the _Winterreise_ without feeling the
strained preciosity which we inevitably feel in it in our realistic
age. As they stood and in their time the _Müllerlieder_ were admirably
suited to romantic musical treatment by Schubert.
In the first song, ‘Wandering,’ the hero is happy enough in his
simple melodic tramping about the countryside. Knowing Schubert’s own
predilections in that direction, we feel that he must have put some of
his own enthusiasm into the song. In the second song of the series,
‘Whither?’ he meets a rippling brook, and is filled with romantic
wonderings and presentiments concerning its destination. Can we doubt
that it leads him to his future beloved? He follows it and comes upon
a lovely mill, whose wheel is propelled by the brook, simple, of
beneficent and sympathetic nature. The wanderer applies to the miller
for work and is taken on. Thereupon, in a beautiful song, he pays his
thanks--to the brook. In the fifth song, _Feierabend_, he has become
as one of the miller’s family. He loves, like a true apprentice out of
Wagner’s _Meistersinger_, to hear the master, at the close of a day’s
work, say ‘Well done!’ But most of all he is happy because he has met
the miller’s daughter.
In the sixth song, ‘Curiosity,’ he is in perplexity, and turns, as
every romantic youth of the time did, to nature for help. ‘Does she
love me?’ he is persistently asking, and he addresses his question
to the brook. In the next song, ‘Impatience,’ his attraction for the
girl has become a full-fledged passion. ‘_Dein ist mein Herz!_’ he
cries ecstatically. In ‘Morning Greeting’ he addresses some pretty
stanzas and compliments to the miller’s daughter. The tenth song is an
excellent example, in simple form, of the delicate mood which, as we
have said, it is the special province of the art-song to express. The
young miller and the girl are sitting together--beside the brook, of
course. She gets up and goes into the house, and the tears come to his
eyes. In the next song the miller’s daughter has accepted and returned
his love, and in the following one he is at joyful peace with nature,
and is praising the green ribbon which his loved one wears.
But then enters the tragic complication. For we hear a hunter’s horn,
and the handsome young hunter descends upon the peaceful mill. The
miller previsages the meaning of this. In the fifteenth song he is
struggling between pride and jealousy. Then he is once more praising
the dear color--green, which his sweetheart loves because it is like
the fresh green of nature. And in the next song he is cursing the
hateful color (the same green) because its wearer is no longer true to
him. In the eighteenth song the miller’s daughter has given her love
to the huntsman, and the young miller has lost hope. The dead flowers
(for fall has come) express the state of his heart. These flowers must
lie upon his grave. But--when the loved one passes by the grave let
the flowers burst once more into fresh bloom. In the nineteenth song
the miller holds a conversation with his beloved brook, which suggests
to him the sweet suicide which was ultra-fashionable in all romantic
literature of the time. And in the beautiful last song of the cycle the
brook sings to sleep the dead man by its side.
The poems are all truly lyrical, and invite musical setting. They rise
to no marked poetic heights, but are thoroughly poetic and emotional
in feeling. Though Schubert did not achieve a uniform standard of
excellence throughout the series, the general average is high. The
first song, ‘Wandering,’ has a memorable melody of a simple sort, and
the second, which we have mentioned above, is one of his masterpieces.
‘Impatience,’ though formal and strophic in structure, has an
unrestrained sweep of feeling which is rare in Schubert and looks
forward to the later romanticists of music. The ‘Morning Greeting’ is
a simple Italianate melody of great beauty, one which is likely to
lead astray the singer who tries to give it overmuch ‘expression.’
‘The Hunter’ is spirited, but has no great musical value. ‘Jealousy
and Pride,’ though not very attractive musically, is interesting as
an example of Schubert’s discriminating use of the simplest kind of
accompaniment for precise emotional expression. _Die liebe Farbe_,
however, is one of the masterpieces. It is almost French in its
thread-like delicacy, but this will prove a pitfall for the singer who
has not attained full control of the niceties of vocal expression.
The formal daintiness of the song is like the allegretto of some toy
symphony. And at the same time it is neatly expressive of the playful
mood of the words. The contrast of the companion song, _Die böse
Farbe_, of course offers a problem to the interpretive singer.
But perhaps the most masterful song of the cycle is the eighteenth,
‘Dead Flowers.’ This, in moderate two-four time, is strikingly like
the allegretto movement of Schubert’s C major symphony, one of the
loveliest of all his orchestral pieces. The entrancing modulation from
an undecided minor to a spirited major on the words ‘_Der Mai ist
gekommen, der Winter ist aus_,’ is a touch which any lover of Schubert
would recognize as his unmistakably at the first hearing. But don’t
miss the finer art of this lovely passage, for the joyousness of the
major is deceptive; the miller is black at heart over his failure
in love, and is only beguiling himself in a passing moment. Notice,
therefore, the plaintiveness of the accompaniment on this passage.
‘The Miller and the Brook’ is an interesting example of the half
lyrical, half declamatory style which Schubert sometimes adopts, as we
have seen. But the last piece of the cycle is pure song. It is hard to
analyze the plaintive character of this melody, and hard especially to
understand how the augmented fourth, traditionally considered a harsh
interval, becomes at Schubert’s hands an instrument of deep emotional
expression.
It has often been pointed out that the motive of the brook gives a
subtle unity to this song cycle, and that the motive is preserved in
Schubert’s music. From the rippling triplets of the accompaniment
of ‘Whither,’ the first song in which the brook enters, to the
cradling motion of the accompaniment to the last, the brook is almost
continuously in the piano part. But, though Schubert’s feeling here
is extremely delicate, his technical means are of the simplest. If
it is realism, it is realism of the most primitive sort. We should
not be misled by the praise of the ‘brook music’ in this cycle. True
descriptive music, whether for good or for bad, did not enter song
until after Schubert. And we should further remember that, although
Schubert was indeed the first great composer of the song-cycle, he
never gave the form the unity and inner meaning which was imparted to
it by Schumann, and which is typical of it to our minds.
The _Müllerlieder_ reveal admirably the tender interpretation of
sentiment of which Schubert was such a master. But they are by no
means songs of a greatness equal to that of his next cycle, the
_Winterreise_. The ‘winter journey’ taken by the hero (Müller again is
the poet) is a pilgrimage in search of forgetfulness after an unhappy
love affair. Even more than the _Müllerlieder_, it is an essay in the
interpretation of nature in terms of human sentiments. The songs,
indeed, are little more than a series of parallels drawn between the
scene of the winter landscape and the feelings of the hero. They are a
personalizing of the weather, a dramatization of the thermometer.
In the first song the hero tells of his lost sweetheart, and sings to
the memory of her a touching ‘Good-night’ lullaby. The second hears the
wind playing about the roof of the house, and suggests that even so
circumstances play with man’s heart. In the third he finds the cold air
freezing his tears--thus his very sorrow has become fixed and rigid.
The fourth is a vision of the world paralyzed in the cold of winter:
his heart is frozen and her picture is blotted out of it. In the fifth
he remembers the linden tree under which they spent their happiest
hours.
So the songs go, one after another. The ninth is the ‘Will-o’-the-wisp’
song; he will not be misled by these false lights, for his heart has
been misled by such beacons before. In the next, ‘Rest,’ the hero
tells how he is so occupied by the pain of his travelling and the pain
of his sorrow that only when he lays his body down to rest at night
does he realize how tired he is. From this point on the great songs
of the cycle are numerous. The thirteenth, ‘The Post,’ pictures the
galloping of the approaching mail coach, with the blowing of its horn.
Is there a letter for him? No, for he is alone in the wide world. The
post departs--in a minor key. In the fourteenth song, _Der greise
Kopf_, he notices that the frost has made his hair white, and he thinks
of himself as an old man, and wishes he could be many years removed
from his sorrow. In the long and somewhat descriptive song, _Im Dorfe_,
he enters a village and the dogs bark at the lonely wanderer; even so
the world is strange and hostile to him. In _Täuschung_ (‘Illusion’)
he sees a light in the distance, and hopes it comes from a hospitable
farmhouse. But, alas! the light was an illusion, like the rest of the
things we hope for in life.
Then come five final songs--every one a masterpiece of the first order.
The _Wegweiser_ tells of the sign-post the hero sees on the road. But
there is another sign-post which is also directing him on his longer
road and it points relentlessly the way to Death. Yet, in the next
song, _Das Wirtshaus_, when he approaches a graveyard, he finds no
welcome awaiting: the rooms of this tavern are all occupied. Death
itself will not soothe his loneliness. In the next song, ‘Courage,’
he makes a final despairing effort to free himself from his misery by
pure force of will-power. If the snow flies in his face, he will dash
it aside. He will laugh loud and merrily. If life is an illusion, he
will _make_ it worth while. If there are no gods on earth, we ourselves
shall be gods. But this mood cannot last. He sees two false suns in the
heavens, in addition to the one that has always been there. But they
vanish, like the two suns of earlier years--the eyes of his beloved.
Only one more sun need vanish and blessed night will come for him.
We are spared the suicide which we might expect in the final song of
the cycle. The wanderer comes upon an old man playing the grind-organ.
He grinds out what music he can, but his little money-box remains
ever empty. The wanderer feels the brotherhood between himself and
the old man. ‘Play my songs on your grind-organ,’ he asks. People
have suggested that this bit of verse must have come very close to
Schubert’s heart; for he, too, had made what music he could, he too was
alone in the world, and he too found his little money-box always empty.
Of the songs of this cycle at least a third rank with Schubert’s
best. ‘The Lindentree,’ with its simple strophic melody, is almost
a folk-song among the German people. _Die Post_ is justly admired
because of the way it blends a mild realism with high melodic and
interpretative beauty. _Der greise Kopf_ is especially interesting as
pointing forward to the more complex and delineative style of several
of Schubert’s later songs, with its melodic peculiarity of outline and
the extreme importance given the accompaniment. In superficial texture
it much resembles _Die Stadt_ (‘The Town’) from his last song group.
‘The Signpost’ however, is more truly representative of Schubert’s
genius. The movement of the song is symphonic, much like that of the
‘Dead Flowers’ in the _Müllerlieder_. Its steady pulse of rhythm
avoids monotony by the most delicate of harmonic movement in the inner
parts. As the tragedy deepens toward the end of the song the steady
beat of the melody continues for whole measures on a single tone. And
in half notes a bass and an alto voice move chromatically toward each
other through the best part of an octave. The device would be a trick
in the hands of a lesser genius; with Schubert it becomes poetic
interpretation. This wonderful song is abundantly worth careful study;
in particular, the harmonic freedom, combined with liquid smoothness
of voice progression, reveals the romantic strain in the composer’s
equipment and something of his peculiar contribution to the development
of music’s expressive resources.
Of ‘The Inn’ we have already spoken. The deep and tragic sweetness of
it grows on one, impressive as it is at first hearing. This particular
mood of tragic sweetness is a pitfall for composers. With any but
the genius it is sure to become maudlin. With Schubert it became
heartrending.
Such a song as ‘Courage’ cannot be overpraised. The compressed energy
of its movement is not that of animal life, but of moral effort. Human
will-power is felt throughout it. The change from minor to major
(Schubert to the bone) in the last lines makes the hearer’s blood surge
to dizziness. It is one of the most difficult songs to sing. For its
energy may so easily be taken for animal spirits. It is just the song
to ‘run away’ with the singer. And when once the singer has lost mental
control of it, it becomes pitiless toward him. The tonic arpeggio of
the last line requires ultimate exactness of vocal control. And from
beginning to end the least inaccuracy of intonation or accent will be
evident to the audience like a black streak on a white shirt-front.
_Nebensonnen_ (‘Satellites’) is of utmost simplicity. It is so
unassuming that for a moment it seems all but trivial. Yet this is the
tender modesty of great lyric expression. The song is a test of the
singer’s taste. The least over-sentimentalization of it will make the
judicious grieve. A thousand times better to make it too simple and too
prosaic than too emotional.
The last song, ‘The Organ Grinder,’ is written over a monotonous ‘drone
bass,’ imitative of a primitive grind-organ. The melody is apparently
as crude as the instrument that is supposed to have played it. But
somewhere in it one hears--one knows not how--the deep strain of pathos
which is one of Schubert’s miracles.
The third cycle, ‘Swan Songs,’ is matter for amazement to every student
of Schubert. For its composer, in the space of fifteen years since he
first began writing in earnest, seems to have become a totally new
man with a totally new musical technique. It is traditionally hard
for a musician to change his technique once it is firmly ingrown. The
greatest musicians only--Beethoven, Wagner, and a few others--have
been able to do it. That Schubert could do it--in addition to the fact
that he was thus willing further to endanger his chances of material
success--proves the marvellous richness of his natural endowment. When
one considers that these songs were written by a man who had just
passed his thirtieth year one is ‘teased out of thought’ with the
curiosity as to what he would have become in music had he lived. Some
have answered--‘the greatest composer of all time.’ The speculation is
fascinating, and it makes us love our Schubert the better.
The fourteen ‘Swan Songs’ are written to seven texts by Rellstab,
one by J. G. Seydl, and six by Heine. The last fact makes us pause.
Rarely has there been so rich a lyric poet as Heine, probably never
one who could so inspire song writers. His first book of lyrics had
been published only shortly before Schubert’s death, and the composer
had set six of them before his final illness. Of these six, five are
enduring masterpieces. If only Schubert’s genius could have been mated
to Heine’s through the succeeding ten years!
The seven Rellstab songs include the universally known ‘Serenade,’
the beauty of which is too obvious and too familiar to need further
comment. Another and greater song of the list is _Aufenthalt_. The
speaker’s ‘abode’ is among the rugged cliffs, and he reflects that his
sorrow is as unshakable as the eternal rocks. The furious sweep of the
song’s movement is breathless. Beneath and above the triplets of the
accompaniment is always a passionate and despairing melody. When the
voice rests for a moment the piano, in marvellous imitation, takes up
the strain. The climax, on the words ‘_starrender Fels_,’ is terrific.
The final half-declaimed phrase is almost Greek in its severe nobility.
Of the Heine songs the best known is _Am Meer_ (‘By the Sea’). The
introductory chords scored in the bass express the impenetrable
mystery of the sea. The very simple melody is the essence of moody
retrospection. Such a work as this is as supreme among songs as the
second movement of Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony is in orchestral music.
_Die Stadt_ and _Der Atlas_ show the great importance which Schubert
accorded to the accompaniment and the freedom with which he had come to
handle it. In _Ihr Bild_ (‘Her Picture’) we have another of Schubert’s
very simple melodies--and how impressive in its simplicity! Perhaps
Heine was never more perfectly set to music than in this instance.
The wonderful _Doppelgänger_, unique among Schubert’s works, has
already been mentioned. Mr. Henderson is right in his judgment of this
piece. It is Wagnerism before Wagner’s time. It is the technique of the
latter half of the nineteenth century previsaged by the genius of a
poor and shy school-teacher living in a cheap Vienna lodging. It is a
vision and a prophecy.
Of the ballads we need say little. Strangely enough not one of them is
of the finest quality, or truly representative of Schubert, except that
one which was the first of his songs to be published, and one of the
half dozen to be most widely known--the ‘Erl King.’ It is strange, and
disappointing, when we consider the perfection of this early attempt,
that Schubert left the ballad, one of the most attractive of song
forms, to his contemporary, Löwe, a man who had not a tenth part of
his talent. ‘The King of Thule’ is one of the best of the remainder,
but it is immensely surpassed by Liszt’s setting. The ‘Fisher Boy’
is charming, but being in the strophic form, is no contribution to
the development of the form. ‘The Young Nun,’ fine as it is, is too
rhetorical to satisfy a true lover of Schubert. In his more declamatory
style Schubert often fails even to be interesting. ‘The Singer,’ to
words by Goethe, is workmanly declamation such as any man of talent
might have written. The Ossian songs, of which ‘Kolma’s Complaint’ is
the best, reflect the somewhat strained verbosity of the words, and
fail to convince with their beauty. The same is true of Schubert’s
setting to Klopstock’s scena, ‘Hermann and Thusnelda.’ Pomp and
circumstance drown out the music. For the true Schubert we must leave
the larger forms and return to the shorter lyrics, which reveal the
composer’s highest glory--the greatest beauty in the simplest terms.
VI
The writing of songs during Schubert’s time, and immediately before,
was carried on on an amazing scale. It is not unusual to find
composers of the time writing thousands of them. These songs have
practically vanished from modern song-programs. But many of them were
extremely popular at the time, and remain staples in the repertories
of singing societies. Not a few of them have become folk-songs second
to none in popularity. The simple form of most of these little lyrics
almost precludes their having any importance in the history of song
development, but it would be a pity if they were lost altogether to
the student of singing.
The age in which they were written was, as we have seen, the great age
of German national feeling. The intense sincerity and manliness of a
Körner or an Arndt filled the whole nation with generous sentiments,
contrasting with the delicate refinement of the French culture on the
one hand, and the morbid introspection of the German romanticists on
the other. Patriotic and military songs abounded. It was also the age
of the formation of the male singing-societies which have since become
such a typical feature of German life, and composers wrote freely for
the four-part male chorus, or for the male solo voice. It was also the
age of the awakening interest in folk-literature, and German history
or legend furnished many a tale for men to sing around the festive
board, or for nurses to sing to the children at night. Finally, it was
the age of republican sentiment in Germany, the age when an idealistic
and naïve nation was still expecting the reigning house to give
constitutional government once the people had freed themselves from
French rule. It was a Germany very different from the Germany we have
seen since the Franco-Prussian war--a Germany that was less practical,
less commercial, less ambitious, but infinitely more simple and lyric.
Hence the output of fine songs was enormous. Never was the German
genius more spontaneous; never was it more truly German. The songs of
the time, which repose by the thousands in old _Kommersbücher_, and
have sifted by scores into modern song collections, are the very breath
of fresh air and generous spirits.
At the period of Schubert’s early activity Weber was the great
national composer of the Germans. We have seen elsewhere[22] how
German national sentiment centred around his music when the German
kings turned traitor and sought to force the people back into an
age of eighteenth-century reactionism. His opera, _Der Freischütz_,
was a sort of Marseillaise in time of exile for the lovers of German
liberty and union. But earlier than this Weber had made himself the
chief national musical figure in Germany. His settings of Körner’s
fiery _Leyer und Schwert_ songs had raised him from a hardworking
kapellmeister into a household name. The newly formed singing societies
took up the songs, and at least one, the ‘Sword Song,’ has lived to
this day. But in addition to these purely national and military songs,
Weber wrote a great number of others, all in simple form and in the
direct folk-spirit which he mastered as no other composer mastered it
before or since. Many of them are sung still. But the great majority
have by this time become quite outdated. We need only refer to one--the
charming lullaby _Schlaf, Herzenssöhnchen, mein Liebling bist du_.
Three composers preëminently continued Weber’s work as composer
of German opera--Conradin Kreutzer (1780-1849), Albert Lortzing
(1801-1851), and Heinrich Marschner (1795-1861). Of these, Kreutzer was
peculiarly close to the German popular genius. His settings of Uhland’s
_Wanderlieder_ are very fine, _In die Ferne_ being particularly worthy
of study. Kreutzer, too, was one of the most successful composers of
male choruses; his elaborate chorale, _Das ist der Tag des Herrn_, will
probably be remembered as long as German music exists. Lortzing and
Marschner freely introduced simple strophic songs into their operas,
and by these are chiefly known. Their style was as simple as Weber’s
and the historical development of song at their hands (slight in any
case) is in a different direction from that which Schubert took. Their
melodies are not inappropriate, but we look in vain in them for any
of the close emotional interpretation which we find so abundantly in
Schubert.
But the finest songs of this semi-popular style (_volkstümliche
Lieder_) were written by men who have no other claim to greatness. We
may mention F. H. Himmel (1765-1814), Methfessel (1785-1869), Nägeli
(1773-1836), Lindpainter (1791-1861), and Silcher (1789-1860). These
are the true writers of modern German folk-songs. The energy of their
music is of an elementary sort which the more highly trained composer
rarely equals. They live to-day in every gathering of German students,
in every Männerchor, in every nursery. Ten people are familiar with
their songs to one who knows who the composers were. But the gifts
these composers have left to their people are co-extensive with German
culture.
Methfessel is direct and virile, the singer of battles and of the manly
virtues of the great ancestors. How compelling is the vigor of ‘_Stimmt
an, mit hellem Klang_’! And what a boiling of the blood is in his
fiery setting of Arndt’s ‘The God Who Made the Iron Grow!’ Nägeli is
softer and more sentimental. We remember him chiefly by _Freut euch des
Lebens_ and the charming ‘Good-Night.’ Lindpainter was less talented,
and his songs, which partook of a romantic nature, have almost
disappeared. But Himmel is among the greatest. His setting of Körner’s
‘Prayer on the Eve of Battle’ (vastly superior to Schubert’s) is one
of the deepest expressions of religious faith in all song literature.
His ‘Ballad of the Three Tailors,’ from _Des Knaben Wunderhorn_, is a
delightful example of the typical Studentenlied. And one should not
overlook his four songs from _Alexis und Ida_, in which he shows a
delicacy of sentiment approaching that of Schubert though he wrote them
some years before the composition of the ‘Erl King.’
Finally, there is Silcher, who is to Germany exactly what Stephen
Foster is to America. His songs are innumerable, and the number of
great folk-songs among them is astonishing. The very heart of German
music pulses in Silcher. The famous ‘Loreley’ melody is his, and also
_Zu Strassburg auf der Schanz_ and the wonderful _Lebewohl_. He is
one of the three or four composers in the world who could with any
considerable frequency equal the beauty and directness of folk-songs.
He is a text for this chapter. Only the student who knows and loves
Silcher can truly know and love Schubert.
FOOTNOTES:
[20] See Musical Examples (Vol. XIII).
[21] See Musical Examples (Vol. XIII).
[22] Vol. II, p. 230 ff.
CHAPTER IX
ROBERT SCHUMANN
Romantic music and romantic poetry--Schumann as a
song-writer--The earlier songs--The ‘Woman’s Life’ cycle; the
‘Poet’s Love’ cycle; the later songs--Schumann’s contemporaries.
Schubert died just before the great artistic outburst which we know
as the romantic period. We have seen elsewhere[23] how this force
grew and achieved expression in Paris, and thanks partly to political
conditions spread to all parts of Europe. Schumann, though not at all
interested in politics, felt this force in its artistic aspect, as did
all other sensitive men of the time. After Schubert, he was the one man
preëminently to express the new feeling in terms of song.
Much had happened between 1828, when Schubert died, and 1840, when
Schumann wrote his first songs. To put the case briefly, the romantic
movement in music had got under way. People had begun to know
Schubert’s songs and the later symphonies of Beethoven. The pianoforte
had grown to perfection and had come to have a technique and literature
of its own. The technique of harmony and polyphony had undergone
(partly at Schumann’s own hands) striking changes in the direction of
freedom and expressiveness. The short piece in free form had become
a recognized part of musical literature. The national movement in
Germany, with its extensive use of the folk-song, had been universally
accepted. The travelling virtuoso had become a fixed part of musical
life, and the musical centre of gravity had shifted from the nobles to
the masses. In short, people had come to look for intimate emotional
expression in music, and music had developed the means of supplying the
demand.
Since Schubert’s time, the text of a song had become a factor of
growing importance. Musicians began to recognize that it should
be regarded as equal in value to the music. And along with this
recognition arose a remarkable group of poets, as we have seen in the
last chapter--a group which have supplied German poetry with one of its
most brilliant periods. This group we have described as representing
the period of disillusionment following the shattering of the dreams
of German unity. For a time the hopes of the people had been directed
toward the political and social field; what the best literature had
expressed was the feelings and aspirations which were common to men.
Now that all the fair dreams had been shattered by the selfishness
of the courts and the bickerings of politicians, men asked, ‘What is
the use?’ Turning inward to examine their own souls, they produced a
delicate lyric poetry which contained just what the art-song of the
time needed--the intimate and personal. No grand emotions ring in
this period. In the whole list of Schumann’s songs there is hardly
one whose words could be put into the mouth of a hero. By far the
greater portion are pessimistic. What the poet remembers is a beguiling
hour in the shade of a tree. What he looks forward to is a smile
from his sweetheart. Every man tries to snatch his own small portion
of happiness from this life--and generally makes a poor job of it.
Nevertheless, a man usually tells more of the truth about himself when
he is discouraged than when he is self-satisfied. And in the lyric
poetry of the time we get charming and truthful analyses of human
emotions and moods. The literary standard is perhaps higher than at any
previous period (excepting, of course, the work of the giants like
Goethe and Schiller). Versification is smoother, form is more pleasing,
and words are used with more regard for their suggestive connotations.
In short, men are looking at details in this romantic poetry, even as
in romantic music.
High above all poets of the time stood Heine. No German poet, except
possibly Goethe, ever produced such a quantity of short poems which
have become the property of every German child. The whole literature of
lyric poetry can show only three or four men who can equal him in brief
and direct expression. It was Heine who brought German literature down
from the mountain tops and made it inhabit the homes of men. His poetry
was no ‘mighty line,’ with inverted phrasings and high astounding
polysyllables. He never spoke the speech of the gods, as did Schiller.
He had no use for the paraphernalia of Greek mythology that had been
popular in the _Sturm und Drang_ period. He spoke a German that easily
fits into men’s mouths as they converse with their neighbors. Out of
this he fashioned poetry. His syntax is as simple as that of the King
James Bible (a rare thing in German literature). Each statement is a
unit. And so with each of his thoughts and observations. Each comes to
us in its simplest terms. Heine’s vocabulary (in his poems) is that
of a child. His thoughts are those of any callow love-sick youth. His
statement is so literal that it seems always to be on the verge of
foolishness. He even seems careless in literary art; his lines are
uneven, his rhymes the simplest imaginable, his rhythm disordered. Yet
beneath and beyond this simplicity is the art of a careful workman, and
the charm of a sensitive observer of men. Heine’s poems have the true
lyric quality in that their real charm can never be finally analyzed.
We can only say that beneath those childlike statements of the obvious
was the genius of a poet.
Heine’s genius, like that of Rückert, Platen, Chamisso, Kerner,
Eichendorff, and other contemporaries mentioned in the preceding
chapter, always tended a bit toward the morbid. These poets partook of
the common malady of over-individualism. ‘It is not good for man to
be alone.’ The commonest and truest of truths is that man is a social
animal. It is impossible for him to conduct his life except in company
with others. The stories of hermits who have gone mad with loneliness
have an excellent foundation in fact. And just as man seems meant to
act socially, so he seems obliged to feel socially. It is a spiritual
necessity to think a good deal of others. ‘Whoso saveth his soul shall
lose it.’ The man who seeks to discover all the treasures within him
usually ends by finding nothing there. And when it is the literary
fashion (as it was in Schumann’s time) to look exclusively within
one’s own soul, the age ends in helplessness with a moan of despair.
This condition is implicit in the poetry of Heine. It is, as we have
said, never the poetry of a hero. It can console us in our leisure; it
can never inspire us in our labor. Yet the fault is not so serious as
it may sound. Few people have contracted serious spiritual diseases
from Heine’s poetry. The very simplicity and brevity of it prevent the
reader from taking it too seriously. Read before the fire in the still
hours of the evening Heine cannot harm the tenderest soul of a child
of twelve. He was too genuine a humanist, as well as too excellent
a literary man, to be utterly removed from health. He is a far more
harmless amusement than Byron, for instance, just as he was a far
greater poet than Byron. He was, of course, taken much more seriously
in his day than we can take him in ours. Schumann in particular shows
that he regarded his poet as a text for the highest tragedy and passion
of which he as musician was capable. Yet even in his own time Heine’s
influence must have been essentially healthy. For he had in abundance
two qualities that always tend to keep men in the path of health,
simplicity and humor. The mind that can think simply is not wholly
diseased. And we need never fear the pessimist who can laugh at his own
despair.
I
Two things preëminently Schumann brought to his songs beyond what any
composer had brought previously. First there was an accurate regard
for the text. It is not to belittle Schubert to say that he did not
show Schumann’s accurate regard for the words. Schubert’s regard for
the text was conscientious and faithful; his melodies are marvellously
faithful to the spirit and his musical prosody never does violence
to the metre and accent. But Schubert was working under a somewhat
different tradition from Schumann. He is more the melodist, pure and
simple. His attitude toward musical prosody was somewhat negative;
he demanded of his melody only that it should not do violence to the
metre; beyond that it could follow its own musical course. Hence, we
not infrequently in his songs have such passages as this, from _Die
Allmacht_:
[Illustration: Music score]
verkünden seine Macht
This, of course, is in no way reprehensible or violent to the canons
of art. But it differs from Schumann’s method in that it puts a higher
value on pure song--on the mere joyous exercise of the vocal organs.
Schumann’s attitude toward musical prosody was more positive; he
demanded of his melody not only that it should do no obvious violence
to the metre, but that it should take pains accurately to fit the
minor accents and quantities. He tried to make the text as sung not
very different from the text as declaimed. True, he sometimes wrote
mere lyric passages of melody on an open vowel, like that in the above
example from Schubert. But such passages in Schumann are far more rare.
And the whole body of his songs shows that he took the text more as his
collaborator in matters of detail. His songs are not valuable primarily
because of their melody. He has written many lovely melodies, but a
large proportion of his songs would be of comparatively little musical
value (at least in the voice part) without the words. And his melodic
invention, taking his songs as a whole, is far below the exalted work
of Schubert. Besides, Schubert’s texts, though not generally chosen
without discrimination, do not show the same careful selection as those
of Schumann. The poems of the latter are carefully selected for the
purpose of specific musical treatment, and in consequence seem to have
a higher literary value, whether they have or not. Finally, Schumann
had the immense advantage of possessing nearly all of Heine’s wonderful
lyrics to choose from, a fact that in many an instance gave him the
opportunity of writing immortal music ‘married to immortal verse.’
The second all-important factor which Schumann, over and above
Schubert, brought to his song-writing was a matured harmonic and
pianistic technique for the accompaniments. However truly Schubert
divined the possibilities of the modern pianoforte, just nearing
perfection in his day, he never wrote thoroughly in the new style. His
chords in the bass were apt to be heavy and thick, his accompaniment
is not spread as widely as it might advantageously be, and his inner
voices never show the free and sprightly polyphony which is peculiarly
adapted to the piano. Had he lived he would doubtless have become one
of the greatest masters of the new pianoforte style. But it was left
for Schumann consciously and reverently to take up the work. Schumann
did not write a single song, for publication at least, until he had
been working for full ten years for the piano. His first enthusiasm
was for the piano. The shattering of his hopes to become a virtuoso
forced him to turn his enthusiasm toward piano composition. And in
his early years of creative activity he developed the possibilities
of the new instrument with all the enthusiasm of his youthful nature.
His first twenty-three works, written between the years 1830 and
1840, were almost exclusively for the piano. In them he developed
a pianoforte idiom which was unique in its day. With this new and
mature technique he approached his song writing. Inevitably he looked
as lovingly toward the accompaniment as toward the voice part--some
critics say even more so. He had learned how to make the most of the
mechanical peculiarity of the piano--its _struck_ strings which are
incapable of a true sustained legato; he treated the piano, in other
words, essentially as a hammer instrument and not as a wind instrument,
like the organ. He developed a surprising adeptness at enharmonic
modulation, for which the complete piano keyboard is so peculiarly
adapted. He learned the full use of the damper pedal--not so much
for sustaining chords as for permitting a wide separation of notes.
He learned how to make his inner voices pianistic instead of vocal,
making them depend wholly on their contour and position (as opposed to
tone quality) for their independence. Finally, he had learned how to
give each composition a style of its own--a peculiarity of pianistic
manner over and above its individuality of musical content. All these
qualities of Schumann’s piano technique should be kept in mind in
studying his accompaniments. They represent a good half of the musical
value of Schumann’s songs. If the vocal parts of the _Dichterliebe_
cycle had never been written the accompaniments would still have a high
value as proof of Schumann’s mastery over pianistic writing. Without
an appreciation of the pianistic side of Schumann’s vocal work no
singer can begin to appreciate the songs; he cannot even satisfactorily
sing his part of them. A large share of Schubert’s accompaniments can
be played satisfactorily by a pianist of slight ability, if only he
have the knack of following the singer. But scarcely any of Schumann’s
accompaniments can be played satisfactorily except by a performer who
is an artist at his instrument.
II
Schumann’s songs can be easily divided into two groups. The first,
comprising about a hundred, was composed in 1840, the year of the
composer’s marriage, and of his most fertile and romantic productivity.
After writing these, he professed himself satisfied with what he had
done (well he might be) and doubted whether he should ever write songs
again. His most fervent admirers cannot help wishing that he had kept
to his purpose. A dozen or so indifferent songs were produced in the
next ten years, and then, from 1850 to 1852, when his mental powers
had begun seriously to fail, he turned out more than a hundred. The
contrast between the two groups is striking. The first is nearly all
genius; the second nearly all mediocrity. At best, two or three songs
from this whole later period are worth knowing. Of the first group
there is scarcely one which does not show high creative excellence and
there are at least fifty of the finest quality or close to it.
By far the greater part of the songs of the earlier period are grouped
in cycles. Of these, however, there is only one which contains that
most distinctive quality of the cycle, a unified narrative--as in
Schubert’s _Müllerlieder_. This is the immortal _Frauenliebe und
Leben_. Another, the _Dichterliebe_, is closely bound together and
primarily intended to be sung as a unit.
[Illustration: Robert and Clara Schumann]
_After a daguerreotype from life._
Three more cycles, while looser than the one just mentioned, are
like it in being set solely to the words of one author. And another,
_Myrthen_, has little beyond a common title for unification. A few
other songs have no grouping except that of an opus number.
The first of the songs form a _Liederkreis_ (song-cycle), opus 24,
words selected from Heine. This is obviously an experimental work,
though it contains several fine numbers. _Ich wandelte unter den
Bäumen_ delicately maintains its mood. Number 5, _Schöne Wiege meiner
Leiden_, is pure melody with a simple accompaniment in Schubert’s
style, one of the most affecting of all Schumann’s songs. Sung with
a constant and rich legato, and with well-chosen modulations of
tone quality, it is immediately effective. Number 9, _Mit Myrthen
und Rosen_, is much admired by musicians; it is unlike most of
Schumann in giving an unusual lyric freedom to the voice part, but
the accompaniment, with its delicate inner voices, suggests what was
to come later. The _Myrthen_ of opus 25 include some of Schumann’s
finest. The very first, _Widmung_ (‘Dedication’),[24] is one of the
great songs of all time. Such passionate ardor a composer has seldom
been able to compress into a few notes. The fine legato contrasting
melody, introduced by an impressive enharmonic change, is the purest
of German lyricism. The accompaniment, while conventional enough in
its relation to the voice part, shows the freedom, and especially
the wide separation of notes, which was to flower so magnificently
in the _Dichterliebe_. The great danger in singing this song is that
of making it sound hurried or ‘choppy.’ Here, as so often in song
singing, the correct tempo is half the battle. Let the singer aim to
avoid ‘choppiness,’ on the one hand, and dragging, on the other, and
the correct tempo will come almost automatically, though, of course, no
tempo can hold a song together if there is not a firm legato behind
it. _Der Nussbaum_ (‘The Almond Tree’) is another immortal melody. In
this song the accompaniment enters as a lyric element, as it rarely
does in Schubert except in interludes. The half-phrase of the voice
with its answering phrase from the piano--this is an effect of striking
charm. The supporting part of the accompaniment shows the principle of
the simple broken (or ‘harp’) chord used more freely than had been the
common custom. In _Die Lotusblume_ (‘The Lotus Flower’) the novelty
in the accompaniment is very different--a slow and impressive melody
arising out of the lowest bass notes of the harmonic support.
In these songs we see the piano beginning to sing with the voice on
terms of equality. In number 15, one of the ‘Hebrew Melodies’ of Byron,
we see the formal accompaniment very highly developed. It has become
quite pianistic, with much figuration, and a profusion of chromatic
passings which remind us of Schumann piano pieces. Yet this is a true
accompaniment in the old-fashioned sense, and not, as in some of the
later songs, an independent piano composition. _Lass mich ihm am
Busen hängen_ and _Du bist wie eine Blume_ are charming examples of
Schumann at his simplest. We cannot point out the precise elements of
beauty, yet we feel that the music subtly matches the simplicity of the
words. In other terms, we see in these two songs that ultimate test
of artistic mastery--the command over style. And in these instances
the style subsists quite as much in the voice as in the piano part.
The great piano stylist of the preceding decade has begun to turn
his peculiar gifts to pure vocal music. The grandiose _Talismane_
(‘Talismans’) is perhaps not of high value musically, but it shows the
engaging freshness of Schumann’s romantic invention. The three Burns
songs--‘Somebody,’ ‘The Highlander’s Farewell,’ and ‘The Highland
Cradle Song’--are simply melodies of great beauty and are to be sung
as such. The last-named offers a problem to the singer in the need of
combining the somewhat jerky, rocking motion of the cradle with the
calm monotony which overspreads the whole.
The five songs, opus 27, need not detain us. Of the three songs
from Emmanuel Geibel the last, _Der Hidalgo_ (‘The Hidalgo’), is
particularly interesting. As an attempt at local color (which was never
Schumann’s _forte_) it has no special value. But the vigor of the
accompaniment, with its varied bolero rhythm, and the quiet passages on
the words ‘_Die Schönen von Sevilla_,’ suggest once more some of the
wonderful piano passages of the _Dichterliebe_.
Of the three songs, opus 31, we must note _Die Löwenbraut_ (‘The Lion’s
Bride’) as a fine example of the larger ballad form. This form Schubert
frequently attempted without ever achieving better than mediocrity.
And Schumann himself failed miserably at it in his later years. But in
the present instance he gave us a model. The declamatory voice part
agrees accurately with the prosody of the text without ever quite
losing a melodic value. The accompaniment of the first section consists
only of occasional supporting chords. It is recitative, but, unlike
the _recitativo secco_ of Italian opera, it is recitative raised to
the status of music. The singer should be careful never to lose the
musical beauty of the voice part and at the same time not try to force
it into a formal melody. The middle section illustrates admirably a
device which Schumann used better than any other of his time. This
is the development of a long passage of vocal music from a single
phrase. The vocal part in this middle section is scarcely more than
the repetition, in many forms and keys, of one short and very lovely
phrase. This device is peculiarly suited to the ballad, which, being
in constant forward motion, is liable to lose coherence if the music
does not offer some basis of unification. Schumann used the same device
later in his ballad, _Blondels Lied_ (‘Blondel’s Song’), and here with
even more poetic fitness; for the phrase on which the piece is built up
is that accompanying the constantly recurring refrain of the text and
as it develops seems to infuse the whole work with this single burning
message.
One more of Schumann’s ballads should be mentioned in this place--the
universally known _Die beiden Grenadiere_ (‘The Two Grenadiers’).
Technically the song offers little of interest beyond the composer’s
clever and appropriate abbreviation of the _Marseillaise_ at the end.
The overwhelming gusto of the ballad is too obvious to demand more than
passing mention.
III
The twelve songs to words by Kerner, opus 35, include several of
especial interest. In this group we see Schumann’s development of the
piano part well under way. Each song offers an accompaniment which is
a study in pianistic style. Number 2, _Stirb, Lieb’ und Freund_, has
an austere polyphonic support, in the style of Bach, suggesting the
majesty of some old cathedral. Number 3, _Wanderlust_, is a buoyant and
youthful melody, and number 6, _An das Trinkglass_, a fine romantic
chorale. Numbers 6 and 8, _Stille Liebe_ and _Stille Thränen_, are
intimate psychological studies. In the former the sustained bass
melody beneath the hesitating treble of the accompaniment suggests the
apprehension of the lover who is obliged to wait in silence. The latter
obtains a charming effect with the soft repeated chords of the piano
part and offers a typical Schumann ending in the intermingling melodies
of the close. The six songs opus 36 contain one which has become a
German folk-song--_An den Sonnenschein_, a melody which concentrates
the spirit of dignity and sincerity of German popular music.
In the Eichendorff _Liederkreis_, opus 39, there are four songs of the
very highest rank. Number 2, _Intermezzo_, with its soft syncopation
in the accompaniment, offers a suggestive contrast with the songs
of Schubert and shows how far musical technique had moved in ten or
fifteen years. It is the simplest of melodies, but one with a certain
atmospheric indecision, strongly contrasting with the downrightness
and clearness of outline which Schubert best loved. Number 3 in this
group, _Waldesgespräch_, is as lovely a melody as Schumann ever wrote.
It might be called a ballad, with its story of the knight who wandered
into the forest at night, finding there a lady in distress, attempting
to help her, and discovering that he was in the power of the witch,
the Lorelei, who lies in wait for strong men. The lovely thirds of the
accompaniment seem to spread the mystery of evening over the song, and
when the witch announces her identity the music takes on a momentary
grandeur that suggests the old tales of gods and heroes. The song
is full of fine and expressive effects. But these do not exist in
detail; they rather spring unconsciously out of the musical design.
The singer who attempts to make the song too expressive is sure to go
astray. If it is sung primarily for its musical beauty it becomes of
itself a masterpiece of expressive story-telling. Above all, as so
often in great songs, a good legato is the first and chiefest of the
virtues. Number 12 of the Eichendorff series is the _Frühlingsnacht_
(‘Spring Night’), with its magical triplet accompaniment. Number 5
is the famous _Mondnacht_ (‘Moonlight Night’). Here again we have a
song that quite defies analysis. The voice part consists solely of
a two-line phrase several times repeated. The first three times it
closes on the dominant, the last time on the tonic, with a deep and
satisfying sense of repose. In any but a master hand this form would
become monotonous. But with Schumann’s mysterious accompaniment it
is all magic. The close is peculiarly characteristic. The voice part
comes, as we have said, to a tonic close, but the accompaniment makes
a false cadence of it and the piano part continues to its own logical
ending. The piano part has become utterly organic and independent.
Played by itself, it would offer no clew as to where the voice part
ended. That deceptive cadence is Schumann’s ultimatum to the singer.
‘The song is not ended,’ he seems to say, ‘merely because you have
finished singing. The song is the voice part _and_ the piano part one
and indivisible. If you hurry through the postlude, or belittle it, or
treat it as a useless appendage to the voice part, you are no artist.
If you consider the voice part more important than the piano part, or
yourself more important than the song you are singing, go and give your
feeble talents to vaudeville songs.’ And for audiences, too, this song
has a message: the listener who begins to applaud before the piano
part is finished (and there are few even to-day who do not) is no true
listener. Let him go and listen to a brass band; he has no business
with the art-song.
The five children’s songs, opus 40, offer little of interest. But
the cycle, _Frauenliebe und Leben_ (‘Woman’s Life and Love’), is
undoubtedly the most famous and possibly the greatest song cycle in
all musical literature. The poet, Adalbert von Chamisso, selects eight
crucial moments in woman’s life and puts into her mouth for each of
the eight an exquisite lyric, expressing with wonderful delicacy her
emotions and moods. The poems are perhaps a trifle exaggerated in the
romantic fashion of the time and certainly do not altogether tally
with the emotions of the modern woman. But the groundwork of typical
psychology is expressed with such persuasive eloquence and such
literary charm that no one can read the poems without feeling that he
has lived through, in some measure, the experience of which they tell.
In the first song, _Seit ich ihn gesehen_, the young girl has just
seen her hero; in a moment, almost, she has cast her young girlhood
behind her; she feels strange presentiments; she no longer cares for
the games of her sisters; she wishes to be alone; the personality of
her hero seems to be ever present. In the second song she has come to
know him. She makes no secret of her love; she sings it openly; she
is proud of it before the world. In the next song she has heard his
proposal. ‘_Ich kann’s nicht fassen, nicht glauben_’ (‘I cannot grasp
it, I cannot believe it’), she says, torn between joy and terror. But
in the next song, _Du Ring an meinem Finger_, she is apostrophizing her
engagement ring and looking at the long vista of life ahead. Number 5,
_Helft mir, ihr Schwestern_, is sung on the bridal day. Next, she is
in her own home, in the arms of her husband, vainly attempting to make
him understand why she weeps when she is happiest. In number 7 she is
singing a lively but tender lullaby to her newborn child. In the last
song she is singing her grief at the death of her husband. ‘This is
your first cruel act toward me,’ she says to the dead body. She sees
before her a life of voluntary loneliness, assuaged by memories of her
former happiness.
The music with which Schumann interprets these songs may justly be
called psychological. The term ‘psychological’ is applied freely and
indiscriminately to music and usually without justice. Properly, music
is far too abstract an art to carry any precise meanings. Yet with
the gradual and persistent process of six centuries, whereby certain
musical styles and progressions have come to be associated with
definite moods, there has grown up a technique which, with a properly
sympathetic audience, may be manipulated to express states of soul.
Whatever this technique is worth, Schumann, in his _Frauenliebe und
Leben_, has used it with masterly power. In the first song he writes
a simple, timid melody, the rhythmic flow interrupted as though by
the hesitation of a fluttering heart. ‘Since my eyes first beheld
him I seem to have been blind.’ The emotion rises. ‘I care no more
for the games of my sisters. I had rather weep.’ Then comes a lovely
phrase of tender sweetness. Weeping for love is a precious delight.
The broken melody continues. Not until the last bar does the hearer
become conscious of its full charm and formal beauty. The second song,
‘He, the Noblest of All,’ is in a very different mood--proud and
exuberant expression. It has a grand lyric sweep which only a fine
artistic taste can restrain from a somewhat cheap pompousness. The
middle section returns for a moment to the girl’s feelings of timidity.
‘Turn from me before it is too late,’ she says; ‘I am not worthy of
you.’ Schumann has chosen not to interrupt the flow of his song here.
To express the more timid mood he employs dissonance and chromatic
progression, which finally resolves into the original clear-cut strain.
Throughout the symphonic unity of the song is preserved. The third
song, ‘I cannot grasp it,’ returns to the spirit of the first. It is
an agitated allegretto movement. The voice part follows the words with
utmost faithfulness; it is almost a free recitative, interrupted only
by one gentle lyric phrase on the words, ‘I am thine forever.’ Yet
here, again, there is a true melody throughout, and a charming one, but
it seems only to peep out from behind the detached notes. The fourth
song, ‘Thou, Ring upon My Finger,’ has much the design and movement
of the second, though quieter. In the fifth, too, melody is dominant.
In the sixth the composer returns to the declamatory style. Here the
delineative music lies chiefly in the accompaniment, with lovely
modulations and snatches of melody suggesting the timid wonder of the
wife in her happiness. The voice part hardly comes to an end at all,
but fades away on the words ‘Thy picture,’ while the piano takes up the
tale. The next song, the lullaby, musically the least important of the
eight, is a simple strophic melody with a broken chord accompaniment.
The last is recitative pure and simple. The rests between phrases
seem broken with sobs, out of which there rises the heroism of a
determination to face life alone and without complaint. The emotional
power of those few notes of recitative is beyond description. The
stark tragedy of the opening lines becomes clouded over, as it were,
with tears, and the music melts into calm grayness as the woman sings,
‘The veil falls; I withdraw into myself, where I have thee and my lost
happiness.’ And then, as the great quiet of loneliness settles down,
the piano sings softly the whole of the first song, the early glow of
delicate color when the girl first beheld her hero. And we seem to see
ahead the years of loneliness softened only by sweet memory.
No group of songs has ever more perfectly achieved the union of words
and music. The faults of this cycle on the artistic side are the faults
of the generation. People’s views of life have changed much since
Chamisso set maiden hearts a-fluttering. The notion of the wife as
the bounden slave of her husband--a notion only a step or two removed
from the theory of the harem--has given place to the healthier view
of the wife as one of two high contracting parties. One cannot help
noticing in Chamisso’s poems how small a part the child plays in the
woman’s life. And the idea that upon the death of the husband the
woman’s thoughts should be solely of her own past rather than of her
child’s future is little short of repulsive. These are the faults of
an individualistic, a pessimistic, an over-sentimental age. They are
reflected in the spirit of the music. Since then our art, if it has
become more sensuous, has also become more vigorous. Schumann’s work
was for an age rather than for all time.
In the singing of these songs the singer must avoid stressing too much
the declamatory character of the three slow ones as well as the melodic
exuberance of the others. The songs seem on paper to be detached and
broken. All the more they must be sung smoothly, discreetly, without
undue emphasis. The singer will not go far wrong in following the
notes and the time signatures quite literally. Many a singer has been
astonished by that old miracle of art--that if the notes are sung as
written they will work their own magic. The composer has seen to that.
If a song relies wholly on a ‘singer’s personality,’ the composer has
failed. So in these songs pure intonation, just rhythm, and careful
diction will interpret the poet truly. If the singer finds that with
the observance of these values the songs do not express what they
should, let him put them aside for a while. As his technical artistic
powers grow he will find that the songs have grown along with them.
If he is much concerned about bolstering up the song by giving it
‘expression,’ he is sure to be on the wrong track.
Of the ‘Romances and Ballads,’ opus 45, we need only notice the
spirited _Es zogen zwei rüst’ge Gesellen_. Opus 48, however, is the
immortal _Dichterliebe_ series, probably the most individual of all
Schumann’s song works. Here, again, we find Schumann suffering somewhat
from the faults of romanticism. To put the case briefly, he took Heine
seriously. Heine himself, we cannot but feel, was not so taken in by
his own poetry. In addition to the ever-present grin which is in almost
every one of his lyrics there is a certain playful quality, as though
he were only teasing the sentimentalism of the human heart. If Heine
suffered only a hundredth part of the pangs described in his mass of
short poems he must have had more love affairs than any one man could
attend to in three lifetimes. The truth is, Heine was dealing with
moods, and Schumann supposed he was dealing with emotions. We see the
contradiction to an almost grotesque degree in the song _Ich grolle
nicht_ (‘I do not complain’). Here the poet tells his love that he
will not complain of his unhappiness because, though she goes about
in diamonds, he has seen in a dream that she, too, is unhappy. This
is pretty sentiment and charming playful heroics. Tragedy it is not.
But Schumann’s music is tragedy of the noblest strain. It strikes an
emotional depth which the composer rarely equalled. To such music the
Puritans of Cromwell’s time might have left their wives and children to
go out and fight on the side of the Lord. We have said that Heine has
nowhere in his poems written words that might be put into the mouth of
a hero. But in this case Schumann wrote music that a hero might have
sung. Perhaps if Schumann’s sense of humor had been a little more human
and a little less literary he might have seen the incongruity. But it
would have been an unfortunate event, for it would have cost the world
the wonderful music of this song. Indeed, many of the greatest works of
art would never have been created if their authors had possessed a keen
sense of humor.
Generally, however, Schumann did not make this mistake. In nearly
every other one of the _Dichterliebe_ songs he found music which was
as gossamer, as little fundamental, as Heine’s words. To some students
they may seem at first cold and pedantic. Certainly they do not draw
their greatness from melodic charm. Merely as melodies, few of these
songs would have lived to this day. Undoubtedly their first appeal is
a technical one--to the musical theorist and the pianist as well as
to the singer. But this is by no means to say that they lack poetry.
It is merely that their poetry is concealed and reveals itself only
to him who has mastered and understood their finer technical appeal.
Take, for instance, the ninth song, _Das ist ein Flöten und Geigen_
(‘I hear the flutes and violins’). The rejected lover hears from a
distance the orchestra playing for dancing at the wedding of his
beloved. The accompaniment is a waltz rhythm, with repeated notes
deftly inserted to suggest perhaps the trumpets of the band. The waltz
is steady and continuous. It has none of the sensuous softness, none
of the simplicity and balance of phrase which we are accustomed to in
popular waltzes. It tinkles on continuously, without an opportunity to
draw a breath--and hence seems at first glance aimless. Instead of the
engaging warmth we expect from waltzes, it gives a chilling effect. And
that, of course, is exactly the effect it had on the rejected lover.
It is a tinkly, monotonous waltz, perhaps heard through the winter
air. The voice has a little half melodic, half declamatory complaint,
but it seems almost independent of the piano part. When the voice
rests that waltz is still going on, throbbing, monotonous. Now, any
indifferent pianist will make a sorry affair of this accompaniment.
It demands the most delicate and exact finger work, the nicest regard
for rhythm, the most delicate modulating of tone power. It must be
played almost without pedal, and it reveals instantly any slip in the
pianist’s technique. It might almost be published independently as
a piano étude. The singer must deliver his part with great delicacy
of diction and achieve expression on the most limited scale. The
piece has no contrasts. It is so closely bound together that a single
omission of a note will spoil the whole design. Decidedly this is not
an interesting song to a bad musician. Every detail is a difficulty.
If he cannot master it, it remains to him cold and austere. But to him
who can master it, it becomes a rare delight. Each technical difficulty
becomes an expressive quality; the austerity becomes only poetry more
delicately refined. The whole is a challenge to the taste of the singer
and the accompanist. The song, within its limits, is without a flaw.
Much the same can be said of every one of the _Dichterliebe_ songs.
There is no superficial similarity between any two. Each one uses
technical means which are employed in no other. In each the technical
means are nicely adapted to the character of the music. Each one of the
accompaniments calls upon a different department of the pianist’s art.
Each is developed, technically, in its own manner and in the manner
of no other one of Schumann’s songs. In other words, each of these
remarkable songs has that thing known as style. Each has a personality
as distinct as the personality of one interesting man is distinct from
that of another. The accompaniments might be published alone as Essays
in Style. Such an achievement marks a development of detailed technical
resource hitherto unheard of. From it all later German and French
song writers directly derive. Nor must it be assumed that the voice
parts are uninteresting or unvocal. Quite the contrary. Only in these
songs, as in none that had preceded them, the voice parts are not the
songs, nor a small part of the songs; the songs are inconceivable, are
non-existent, except as voice and piano parts intimately combined.
Songs 1 and 2, ‘In the Wondrous Lovely Month of May’ and ‘From Out
My Tears,’ are simple melodies, charming, but little self-conscious,
demanding something of the singer’s art and learning if they are not to
sound trivial. The third song, ‘The Rose, the Lily, the Dove, the Sun,’
is a technical _tour de force_, an extremely brief and rapid little
piece, demanding the utmost delicacy of intonation and enunciation,
which might almost be sung in a single breath. The fourth song,
‘When I Look Into Thine Eyes,’ is a sort of duet between the voice
and the piano. Each phrase from the singer is tenderly echoed in the
accompaniment. The whole melody has a touching simplicity. Number 6
looks austere. Here Schumann’s effort to maintain a single style (both
technically and poetically) throughout has perhaps led him to dispense
with detailed expression. ‘In the Rhine, the Holy River,’ runs the
first line, and the accompaniment depicts the Rhine flowing, ever so
slowly and majestically, past the Cathedral of Cologne. And, since he
is particularly interested in these songs in homogeneity of style, he
makes the whole song flow along to this type of accompaniment. If the
singer is chiefly interested in exhibiting his voice, he will leave
this song in disgust as cold and unpoetic. But let him beware that his
real motive be not the difficulty he experiences in singing it well.
The following song is the famous _Ich grolle nicht_[25] (‘I do not
complain’), which is easily one of the great songs of the world.
Accepting the words as real tragedy, we must pronounce the music one
of the noblest expressions of emotion in all song literature. The
quiet and dignified melodic line of the voice part seems to suggest
the hero’s stoic acceptance of his fate. The repeated chords of the
accompaniment, moving in solemn progression, reflect the calm of a
great soul. And the marvellous bass part, moving deeper and deeper
down the scale, calling forth from the modern grand piano its most
terrible and wonderful tones, till the very soul seems to quiver in
response--this furnishes a foundation of grandeur which might have
served for a tragedy of Æschylus. But Schumann rarely repeated this
achievement. He was a gentle poet or an ardent technician, or, in his
later years, a verbose bore, but only rarely, as in this instance, a
tragedian.
The eleventh song of the cycle, ‘A Young Man Loved a Maiden,’ has a
simple melody suited to the spirit of the words, supported by a lilting
accompaniment admirably unified in style. The next song, ‘On the
Bright Summer Morning,’ is dignified by the device of the continued
downward arpeggio in the accompaniment. The thirteenth song, ‘I Wept
in My Dreams,’ is especially interesting. The voice part is almost a
recitative, and the accompaniment a sort of orchestral commentary.
Sometimes deep chords form the only support for the singer, sometimes
little rhythmical phrases tell their message. The whole suggests
admirably the effort of the speaker to disentangle his dreams from the
mental mist that surrounds them. The fourteenth song, ‘Each Night in
Dreams,’ is one of the most appealing melodies Schumann ever wrote.
The last of the series, _Die alten, bösen Lieder_ (‘The Old and Evil
Songs’), is a magnificent example of Schumann’s power to put subtle
moods into his accompaniment. The mocking spirit of the words, the
grandiose strutting of little emotions, the legendary paraphernalia
which is invoked by the poet--these seem to be embalmed in this tricky
but brilliant accompaniment. The postlude to the cycle is the melody of
song number 12, freely developed.
The later songs of Schumann can be summed up in a few lines. There were
a few written in the 1840 period, apparently cast aside as unworthy
and inadvisedly published later when Schumann’s matchless faculty of
self-criticism had become weak and dim. Opus 51 contains a delightful
folk-like song, ‘When I into the Garden Go.’ Opus 53 contains the
fine ballad, _Blondel’s Lied_, already described. Opus 79 is a book
of songs for children, containing two or three, notably _Käuzlein_,
_Sandmann_, and _Marienwürmchen_, which bring back a breath of the
youthful romantic Schumann. But nothing could be more pitiful than
the settings which Schumann about this time gave to some of Goethe’s
finest poems--especially the _Wilhelm Meister_ and the ‘Western Divan’
songs. The settings of Queen Mary Stuart’s poems, published in 1852,
are perhaps better than the other pieces of the period, especially
the prayer, which has an appealing melody and much harmonic freedom
in the accompaniment. But the ballads of this later period--including
Schiller’s ‘The Glove,’ Hebbel’s ‘Fair Hedwig,’ and others--are mere
collections of musical bombast. Let us draw the veil. For soon Schumann
was to throw himself into the Rhine in attempted suicide, a martyr to
the vigorous activity of fifteen years--years, one of which produced
the remarkable songs which we have just been studying, by which alone
his name need be known in song literature.
IV
Among Schumann’s contemporaries in song literature we may mention his
wife Clara, his friend and rival Mendelssohn, together with several
lesser known composers--Reinecke, Volkmann, and Jadassohn--and,
finally, two important men, Chopin and Glinka. Clara Schumann (born
1819, Clara Josephine Wieck, died 1896) was a talented composer and
a virtuoso pianist who worked throughout her married life in closest
sympathy with her husband. Three of her songs appear in Schumann’s
opus 37--namely, numbers 2, 4, and 11, _Er ist gekommen_, _Liebst du
um Schönheit_, and _Warum willst du and’re fragen?_ These songs must
be ranked high, for their scholarly command of style and their general
finish, though they are obviously not works of special inspiration.
The best of the three is probably the second, in which the composer
makes extensive use of one of her husband’s devices, that of repeating
a single phrase in various forms and building up the song as out of a
single shape of stone. The last named of the three songs also has a
good melody to its credit.
Mendelssohn wrote many songs during his short lifetime and was probably
the best known of all song-writers of the forties. But his work in this
department has all but passed into oblivion. They are not ambitious
efforts. They make no attempt to strike out new paths; they have no
interest in sounding depths of emotion; they are content with the old
forms and the old formulas of accompaniment. The best that can usually
be said of them is that they are pleasing in melody and faultlessly
graceful according to canons of correctness. On the whole, the ones
best worth singing are those which are consciously _volkstümlich_.
Among these we may name the very beautiful _Es ist bestimmt in Gottes
Rath_, opus 47, No. 7; _O Jugend, O schöne Rosenzeit_, opus 57, number
4; _An die Entfernte_, opus 71, number 3; and _Das Lieblingsplätzchen_,
opus 99, number 3, words from _Des Knaben Wunderhorn_. ‘Italy,’ in opus
8, and _Im Herbst_, in opus 9, have a very real charm. _Neue Liebe_, in
opus 19, suggesting the elf riding through the forest, is about as near
as Mendelssohn ever got to descriptive music in his accompaniments.
The _Frühlingslied_ in opus 71 is by all means one of the best of his
songs, showing contrast and depth of mood and rising to a thrilling
climax on the words _Bist nicht allein_.
Another song writer of peculiarly Germanic cast was Karl Reinecke
(born 1821), friend of Schumann and Mendelssohn and protégé of the
latter, who was for thirty-five years director of the Gewandhaus
concerts at Leipzig. Reinecke’s songs cannot be called great, but they
have to a remarkable degree insinuated themselves into the affections
of the German people. They are at their best when they are nearest
to the _Volkslied_, showing the German genius of achieving deep and
noble expression in the simplest forms. We may mention especially the
Children’s Songs, opus 37, of which the best are the lilting lullaby,
_Wenn die Kinder schlafen ein_, and the moving _Gebet zur Nacht_. The
essential wholesomeness of his talent is shown in the _Singspiel_,
_Ein Abenteuer Händels_ (‘An Adventure of Handel’s), of which the
very simple song, _Lied so treu und herzlich_, is typical. His song
cycle, _Schneewittchen_ (for soprano and contralto with chorus of
women’s voices), is excellent in its way. The simple prologue is a
thing of great beauty, and _Schneewittchen’s_ song, _In seiner Kammer_,
has a charming archaic style, recalling the long and flowing lines
of the Minnesong. Salomon Jadassohn (1831-1901) and Robert Volkmann
(1815-1883) were likewise successful song writers whose lyric work has
largely passed into obscurity. Carl Friedrich Curschmann (1805-1841),
a pupil of Spohr, was a prolific and extremely popular writer of songs
in a sentimental and popular vein, marked by the sensuous quality which
Franz Abt used so richly. An artist of more varied talents was Karl
Gottfried Wilhelm Taubert (1811-1891), who held important official
positions in Berlin, chiefly in the Royal Opera, and composed numerous
songs. The best of these are the _Kinderlieder_, of which the charming
‘Lullaby’ is still popular.
Chopin’s Polish Songs, opus 74, are his only vocal works. They purport
to be arrangements of Polish folk-songs, but it is to be doubted
whether they are to any great extent popular melodies. Probably Chopin
drew freely on Polish motives and rearranged them to suit himself.
However that may be, some of them are masterpieces. ‘The Maiden’s
Wish’ is well known to concert audiences through Liszt’s arrangement
of it for piano. The _Bacchanal_ is a glorious piece, admirable for
an encore number, the simplest of quatrain tunes, but overpowering in
its frenzied energy. ‘The Spring’ is a charming thing, undoubtedly of
folk origin, a tender alternation of major and minor which would become
monotonous except for its ineffable beauty. ‘Melancholy,’ a folk-like
tune with a genuine Slavic touch, is likewise among the best, and ‘My
Sweetheart,’ which recalls the Tyrolese folk-songs, is well worth
knowing. These songs are of the simplest character. The last two of the
collection, the ‘Lithuanian Song’ and ‘Poland’s Funeral Song,’ are
more pretentious--rather like scenas than _Lieder_--and in spite of
certain beauties are overweighted with pretense.
Another song writer who does not usually find his way into song
lists should be mentioned here. This is Michail Ivanovitch Glinka
(1804-1857), founder of the national school of Russian music. Glinka
was a man of remarkable talent, one who was able to fuse Italian grace,
French subtlety, and German solidity into an individual style of his
own, and to develop out of it an original native touch which had never
appeared before in Russian music. Of his eighty-five or more songs
(exclusive of those in his operas) a great number are in the thin and
pretentious style of the day. But from a few of them there speaks
real genius--the forerunner of the wonderful Russian song literature
of recent times. The grand Hebrew Song from the incidental music to
‘Prince Kholmsky’ is the work of a man in whom much learning could not
stifle the personal message. Another song, ‘Our Rose,’ is in a mixed
rhythm which foreshadows the wonderful songs of Moussorgsky, and yet
another, a ‘Traveller’s Song,’ makes use of the lively two-four rhythm
which has since come to be associated with the Russian Cossacks. The
lyric known as ‘Ilia’s Song’ and that entitled ‘Deserted Land’ both
show the personal genius of the composer. We should also mention
‘Doubt,’ _Meine Ruh’ ist hin_, and ‘The Lark’ as among his best. It
is not likely that singers will dig up these old songs for study, but
Glinka’s distinguished name should not be forgotten in the examination
of the wonderful Russian song literature which took its rise from him.
FOOTNOTES:
[23] Vol. II, Chapter VI.
[24] See Musical Examples (Vol. XIII).
[25] See Musical Examples (Vol. XIII).
CHAPTER X
THE CONTEMPORARIES OF SCHUBERT AND SCHUMANN
The spirit of the ‘thirties’ in France; the lyric poets of
the French romantic period--Monpou and Berlioz--Song-writers
of Italy; English song-writers--Robert Frans--Löwe and the
art-ballad.
In another volume[26] we have seen what a remarkable wave of literary
romanticism swept over France in the late twenties and early thirties
of the nineteenth century. There has rarely been an age of more
pronounced lyricism, rarely an age which created in a short time so
many excellent lyrics. There were a number of fine talents working
at this time. The purely literary virtuosity was remarkable. The
radicalism of their method was marked, and the strangeness of their
product revealed a movement in all the vigor of its early youth. In
their insistence on the sensuous quality of words the romanticists
of the thirties looked forward to the France of the early twentieth
century, with its hazy, indefinite outlines. The early romanticists
reduced the sound of words to a fine art. The later impressionists
reduced it almost to an exact science.
The central tenet of the romanticists was freedom--freedom from the old
classic forms, freedom from a host of conventions which governed the
French language in poetry, and freedom especially from the severity
and reserve of the classic ideal. To the poet of the Napoleonic age
any violence of manner was an error in taste. He shunned it as he
would have shunned the smell of garlic on a peasant’s breath. To the
poet of the age of Louis Philippe any conscious reserve of manner
was a coldness, a lack of genuine human feeling, an artistic lie. The
emotions as well as the artistic sense must be stirred. And they must
be stirred both by the picturing of emotion and by the beauty of lovely
sounds. We have occasion to notice throughout the art of the nineteenth
century an increasing insistence on the sensuous (it cannot be too
often repeated). It shows in every department of artistic life. In
poetry it is shown in a development of the mellifluousness of rhythm
and suggestiveness of word. The French romanticists did for French
poetry what Shelley did for English and what Poe did for American.
These three qualities--freedom, emotionalism, and sensuousness--we may
accept as the dominant notes of French romantic poetry.
High above all literary men of the time towered Victor Hugo. This man,
along with Shakespeare, Dante, and Goethe, was one of the greatest
virtuosos of language the world has ever seen. Pity only that he had
not the genius of the other three! To his time he seemed supreme. But
since his death his reputation has been steadily declining. We have
come to see how much of his work was only--language. He attained his
emotional effects through emotional words rather than through emotional
interpretation. He was incurably melodramatic and only his power of
language saves a large share of his work from falling to the level
of any yellow-back novel or the cheap theatre romance. He attempted
to cover the whole of life--to interpret the criminal, the hero, and
the child, as well as woman in every one of her moods and states. But
through all the work, even the magnificent scenes of _Les Misérables_,
the true human touch is somehow lacking. Everything is sacrificed to
the great god Effect, to whom alone Hugo offered his most precious
burnt offerings. Much of his work was in the form of short lyrics, but
it is in this department that his reputation has suffered most in the
half century just past. The lyric demands a naïveté which Hugo, already
famous at the age of seventeen, never had. His lyric poems are always
overweighted with their language, always too foreign to the spirit of
the folk-poem, which is at the foundation of all lyric expression. They
were, however, freely set to music, as was inevitable, and furnish a
goodly share of the texts for the song literature of the time.
Lamartine in his lyric work suffered considerably from the disease of
the time--over-emphasis. He ranked as a philosopher in his day--much
the sort of philosopher which Maeterlinck pretends to be to-day. He had
a goodly share of the didactic in his makeup, as Hugo never had (except
toward the end of his life, when didacticism became the fashion). As a
result we can hardly place Lamartine any higher than Hugo as a lyric
poet. But his ardent religious sense, combined with his fine power over
eloquent language, made him greatly loved in his day and as a result
his texts enter largely into the song literature of the time. Béranger
had much more of the true lyric in him. His language was simple, his
message popular. He was always more at home in the streets than in the
drawing room. In some ways he might be called the Kipling of his time.
He appealed to the French sense of national pride, dwelling upon the
glorious history of the past and the nobility of the French character
with all the paraphernalia of the jingo poet. In particular he
resuscitated, or rather created, the Napoleonic myth. The age in which
he wrote was a new one, containing few of the immediate conditions of
Napoleon’s time. A new generation had sprung up, a generation which had
not experienced the heartaches and miseries of the Napoleonic wars, or
else had forgotten them, and thought of the time only as the age in
which France single-handed had defeated the whole of Europe. Napoleon
was no longer the epileptic and egomaniac who had shattered the fine
ideals of the French Revolution and for his own ambition brought
France almost to the verge of ruin. He was now _le petit caporal_ who
had fought with his men on the bridge at Arcola, had eaten the same
food and slept on the same hard ground with his army. The myth was
tremendously attractive, and made it possible some twenty years later
for a shallow adventurer to become Emperor of France (merely because he
happened to be the nephew of the great Bonaparte) and bring France once
more to the verge of ruin to please personal and dynastic ambition.
In the creation of this myth Béranger’s sense of the picturesque and
popular served him well. As a lyric poet, apart from the peculiar
nature of his subject matter, he would hardly be remembered. The most
genuine and most refined of the literary men of the time was Musset,
for many years the lover of Georges Sand and Chopin’s successor in her
affections. His work partook far less of the spectacular than that
of his contemporaries. He was interested in interpreting the human
soul and he did his work with the most delicate literary art. His
inspiration was fresh and creative; his workmanship was finished to
the last degree. It is a great pity that he had no Schubert to set his
poems to music. A musician of the stature of Musset might have created
a distinctive and great French song literature fifty years earlier than
it came.
I
If the right composer had been at hand French song literature in the
nineteenth century might have equalled the German, for the conditions
seemed to be ripe. But the French musical tradition for many decades
was extraordinarily emasculated, and in no department of musical
activity did this show so plainly as in the songs. With a few
exceptions the French songs from 1830 to 1890 show very few qualities
of creative vigor. The ideal was suavity and facility. Doubtless there
was beneath the smooth melodies a subtlety of suggestion that gave
them a certain artistic value, but this quality is peculiarly French,
and without other elements of interest the French songs could hardly
attain any great international vogue. It is astonishing--the sameness
of these songs which appear in volumes, with eternal repetition and
rigid convention. The sentimentalism of the period dominates the whole
song output. The composers were extraordinarily timid; the melodies
followed the same suave line, and the harmonies were the same eternal
succession. The tradition of good taste became little better than a
worship of the accredited and commonplace.
The one composer who was markedly free of this fault was, of course,
Hector Berlioz, one of the most powerful geniuses in all French
music. There is little to connect his work with that of other French
composers: in many ways he was their polar opposite. A certain love
for graceful and somewhat cold melody (a quality he derived from Gluck
and not from his contemporaries), a certain clinging to established
forms (with very revolutionary content), and here ends the list
of similarities. For the rest he carried into his vocal music the
qualities which made his symphonies seem so wild and so anarchic to his
countrymen. His harmonies were daring in the extreme. His vocal parts
were irregular, without balanced phrases, without regular succession
and contrast of similar sections, without any of the clearness of
outline which is almost the sole virtue in most of his contemporaries.
He modulated through any number of keys, introduced dissonance in
unheard of quantity, and filled his accompaniment with rich detail to
an extent which to the taste of his time was nothing short of vulgar.
Throughout his work he followed his own whim where other men would
have followed iron convention. But, though his songs are few in number
and though they contain peculiar difficulties which have prevented
their extensive use in concert programs, they have held their place in
the estimation of musicians far better than any other French songs of
the period. There are no waste places in these songs. Throughout it is
the creative musician who is speaking. The conventional melodic phrases
and harmonic sequences, when they are used, have a fine sincerity.
When the music is unconventional it is stimulating and suggestive.
The impression one gets is that of a vigorous, even violent, brain
ceaselessly creating, willing to experiment, willing to make mistakes,
but always writing what he believes to be his best. His artistic
sincerity is shown by the several versions which exist of some of his
songs; his richness of invention by the variants in these versions.
Most of the songs are highly elaborate and dramatic. Sometimes, as
often happened with Berlioz, they tend to the pretentious and pompous.
They are never easy to grasp. But each and every one of them is worth a
musician’s study and the student of singing in particular cannot well
afford to let Berlioz remain a closed book to him.
The earlier songs, written before 1830, are in general simple
and conventional. At times we feel the young man who has not yet
realized his creative powers. But even these early songs have a high
standard compared to the sort of thing that was being produced at the
time. Before 1830 Berlioz was still under the spell of Gluck (if,
indeed, he ever emerged from it) and his conventionality is that of
the great master of opera rather than that of the familiar French
_chanson_. ‘The Dead Shepherdess,’ dating from 1827, is remarkable
for its classic dignity and beauty. The Irish Songs, in 1829 and
1830, composed to words by Thomas Moore, show the surging up of the
revolutionary fervor which took hold of him about this time and came
to fruit in the _Symphonie Fantastique_ that so startled and shocked
Parisian audiences. The songs are in the strophic form, as were most
of Berlioz’s songs, but otherwise they are unusual enough to prove a
problem for the singer. They are by no means steady in quality, and
doubtless there is evidenced a failure on the structural side, an
inability to keep genius within firmly controlled limits. ‘At Sunset’
is typical. It is irregular and so filled with detail that it tends
to become ‘spotty.’ It is obviously an attempt at atmosphere--at the
same atmosphere upon which the recent French song-writers have built
their reputation. The singer’s problem lies in keeping these details
from protruding from the general design and still giving them their
individual value. The task of selecting the essential in the song and
keeping this to the fore is truly a task for the singer’s intellect,
that intellect which is called on so little in the mass of French
songs. ‘Rich and Rare’ has much sensuous beauty and is a real problem
in expressive singing. ‘Farewell Bessy’ is altogether lovely. But the
finest of the songs is the last, the ‘Elegy.’ Here Berlioz reaches a
height of tragic impressiveness which he never equalled in his songs
and equalled only rarely in his symphonic music. The effect of this
song in concert is tremendous.
The song called ‘The Captive’ (three versions of it exist) is one of
the best known and one of the simplest. Here Berlioz has been content
with a conventional accompaniment and has spent his effort on the
melody--an irregular and somewhat arbitrary melody, but one with a
certain aristocratic charm which the singer must find for himself.
The ‘Villanelle’ is perhaps the best of all. Here the originality of
Berlioz’s genius finds expression within very narrow limits. The simple
old form is combined with a harmonic energy that is admirable. ‘In the
Graveyard’ is a study in the tragic mood, unconventional, needless
to say, and thoroughly successful. Other songs which deserve mention
are: ‘I Believe in Thee,’ a sentimental love song; ‘On the Lagoon,’ a
slow barcarolle in six-eight time; and ‘Zaïde,’ a bolero that is highly
effective for concert use.
François Louis Hippolyte Monpou (born 1804; died 1841) was the
recognized song-writer of the romantic movement. He is now little
more than a historical fact. In his early years he was an organist
and conductor of church music, but his ability was not marked and he
drifted looking for something to do. He gained some local fame in 1828
from his three-part setting of Béranger’s _Si j’étais petit oiseau_ and
was taken up in the drawing rooms as a representative of the romantic
school. He took the drawing room verdict seriously and turned out a
number of songs to the words of Hugo, Musset, Béranger, and others. His
songs had a certain popular quality and an effect of boldness which
suited the fancy of the romantic school. But his musicianship was
faulty and his harmony and rhythm were awkward and unresourceful. After
he became established as a song-writer he took to doing operas, some of
which are melodically effective and dramatically vigorous.
II
Italy has for three centuries been deficient in art-songs, but she
has produced a certain amount of lyric music which the student
will discover and sing gladly from time to time, and a few of her
song-writers should be mentioned here. Giuseppe Mercadante (1795-1870)
was primarily an opera composer, but, unlike most of the Italian
opera writers, produced a goodly number of songs. These are simple
and florid, possessed of a certain Italian charm, but on the one hand
too thin to rank as true interpretative music, and on the other
somewhat too operatic to convey a simple lyrical sentiment. However,
his vogue was great and he may be considered the originator of the
modern Italian song tradition. The continuer of the tradition was
Luigi Gordigiani (1806-1860), a peasant boy who showed marked talent
for music and carried into his work a feeling for folk-song which
was new to Italian music at the time. He was one of the first native
collectors of folk-music and one of the first to appreciate it. He is
known almost solely as a song-writer, and so popular have his songs
become and so firmly have they remained in people’s hearts that he
has with some justice been called ‘the Italian Schubert.’ However,
we must not be from this led to suppose that he had anything like
Schubert’s richness of melodic inspiration, musical resource, or
genuine dramatic power. His songs are in every case supplied with the
simplest accompaniment and in form do not go much beyond the folk-songs
which are their model. They have a certain freedom, a development
which is typical of the art-song rather than the folk-song. But their
materials are of the simplest, and with their technical sameness and
their general melancholy tinge they tend toward monotony. Among the
loveliest of his songs is _La Bianchina_, a melody of much sweetness
cast in the strophic form. _Il Tempo Passato_ shows more energy and
passion than is usual in Gordigiani. Some of his religious songs are
effective, especially _O Sanctissima Vergine Maria_, which is said
to have been admired by Chopin. We should mention also Gordigiani’s
waltz songs, which are brilliant and effective without becoming cheap.
Another Italian song writer, and one better known in foreign lands than
Gordigiani, is Ciro Pinsuti (1829-1888), whose output was immense. He
exemplifies Italian grace and suavity and imparted to his part-songs
in particular a beauty which has carried them to singing societies the
world over.
In England in the first part of the nineteenth century song writing,
as we have seen in another chapter,[27] was at a very low ebb. The
chief output of songs was in the street ballad class and in the
slightly superior opera ballad. The ballad opera of the nineteenth
century was not that of the previous century, of which ‘The Beggar’s
Opera’ was a type. The newer ballad opera was usually romantic,
somewhat elaborate, and composed by one musician instead of ten. Of
this opera ‘The Bohemian Girl’ by Michael Balfe (1808-1870) is an
excellent example. Three of its ‘ballads’--‘I Dreamt I Dwelt in Marble
Halls,’ ‘The Heart Bowed Down,’ and ‘When Other Lips’--are among the
best known of household songs. And if we except the omnipresent street
ballad and ‘occasional’ song (such as cheap pæans of triumph over
Napoleon) such lyrics were the chief item in English song. Their beauty
is obvious to everybody. They deserve their long life and popularity.
But it cannot be said that they are an interpretation of their text,
as is the case in a song by Schubert. In addition to his opera ballads
Balfe has at least one thoroughly fine song to his credit--‘Killarney,’
said to have been written on his deathbed. Rarely has a conscious
composer caught the true Irish idiom and flavor as Balfe did here.
Balfe’s once popular setting of Longfellow’s ‘The Day Is Done’ is
admirably expressive. Sir Henry Bishop (1786-1855) and Julius Benedict
(1804-1885) were popular composers of the time, known rather by their
operas than by their songs. But of the group only William Vincent
Wallace (1814-1865), in addition to Balfe, can be said to have lived.
His ‘Maritana’ is still occasionally performed, and the song, ‘Scenes
That Are Brightest,’ from that work, has a popularity analogous to that
of ‘The Heart Bowed Down.’ But whatever occasional beauties may have
lived from the England of the early nineteenth century, we must feel
how dead the period was productively. Much of the English music of
the time is _gauche_ in the extreme, and none of it shows any of the
creative vigor which goes to make history.
III
It is hard to say anything about Robert Franz (1815-1892). All that
there is to be said about him he has said in his songs. He lived the
most quiet of lives, hindered in his work by ill health throughout
most of his maturity. His musical output, if we except a few pieces
of church music, consists almost wholly of songs. (He composed 279 in
all.) He was not ambitious; his only desire in life seems to have been
to do his work well. He had no qualities of self-advertisement. His
fame came very slowly and for a long time he was known only among the
elect. He was through most of his life miserably poor and the greater
part of his energy went to work which was not much better than that of
a hack. But he has by this time attained a rank among the greatest song
writers of all time. In some respects he is supreme. Probably no other
song writer, not even Brahms, produced such a high proportion of great
songs or such an even standard of excellence in his whole output. He
shows little variation or development. His first songs are as good as
his last. All were the best he could do. Schumann, who discovered and
‘announced’ Franz, as he had so many other notable composers, wrote of
his opus 1 in the _Neue Zeitschrift für Musik_: ‘Were I to dwell on all
the exquisite details I should never come to an end.’ It was through
Schumann’s influence that the unknown and modest musician had his first
work published.
[Illustration: Robert Franz]
_After a photograph from life._
When we come to examine Franz’s songs in detail we discover an
astonishing subtlety and variety of method and expression within the
superficially narrow limits he allowed himself. Probably no other
song composer save Hugo Wolf has made each one of his songs so
perfectly individual. We find this individuality first in the outline
and superficial character of the melody; next we discover it in the
technical methods and devices used in development and elaboration;
finally, we trace it in all the niceties of ornament and prove the
absolute fitness down to the last note. Franz’s peculiar success in
all this is due, of course, first of all to selection of themes which
are very accurately adjusted to the end in view. A poetic melody, an
accompanying figure which provides just the right suggestion, and we
have the materials for a fine song. In a majority of cases we have
the whole thematic material for the song in the first three or four
measures. The simple germ is developed without the introduction of
extraneous matter, yet without a suggestion of vain repetition. When we
consider that the majority of the songs are in the strophic form (and
the strophe is usually very brief) we may realize the artistry which
achieved utter individuality within the space of a few bars. In other
words, the perfection of Franz’s songs comes not from elaboration but
from selection--the test, as we have so often pointed out, of the true
lyric composer.
Franz’s melody is likely to veil itself against the first glance. It is
always beautiful and well proportioned, but it so persistently avoids
striking effects that it is apt to seem colorless. But if we listen
with our inner ears we shall find it eloquent. Avoiding the striking,
Franz’s melody also avoids the obvious and at first hearing we are apt
to find it a trifle aimless and meandering. But its continuous subtle
deviations from the expected are never without purpose, and never, if
we know how to listen, without meaning. Usually, too, there is little
or no obvious design, no striking climax point, no resounding cadence.
But here again we need only look beneath the surface to discover the
most restful and satisfying architecture. Though the emotional color
may be almost unvarying from beginning to end, though the final
note of the voice may not be on the tonic and may glide in the piano
postlude, yet we discover that if any note had been changed the whole
would have been less perfect. These qualities we find in their simplest
form in such masterpieces as _Widmung_ and _Bitte_, songs simple as
any folk-song yet rich with conscious artistry. Franz’s harmony is not
radical or striking. It contains practically nothing which could not
be found in Schumann before him; we might almost say that it contains
nothing that could not be found in the Beethoven sonatas. He is fluent
though not frequent with modulation; his greatest radicalism is a
stimulating use of altered chords and passing notes. In fact, his
harmony is in every way more conservative than that of Schumann; for,
whereas Schumann was professedly an innovator, Franz loved best the old
German tradition--that of the Bach fugues and the Lutheran chorale.
Franz’s treatment of the words is individual. Few song writers have
ever set their texts with more conscientious regard for the niceties of
metre and accent. Yet it is musical design and not verbal peculiarities
which determines his melodic line. The melody is always and beyond
all a melody. The perfect marriage of words and music in Franz comes
from his selection of melodies which would nicely fit the words in
hand. Neither is strained; neither is sacrificed to the other. In
this respect Franz is surpassed by no song writer who ever lived.
Now and then the melody is so handled as to seem like very reserved
declamation, but even these instances are rare. Franz was not a purist
in the setting of his texts; he did hold strictly to the ‘one syllable
one note’ principle. Not infrequently he uses the slurred phrase on
a single vowel. But we can never feel that this was done out of a
careless disregard for the integrity of the text. In his accompaniment
Franz is even greater than in his treatment of the voice. It is here
that his extreme artistry becomes most evident. The accompaniment is
always rich, always a thing of value in itself. Usually it would make
a perfectly satisfactory musical composition alone. It is so well
filled with musical beauties that with a little more emphasis it might
overpower the voice part. But always it is kept nicely in its proper
function. In no other song writer are the voice and piano parts so
perfectly fused. In Franz’s accompaniments is shown his great musical
resourcefulness. No two are alike. Nearly all the recognized means are
used--solid chords, broken chords, melodic figurations over a spread
bass, four-part chorales with free passing notes, contrapuntal melodies
against the voice, suggestive devices innumerable. But in every case
the germ principle is simple and is strictly adhered to throughout.
Franz’s accompaniments are, as a whole, more polyphonic than those
of any other song writer. In the greater part of his songs the inner
notes do not serve merely for harmonic filling-in; they are parts of
individual voices which are preserved in their integrity. In all these
songs there is nothing ambitious or spectacular. But so deeply based is
his musicianship that we may say that anyone who knows the Franz songs
accurately knows in epitome the whole development of German classical
music. Moreover, they are the finest of cultural exercises. For one
who has learned to love the Franz songs has learned one of the most
precious things music has to give--the art of _listening_.
The germ figures which Franz uses in his accompaniments are almost
endless in their variety. Sometimes they are, in a restrained way,
highly picturesque. We may point out the triplets in _Was pocht mein
Herz so sehr?_, the suggestion of ripples in _Auf dem Meere_, the
broken accompaniment in _Es treibt mich hin_, the delicate trill
which persists through _Ach, wenn ich doch ein Immchen wär_, the
long rolling diatonic figure in _Meeresstille_, and so on through
innumerable instances. The attainment of the most exquisite beauty
within the smallest limits may be studied in _Widmung_, _Deine weissen
Lilienfinger_, _Leise zieht durch mein Gemüth_, and _Treibt der Sommer
seinen Rosen_, the last a remarkable example of a song built up out of
the repetition of the briefest of units, yet without monotony. Franz’s
range of expression is usually limited to the tender and graceful. He
has not succeeded in the mood of tragedy or deep emotion. But several
of his songs are powerfully energetic, witness _Frühlingsfeier_ and
_Das ist ein Brausen und Heulen_. The dramatic element, too, is almost
entirely absent, though in such a song as _Childe Harold_ we have
something approaching it. The influence of the chorale, of which traces
are to be found in nearly every one of the songs, is predominant in
such ones as _Gute Nacht_, _Wenn sich zwei Herzen Scheiden_, _Habt ihr
sie schön gesehen_, _Stille Liebe_, _In der Fremde_, _Der Schmetterling
ist in die Rose verliebt_, and _Frühling_, as well as others already
mentioned.
To name all the Franz songs which are distinguished in musical beauty
and workmanship would be to name the best portion of his life work. But
we may point out as of especial beauty (in addition to those already
named) _Auf geheimen Waldespfade_, _Auf dem Teich_, _Der Sommer ist
schön_, _Die Welt ist so öd_, _Im Friedhof_, _Im Walde_, _Für Musik_,
_Im Mai_, _Ich hab’ in deinen Augen_, _Der junge Tag erwacht_, and _Er
ist gekommen_.
IV
We have seen in a previous chapter how Schubert, having created one
supremely great ballad, failed ever to write another. So the task of
creating the art-ballad fell not upon his shoulders but upon those of
another, Johann Carl Gottfried Löwe, who was born in North Germany
in 1796, almost at the same time as Schubert, and long outlived the
gentle Viennese composer. Löwe wrote a quantity of choral and church
music, but he is chiefly known for his numerous ballads, which he
made known throughout Europe in his own concert tours and which have
pretty well held their own to this day, in spite of serious drawbacks.
Löwe’s songs were almost solely in the ballad form. To this he gave his
best talents, which were marked though uneven. Undoubtedly he was an
artist, working with sincerity and reserve in a form which, more than
most forms, would tempt a composer to artistic excess. Add to this the
fact that Löwe was not endowed with a rich fund of musical ideas (at
least from the standpoint of pure beauty) and we must pay considerable
respect to the man who stuck to his guns as he did and produced such
a sincere and admirable body of work as he did. Löwe’s ballads are
descriptive in the highest degree. Every resource that the composer has
at his command he calls upon to make the scene pictorial and vivid.
In his search for effects he stumbled upon many musical devices which
must have proved valuable to later composers. His harmony, considering
the time in which he worked, is free and daring. His modulation goes
by direct chromatic progression to the most remote keys. Dissonance he
uses freely for poignant effect. But the great fault is that he was
not a melodist. Melody is, of course, not needed in the ballad as it
is in the lyric, but none the less the composer who cannot call forth
a beautiful melody when he needs it must jog along as a second-rate
artist. It is the lack of melody which we miss most in Löwe’s ballads.
Melody is obviously absent because the composer could not command it,
not because he chose not to use it. Time and again he writes what is
meant to be, and perhaps was believed to be, a pleasing tune. But too
often it is only empty and angular. It was in developing the form and
technique of the art-ballad that Löwe performed his chief service to
music.
Apart from this failing in point of melody many of Löwe’s ballads are
altogether admirable. He caught the spirit of the ballad as few others
have, that spirit expressed so well in Goethe’s words: ‘The ballad
requires a mystical touch, by which the mind of the reader is brought
into that frame of undefined sympathy and awe which men unavoidably
feel when face to face with the miraculous or with the mighty forces
of nature.’ Löwe’s resource in the invention of picturesque musical
formulas is very great. With his fine sense of drama he managed to
make his best ballads impressive and moving. In the _Erlking_ or ‘Sir
Oluf’ we feel (if they are well sung) that we are living through a
great life experience with the characters represented. His _Erlking_
is not comparable with Schubert’s in loveliness. But it emphasizes the
dramatic elements of the poems as Schubert did not try to and probably
could not have done if he had tried. The galloping of the horse is
represented graphically in the accompaniment. The three characters
speak in three different kinds of voice--the father’s is quiet and low,
the son’s high and excited, the Erlking’s eerie and unsubstantial. The
Erlking’s speeches are all in G major and on the notes of the tonic
chord. For the effective delivery of the song there are demanded not
only dramatic fire and intensity of emotional expression, but the
careful differentiation of the three qualities of voice.
One of the finest of the ballads is ‘Sir Oluf,’ in which there are four
speaking characters and an abundance of picturesque stage machinery.
Sir Oluf, riding through the forest on his way to his wedding, is
accosted by the elves and invited to dance, with the fatal consequences
usual in ballads. Oluf’s ride is described in a stirring _allegro
vivace_ in the introduction, and the dance of the elves is pictured
in a charming passage. Another of the great ballads, perhaps the
best known of all, is ‘Edward,’ the text being that of the famous
Scotch folk-ballad of the same name. (Brahms wrote a piano piece on
the subject, and also set the words as a duet.) The dramatic power is
gained from the repetition many times over of an incisive emotional
phrase. The whole effect is broad and tragic. Among the many others
of Löwe’s ballads which are worthy of study and of frequent inclusion
in concert programmes we may mention ‘Henry the Fowler,’ ‘The Moorish
Prince,’ and ‘Odin’s Ride Over the Sea.’
Few composers have given their best to the ballad form. This is a pity,
because no single form of poetry has such a universal and direct appeal
as the condensed dramatic story in verse. No type of poetry is more
difficult to write with sincerity and human truthfulness. The ballad
has remained almost as it was in the beginning, the peculiar property
of folk-art. It is, on the other hand, the easiest form for a musician
to abuse, the one which tempts most to cheap and clumsy effects. Löwe
is one of the few composers who has given his best to the ballad form
and, while that best is far inferior to what a first-rate genius would
have done, it is too stimulating and suggestive to be absent from any
singer’s cultural equipment.
FOOTNOTES:
[26] Vol. II, chapter VI.
[27] Chapter VII.
CHAPTER XI
BRAHMS, WAGNER, AND LISZT
Brahms as a song-writer--Classification of Brahms’ songs; the
‘folk-songs’; analysis of Brahms’ songs--Wagner’s songs; Liszt
as a song-writer.
I
When we come to Brahms we find perhaps the only song-writer besides
Schubert whose truly memorable songs number more than fifty. Brahms’
song product is amazing in its richness, its creativeness, its high
average of excellence. A modern taste, often misled by mere obvious
effectiveness, has pronounced these songs dull. This notion prevails
almost universally among the superficial, and many an appreciative
critic has joined in the chorus with grudging reservations. The student
in particular is likely to be frightened away from the Brahms songs by
this bogey of ‘dullness’ as well as by the very considerable difficulty
which they offer to the singer who is inadequately prepared. But in
most cases those who accept this opinion have never studied the Brahms
songs and have not allowed themselves to become familiar with their
beauties. Certainly, even though certain temperaments may admit the
charge of ‘dullness’ against much of the Brahms symphonic and chamber
music, the charge will hold least of all against the songs. Here we
find Brahms the romanticist, the composer who was master of the art of
obtaining sensuous beauty of melody and richly colored harmony. We must
never forget that Brahms was hailed by Schumann as the great continuer
of the romantic tradition for which he himself had fought so hard and
so well. If, in his maturity, Brahms came to regard form and artistic
control at a higher value than his contemporaries did, it was not
because his romantic invention became exhausted. From the beginning of
his life to the end he was possessed of a rich fund of lovely musical
ideas, and his last works (_vide_ the later Rhapsodies and the Gypsy
Songs) are even more romantic than the first. Brahms was a ‘classic’
solely because he chose to be. It would perhaps be truest to say that
he was romanticist in his musical ideas and classicist in his treatment
of them. However, such bandying of terms only tends to obscure the
facts. Let us get to the songs.
Because Brahms worked with more care and reserve than most of his
contemporaries, he must be approached with some care by the student.
Doubtless, if one unfamiliar with his work turned over his songs at
random the result would be somewhat discouraging. There is so much
more there than meets the eye that much of his work is certainly
uninteresting to the superficial glance. But there are many songs which
must make an instant appeal by their sheer loveliness. Let the student
who sincerely wishes to appreciate Brahms begin with these songs. Let
us make out a provisional list of them. It would include: ‘In Strange
Lands,’ opus 3; ‘Rest, My Love,’ opus 33; the ‘Folksong’ in opus 7;
‘The Sorrowful One,’ the ‘Serenade,’ and ‘Longing,’ from opus 14; ‘Hey,
Bow and Arrow,’ opus 33; ‘Sunday,’ opus 47; the famous Cradle Song,
opus 49; ‘Remembrance,’ opus 63; ‘The Lover’s Oath,’ opus 69; ‘Vain
Serenade,’ opus 84; ‘The Virgin’s Lullaby,’ opus 91; the Sapphic Ode,
opus 94; and every one of the Gypsy Songs, opus 103. To call any of
these songs ‘dull’ is rank foolishness. Their beauty appeals instantly
even to a listener who is in no wise a technical musician. Sentiment,
passion, military frenzy and simple high spirits are expressed in these
songs. They are in some cases as simple as anything by Schubert, as
popular in character as any folk-song. Let the student learn to know
and love some of these and he will have little difficulty with the more
elaborate songs later on.
The first quality that appeals straight to the heart in many of the
Brahms songs is their large element of the folk-song. Many of the
lyrics bear the title _Volkslied_, being musical settings of popular
poems, treated in the popular vein. Brahms was devoted to folk-music
and understood the value of the musical units it contains in such
profusion. A large proportion of his music, if analyzed to its
essentials, will show the folk-song as its base. His elaborate songs,
however abstruse and self-conscious, may be called only a _development_
of the folk-song. The development is managed with the consummate art
of the trained musician; but the stuff of the song is in almost every
case a musical unit which makes an instant appeal. The student is very
foolish if he sees only the development and not the beautiful music
beneath it.
In a large proportion of his songs Brahms has given the best of his
profound musical learning--always in due proportion and without
obtrusion of detail. His management of polyphonic parts, in the bass or
in the inner voices, is unequalled by any song-writer--save, perhaps,
Franz--and his range of expression is vastly wider than that of Franz.
His complication and intertwining of rhythms is highly developed, as
in his symphonic music. His harmony is often bold, though never at the
expense of cogency. Whether he is simple or complex his musicianship
is working every moment. It is this, in the last analysis, which we
mean by technical mastery. The real test of technical excellence is
not the applying of rules out of the harmony book. The real test
is a human one. Read or play a number of songs by some second-rate
composer--Gounod, for instance. Then take up Brahms’ songs. By the
time you have done thirty or forty by Gounod you are deathly sick of
the same harmonies, the same melodic phrases, the same way of placing
the parts. In Brahms’ songs you will never be allowed to sleep; you are
never sure that the conventional thing is coming next. Your interest
is not allowed to flag. Brahms is almost never commonplace. But this
does not mean that he obviously avoids the obvious, as is the fashion
among lesser composers of modern times. It means that his musicianship
is so rich and resourceful that he can always find some fitting thing
to do that a minor composer would not have thought of. Test out this
statement with some concrete instance. Take one of the simplest of
Brahms’ melodies--the famous cradle song, opus 49. No tune could
be simpler. Any second-rate composer would have supplied it with a
conventional accompaniment of bass and treble chords. Most composers
would have regarded such a song as a trifle to be tossed off before
breakfast. But it is evident that Brahms bestows as much care upon this
as upon his most elaborate lyric. There is not a single unusual or
strained chord in the accompaniment. Yet there is not a measure without
its elements of variety and interest. The gentle syncopation, as of
the rocking of the cradle, is always present; always shows some motion
and variety. Yet the whole song is managed without any straining for
effect, without letting the varied accompaniment overshadow the simple
melody.
Brahms has carried into his romantic song-writing a classic regard for
form. In the more general sense this means that he always observed
artistic proportion, giving unity and body to his melodies, and curbing
the exuberant imagination which in so many song-writers makes the parts
attempt to be more important than the whole. Concretely considered,
we find that Brahms nearly always held to the strophic form, seeing
his poems as stanzas which could be set to the same melody. In some
cases, as in his first song, ‘Faithfulness,’ he treated the last
strophe somewhat differently from the others. A few of his songs are
_durchkomponiert_, after the manner of Schubert. But in general he felt
his songs to be far more musical architecture and less mere running
comment on the words. Certainly every one of his songs would be a
satisfactory piece of pure music, apart from the text and apart from
the special meaning conveyed. His regard for form makes this possible.
Sometimes the form is hard to analyze, not coinciding with any set
formula, but the sense of form, of architecture, of proportion, of
restraint is always there. Some have said that Brahms’ songs are mere
instrumental compositions with words added. As a final criticism this
is certainly unjust. But it has a certain superficial justification,
for Brahms certainly had less regard for the words themselves than any
other great song-writer. He is not unwilling to force the text into
the form necessary to fit the music. Sometimes he consistently and
deliberately misplaces accents, as in the first line of the song, _Wie
bist du, meine Königin_, which with Brahms’ music reads, ‘_Wie_ bist
du, _mei_ne Köni_gin_.’ He is very free with slurred notes and shows
not the slightest hesitation in putting two notes to one syllable in
measure after measure. The music has its own architecture, derived
from formal or melodic considerations and not from considerations
of the text. Of course, this is not the result of carelessness on
Brahms’ part, nor a belittling of the importance of the words. It
was merely that Brahms regarded his songs as interpretive music, and
not as ‘heightened speech.’ In this he differed from nearly every
great song-writer, and put himself in opposition to the taste of the
time. For those who feel Schumann’s scrupulous regard for the text
this will rank as a fault, a blot on the beauty of Brahms’ songs. The
student should decide the matter for himself. At any rate, the fact
points to the peculiar interpretation which Brahms’ songs demand--an
interpretation which involves firm, reserved, controlled modelling
rather than minute emphasis on the parts. Out of this regard for the
design as a whole rather than from the direct meaning of the details
will come the interpretive truth of the song.
Because Brahms’ songs represent the purely musical and formal, as well
as the interpretive, they are one of the most valuable of studies
for the advanced pupil. A singer’s art cannot be complete as long
as the effective interpretation of Brahms’ songs remains a mystery
to him. Not to attempt to understand and love them, because of the
myth of dullness, is a sin against artistic open-mindedness which
no music-lover should be guilty of. Indeed, if we can manage to
escape for a time in our souls from the trend of the time toward the
spectacular, the sensuous and the sensual, the easy and effective,
we shall find in Brahms a song-writer like no other who ever lived,
save only Schubert. Brahms has treated almost every kind of sentiment
and emotion successfully. His melodies are lovely in the extreme,
his accompaniments are an endless delight to the careful pianist;
his musical procedure is never conventional yet always appropriate;
his music has a wholesomeness and dignity unsurpassed in all song
literature. Other song-writers surpass Brahms in certain qualities. But
it is doubtful if any, except Schubert, can be regarded as his equal in
the combining of such a large number of first-rate qualities and in the
quantity of first-rate songs produced.
II
We may conveniently divide the Brahms songs into two classes--the
‘folk-songs,’ written usually to anonymous popular poems and preserving
the simplicity and directness of the true folk-song; and the art-songs
which make use of all the resources of elaboration and organization
at the command of that master craftsman. Some of the opus numbers
contain ‘folk-songs’ entirely or in large proportion. (Brahms wrote
but one cycle in the strict sense, and usually followed no scheme of
grouping.) But a folk-like song may appear anywhere in his song output.
The type of folk-feeling in Brahms is almost exclusively German. There
is scarcely the slightest attempt at ‘local color’ in the whole of
Brahms’ music. Even the Gypsy songs, though they somehow attain an
exotic flavor, make use of none of the conventional musical formulas
of Hungarian music. Moreover, while the ‘folk-songs’ are distinctly
German, they are also distinctly Brahms. The composer never lost his
individuality in any single work. The accompaniments to these songs are
usually simple, but they are never merely conventional. They show a
nice adaptation of the style of the piano part to the character of the
melody and of the song as a whole, and continually present unobtrusive
elements of interest in detail.
These ‘folk-songs’ are numerous. From opus 7 we may select two very
beautiful songs for special mention--namely, the _Volkslied_ and ‘The
Mournful One,’ the latter one of Brahms’ finest expressive melodies.
Opus 14 is a treasure. ‘Before the Window’ is a thing of great beauty.
‘Going to My Sweetheart’ has a humorous touch, which Brahms could get
inimitably. But it is very restrained; the melody is so very simple
that for a moment it seems almost trivial. The ‘Serenade’ and ‘Longing’
from the same group are delightful. From opus 47 we should mention
‘Sunday’ and from opus 48 ‘Joy Hath Left Me,’ a fine song in the style
of an old German chorale. In opus 69 are an exquisite ‘Lament’ and the
delicious song, ‘The Lover’s Oath.’ ‘The Maiden,’ in opus 95, is a
dialogue between the girl and the reflection of her face in the water.
The words are a Servian popular poem and the music is in an irregular
metre which is peculiar to the Slavic races. Brahms’ last group of
lyrics, the Gypsy Songs, opus 103, are beyond all praise. These eight
songs, written when the composer was past middle age, have all the fire
and ardor of early youth just awakened to its powers. There is in them
a frenzy of animal spirits which befits their Gypsy words. In them we
seem to hear the message of that fine Hungarian song:
‘Brechen muss das Herz vor freude oder Leid;
Das allein heisst bei den Ungarn Fröhlichkeit.’
The Gypsy Songs, all in strophic form, are very short. Into a few
seconds of melody Brahms injects his musical message. Not a note is
wasted. The mood is carried over with perfect accuracy and conviction.
The songs are all nicely contrasted. Each might be a tiny movement
from a symphony, _multum in parvo_. There is an _allegro agitato_, an
_allegretto_, an _allegro giocoso_, a _vivace grazioso_, an _andantino
grazioso_, and so on. Each song has a very distinct ‘style,’ as
modern critics would say. The mood is established at the first note
and maintained until the last. The melodies themselves are altogether
charming. But a mere knowledge of the melodies will not suggest the
thrilling effect which these songs make when well sung in a large hall.
The startling effectiveness of many of the Brahms songs is the best
answer to the charge that Brahms is academic and pedantic. It is hard
to select any best out of these eight songs. ‘The Nut Brown Lad’ is
perhaps the most popular of them, but the charm of each is so distinct
that a comparison is difficult. ‘Three Roses in a Row’ is a delicate
melody of great beauty. The vigorous ‘Hey, Ye Gypsies!’ and the furious
‘Red Evening Clouds’ which closes the series, are overflowing with
animal spirits.
Of the pieces which are more specifically art-songs we must admit a
gradual change in character corresponding to the general change in
Brahms’ music from the ‘romantic’ to the ‘classic.’ Of course, this
change has been overemphasized in superficial Brahms criticism. It
was not so much Brahms who changed; it was the lay of the land. Music
became much more sensuous and free and formless. Brahms became still
more himself. The revolutionary Brahms of 1850 was a conservative
Brahms in 1880. But, undoubtedly, where Schumann expected him to look
forward, Brahms chose in many things to look backward--or, rather,
perhaps, to look inward. And so we feel in Brahms’ music as a whole
that it becomes stranger and more reserved as the man matures. He
became more interested in the things that had ceased to interest the
rabble, and less interested in the things which scores of new and
radical composers were beginning to do very well. And we can feel this
change in his songs. The earliest ones--in opus 3--are filled with the
joy of spontaneous creation. The so-called ‘classic’ virtues seemed
the last things the composer was thinking about. But the songs were
in a pretty strict strophic form and their intelligence was at least
equal to their exuberance. And it was these formal and intellectual
qualities, and not the others, which were to receive the chief emphasis
and intensification as the composer matured. To Schumann, Brahms was
the continuer of Schumann. To the world he became the continuer of
Beethoven.
The songs of opus 3 are filled with physical energy. ‘Fidelity,’ the
first of them, with its accompaniment of throbbing triplets, seems to
tap some hidden source of power like a huge dynamo. We cannot see the
source but we know there is much more where that came from. ‘Love and
Spring’ suggests certain of the later Brahms qualities and the song
from ‘Ivan’ seems like a shooting arrow in the vigor and directness
of its expression. The same physical energy is shown in the ‘Spanish
Song,’ in bolero tempo, in opus 6; and the peculiarly rich Brahms
modulation is again revealed in ‘As the Clouds.’ The ‘Nightingale’ song
from the same group is the first to foreshadow the increased technical
elaboration which Brahms was later to give his accompaniments. Here
the fluttering triplets in the piano are meant to suggest the winging
of the birds, but it is easy to see that the purely technical problem
which they created had fascinated the composer. And, except for
this technical care, such an accompaniment would have overbalanced
the melody. The _Anklänge_ of opus 7 has an elaborate syncopated
accompaniment which shows the continuation of the technical concern;
‘The Return,’ from the same series, is another example of Brahms’
unsurpassed power to pour great energy into small compass. In opus 19
there are two more songs of the highest quality. One is ‘The Smith,’ to
Uhland’s words, perhaps the shortest of all Brahms’ songs and certainly
one of the most overwhelmingly effective. The maiden who speaks in
Uhland’s delicious poem tells admiringly of her lover, who is a smith
and who works all day amid the grime and the sparks. The melody, with
that strange and very Brahmsian avoidance of the regular balancing of
phrases which seems physically to condense great energy in a small
compass, seems a succession of hammer blows. Each note has a ponderous
weight of its own, but a weight which is followed by a fine rebound.
The accompaniment, which is obviously intended to suggest flying
sparks, is magically adapted to the peculiarities of the pianoforte.
The short postlude, and, indeed, the whole of the accompaniment, is
strikingly Wagnerian, recalling very closely the Valkyrie’s cry in
_Die Walküre_. Such a detail is only one more proof of the foolishness
of the artificial rivalry which stupid critics set up between Wagner
and Brahms. The two men were great artists working in very different
lines. As for their musical ideas, they could almost, at times, have
been interchanged. The second remarkable song of opus 19 is the ‘Æolian
Harp,’ one of the three or four most admired of all Brahms’ lyrics.
This is one of the few that are in quite free form. It is almost a
_scena_ rather than a song, since it opens with a recitative and is
interrupted in the middle with free declamation. The Æolian harp sings
in the west wind the lament of a Greek boy who had been taken to a
distant land. Here Brahms’ marvellously colored harmonies have created
a peculiar beauty which quite escapes analysis.
As we come to the more mature work we find the mere animal spirits less
frequently in the foreground. We feel more and more the qualities of
control and dominant intellectuality. Not that these songs are better
than their predecessors, for some of the earliest ones are finished
masterpieces which could hardly be improved. Nor (let it be repeated)
does Brahms’ fund of musical ideas become less fresh or less charming.
But the composer had begun to show at their best the qualities which
have chiefly given him a place in modern music. The second song of
opus 32 is a triumphant justification of this mature Brahms. The song
is entitled only with a number, but it can be known by its first line,
_Nicht mehr zu dir zu gehen!_ Here is intellectuality in song writing
at its best. Brahms never wrote a finer song; few composers, if any,
have done so. Its popularity may always be limited, but it is surely
one of the great songs of musical literature. Here, as nowhere else,
Brahms has observed the rhythmic and quantitative values of his text
to the last letter. The words, which are in a moody, reflective vein,
are treated almost in declamatory fashion. Every rise or fall of the
voice finds its expression in the melodic line of the voice part. The
tempo is a slow 3/2, and through this winds the melody, now breaking
off suddenly, as though gasping for breath, now rising sharply, as
though choked with pain. If it were pure declamation, it could not be
more faithful to the words; if it were pure melody, it could not be
more faithful to the spirit. The accompaniment, answering the voice
part simply but intensely, and providing a noble bass for the musical
texture to be woven upon, shows Brahms’ finest qualities of restraint
and perfect fitness. Here is a song which is never exhausted. Let the
student play and sing it every day, it will still have something to
teach him. Hardly less noble is another song in the same group, _So
steh’n wir, ich und meine Weide_. Its theme has all the dignity of a
great andante fugue subject by Bach. The treatment of the piano part,
with its definite melody in the bass forming an answer and a sort of
canon with the voice, is superb. We may also mention in this opus
number the much overrated song, _Wie bist du meine Königin_, a piece
which has doubtless gained its popularity by its passionate fervor, but
which in musical beauty and artistic fitness is far inferior to Brahms’
best work.
[Illustration: Famous Modern Singers.
Top: Nellie Melba and Marcella Sembrich
Bottom: Lilli Lehmann and Ernestine Schumann-Heink]
Opus 33 comprises a large number of romances from L. Tieck’s
_Magelone_. These songs, which incline to be long and somewhat
pretentious, do not maintain the high standard usual with Brahms. There
are here rather too much sound and fury. We may, however, mention three
which are very fine: ‘Hey, Bow and Arrow,’ a song made of fire and
steel; ‘Is It Sorrow?’ deeply emotional; and the lovely ‘Rest, Sweet
Love.’ From now on we have merely a steady stream of songs with words
garnered from here and there, the music of a very high standard of
workmanship and the interest often hidden to the superficial glance.
Each song has its individuality which must be sought out by the
student. A commentary on all the songs would fill many pages. In opus
43 we find the fine song, ‘With Eternal Love,’ and the barbaric ballad,
‘The Song of Herr von Falkenstein.’ Such intentional crudity as
Brahms puts into this latter song should redeem him from any suspicion
of pedantry. The ‘Magyar Love Song’ of opus 46 treats the words with
unusual freedom even for Brahms. The same can be said for ‘Gold
Outweighs Love,’ in opus 48. Opus 49 offers us an interesting song, ‘On
Sunday Morning,’ and the famous Lullaby. In opus 57 we have ‘Motionless
Air,’ and in opus 58 ‘Oh, Come, Holy Summer Night,’ both fine enough to
be the masterpieces of another man’s output, though they are Brahms’
second best. ‘Twilight Falls,’ of opus 59, is a deeply tragic piece in
the folk-mood. In opus 63 we have one song which shows us Brahms as the
most thorough technician. The ‘Consolation of Spring’ makes the most
elaborate use of syncopation and mixed rhythms, accompanying the 6/4
voice part with a piano part practically in 3/2. ‘Remembrance,’ from
the same group, is worth knowing, and ‘O, Would I Knew the Returning
Road’ is one of the sweetest of Brahms’ songs.
In opus 66 is one of the daintiest and most humorous of the songs, a
duet to folk-words, which might be sung as a solo--‘Have a Care.’ ‘I
Call from the Bank,’ in opus 69, is Brahms once more in the generous
world of romance. ‘The Maiden’s Curse,’ in the same group, is a fine
tragic song set to a Servian folk-poem. It is an interesting question
here whether Brahms did not fail entirely to catch the spirit of the
words. The maiden, in a dialogue with her mother, curses her lover,
who has prevented her from finishing the washing. She hopes he may be
hanged (upon her white breast), chained (in her white arms), drowned
(in her love), and so on. The point of the song is the double meaning
of the curses. Brahms has treated the words as the passionate rhetoric
of love. But it is probable that the poem, in its true spirit, is a
comic song. The second part of each curse should probably be delivered
_sotto voce_, so that the mother shall not hear. In such a reading
there would be a delightful comic contrast between the coarse hussy
which the girl pretends to be and the sentimental love-sick maiden that
she is. Brahms makes no sort of distinction between the two parts of
the curses and the song in his hands attains a certain tragic intensity
by virtue of the girl’s defiance of her mother.
In opus 71 are ‘To the Moon’ and the _Minnelied_, one of the most
admired of Brahms’ songs. In sheer beauty, however, this is inferior
to the lovely lyric in opus 72, _O, kühler Wald_. Opus 84 contains
Brahms’ most spirited comic song, the delightful ‘Vain Serenade,’ the
high spirits of which make it an irresistible concert number. Two fine
folk-songs are to be found in opus 85, a Servian ‘Maiden’s song,’ and
_Ade_, from the Bohemian. Opus 94 contains the famous ‘Sapphic Ode.’[28]
Here we find, in the simple melody (as apart from the song as a whole),
Brahms’ intellectuality and sensuous beauty fused into a perfect whole.
Over it all is that fine artistic reserve which Brahms was so master
of and which makes the music so fitting an expression of Greek verse.
Among others of the later songs we should mention two Heine songs,
‘Death Is the Cool Night’ and the ‘Sea Journey.’
Brahms’ songs are as permanent a part of concert programs as those
of Schubert or Franz. If they are not as popular in the looser sense
of the word, it is because concert audiences are not yet as a whole
willing to give the necessary attention to them. For, while the Brahms
songs are emphatically not dull, they do demand careful listening.
Without doubt their popularity will grow steadily. And this will be the
best of events both for audiences and for singers. He who has learned
to listen to Brahms’ songs will never again be quite so indulgent with
what is cheap and facile. And the singer who has learned how to make
effective the striking qualities hidden in a Brahms song will find
himself equipped with a power and dignity in his work which he could
hardly get in any other way.
III
Wagner’s songs are few. They comprise only those written during
his early years in Paris, when for a time he hoped to make himself
a fashion in Parisian drawing rooms, and those written under the
influence of Mathilde Wesendonck in the late fifties, when he was
planning ‘Tristan.’ The former group, being composed at the time when
he was writing ‘The Flying Dutchman’ and being, moreover, designed for
a debased public taste, can by no means be ranked with his typical
work. The songs it contains are not great. But Wagner’s genius was
too imperative to blot itself out at any time and these early lyrics
show evidences of the artistic energy which was later to flower in
‘The Ring.’ The earliest known of Wagner’s songs is ‘The Fir Tree,’
written in 1838 in Königsberg. It has little more than historic
interest. In Paris he wrote the ‘Three Melodies,’ which are still
occasionally sung and will repay a little study. The lullaby, _Dors,
mon enfant_, is marked with a suavity in the melody and a variety in
the accompaniment which betray with certainty the touch of the true
musician. The second ‘melody,’ called ‘The Rose,’ is rather too sweet
but is saved by its interesting accompaniment. ‘Waiting’ is vigorous in
conception and execution. But the best of Wagner’s Parisian songs is
‘The Two Grenadiers,’ composed to a French version of Heine’s famous
poem, to which Schumann wrote his popular setting. Wagner’s method is
more dramatic than Schumann’s. It gives a much more important function
to the accompaniment, which is something approaching the ‘orchestral
comment’ of his later theories. At times the voice part is freely
declamatory. Throughout it is kept remarkably free from the running
comment of the piano. The long crescendo up to the final lines is
managed with skill. For these lines the Marseillaise is used, as in
Schumann’s setting, but only in the accompaniment, the voice singing
an independent part. Here we have something approaching a true _leit
motif_ used in a way foreshadowing the later revolutionary music
dramas. The introduction of the Marseillaise by both Schumann and
Wagner must be regarded purely as a coincidence, since the songs, as it
happens, were written in the same year.
The ‘Five Poems,’ to words by Mathilde Wesendonck, are, with one
exception, songs of the first rank. This exception is the ‘Sorrows,’
which is a bit pompous and rings insincere. ‘The Angel’ is a simple
melody with a soft, flowing accompaniment much in the style of the
‘Lohengrin’ music. ‘Stand Still’ is a vigorous and dramatic song,
combining both the lyrical and the declamatory elements. The two
remaining songs will always be masterpieces of the first order. They
are regarded as ‘studies’ for the Tristan music and both contain
motives from ‘Tristan’ or harmonic peculiarities which mark them
out unmistakably. _Träume_ (‘Dreams’), the better known of the two,
weaves a wonderful sensuous spell about the listener. Its melody is
constructed in a peculiar manner which we sometimes meet in Brahms--a
sort of telescoping of successive phrases, so as to bind the parts
more cogently and increase the emphasis of the whole. The harmony is a
wonderful series of melting chords, culminating in ecstatic chromatic
modulations on the words:
‘Sanft an deiner Brust verglühen
Und dann sinken in die Gruft.’
The other ‘Tristan’ song is _Im Treibhaus_ (‘In the Hothouse’). It
contains two of the ‘Tristan’ motives, slightly altered, those of the
wounded Tristan and Tristan’s longing. The harmony in this song is
exceedingly delicate and chromatic--revolutionary for its time. Here
the chromatic development toward which composers had half consciously
striven for two centuries at last attained a complete development. The
lyric must rank as one of the wonders of modern song literature.
Liszt’s songs also we may roughly divide into two classes--those of
the Paris period and those of the Weimar period. More than Wagner,
Liszt wrote his French songs in the taste of the time and the nation.
As one of the pets of the capital he was sure to be heard gladly by
the Parisians and his wonderful instinct for pleasing made him write
naturally in a style which we cannot usually differentiate from the
style of native song writers. _Comment!_ for instance, is as French a
song as though its composer had never travelled beyond the Parisian
fortifications. Its sensitive feeling for the words, its delicate use
of the accompaniment in the thin French style, mark it as utterly
un-German. The most striking of the Parisian songs is _Enfant, so
j’étais roi_, to words by Victor Hugo. It is elaborate and pretentious,
but it has a good deal of real power. On the whole, however, Liszt’s
French songs are without the very qualities which make the later German
songs so valuable--chiefly the dramatic and the declamatory values.
Not all these German songs are of high rank, though we may select
a dozen or so which are the work of genius. The cheapness which so
often entered into the rest of Liszt’s work, finds its way now and
then into the songs, but on the whole this department of his creative
activity maintains a higher average than any other. Cheapness enters
somewhat into two of the earlier German songs, ‘The Fisher Boy’ and
‘The Shepherd,’ both to words by Schiller. The accompaniments are
graphically descriptive. Caring little for the formal unity of the
songs, Liszt introduced the description suggested by the words whenever
the suggestion came. In fact, the songs are really declamations for
the voice with a running comment in the piano. They are far superior
to the longer declamatory songs of Schubert, which were little more
than pretentious recitatives; they raise the declamation into real
melody and the descriptive comment into real music. But these songs
are far surpassed by some of the Weimar period. ‘The Loreley,’ to
Heine’s words, is one of the most elaborate descriptive songs ever
written. The opening lines are freely declaimed to a suggestive
accompaniment. When the description of the Rhine enters--_die Luft ist
kühl und es dunkelt_--we hear a lovely 9/8 motive set over an arpeggio
accompaniment which strikingly suggests the calm flowing river. The
music becomes deeper and richer as the Loreley enters the action. The
passage where the fisher is dragged into the depths of the water is
treated with free and impressive dramatic power. Then the Rhine once
more flows quietly over the place where the man was drowned and the
lovely river theme returns once more, deepening into silence as the
darkness falls. This song illustrates almost at its best the principle
of the descriptive song, the principle held by many that the effect
of _the whole_ is to be gained by treating _each part_ with fidelity.
It is interesting to compare this setting with the simple folk-like
setting provided by Silcher and universally sung. The latter makes
a very regular strophic melody serve for all the stanzas. The two
settings are both wonderful and in very different ways. A choice
between the two must be a matter of individual taste. It will be a
nice exercise for the student to study the two and choose, on personal
grounds, between them.
Fine as ‘The Loreley’ is, Liszt has written two ballads which are
finer. His setting of ‘The King of Thule,’ from Goethe’s ‘Faust,’ is
almost beyond praise. In this he uses a brief suggestive phrase in
the accompaniment which becomes the germ of the whole ballad, being
repeated in many connotations and moods. ‘The Ancestral Tomb,’ to
Uhland’s words, perhaps suffers just a trifle from the pompous, but is
nevertheless one of the best ballads (or, more properly, romances) that
we have. The old warrior, the last of his race, goes to his ancestral
tomb, in which one stone vault is still empty. He hears the voices of
his fathers singing an impressive and mysterious song of family pride.
The voices cease and he lays himself in the empty vault and dies.
Suggestions of unguessed mystery and grandeur hang over the ballad.
In addition to these larger compositions, Liszt achieved what might
reasonably have been considered an impossibility for him--the pure
lyric. Some of his settings are almost flawless. Heine’s _Du bist wie
eine Blume_ has never received such fine music at the hands of another
composer. The opening and typical phrase seems to contain the essence
of the religious sentimentalism of Heine’s words. ‘Mignon’s Song’
commences with a phrase, set over an altered chord, which has become
famous for its accurate delineation of a mood in a few notes. Perhaps
the most impressive of his brief lyrics is _Der du von dem Himmel
bist_. Liszt’s simple setting of this poem is finer, if possible, than
Schubert’s. _Ein Fichtenbaum steht einsam_ and _Im Rhein, im schönen
Strome_ present many elements of beauty and interest. But the most
typical and possibly the finest of all Liszt’s songs is ‘The Three
Gypsies,’ to Lehnau’s words. In the poem the speaker tells of having
passed along a country road and having seen three gypsies, one smoking,
one fiddling, and one sleeping. In the music each of the gypsies is
carefully differentiated. The characterization in this song is beyond
all praise. The voice part is an eloquent declamation, rising here and
there into inspired melody. For the basic theme, the theme of the joy
of life, Liszt has a magnificent Hungarian melody, surely one of the
finest he ever used. The song is one of the most effective of concert
pieces.
In spite of his comparatively small output, Liszt’s songs are of great
importance in the history of song writing. He, better than any other,
fused the declamatory and the lyrical--truth to the words and truth
to the emotions. He several times struck the grand note as few purely
lyrical composers (not even Schubert) have been able to do. In the
development of the piano part along the purely descriptive side no
composer has gone beyond Liszt.
FOOTNOTES:
[28] See Musical Examples (Vol. XIII).
CHAPTER XII
LATE ROMANTICS IN GERMANY AND ELSEWHERE
The dilution of the romantic spirit--Grieg and his
songs--Minor romantic lyricists; Peter Cornelius, Adolph
Jensen, Eduard Lassen, Georg Henschel, and Halfdan Kjerulf;
Dvořák’s songs--French song-writers: Gounod and others;
Saint-Saëns and Massenet; minor French lyricists--Edward
MacDowell as song-writer; Nevin and others--Rubinstein and
Tschaikowsky--English song.
I
Every great burst of genius in any department of art is followed
by widespread imitation. The genius (the _seer_, as Carlyle calls
him) _sees_ his way to new objects and achievements which lesser
men are blind to. Before the genius has done the thing, the thing
seems impossible; after he has done it, it seems divinely simple.
The genius seems to have taught people how. Every second-rate talent
can now follow the formula and produce the same results. Of course,
the second-rate talent cannot produce _quite_ the same results, easy
as it may seem. But the first-rate talent (and geniuses following)
can produce fine results and can even produce results that are more
thorough and more refined, because they are building upon the work of
genius. So the impulse spreads. Many men take up the work that had
formerly been the unique property of one. The genius has done the
pioneer work. The new department of art is advertised by him, made
popular, even made profitable. Lesser men can get something like the
same results with less sacrifice, less effort. The imitators, in turn,
have their imitators. The great initial impulse, as it spreads, also
weakens. Fine strokes of genius are imitated until they become only
formulas. People are familiar with the style and are satisfied with
less convincing results than formerly. The art-form may even become so
codified and formulated that first-rate men will become disgusted and
refuse to give their serious efforts to it. Then the small fry are left
in full possession of the field.
Something like this happened to song literature after Schubert.
Fortunately, song writing has continually, since Schubert, attracted
enough first-rate men to prevent it from falling into a depraved state
in all countries at once. But the general course of song literature
since Schubert’s death has been that of diffusion and dilution up
nearly to the end of the century, when the well-developed harmonic
systems of the younger composers poured new energy into the form.
Throughout the greater part of this time there were first-rate men
working--Schumann, Franz, Brahms, and others. But there was also
an increasingly great number of second-rate men who wrote charming
and artistic songs--songs which we could by no means overlook. And
there was also an increasing number of inferior men who gained great
popularity on very slender artistic resources. Many of these showed
marked individuality, exquisite finish of workmanship, and fine
inspiring ideas. They are by no means to be omitted from any history of
song. They cannot and should not be excluded from concert programs. In
some respects certain of them have surpassed the great masters. It is
also true that excellent work, even first-class work, may be produced
in small quantities by men who have scarcely any claim on fame. So
any attempt, like the attempt in this chapter, to list and describe
the work of a number of less important composers must exclude certain
workers in the field whose songs are of high excellence. In such a
chapter as this the warning must always be given that the list is not
all-inclusive. A man who is quite unknown may produce work equal
almost to the best. The student should, while keeping high standards
of judgment, regard any song as innocent until it has proved itself
guilty. He should always be willing to recognize excellence; he should
always be honestly willing to express his liking for a particular song,
be it unknown or despised. Such a chapter as this, we have said, is
necessarily incomplete. The student must, in the course of his study,
complete it for himself.
After the death of Schumann we see the art of song-writing spreading
to every European country which cultivated music at all. Germany, in
addition to Brahms, Wagner, and Liszt, can show Cornelius, Jensen,
and Lassen among the most prominent. Scandinavia is represented by
Kjerulf and Grieg. The French have a long line of well-known song
writers, many of them scarcely above the level of mediocrity and not
one showing any touch of first-rate talent. In Italy we see a slender
interest in song writing, which, however, produced a rather large
number of songs, some of much beauty. Russia, in addition to the truly
national composers (who will be treated in another chapter), had
distinguished song writers in Rubinstein and Tschaikowsky. England,
still in a dry formalistic period, produced one true romanticist of
great talent--Arthur Goring-Thomas--and several popular writers whose
work shows less distinction. And America (if we extend the period
slightly for the sake of convenience) shows one song writer--Edward
MacDowell--who ranks almost among the greatest. Many of these composers
rank now much lower than they did in their lifetime. Others will
likely drop more and more out of sight as more recent work becomes
known. Tschaikowsky and Gounod, for instance, have been much overrated
in the past. A few others, like Cornelius, are not so well known as
they deserve to be, and as they presently will be if heaven showers
discrimination upon singers and concert audiences. In any case, the
values represented in this chapter are largely values in transition.
Even among these composers, most of whom are dead, there are still
reputations to be made and lost.
II
Edvard Grieg (1843-1907) was essentially a writer in the small forms.
His ill health and also probably the cast of his genius prevented
him from undertaking labors that called for great concentration and
endurance. But in the small forms he is one of the most delightful
of the romanticists of the second half of the nineteenth century. He
used harmonic color with telling results. He was a master of rhythmic
effects. In particular he introduced into his music something of the
peculiar folk-idiom of his country (whether he did it in conscious
imitation of the folk-songs does not matter). He was one of the first
of the distinctly national composers to become universally known and
popular. His melody is always engaging; the national peculiarities
of it are not so obtrusive or so unusual as to alienate the ordinary
listener. He is distinctly easy to enjoy. He was highly successful
in the creation of poetic effect, in which he was helped by the
provocative unusualness of his idiom. In the musical painting of
pictures, in the suggestion of moods that have a sensuous tinge, there
were few of his contemporaries who can equal him.
It is evident that such a man would be successful with songs. And
Grieg’s songs (there are only 146 of them) are among the most
delightful we have. Some critics are glad to place him just below
Schubert and Brahms. Certainly he shows in his songs a spontaneity,
an _élan_, that is one of the prime qualities of the lyrical spirit.
Like Franz, he makes his songs brief and to the point. Unlike Franz,
he takes considerable freedom of form and outline and makes an easy
appeal to an unsophisticated public. As an interpreter of moods he is
admirable. But his songs have made their popularity probably more on
their sheer beauty than on any interpretative quality.
In several of his ballads Grieg has caught a suggestion of the
archaic--a certain angularity of melody which is crude yet beautiful.
This is typified in ‘The Princess,’ words by the Norwegian poet
Björnsen; and ‘The Old Song,’ words by Heine. But in general Grieg
shows that he has little to add to the ballad or the longer vocal
forms. He is at his most typical, and possibly at his best, in ‘The
Swan,’[29] words by the dramatist Ibsen. Here he is using harmonic
color for all it will yield. In style the song is as far as possible
removed from the work of Franz, for it consists simply of a melody
with chords for accompaniment. There is scarcely a suggestion of the
polyphonic style. The chords, generally in a slightly unusual or
altered form, are simply juxtaposed. From their contrast comes the
color which is so marked in this song. No other composer, before Grieg,
had done this particular thing so well and in point of originality
the song can justly be included among the great ones of the world.
In _Ich liebe dich_, which is far better known, he is in a vein that
is much less fine. Here there is nothing of the national idiom. The
song is indeed remarkable for the manner in which it creates emotional
excitement in a mere four lines. But through it all there is something
of the vulgar. It is not a song apart, like ‘The Swan,’ but one of the
horde.
We must grant it as one of Grieg’s distinctions that his songs have a
marked individuality and distinction, one from the other, even though
this distinction is more superficial than essential. In general scheme,
no two of his best songs are much alike. Each has a virtue which is
peculiar to it. In ‘Solvejg’s Song’ he writes in a modal folk-style,
charming, yet a little more sophisticated than a folk-song would be.
‘Autumn Storm’ is a good piece of emotional expression, though uneven.
‘The Minstrel’s Song’ shows dramatic power in a compressed phrase.
‘The Youth’ is admirable in its management of a declamation which is
still melody. More items of technical interest appear in ‘The Berry,’
‘A Fair Vision,’ and ‘My Goal.’ These, especially the last, are all
songs of a high order. In ‘My Goal’ we should notice the vigor which is
injected into the whole piece by the composer’s harmonic freedom. The
handling of the piano part on the _fff_ climax is especially typical
of Grieg. In ‘The Berry’ the accompaniment contains a certain sort
of free counterpoint, which becomes very effective in the composer’s
chromatic method of handling it. ‘A Fair Vision’ (_Was sah ich_) makes
much use of picture drawing in the accompaniment, with its glittering
introduction and its delicious descending chromatic voice in the
bass. The chords of the middle section, very Grieg-like in style,
are particularly charming. In ‘Friendship’ the composer uses unusual
chords, again, to express the feeling or the idea of unfaithfulness.
The listener will be struck by the likeness of this song to Schubert’s
_Doppelgänger_. ‘The Old Mother’ is a simple and very beautiful song,
more folk-like even than is usual with Grieg. One of the most exquisite
of Grieg’s songs, from the standpoint of artistry and taste, is ‘Hidden
Love,’ a model of sensitive writing, in which every note can be heard
and every note is in place. The deeply tragic note is not often sounded
by Grieg, but in ‘By the Bier of a Young Wife’ he has achieved it
superbly. This song is especially worth study for the extreme freedom
of its modulation. The harmonic movement is so constant that there
is scarcely any feeling of a change from key to key, but rather a
sense of moving about in a musical world that is without tonality. The
student should also notice the extremely effective use of dissonance.
Among the shorter songs we should also notice ‘Solvejg’s Cradle Song’
and the ‘Folk-song from Langeland.’
In the long song entitled ‘From Mount Pincio’ Grieg the picture-painter
is at his best. The poet stands on the mount and sees Italy spread out
before him. Nature is in a mysterious and lovely mood. The peasants,
with their dancing, lend animation to the peaceful scene. And the
ancient Italy, the Italy of Rome, rises to his mind. One feels that
Liszt should have composed this song, even though he might have made
it over-pompous. Grieg has chosen to ignore the suggestion of ancient
Italy in his music, using his old musical material to express the new
idea. Yet this conservatism undoubtedly has the virtue of lending unity
to the song, which otherwise is flawless in point of taste. The mood
of mysterious nature Grieg has described best of all in his cycle,
‘From Mountain and Fjord.’ The prologue and epilogue of this group
have a heroic grandeur and yet a sympathetic intimacy which we feel
in great vistas of landscape. In the last number in particular the
flashes of grandeur seem at times supernatural. In both these songs
the declamatory style is masterfully handled. The songs within this
impressive frame are short and folk-like and markedly in the Grieg
idiom. Indeed, the composer, among his unpretentious songs, has written
nothing more charming than ‘Ragnhild’ and ‘Ingebjorg.’
III
Of the various song writers whom, for convenience, we are here calling
‘minor,’ there is one who should not be given the epithet without
reservation. This is Peter Cornelius (1824-1874), friend and disciple
of Liszt and partisan of Wagner. The work of Cornelius has something
of the great strain in it. The man had a fine and daring talent, if
not positive genius. His work seems somehow unfinished, without quite
enough authority to place him among the masters. It is as though he
were making sketches for Parnassus, but had died before attempting the
giant canvas. Perhaps he took up music too late. He was a mature man
with a profession before he felt the influence of Liszt and devoted
himself wholly to composition. Though he was by no means deficient in
technical ability, one somehow feels that fate had got a head-start
of him--that the truly great composer must become such in his cradle.
But those who will take the trouble to know him will find him one
of the most satisfactory of the less known German composers. He
responded to Liszt’s intense and generous interest in music. He had the
enthusiasm of the amateur and the energy and thoroughness of the German
professional man. He was blessed with the open mind which enabled him
to fight for Wagner when the latter was known in Germany only to be
despised. He had a keen artistic sense, together with a vigorous and
critical mentality which enabled him to use it with much force. And he
had what so few composers possess, the breadth of culture and interest
which comes from knowing other subjects besides music intimately and
well. From his songs one gets the impression that nearly all show
originality and creative power, though not many have the final stamp of
authority to raise them into a class with the great. From the creative
standpoint Cornelius’s songs are far superior to Jensen’s. But, because
he was unable to give his work the same finish of style that Jensen
gave to his, he is not, like Jensen, a name known to every singer of
songs. Let us go to Cornelius chiefly for stimulation, leaving in the
background for the time our sense of form and finish.
Many of Cornelius’s published songs are mainly experimental. He seems
to have written what he wrote with much difficulty. It is doubtful
if he was often altogether satisfied with the work that left his
composing desk. The songs of the ‘Lord’s Prayer’ cycle, for instance,
are extremely interesting and impressive in conception, but they
nearly always fail in execution. Out of the group only the ninth, ‘And
Deliver Us from Evil,’ is quite satisfactory. But the man’s imagination
is shown in what he evidently attempted to do in the sixth, ‘And
Forgive Us Our Debts,’ which has a fine fugal bass. The third song of
the series, ‘Thy Kingdom Come,’ is probably next in interest. Of the
other early songs we may mention the ‘Shepherd’s Night-Song,’ ‘In the
Moonlight’ (a charming scherzo), the ‘Slumber Song,’ and ‘Think’st Thou
of Me?’ Of much beauty is ‘Come, Let Us Wander,’ which obtains a gently
colored ‘atmosphere’ with the simplest of means. And among the later
songs there are three fine ones which should be mentioned--‘On Molly’s
Death,’ to one of Bürger’s famous poems; _Auftrag_ and _Abendgefühl_,
the last probably Cornelius’s best song.
A good part of his work is contained in song cycles, namely: ‘Sorrow
and Consolation,’ the ‘Rhine Songs,’ the ‘Christmas Songs,’ and the
‘Bridal Songs.’ In the first of these, for which the composer wrote
his own words (he was a poet of much ability), we find three songs
which must rank high. These are: ‘From the Quiet Spot,’ ‘Dreaming,’
and ‘A Tone.’ The second would answer anyone’s doubts as to whether
Cornelius had the lyric gift. For he has given us here a song which
in its few measures can throw magic over our souls. The best known of
all his songs is ‘A Tone,’ in which the voice part is carried entirely
on one note, while the accompaniment weaves lovely fabrics of melody
around it. This, the only song of its kind which the writer is able
to call to mind, might have been a mere trick. We can imagine such
a song being written on a bet. But a few measures of ‘A Tone’ will
dispel any such notion. For the lyric is a work of art throughout.
The water-mark of the second-rate song writer is not to be found in a
single measure. Of the ‘Rhine Songs’ the best is the fourth, ‘Fancies.’
The Christmas Songs are interesting for the composer’s attempt to
adapt them to children. The melodies, of the utmost simplicity, have
an ecclesiastical ring which lends color to the sentiment. Of the six
songs the best is ‘Three Kings,’ but the whole group is worth knowing
for the peculiar vitality of their modal style. The finest and most
beautiful of the song cycles, however, is the group known as ‘Bridal
Songs.’ These _Brautlieder_, the words written by the composer, seek to
interpret six various sentiments of a young girl at the season of her
marriage. They are wonderfully delicate in sentiment and finished in
execution. The opening song, ‘A Myrtle Spray,’ is tender and appealing;
the third, _Vorabend_, is in Cornelius’s fine half declamatory style;
and the fourth, the ‘Morning Prayer,’ is a deep and noble expression
of religious sentiment, one of the finest things the composer has
achieved. In these songs we can scarcely complain of lack of finish and
authority. These qualities they have, together with inherent beauty and
originality. If Cornelius could have written a greater number of songs
like the _Brautlieder_, the _Auftrag_, and the _Abendgefühl_ we should
surely be obliged to rank him among the ‘great’ song writers. As it is,
his work deserves far more general recognition than it has received and
we have reason to expect that his fame will spread.
Adolph Jensen (1837-1879) was a much more finished song-writer than
Cornelius and a much less vital one. His songs have gained much
popularity among singers because of their perfect taste, their fine
sense of fitness and perfection of form, and their ‘singability.’
Sometimes he attains sheer beauty of no mean order. But in the
actual business of expression Jensen’s songs do not often ring true.
The composer is chiefly at home with the lighter sentiments or with
nature in her gentler moods. Pierce much beneath the surface and the
expression is insincere. Undoubtedly there was in Jensen a sensitive
and genuine artistic nature. But it had neither the robustness nor the
spontaneity necessary for the creation of a lyric literature. Jensen’s
contribution, if he has contributed anything, is a certain refinement
of outline. His songs sound much like other good German songs, only
rather more timid.
His very first published song, _Lehn’ deine Wang an meine Wang_, is
known wherever there are students of singing. It has been universally
admired for its simplicity and touching sentiment. It has been highly
praised for its delicacy of workmanship. But, granted that it was a
masterpiece according to the standards of its day, its day is past.
Nowadays we are demanding a more positive assertion, a more creative
musicianship. Jensen did far better than this in later songs. Some
of his vigorous lyrics are admirable, notably the Bolero, ‘In the
Shadow,’ ‘On the Bank of the River,’ and ‘Old Heidelberg,’ the last
an excellent essay in popular counterpoint. The formal often attains
charming results in Jensen’s songs, witness, ‘Mother, I Have Two Little
Eyes,’ which is a miniature symphony allegretto. But on the whole it is
in his nature-songs that he is most at ease. The list of superior ones
is rather long--‘Murmuring Breezes,’ ‘Spring Night,’ and ‘Evening Air’
are representative. The _Waldesgespräch_ depends more on pure melody
in the voice than does Schumann’s setting of the same words, and is in
every way an inferior song. The Scotch songs have their charm, but are
so empty of feeling compared with the fine tunes to which the words
are set in their native country that their composition seems a sin.
But ‘Sleep’st Thou, My Maiden?’ in which the folk-spirit is purely
German, is a charming song. The best of all, however, is probably
‘Margarete at the Door.’
[Illustration: Minor Romanticists.
Top: Carl Löwe and Peter Cornelius
Bottom: Eduard Lassen and Adolf Jensen]
Eduard Lassen (1830-1904) was even less pretentious than Jensen in his
songs, but rather more genuine and satisfactory. Possibly we cannot
call him a true interpreter of emotion, but we must credit him with the
composition of many a lovely melody. Lassen was Liszt’s successor in
the directorship at Weimar and thus lived in a stimulating atmosphere.
His songs, which were probably the outcome of moments of play, rather
than serious efforts, show both more buoyancy and more elasticity than
do those of Jensen. With them we are again breathing the fresh air,
albeit a peaceful air. Many of his songs content themselves with being
simple strophic melodies, interpretive only in general mood and not in
detail. The best loved of his songs, ‘Thine Eyes So Blue and Tender,’
is fairly typical of the simpler ones. Lassen’s setting of Heine’s ‘It
Was a Dream’ is more truly an art-song, though its appeal is gained
by the simplest of means. ‘Whither’ has an arpeggio accompaniment
which adds admirably to the simple freshness of the song. ‘Spring’ is
furnished forth with interesting modulations, managed with unfailing
taste. In ‘Thou Fairest Vision’ Lassen becomes vigorous and passionate;
in ‘The Sun’s Bright Beams’ he attains dignity and breadth within brief
space. In considering Lassen’s lyrical and melodic style it should
be interesting for the reader to compare his settings of Heine with
Schumann’s--as, for instance, in ‘It was a Dream,’ _Ein Fichtenbaum
steht einsam_, and _Ich hab’ im Traum geweinet_. On the whole, though
Lassen struck out no new path in song writing, though he enlarged no
boundaries and tapped no new fields of expression, he kept his songs on
a high plane of artistic genuineness. Among the song composers of the
last half of the century who expressed themselves chiefly by means of
melody, Lassen is one of the most notable.
Georg Henschel (born Breslau 1850) is a song writer whose present
reputation is very far from equalling the high standard of his work.
This is perhaps because his songs as a whole show no striking element
of novelty. But it is none the less regrettable. For in point of pure
merit Henschel must be ranked among the finest song writers of his
time. Born and educated in Germany, he has spent most of the working
years of his life in America and England, where he has made a notable
reputation as singer and conductor. His musicianship is solid and
deep, his inspiration fresh and unhackneyed, his method honest and
straightforward. He is purely German. In his songs we feel the best
traditions of the best song writers, concentrated and amalgamated, but
without any element of crass imitation. His songs have the artistic
finish which is necessary to give conviction to any lyric work. In mood
they vary greatly from that of natural grandeur and religious dignity
all the way to the most delicate sentiment and humor. Each of the
songs is nicely individualized, both in the musical themes and in the
manner of treatment. In them one is often reminded of Schumann, but the
solid musicianship of Brahms is equally evident. There are no slipshod
songs in his list and few which do not stand on a high artistic level.
The accompaniment is rich, but on the whole conservative, acting
essentially as a support to the voice, however richly decorated it
may be. The general method is strictly lyrical and melodic. Pure
declamation enters seldom. The dramatic and the picturesque elements
are present, but subordinated to the lyrical. Schumann’s influence
is continually evident, but Brahms, too, is there with his solid and
careful musicianship. Further, we must place Henschel as one of the
great masters of the folk-spirit in art-song. His naïveté is not
studied; it springs from a human sympathy with the fundamental things
in music. We have repeatedly mentioned in this book the great test of
the song writer, namely that he shall be able to express emotional
states in a few notes; by this test Henschel is among the most genuine
of lyricists.
Henschel’s songs have been published in small groups throughout his
period of activity. Many of the groups are in the nature of suites, or
at least have some element of unity. We may mention the ‘Forest Flowers
of Thuringia,’ opera 22 and 24; the six songs, _Im Volkston_, opus 29;
the _Serbisches Liederspiel_, opus 32, comprising ten songs in a close
cycle; the four songs to poems by Hafiz, opus 34; and the three songs
from Kingsley’s ‘Water Babies,’ opus 36. Opera 22, 24, 29, and 32 are
all largely in the folk-manner and comprise some of Henschel’s best. In
addition to these and numerous independent songs there are a number of
ballads, some of them furnished with orchestral accompaniment which are
among the best examples of this difficult modern form.
The various songs in folk-manner offer a fine study in musical taste
and understanding. In the best of them the peculiarities of each
text have been caught with such accuracy that any other musical
interpretation seems impossible. Examine, for instance, the two ‘Love
Laments of a Maiden’--the long, crawling, saga-like melodic line of the
first, the dignified chorale form of the second. Both are impeccable
in point of metre and word-accent. But the utter contrast in musical
style shows Henschel’s fine discrimination in his treatments of his
texts. He catches not merely the external characteristics, but the
innermost meaning of each of his poems. Thus when he sets that tiny
folk-masterpiece, _Wenn du bei meinem Schätzel kommst_, he suggests in
his music the varying mood of the lines, but he keeps the song far away
from the delineative, showing in his folk-like treatment of it that
he regarded the poem primarily as a unit--as a _single_ play of wit.
Songs like _Verstohlen geht der Mond auf_ and ‘Ladybird’ seem quite
perfect examples of delicate and graceful song writing. _Mei Schätzerl_
is a humorous song which is hardly surpassed by Brahms or Wolf. Another
song that is in every way a masterpiece is ‘The Miller’s Farewell,’
a melody purely in the folk-character, with a subtle pathos verging
on tragedy. _Der Holdseligen_, one of the best of all his songs, is
of a different sort. It is essentially an art-song, though at first
glance it seems to bear the cachet of the folk. It is not a whit more
difficult or complicated than any of the folk-songs, but there is in it
somewhere that element of conscious design that makes the difference.
A study of this song and one or two of Henschel’s pure folk-songs,
such as _Mund und Auge_, will reveal much concerning the sensitive
deftness of his art. In the more pretentious art-song Henschel is just
as much the master. His ‘Morning Hymn,’ perhaps his best known song,
is of a grandeur rarely to be met with outside of Hugo Wolf. Indeed,
in the deeper emotions Henschel is seldom found wanting. His themes
are truthful and convincing; his development clear and strong; his
musicianship fertile and resourceful.
Among the minor German song writers Alexander von Fielitz (born 1860)
has achieved unusual popularity. He is best known by his cycle,
_Eliland_, which is, by all odds, his best work. The story of the
monk’s hopeless love is in itself a groundwork of extraordinary
sentimental appeal. Von Fielitz has thrown himself into his task with
great sympathy. All the songs are of marked musical value. When sung
together, they reveal many lights and shades of rare poetical charm.
Here von Fielitz is a convincing interpreter of the emotions. In his
other songs he rarely strikes the same level. His themes frequently
have no marked character and his technique is lacking in resource.
Often a mannerism of another composer--Schumann or Wagner--is
introduced in a rather obvious way. In short, von Fielitz has hurt
his reputation by writing too much and repeating himself too often.
In _Das grüne, lustige Waldgezelt_ he is fresh and spirited and
uses with effect his somewhat manneristic contrasting voices in the
accompaniment. The _Mädchenlieder_, to words by Geibel, are delicate
and very singable. The Jester Songs, to words by Otto Julius Bierbaum,
are fairly interesting; the best being ‘The Melancholy Fool.’ Among the
best of his songs are _Nachruf_, with its stimulating inner voices,
and _Wehmuth_, which is an excellent study in emotional climax. His
settings of the Tuscan Popular Poems by Gregorovius and of the Modern
Greek Folk-songs by Geibel often show marked grace and charm. But on
the whole we search in vain in his songs for the genius-touch that
proclaims the master.
An early song writer of Norway, who, because of the character of his
work, can properly be named here, is Halfdan Kjerulf (1818-1868). He
was not of the line of Schubert. His songs, which are very numerous,
content themselves with a vague sentimental charm. But though he did
nothing to advance the art-song, the man was an artist. His melodies
have had great popularity and are perhaps known better to the man in
the street than to the professional singer. His ‘Last Night’ has become
a folk-song the world over. From the artistic point of view the ‘Love
Sermon’ is perhaps the best. ‘Synnöve’s Song’ and ‘Little Uenevil’
have all the genuineness of the folk-song and all the sureness of the
art-song, a combination which many a composer might envy. ‘The Mother
at the Cradle’ is a touching melody, with a delicate second melody in
the accompaniment. ‘I Journeyed over the Sea’ is a fine ballad, simple
and genuine, and _Abendstimmung_ and ‘God Knows where He Wanders’ are
songs well worth knowing. In some of these lyrics Kjerulf is no more
an art-song composer than Stephen Foster. But throughout he shows that
he is a musician and a man of fine taste, and within its narrow limits
much of his work is admirable.
Anton Dvořák (1841-1904), the greatest of the Bohemian composers,
was known to the world chiefly through his orchestral, operatic, and
choral works. He, however, published a few groups of songs which
reveal his individual qualities--rich and somewhat Slavic melody,
sound musicianship, and captivating resourcefulness in many-colored
modulation. The songs have not proved sufficiently numerous or
sufficiently strong to hold a permanent place on concert programs.
There are, however, a number of charming ones among them, especially
the ‘Gypsy Songs,’ which have the dash of the Brahms _Zigeunerlieder_,
and in addition more emotional color and more national characteristics.
We should also mention in Germany Eric Meyer-Helmund (born 1861),
represented by ‘A Maiden’s Wish’; Joachim Raff (1822-1882) with his
charming ‘Serenade’; and Gustav Graben-Hoffmann (1820-1900) with ‘Five
Hundred Thousand Devils.’
Worthy of somewhat more detailed notice is August Bungert (born 1846),
who has recently become more generally known, in Germany at least, for
works of larger calibre, but whose rather over-pretentious ambition in
attempting to out-do Wagner in a musico-dramatic tetralogy, _Homerische
Welt_, has made him appear somewhat ridiculous. Many of his songs,
which show the hand of the technically proficient musician, are set to
words by Carmen Sylva (‘Songs of a Queen,’ etc.). Perhaps his best vein
is shown in the simple, folk-like setting of _Ich hab’ein kleines Lied
erdacht_, which combines a genuine naïve feeling with fine workmanship
and spontaneous lyric charm.
IV
In France, we have said, a multitude of songs were produced after
Schubert had set the fashion. They began, as we have seen, with Monpou
and Berlioz. But with the exception of the latter we have not a single
original and authoritative voice in French song writing until the
time of Fauré, Debussy, and the later César Franck. The French song
tradition, derived from the French aria, was indeed distinctive. But
it was badly fitted for intimate interpretation, being cold in spirit
and thin in workmanship. The best that can be said about this tradition
is that it observed a fine economy of means, never using a note that
could not be heard and that did not make its effect. But in the truer
sense the tradition was not economical, for it failed to get out of its
potential resources one tenth of the expressive service it might have
had. The French composers were too much occupied with the beauty of
their melodic line, which is so all-important that the accompaniment
is very frequently no more than a re-duplication of the voice part
in the treble, with a few thin and misplaced chords added. Nor has
this over-shadowing melody any of the warmth of an Italian tune; on
the contrary it is so cold and self-conscious that it seems to have
been put down note by note after a consultation with a book of rules.
Anything like fertility of polyphonic invention in the accompaniment
is not to be found in the works of this tradition. All the art is to
be expended on the singer’s part. Undoubtedly this offers considerable
exercise to the singer’s intelligence, for due proportion of outline
and of nuance must be preserved. But the songs from this period which
offer any possibilities to the finer interpretive ability of the artist
can be numbered on the fingers of one hand.
Charles Gounod (1818-1893) was unquestionably a man of great talent.
But he abused it miserably. The composer of ‘Faust’ should have left
his mark deeply on French art. He only added one or two successful
operas to it. His songs show his talent in its picturesqueness and
variety. But they also show with terrible plainness its abuse. It
seems safe to say that there are not half a dozen of them which a
self-respecting singer can study. On the whole, Gounod is best in his
songs where he is least pretentious--namely, in the little serenade,
‘Sing, Laugh, Sleep,’ which without grudging we may call utterly
charming. The Barcarolle, _Ou voulez-vous aller_, may also be included
among the excellent ones. Then comes a large collection of sentimental
or emotional songs which seem beneath a musician’s notice--songs
such as _A la Brise_, _Mignon_, or the well known ‘Oh, That We Two
Were Maying.’ The last is in a screaming sentimental style which has
fortunately died, except in the vaudeville houses of England. Some
of the concert pieces--like the Arabian song ‘Medje,’ or the waltz,
_O legère hirondelle_--are frankly cheap and undeniably effective.
Another class of songs on which Gounod made a glittering reputation
was the religious. One of them, which is quite the best, set a whole
fashion for grandiose lyrics exploiting what might be called ‘popular
religion.’ This song, ‘Nazareth,’ has its marked beauties and doubtless
should not be held responsible for the fruits it produced, especially
in England. Yet even apart from the consideration of ultimate results
we cannot help feeling that this beautiful song represents a rather
theatrical type of religion. And the other songs are consistently
worse. _L’ange Gardien_ and _La salutation angélique_ have their
beauties, but smell much of the theatre. Others of the religious songs,
like ‘There Is a Green Hill Far Away’ and _Temple, ouvre-toi_, are
execrable.
Two other opera composers who failed to gain Gounod’s reputation as a
song-writer worked with more consistent artistic conscience. Ambroise
Thomas (1811-1896), composer of ‘Mignon,’ published a number of songs,
notably the six Italian songs written during his residence as a _Prix
de Rome_ scholar in Italy. His part-songs for men’s voices also gained
great popularity because of their spirited treatment. Georges Bizet
(1838-1875) was a man of far finer mettle than either of the two we
have named. His numerous songs show as high a standard of excellence
and almost as high an average of creativeness as the work of any song
writer between Berlioz and Fauré. The best and most popular of them is
the _Pastorale_. Another excellent lyric is _Après l’hiver_. In the
_Sérénade_ and _Ouvre ton cœur_ we find a suggestion of the exotic
color which was popular in Paris at the time. _Je n’en dirai rien_
illustrates Bizet’s aptitude at the imitation of the antique, and _Qui
donc t’aimera mieux_ is an interesting and altogether charming trick
song for an agile soprano. Among the other songs which are well worth
knowing are _Rêve de la bien-aimée_, _Ma vie a son secret_, _Douce
mer_, and _N’oublions pas!_
Félicien David (1810-1876), who initiated in Paris the vogue of the
exotic, maintained the fashion as best he could in his songs, which
show a talent for the picturesque and striking and no small amount of
musicianship. The best of his songs is doubtless _Les Hirondelles_,
which adds to a charming simple melody an accompaniment full of
picturesque ornamentation.
Camille Saint-Saëns (born 1835), an admirably solid force in French
musical life on the whole, has in his songs added nothing of importance
to the literature of his time. It is regrettable that he could not
here have shown his acquaintance with the great German masters as he
did in chamber and orchestral music. Ten songs or so will suggest
the character of his work. We find, in addition to the ‘cold melodic
line’ of which we have spoken, a growing use of dissonance in
the later songs, for emotional or ‘psychological’ effect. If this
tendency had been in any way original to Saint-Saëns and his fellows,
or if it had been developed in a distinctive fashion, it would have
constituted a real claim to fame, for this is precisely the most
marked characteristic of the fine modern French song literature.
As it is, in such a song as _Tristesse_ we must regard the use of
dissonance as a ‘looking forward’ to modern times, but in scarcely more
than an accidental way. Undoubtedly Saint-Saëns used his dissonance
deliberately and not accidentally, but the entrance of this feature
into French song as a whole was scarcely more than accidental. _Suzette
et Suzon_ is an example of what the French are likely to do very
well--the imitation of the antique. This song has a marked charm and
there are many more like it in the literature of the time. _Le Sommeil
des Fleurs_ may stand as an example of the French emphasis on melody
(at the time) and the effect which they could derive from it. In _La
Cloche_ we see an effort after color and picture painting, though it
is but weak and conventional. _Le Pas d’armes du Roi Jeanito_, to
Hugo’s words, is a ballad of some spirit and attempted color. All these
songs are filled with banalities and carelessness of writing. Much
more carefully and creatively written is _Clair de Lune_, which tries
an interesting experiment with accents. The accents of the voice part
all seem to be misplaced, since they do not coincide with those of the
accompaniment. In reality both parts receive equal emphasis in the
accents, or rather there are no accents at all. The composer’s way of
writing the song merely emphasises one more interesting point in French
song which, more than any other, determined the character of its music
throughout the century--namely, the liquid quality of its verse. We may
also mention among Saint-Saëns’ songs the Barcarolle, the _Désir de
l’Orient_, an effective concert piece, and _Au Cimetière_, which is
one of the most popular.
Jules Massenet (1842-1912), tireless composer of operas, wrote many
songs which stand fairly high among French lyrics of their class.
They have a certain facility and geniality to commend them, and in
particular a voluptuous sinuous contour. Massenet’s use of the slow
12/8 or 9/8 tempo was one of his chief stocks-in-trade. But, except as
pleasing and unpretentious parlor songs, we cannot regard them very
seriously. Though his lifetime overlapped the ‘new school’ by more
than two decades, he is distinctly of the old school. His harmony is
quite old-fashioned and he shows but few traces of the French search
for atmosphere. His one personal quality is an increased sensuousness
of melody, achieved without special aid from the accompaniment. The
best of his songs is among the earliest, the ‘Elegy,’ adapted from
an orchestral intermezzo which formed part of the incidental music
for _Les Erinnyes_. In _A Colombine_ he has created a charming genre
piece. In the _Nuit d’Espagne_, a gentle and reserved song of exotic
tendencies, in the _Chant Provençal_, a typical 12/8 melody, luscious
yet ‘chaste,’ over the barest of chord accompaniments. In the sprightly
_Sérénade du passant_ he is altogether delightful, especially in
insinuating into the melody more meaning than meets the ear. On the
other hand, he has written any number of sentimental songs which, like
‘Open Thy Blue Eyes,’ are rubbish.
In the same general school are a number of composers (some of them
Massenet’s pupils) who have written songs in quantity, some with
occasionally charming results. One of the most fertile and popular
was Benjamin Godard (1849-1895). His work was marred by the rapidity
with which it was written, necessitating an uncritical attitude on the
composer’s part which is fatal to the general body of a man’s work.
Several felicitous examples of Godard’s work, however, well deserve
their popularity, especially the Berceuse from _Jocelyn_, the delicate
‘Florian’s Song,’ and the spirited Barcarolle, _Embarquez-vous_.
_L’Amour_ may be taken as an example of the great majority of his
songs--conventional but pleasing.
Of even greater popularity and possibly more originality is the work
of Cécile Chaminade (born 1861), whose songs occasionally approach
a high degree of artistic finish. In her genre songs Mme. Chaminade
is especially felicitous. Several random examples are the _Chanson
Slave_ and the _Chanson Espagnole_, among the pseudo-national lyrics;
the _Mandoline_ and _Madrigal_ and _Voisinage_, each in a special and
easily appreciated style. In her dainty imitations of the antique the
composer shows her French training and zest--notably in _Auprès de ma
mie_, _Noël des oiseaux_, and _Ronde d’amour_. In her emotional songs,
such as _Chanson triste_ and _Amoroso_, she is less distinguished.
And in the religious or grandiose songs, such as _Immortalité_ and
_l’Idéal_, she is pompous, noisy, and uninspired. Her creative impulse
is not great. Her ideas are most charming when they are most modest
But when she is working with material that is to her taste she can
manipulate it with a deftness that many a first-rate composer might be
proud of.
A further group of French song writers may be mentioned because their
work contains some elements of distinction. Gabriel Pierné (born 1863),
a musician of fine endowments and a force in Parisian musical life,
works with deftness and excellent taste, chiefly in the smaller forms
and the more modest ideas. J. Guy Ropartz (born 1864), a pupil of
César Franck, has kept himself clear of the modern radical tendencies
in Paris and has continued to produce songs in the old manner, but
considerably more vigorous and creative in content than was once the
fashion. Xavier Léroux (born 1863), with at least one fine song, ‘The
Nile,’ should be named, and also Augusta Mary Anne Holmès (1847-1903),
an Irish woman who lived and worked in Paris and wrote songs of large
and pretentious outline, best of which, perhaps, is ‘An Irish Noël.’
Reynaldo Hahn (born 1874), one of the weaker pupils of Massenet,
followed his master’s method to considerable popularity but to little
artistic purpose. Other song-writers who may profitably be mentioned
are Arthur Coquard (born 1846) and George Adolphe Huë (born 1851).
V
The position of Edward MacDowell (1861-1911) as a lyricist is still
disputed. Mr. Finck ranks him among the four greatest song-writers of
the world. In point of sincerity and individuality he was surpassed
by few of his contemporaries. From the beginning of his maturity on
he wrote scarcely a note that did not bear his personal signature. In
two or three of his songs he is certainly hobnobbing among the great.
But though nearly all his work is charmingly individual, one may doubt
whether he has written a sufficient quantity of superior songs to
entitle him to the rank to which Mr. Finck assigns him. But the songs
are there, independently of what rank this or that writer chooses
to give him. He is unsurpassed in giving his music certain special
qualities or moods, distinct, yet not got by strained means--moods
such as banter, sentimental tenderness, playfulness, and the like.
The achieving of such results is one of the ultimate things in song
writing from the technical point of view, and many first rank composers
have been unequal to it. To achieve it is a special mark of genius for
the art-song. Again, we find that MacDowell’s songs have a remarkable
amount of distinction and individuality; though the personality of the
composer is over all, each of the songs has its own personality, too.
The range is considerable; from playfulness, through sensuous emotion,
to deepest tragedy, and each type, at MacDowell’s hands, is equally
individual and almost equally successful. The MacDowell idiom, derived
in part from Grieg, is used flexibly for many things and is usually a
fine instrument of emotional expression. We should not, however, leave
this listing of the qualities of MacDowell’s songs without mentioning
their frequent tendency to the banal, a tendency which is never marked
or long sustained, but which appears in unexpected places to rob the
songs of their final touch of aristocratic distinction.
The earliest of the MacDowell songs is a group of Scotch melodies,
an endeavor to imitate the Scotch style, yet not so closely as to do
away with individuality. ‘Deserted,’ to the old words ‘Ye Banks and
Braes of Bonny Doon,’[30] is appealing and tragic, altogether a fine
piece of work. But the Scotch songs of opus 34 are more beautiful and
more personal. Both ‘Menie’ and ‘My Jean’ (words by Burns) deal in
the Scotch cadences and phrases, but they might also stand as a study
for the great songs of opus 47. The songs of opus 26, entitled ‘From
an Old Garden,’ show MacDowell at his best in his lighter moods. ‘The
Blue Bell,’ which maintains a mood half of banter and half of pathos,
is admirable, and ‘The Myrtle,’ with its harmonic freedom yet cogent
expression, is of decided technical interest. Leaving to the last the
two greatest of MacDowell’s song groups, let us make mention in passing
of opus 56, two excellent songs, ‘The Swan Bent Low to the Lily’ and
‘A Maid Sings High and a Maid Sings Low,’ which are as personal as
anything the composer has done; of opus 58 with the pleasing ‘Merry
Maids,’ and of opus 60, with ‘Tyrant Love,’ another very personal song,
and ‘Fair Springtide,’ original and invigorating.
The two great opus numbers referred to are 40 and 47. The ‘Six Love
Songs’ of opus 40 include one which is perhaps the best known of all
MacDowell’s vocal work--‘Thy Beaming Eyes.’ In this song we must admire
the strenuousness of the hot emotion which the composer is able to
conjure up, but we cannot help wishing that he had chosen a medium a
little less vulgar. This song contains much of MacDowells ability, but
of MacDowell’s artistic message it contains less than almost any other.
The second song of the group, ‘Sweetheart, Tell Me,’ is delicate and
perfect as a cut gem. But by all means MacDowell’s greatest song-group
is opus 47, ‘Eight Songs.’ The first of the group is the second of
the composer’s songs in popularity--‘The Robin Sings in the Apple
Tree.’ Nowhere has MacDowell been more felicitous in the delineation
of mood in tiny details; the number of treasures in this short song is
truly surprising. The ‘Midsummer Lullaby’ is a masterpiece. Again it
is the accuracy of mood-painting that strikes us, this time the hot
laziness of the full summer day. The third piece, the ‘Folksong,’ is in
MacDowell’s most vigorous and admirable style. ‘The West Wind Croons in
the Cedar Trees,’ ‘In the Woods,’ and ‘Through the Meadow’ are nature
songs of much distinction, showing grace, buoyancy, or sentiment, as
the case may be. But the finest song of the group, and the finest of
all MacDowell’s songs, is ‘The Sea,’ to William Dean Howells’s words.
Here we have in full strength the mood of tragic grandeur which has
been struck seldom in modern art-songs. This song, at least, has not
a touch of banality, not a note of mannerism, not a phrase which is
not at once great music and genuine poetry. Many of MacDowell’s songs
are perhaps too personal to be generally appreciated. Here is one song
which is utterly the product of his individual genius, but at the same
time a universal art-work.
Beyond MacDowell it is not easy to name a single American song-writer
who has any claim to a position among the song-writers of the world.
A few, especially in very recent years, have shown a marked talent
which may be expected to develop into something unusual. But, on the
whole, the American song output, though enormous, has been consistently
and painfully second-rate in character. This is not to belittle the
excellent work which certain Americans have accomplished in this
field; but their interest must necessarily be local. The American
song-writers are treated in detail in another volume,[31] so we need
here only mention them and the occasional treasures hidden in a mass
of work too facile and imitative. We should name, however, one of
their number who, with rather limited talents, has nevertheless made
a place for himself in the hearts of people in Europe as well as in
this country. This is Ethelbert Nevin (1862-1901), chiefly known among
pianists for his charming suites of short pieces. Nevin’s reputation
as a song-writer rests chiefly on one lyric, ‘The Rosary,’ which has
had a remarkable vogue, well deserved. It is difficult to find any
other of his songs which approaches this in emotional breadth. But out
of his numerous list there are a few which are well worth knowing.
‘Sleep, Little Tulip’ is a bit of a lullaby with a charming swing and
a delicate sentiment, given an additional interest by the lilt of the
accompaniment, which is managed with much skill. ‘A Song of Love’ is
above the average in musical vigor and ‘Orsola’s Song,’ to the French
words of Jean Richepin, imitates with success the Gallic method. _In
der Nacht_, to German words, is unusual for breadth and genuineness.
Nevin is too often a mere sentimentalist, too often imitative, too
often dependent on mannerisms and formulas. Some of these mannerisms,
however, are effective, especially that of writing a contrapuntal
melody in the accompaniments, as in the second half of ‘The Rosary.’
Though his invention was facile rather than profound, and his
musicianship slight, we cannot deny him praise for a certain delicacy
of touch, a certain artistic sense of fitness, which were too often
lacking in his American contemporaries.
It may not be out of place here to mention two song writers of modern
Italy who have shown individuality and attained wide popularity.
Francesco Paolo Tosti (born 1846), one time teacher of singing to the
court of England, has written a number of songs of varying quality. His
‘Goodbye Forever’ is none the worse for having been played on all the
hurdy-gurdies of London for twenty years past. The piece is as moving
as any folk-song and as delicate as a lyric by Jensen. In his later
songs, of which we may mention the well known ‘Serenade,’ he shows more
care than in the earlier ones and the result has been some exquisite
works, combining Italian grace and Italian fervor in equal proportions.
‘At Vespers,’ _Amore_, and _Mattinata_ are among his best. Luigi Denza
(born 1846) has attracted a unique position for himself in that one
of his lyrics, the famous ‘Funicula,’ has been circulated more widely
than any other piece of music of which there is record, having reached
a sale of some 500,000 copies. His songs, which are all simple and
addressed to the common people, are very numerous and include not a few
of great charm and artistic grace.
VI
In a later chapter we shall briefly study the wonderful song literature
which has been created by the Russian composers in the last half
century. From this list, however, we shall exclude two Russians who
were extremely productive song writers and are still the best known of
their land. For Rubinstein and Tschaikowsky, though they were born
in Russia, were Germans in their musical education and would have
little to do with the ‘neo-Russian’ group which created the national
art-song. They frequently attempt Russian ‘local color’ or oriental
exoticism, but in nearly every case their attempt is mannered and
self-conscious. Both suffered from over-production. To be quite plain,
they seem to lack artistic conscience. Rubinstein, in particular, wrote
a great quantity of songs, chiefly to German and Russian texts, which
no sincere artist should have dared to sign. They were addressed to
the drawing rooms and the tinsel concert halls of the time. Perhaps
they were actually the pot-boilers with which he sought to eke out
his income. Most of them should be passed over in charitable silence.
Tschaikowsky shows a somewhat higher level of artistic effort, but
too often he writes much noise and little music. His most pretentious
efforts are often built upon themes that would hardly fill a penny
whistle. However, he errs not so much through the cheapness of his
melodies, as does Rubinstein, as through lack of artistic taste and
control.
Anton Rubinstein (1830-1894), a concert pianist second only to
Liszt, perhaps suffered from being a public pet. Usually his songs
are insufferably sentimental, with a banality in almost every line
which counteracts the charm latent in the idea. His accompaniments
are usually thin and conventional. His romanticism is of the rag and
tatter type, which calls upon the stock modulations and phrases in a
routine way. One feels that the composer never _saw into_ his songs,
that he wrote three-fourths of his notes with his eyes shut. However,
he has done a few thoroughly fine songs. ‘The Asra,’ to Heine’s words,
is highly emotional and picturesque. Rubinstein’s setting of _Du bist
wie eine Blume_, with its delicate piano background, may perhaps be
ranked second to Liszt’s. There is a fine luxuriance about the song
‘Golden Rolls the Kura Beneath Me,’ while _Es blinkt der Tau_ and _Die
Waldhexe_ can command the respect of musicians. ‘Not with Angels’
is another song well worth knowing. Perhaps the lyrics which show
Rubinstein the musician in the best light are the ‘Persian Songs,’
which combine exotic coloring and great expressive beauty. Here,
probably, the list ends. The remainder of Rubinstein’s large output
suffers continually from thinness and banality. The ‘Modern Greek Love
Song’ is a touching melody of the simplest type and manages to escape
the commonplaceness which seems always about to engulf it. ‘Be Not so
Coy’ is graceful and musicianly, and ‘The Ravens’ contains considerable
vitality. But it would be useless to enlarge a list of songs, none of
which can be praised without some reservation. Rubinstein is one of
the composers whose reputation is fast on the wane. We can part with
him with light hearts, for what has replaced him is hardly second to
anything in all song literature.
Nor in Tschaikowsky’s case need we name the long list of songs that
are only somewhat good. He has a few that are thoroughly fine. The
children’s song entitled ‘Legend’ makes effective use of modal harmony
and remains a most touching and impressive lyric. ‘At the Ball’ is
a melody such as Tschaikowsky could create on occasion, utterly
aristocratic and artistic. Over this, as over few of his others, the
conventional has not cast its spell. ‘The Canary’ is an elaborate
effort at oriental color and is completely successful, the piano part
being especially fine. The piece is most effective in the concert
hall. Perhaps the best known of the Tschaikowsky songs is the setting
of Goethe’s famous lyric, _Nur wer die Sehnsucht kennt_. It may be
taken as a type of Tschaikowsky’s average. There is in it a certain
intensity of feeling, but it is all strained, over orchestrated, as it
were, and every now and then--banal. The long list of Tschaikowsky
songs includes a number which attempt to be impressively dramatic. They
usually make their effect at first hearing, but they fall to pieces
beneath scrutiny. They suggest too much brass and percussion and too
little--music.
Another Slav whose songs are mainly German is Moritz Moszkowski (born
1851). He wrote with less ambitious intent than Tschaikowsky and
achieved some charming results, as in his well known ‘Slumber Song.’
But the conventional hangs over his work, and his is one of the
reputations which is fast dying.
VII
The England of the last half of the nineteenth century has left us
little that we can treasure in song music. Easily the most popular
composer of the time was Sir Arthur Sullivan (1842-1900), who wrote
the music of the inimitable Gilbert and Sullivan operettas, which
are quite as perfect in their way as Mozart’s operas. If we were to
include in this list the songs from these pieces we should have a song
literature altogether remarkable and charming. But outside of his stage
works Sullivan was surprisingly cheap in his vocal music. It is hard
to explain the quantity of songs he put out which would hardly have
been a credit to a low-class music hall. They are for the most part
unbelievably sentimental and commonplace. A few of his less popular
songs, however (for example, the ‘Arabian Love Song’ and ‘O Fair Dove,
O Fond Dove’), showed an effort at artistic creation, and among the
popular ones we may find a handful, such as ‘Sweethearts,’ which are
tolerable. But in this description we have omitted one song which
is of quite a special calibre. This is the universally known ‘Lost
Chord.’ Perhaps the piece is unduly sentimental; perhaps the religious
sentiment of it is somewhat theatrical. But on the whole it is
certainly a fine and noble inspiration. It is not a bit the worse for
its huge popularity. The musical material is impressive in the extreme
and the handling is admirable.
Frederick Cowen (born 1852) was a prolific composer of songs (his
output numbers nearly 300) and, next to Sullivan, was the most
popular song-writer of his time. His talent was limited, being wholly
satisfactory only in work of a light and fanciful character. In this
field he well deserves his reputation. But his sentimental songs are in
the worst tradition of the time. His influence in this sort of music
has been huge, and he may almost be called the father, for England and
America, of the brood of sentimental pieces that pose as art-songs.
He has been a potent factor in the debasing of the taste of concert
audiences, and singers should know him chiefly as an admirable example
of what to avoid. Why the songs of this class are bad might perhaps be
told on paper. But a far better answer would be a comparison between
them and a few first-rate songs, say by Franz or Brahms. A little
familiarity with songs of the Cowen type will show how utterly they
fail to ring true to healthy sentiment.
Another popular song writer of Sullivan’s time was Stephen Adams
(1844-1911), whose real name was Michael Maybrick. The great
popularity of his songs of the sea, such as ‘Nancy Lee’ and ‘The
Midshipmite,’ or of his romantic songs, such as ‘In Days of Old,’ is
quite justified. They do not parade as art-songs (rather they might be
justly called folk-songs), but in their vigor and straightforwardness
they might serve as a model to many a precious song-writer with more
sentimentality than talent. A more recent song from this composer, ‘The
Holy City,’ combines to a remarkable degree the popular quality with
real musicianship.
The most genuine song-writer of this period was Arthur Goring-Thomas
(1851-1892), a man of delicate instincts and fine artistic sense
whose work has never received the recognition it deserves. His field
of expression was not wide, but within it he worked with a wealth of
imagination and refined sense of fitness which England at the time
could not match. He was the one true romanticist of his land. His
product is perhaps a trifle morbid, but, such as it is, it is free from
tricks and cheapness and is absolutely sincere. As a sentimentalist,
pure and simple, he is among the best. He was, indeed, one of the few
sentimentalists who could approach the tragic mood without losing
in his music the ring of sincerity. And as an artist of the voice
England for two centuries was not able to show his fellow. Some of his
most perfect work as a lyricist is shown in his cantata, ‘The Swan
and the Skylark,’ and in his operas. His solo songs and duets show
the refinement and polish which is not that of formal learning, but
represents the loving care of an intense artistic nature. Among the
best may be mentioned ‘Wind in the Trees,’ ‘Barbarine’s Song,’ ‘One
Morning, Oh, so Early,’ and the ‘Night Hymn at Sea.’
Before closing this chapter we should mention the romantic and colorful
work of Liza Lehman (born 1862). Her song cycles, especially those from
Omar Khayyám and Robert Louis Stevenson, are well known. The former, ‘A
Persian Garden,’ offers points of remarkable interest to the musician.
The music, which covers a considerable emotional range, is equally
felicitous in a number of various moods. The exotic color of the cycle
is managed with rare taste and effectiveness. The accompaniment is a
model of richness and appropriateness. We can safely say that this
writer is the only woman composer who has ever succeeded signally in
the tragic mood. But her peculiar contribution (for it can almost be
called a contribution) is the fine artistry with which she concentrates
great emotional feeling into the briefest time. (It is interesting
to note that she does it almost entirely by the use of the _da capo_
or ‘A-B-A’ form.) In the variety of styles at her command and in the
sureness of her artistic touch she is quite alone among woman composers
of the present day.
FOOTNOTES:
[29] See Musical Examples (Vol. XIII).
[30] See Musical Examples (Vol. XIII).
[31] Vol. IV, chapters XII-XIV.
CHAPTER XIII
HUGO WOLF AND AFTER
Wolf and the poets of his time; Hugo Wolf’s songs; Gustav
Mahler; Richard Strauss as song-writer; Max Reger’s
songs--Schönberg and the modern radicals.
I
German song since Schubert has known nothing like a fallow period. In
no single decade has the song product been markedly inferior to any
other. After Schubert and Schumann there came Liszt, Franz, and Brahms;
and after Brahms there came Wolf, Strauss, and Reger. The Germany of
these latter men was, of course, a very different Germany from that
which preceded the Franco-Prussian War. It was a united Germany,
an increasingly centralized Germany, a more prosperous Germany. In
many ways it seems to be a more Philistine Germany. But, though the
political and social conditions changed after 1870, this change was
not expressed in the national literature for a number of years. And in
the lyric poetry it was chiefly the poets of the old régime who held
sway toward the end of the century. These poets had come in on the
reaction that followed the failure of the liberal political movement
of 1848. When men found their political strivings frustrated they once
more turned their attention to their souls. Chief representative of
‘art for art’s sake’ was Emmanuel Geibel (1815-1885), an extremely
talented literary man who cultivated the pure lyric with great
success. Geibel was not a man of great originality. He clung to the old
poetic motives and to the old ideas concerning the relations of man.
But his versification was very engaging, being gentler and smoother
than is usual in German poetry, and his manipulation of ideas and
images was extremely deft. Next to him in popular esteem was Eduard
Möricke (1804-1875), a Swabian pastor who took to writing verse as an
amusement. In addition to an insinuating use of image and word music he
had that rare quality in a lyric poet--a sense of humor. His touches
of fun are always wholesome and delightful. Paul Heyse (1830-1911)
was best known as a novelist and short-story writer, but his lyric
gift was marked and his translations from the Spanish and Italian
attained great popularity. Detlev von Liliencron (1844-1909) was
another of the foremost lyricists of the time. In a later generation
Otto Julius Bierbaum (1865-1909) and Richard Dehmel (born 1863) were
influential. They rank with Hugo von Hoffmannsthal (born 1874) as the
foremost lyricists of present-day Germany. These men are not great.
They by no means express Germany as Tennyson, for instance, expressed
mid-Victorian England. But, taken together, they supply the growing
demand for sensuous, subjective poetry and they execute their task with
a fine command over the lyrical qualities of the German language.
We have not yet finished with the process of ‘placing’ Wolf (1860-1903)
as a song writer, but there are competent critics who would rank him
above Schubert (that is, as the greatest in musical history) and any
number who would rank him just below. Certainly his work is free
from any of the careless or conventional writing which disfigures so
much of Schubert’s work. The standard which Wolf set for himself in
his song-writing is perhaps more exacting than that set by any other
composer. His songs measure up to more separate tests than do those of
any other one man. It is evident, then, that his musicianship must have
been of the highest order. He had the benefit of the great generation
of musicians who had followed Schubert and brought to maturity the
work which he had only begun. Schubert was too often content with a
type accompaniment, a conventional turn of phrase which only serves
to fill up a measure and (what is worse) with an indifferent bit of
music when something first-rate didn’t enter his head. Moreover, his
technique, from the point of view of accurate emotional expression, was
necessarily limited, since his task was a comparatively new one. Wolf
had this one immense external advantage--that he began his work after
‘Tristan’ had been written. He was able to write his songs with an
accurate acquaintance with the most powerful emotional idiom the world
has ever seen. Whether or not Wolf was the superior of Schubert in
absolute genius is another matter. But undoubtedly, taken all in all,
his songs must satisfy modern ears and modern demands better than those
of Schubert.
When we mention Wolf’s debt to Wagner, when we mention the Wagnerian
influence in his songs, we do not mean that he has been an imitator.
The principles which Wagner exemplified in the opera could have but a
slight application to the art of song writing. Further, Wolf was far
too individual to carry over Wagner’s precise methods and mannerisms
into his work. When we speak of the Wagnerian influence on Wolf we
mean merely the influence which a supreme master in any art must exert
on all who have studied his work. Wagner had opened the eyes of men
to a musical world almost undreamed of before--a world of chromatic
harmony and free modulation which had been no more than vaguely implied
in the music preceding him. He had shown men, by one or two masterful
examples, that the thing could be done; the others then set about
to do it in their own ways. Among these others was Wolf, as a young
man an adorer of Wagner and constant student of his scores, a finely
balanced musical nature which could understand and synthesize the work
of great men and recreate out of this understanding an art that was his
own. Accordingly we find Wolf far more chromatic in his procedure than
any song writer before him, far more concerned with his accompaniments,
freer and more accurate in his treatment of the voice--yet not a
whit less lyrical than any other song writer who had ever lived.
Wolf’s songs are not Wagnerian operas. His great emphasis upon the
accompaniment as an instrument of expression is not an imitation of the
Wagnerian orchestra with its function as ‘soul of the drama.’ His use
of the germ-motive is not an imitation of the Wagnerian leit-motif,
standing for a single character or idea. Wolf could not have _imitated
Wagner_ without making his songs operatic and unlyrical. What he did
was to write songs absolutely in the fine old German song tradition
after he had fertilized his mind and invention with an accurate
knowledge of the works of the greatest modern German musician.
[Illustration: Hugo Wolf]
_After a photograph from life._
Wolf’s two predominant technical qualities were truly in line with
the development of German song, apart from any extraneous influence.
These two influences were the significance given to the piano part and
the closest accuracy in the treatment of the words. Wolf’s procedure
with the words--his rigid adherence to the ‘one-syllable, one-note’
principle, his insistence that the voice part should agree with the
special accents of meaning as well as with the ordinary accents of
prosody--this might have been merely a meticulous fad with another
composer. But with Wolf it truly represented his attitude toward the
art-song, an attitude strongly contrasted with, say, that of Brahms.
He carried it out not as a rule to be observed (he occasionally
broke it himself), but as an expression of his artistic feeling. His
melody, of course, is somewhat free, but its musical integrity is
never disfigured to meet the demands of the text. It is genuinely
lyrical, but so managed as to give more regard to details than in
most composers’ songs. Wolf’s piano parts are an unending delight
to the musical student. They are more ambitious, more complex, more
exuberant than those of Franz, but no less perfect from the point of
view of workmanship. Unlike Franz, again, they are very highly colored
and filled with details which interpret particular nuances in the
text. Especially are they interesting for doing in an emotional and
dramatic way what Franz so often did in an intellectual way--developing
his piano part from a simple musical germ. Franz’s accompaniments
are charming in the highest degree, but rarely emotionally moving.
Wolf’s speak with an emotional voice not surpassed in any songs of the
nineteenth century.
Ernest Newman points out as Wolfs highest glory the immense variety
and distinctness of the characters he has interpreted in his songs.
Heroes, lovers, fools, warriors, drunkards--these and a host of others
he has put into his music with almost unvarying success. Newman
compares him in this respect with Shakespeare. Certainly, many of the
greatest masters have shown marked limitations in this respect. Wolf’s
interpretative ability seems almost unlimited. He felt his poems as
few other composers have done. He worked much as Schubert worked--in
a sort of trance, dreaming over his poems, living and sleeping with
his characters, composing his music in a kind of hypnotic state and
writing down his music with such inspired insight that the first draft
was nearly always the last. As a result we feel that his interpretation
is the ultimate and perfect interpretation. He seems to have had no
technique, in the sense of a musical system which dictates notes of
itself. Wolf’s notes were dictated by direct inspiration as with few
other song-writers in musical history. The songs are as individual as
the songs of Franz and far more dissimilar in the external plan and
contour. There is such a thing as a Franz style. There is no such thing
as a Wolf style; each song stands utterly by itself.
The numerous songs written by Wolf before 1888 are not to be counted in
this general summary of his work. They are experimental and youthful,
showing a progress toward the masterful maturity of his great period.
But they comprise several which can rank with his best. Of these we
may mention ‘The Mouse Trap,’ an exquisitely humorous thing, and ‘To
Rest,’ which is very tender and moving. ‘Biterolf,’ composed in 1886,
is a warrior’s song, striking the great vein of heroism. The ‘Serenade’
of 1888 is one of the best known of the Wolf songs, a piece in which
the piano and voice sing together as if they were parts of one complex
instrument. The fifty-three Möricke songs of the year 1888 include such
a number of masterpieces that it may well be called the most remarkable
single group of songs ever written. The variety and perfection of
these songs would lead one to believe that they were the selected work
of many years of labor. We cannot sufficiently praise the variety of
expression--the human types of _Das verlassene Mägdlein_, _Agnes_,
_Der Jäger_, _Erstes Liebeslied_, and the _Lied eines Verliebten_; the
religious emotion of _Auf ein altes Bild_, _Schlafendes Jesuskind_,
_Zum neuen Jahr_, and the _Gebet_; the poetry and fantasy of the
_Elfenlied_, _Um Mitternacht_, _Nixe Binsefuss_, and others; the deep
and varied emotion of _Der Genesene_ and _Die Hoffnung_, _Er ist’s_,
_Nimmersatte Liebe_, _An eine Aeolsharfe_, _Verborgenheit_, _Lebewohl_,
and the _Gesang Weylas_, the lively humor of _Der Tambour_, _Auftrag_,
and _Abschied_. Humor is also present in the group of thirteen
Eichendorf songs, as in the delightful _Der Scholar_. The passionate
note is finely struck in _Liebesglück_ and _Seemann’s Abschied_; and
the _Nachtzauber_ and ‘Serenade’ show a masterful power of poetic
suggestion.
The Goethe songs are generally regarded as, on the whole, a
retrogression after the magnificent Mörike group. They are slightly
less spontaneous, somewhat too loaded down with detail. But nothing
could be finer as an expression of passion than _Hochbeglückt in deiner
Liebe_ and _Komm Liebchen, komm_. In the grand manner are _Grenzen der
Menschheit_ and _Prometheus_, the latter one of the most magnificent
songs ever written. A certain inimitable dithyrambic humor sings in
the Drinking Songs--_So lang man nüchtern ist_, _Was in der Schencke
waren heute_, and _Trunken müssen wir alle sein_. Far removed from
the Teutonic nobleness of Goethe are the Spanish and Italian songs,
to words by Geibel and Heyse. Their average is very high and it is
almost at random that we select the following for mention: _Nun bin
ich dein_; _Geh, geliebter_; _Ich führ über Meer_; _Komm, o Tod von
Nacht umgeben_, _Tief im Herzen_, _In dem Schatten meiner Locken_,
_Auf deinem grünen Balkon_, _Der Mond hat eine schwere Klag erhoben_,
_Was für ein Lied_, _Und willst du deinen Liebsten sterben sehen_,
and _Sterb’ ich, so hüllt in Blumen meine Glieder_. Finally, we
should mention the fine settings to three sonnets of Michael Angelo,
the last things Wolf wrote before going to the madhouse, hopelessly
insane. _Wohl denk’ ich oft_, _Fühlt meine Seele_, and _Alles endet was
entstehet_ are deeply sincere expressions of the pessimism which comes
at times over the greatest of souls.
II
Gustav Mahler (1860-1910) has received little recognition as a
song-writer outside of Germany. The great effort of his life was
expended on his symphonies, which are planned on a scale larger
than man had ever thought of before. In many ways Mahler was a very
great master. As an artist he was unimpeachable. As a writer for the
orchestra he was original and forceful. As a developer of the new
radical technique he holds a high place in the history of German
music. It may be doubted whether his musical ideas and his power of
musical architecture were equal to the execution of his stupendous
plans. But these faults, if they exist, do not enter greatly into his
songs--at least into the most typical of them. For Mahler had one
quality which always stood by him when others failed. This was his
intimate feeling for the folk-song. A peasant by birth, he retained a
certain simplicity of soul in his attitude toward music which seems
contradicted by his great technical complexity. He can reproduce not
only the simple form of the folk-song, but also its spirit, its naïve
literal quality, which takes joy in what a sophisticated person would
find common. This quality we find very frequently in his songs. The
greatest of these is the group entitled _Kindertotenlieder_, which are
loved in Germany (and especially in Vienna) almost beyond any other.
These dirges for children have hardly any parallel in music. They
combine an intense pathos with something of the naïve simplicity of the
child. They are not mere dirges. They are dirges for those ‘the doubly
dead in that they died so young.’ The congenital faults of Mahler are
not to be found here. The songs are almost above criticism from the
musical standpoint. But Mahler the peasant is to be seen especially
in the songs from _Des Knaben Wunderhorn_, that wonderful collection
of German folk-poetry which has been such a storehouse for the nation
in the last century. While these have not the spiritual elevation or
the consistently high musicianship of the _Kindertotenlieder_, they
preserve an unconventional freshness of spirit which is hardly less
remarkable.
Richard Strauss is generally regarded as the great continuer of the
German song tradition. That he is a true continuer is perfectly
correct. Whether his music, absolutely considered, is as ‘great’ as
people once thought is still undecided by the public. Some profess to
discover liberal injections of the charlatan in Strauss’s work. Whether
he sometimes gets his effects by cheap means which the artist in him
would despise is a question to be argued elsewhere. We must, however,
grant him two great faculties--the faculty of beautiful melody and that
of musical ability. In sheer beauty of theme (and this is especially
true in some of his songs) he is worthy to be regarded as of the line
of Schubert and Brahms. In musical learning there are probably not half
a dozen men in the world to-day to equal him and there was a time, ten
or more years ago, when he seemed to stand almost alone. While for some
years past his symphonic poems and operas have overshadowed his smaller
work, he has been known from the beginning as a brilliant writer of
songs, and has not ceased to give some of his best energies to song
composition. The result is a truly brilliant list of lyrics. We can no
more deny the able musicianship of the later ones than we can deny the
impressive beauty of the earlier. They are far from being repetitions
of each other. This great variety, both in mood and in technical style,
proves what a rich fund of ideas and artistic power the composer had
to draw from. The technique of the later ones is about that familiar
to us in the Strauss operas, a brilliant use of dissonance and rapid
modulation combined with an extremely bold polyphony. At the basis
of this style is always a theme or a group of themes as simple, as
conventional in conception as anything in Schubert. It is as though
Strauss were afraid of losing utterly the interest of the average
man and gave him every now and then a simple tune that he would be
sure to enjoy. But it is more than this. For Strauss is a German of
the Germans. His whole musical culture is truly built on the great
German tradition of Bach-Beethoven-Brahms. His complexity is only a
development of the noble simplicity of all fine German music. It is
right and proper that his themes should be simple and understandable.
But it is possible, and probably perfectly just, to argue that he has
failed to make the one part of his music seem a development of the
other. We feel here that the new style and the old are both present,
that they are juxtaposed, that they have not been fused or synthesized.
And this duality, which we feel in some of the operas and in the later
orchestral works, also appears in his songs. It makes these later songs
less admirable, from the technical standpoint, than those of Ravel, who
has organized his materials into an almost homogeneous technique.
However the case may stand in this matter Strauss’s early songs will
remain as worthy of a place in the great German hierarchy. Opus 10
contains a number of masterpieces. _Zueignung_ is, in sheer beauty,
almost equal to Schumann at his best. ‘The Night’ is a simple song
of great loveliness and ‘Patience’ is a superbly eloquent piece of
emotional writing based on an accompaniment of simple repeated chords.
It is in work like this that a great composer tests himself out. This
power to achieve great beauty within narrow limitations is, as we have
so often pointed out in the course of this book, the proof that genuine
creative power is there. These songs which we have just mentioned are
among the very best in the Strauss list. Others of the first rank are:
‘I Love Thee,’ opus 37, a powerful example of emotional lyricism; _Ich
trage meine Minne_, opus 32, a simple piece of marvellous beauty and
grace; and ‘With Thy Blue Eyes,’ opus 56, a song of unusually tender
and appealing quality. Among the earlier songs we should mention
the charming _Morgen_; _Wozu, Mädchen, soll es frommen_, opus 19;
_Nachtgang_, opus 29; and _Traum durch die Dämmerung_, the last one of
the most admired. ‘Rest My Soul’ and the ‘Nuptial Song’--the former
very simple and the latter highly organized--are stimulating examples
of Strauss’s art. Of the later songs (which seem to show a falling off
in artistic sincerity) we may mention ‘The Three Holy Kings,’ opus 56,
which is a sort of miniature opera, with an abundance of incidental
music in the form of a stately march. ‘The Lonely One’ of opus 51
contains a bass part very effectively used and ‘The Valley’ is musical
description of a high order.
Max Reger (born 1873) is a sharp contrast to Strauss. People have
seen fit to describe him as a schoolmaster. This is justified in that
Reger is one of the most eminent technical musicians in Germany and a
master of strict fugue and counterpoint in the modern idiom equalled
by no one else in the world. His cast of mind seems to be all with the
classics, though he is radical enough in his musical style when he
chooses to be. He writes largely in the ‘absolute’ forms and seeks none
of the means for effect that are so generally cultivated nowadays. In
these respects he may be a ‘schoolmaster.’ But beneath the austerity
of his style there is a wonderful fund of ideas and along with it a
deftness in using them that makes his technique available for many very
different sorts of music. In his songs Reger shows a wide variety. The
fact which proves that he is musician and not schoolmaster is that the
songs requiring fancy, deftness, sense of style are quite as fine as
the others. He always considers well what he writes. By some his songs
may not be considered lyrical as Schubert’s are, but his vocal music
is truly music that can be sung and its effectiveness on the platform
is likely to outstrip expectations. The songs have much beauty of
melody, much suavity and charm, and especially a nice adaptation to the
spirit of the text. They contain in rich quantity the gift of humor.
In downright lively fun Reger reminds one of Chabrier. The songs are
all very human. The first feeling one has in studying them is respect
for the man’s musicianship. But his technical learning is so unfailing
that this quality becomes a bore and one becomes conscious of the
genuineness of the feeling and the accuracy of expression. Reger’s
superb technique has not used him; he has used it. We may consider
it likely that Reger’s reputation will grow considerably in years to
come. The songs in particular should be more widely known and loved.
They will not tickle lazy ears, but they will give a rare delight to
discriminating ones. Certainly there are few men working now who are on
the whole more admirable in their songs than Reger.
Reger’s technical style marks most of his songs. But underneath they
have a distinct individuality. The Folk-Song in opus 37 is managed
with great simplicity and taste. ‘The Dying Child,’ from opus 23,
exemplifies Reger’s free but well considered harmonic method. ‘Of
Kissing,’ from the same group, shows us another Reger, as dainty and
popular as Brahms in lighter mood. _Traum durch die Dämmerung_, from
opus 35, has a wonderful accompaniment of half-suggested interweaving
voices and is considered superior to Strauss’s setting of the same
poem. The long-drawn melodies (in both the piano and the voice part)
of ‘Love-Longings’ show us still another Reger, a master of restrained
sensuous effect. The Lullaby of opus 43 is fitted out with a very
complex accompaniment but retains a luscious and quiet effect from
sheer power of musicianship. Two of Reger’s best songs are ‘I Believe,
Dear Love’ and the ‘Prayer,’ from opus 62. The former is a charming
scherzo movement and the latter illustrates the tendency, increasing
in song accompaniments for half a century, to spread the piano part
over an extremely wide range of notes. ‘The Willow Tree’ of opus 48 is
a study in a style common to the French song writers, that of gaining
emotional effect from the mere juxtaposition of chords.
The _Schlichte Weisen_ of opus 76 are perhaps Reger’s most typical
and most highly developed product in this field. These ‘simple tunes’
are not at all simple in point of technique, making use of all the
virtuosity and finesse of his wonderful musical equipment. The songs
are nearly all in lighter vein and most of them are brightened with a
delicious humor. They alone would place Reger among the most notable
of musical humorists. None but the trained musician can appreciate all
the technical genius that went into the writing of these songs. But
any music-lover, any concert audience, in fact, can appreciate their
beauty and sprightly charm. The thirty-six songs maintain a remarkably
high level of creative musicianship, and in point of variety and taste
they are almost unsurpassed. Nearly all of them are worth knowing,
but we may mention a few among the best. ‘In a Little Rose Garden’ is
written in imitation of the old German _Lied_. ‘The Child’s Prayer’ is
utterly delightful in its simplicity. The ‘Dialogue’ is inimitable in
humorous description. In ‘The Oath’ and ‘Concerning Love’ the humor is
irresistible, and in ‘God’s Blessing’ musical learning has been put to
the service of delicate delineation of mood.
III
Arnold Schönberg (born 1874) has gained a place for himself in Vienna
as the foremost spokesman of the ultra-radical school of German music.
At the present time he is gradually coming to similar recognition in
other countries. His musical manner is so utterly foreign to anything
else we are familiar with that men believed for a long time (and
quite excusably) that he was a mere charlatan, one who, failing to
gain recognition by legitimate means, had resorted to the methods of
the sideshow. That such a view is not tenable is shown by the recent
course of events. In his earlier music he showed a fairly conservative
style, based chiefly on Strauss, and used in a manner nothing short
of masterful. Much of this early music has not been heard until
recently, because of its astounding proportions. But it was ambition
and not incompetence that kept Schönberg from prompt recognition.
His development into the new style was steady. It could not possibly
have been achieved without a very large fund of musical learning.
The later scores show a contrapuntal ability which is astounding.
The style, in the later works, is quite without parallel. Harmony is
dropped altogether. Next to nothing remains of the system of Bach
and Beethoven. On the other hand, the complexity of the contrapuntal
web surpasses anything we have ever seen. The man’s whole effort
seems to be toward exuberant, overpowering counterpoint, a mass of
separate voices mingled in delirious profusion, with inversions and
augmentations and diminutions that make the brain dizzy. Judged by
ears that have anything of the old-fashioned left in them this music
cannot be beautiful. But Schönberg’s appeal is to a different faculty,
and only time can determine whether the appeal is justified. Schönberg
explains that he is not trying to write emotional music, or descriptive
music, or music with any sort of a meaning--but just pure music. If
this be music, there are some definitions yet to be altered.
His songs, however, so far as they are yet catalogued, do not belong to
this last period. The numerous songs of opera 1, 2, and 3 are of the
first period, in which the style of Strauss was pretty closely adhered
to. The ‘Eight Songs’ of opus 6 and the ‘Six Orchestral Songs’ of
opus 8 are the product of the second period, the transition time in
which the new Schönberg style was fairly well developed, but was used
with frequent admixtures of the old. In the work of this period the
hearer has a breathing space and can feel at first hearing that the
music has _something_ in it after all. However, second period or not,
the two groups of songs we have mentioned will be quite mystifying to
the average student. They are all very long and extremely difficult
to sing. For that reason they are by no means available for ordinary
concert use. They can be sung only by the highly capable singer and
listened to only by an audience with highly trained ears. Perhaps, even
under these conditions the listener will conclude they are not worth
the trouble. But the one virtue which we can predicate of Schönberg
without fear of contradiction is ability, and this virtue stands
out strongly in the songs. We may mention from opus 6 the ‘Maiden’s
Songs,’ which attains a sense of immense physical violence. ‘Forsaken’
maintains its mood by a remarkably powerful use of a constantly
repeated chromatic figure in the bass. But the best of these songs, and
probably the greatest Schönberg has written, is ‘The Wanderer,’ words
by Nietzsche. The other songs may be chaotic, but this has a cogent
form. Moreover, it has definite melody and an accompaniment manipulated
with a strong sense of design. The song as a whole is eloquent and
impressive.
The Six Orchestral Songs are also arranged for piano accompaniment and
may be sung in concert. They are rather scenes than songs, being very
long and composite and generally descriptive or dramatic, rather than
lyrical. In them the technical element is all powerful. _Voll jener
Süsse_, words from Petrarch, is a masterful study in the free movement
of contrapuntal voices treated as in close harmony. _Das Wappenschild_
is a magnificent song of action. The basic theme is stirring, the
melody is marked and impressive, and the general structure is clear
and cogent. The song exemplifies Schönberg’s genius for making his
counterpoint seem to express tremendous power of will. _Sehnsucht_ is a
comparatively simple song, the best of the six for the student to begin
on. _Nie ward ich, Herrin, müd_ is a magnificent study in powerful
counterpoint. The tempo is slow, the themes are drawn out and sustained
as though played slowly by a ’cello. The piece is extremely difficult
to sustain at this slow tempo and is a tax on the listener’s attention
beyond anything of the sort that can be called to mind, but if one can
feel its beauty at all one must be impressed by the majesty of the
thing.
Another modern song writer whose work centres chiefly in Vienna is
Joseph Marx, who has been prolific and successful. His style has many
elements of the modern, but on the whole it is clear and intelligible
and does not require a new set of ears for its appreciation. Marx’s
songs are often fresh and spontaneous and his sense of proportion is
keen. Another of Schönberg’s contemporaries is Franz Schrecker, whose
work is likewise representative of the most advanced tendencies of
the new Viennese school. This school is rather left behind by one of
Schönberg’s pupils, Anton von Webern, whose strange song, ‘Over the
Borders of the All,’ is incapable of description in any terms hitherto
used in connection with music. Which men of such a group will prove
valuable to posterity is not to be decided at first investigation.
But it will be well worth anyone’s while to maintain an open mind and
regard an innovator as innocent until he has proved himself guilty.
CHAPTER XIV
MODERN FRENCH LYRICISM
Fauré and the beginning of the new--Chabrier, César Franck, and
others--Bruneau, Vidal, and Charpentier--Debussy and Ravel.
I
In a previous chapter we have mentioned the work of a generation of
French song writers who represent the old and conservative school.
In the present chapter we are concerned solely with the new and much
more admirable French school of lyricism. But the distinction between
the ‘old’ and the ‘new’ generations is not, of course, a distinction
of time. Some of the old generation are now living and writing in the
second decade of the twentieth century, while some of the originators
of the new had begun their innovations as far back as the late
seventies. This overlapping of individuals is inevitable where one
school supplants another. For that reason we are here dealing with
composers who, judged solely by dates, should have been treated as
belonging to the last third of the nineteenth century.
It is well to keep in mind this overlapping. It will help us to see how
fashions change in the world of art. The whole story of the transition
from the old to the new in French music is of extraordinary interest.
The change seemed to come at a bound, with Debussy’s first tone poems
and piano pieces. But as a matter of fact no great change comes about
in this way. It germinates and nourishes itself for a long time unseen
before it is ready to strike out as an independent force.
[Illustration: Scandinavian and French Song-Writers.
Top: Emil Sjögren and Christian Sinding
Bottom: Gabriel Pierné and Gabriel Fauré]
The change is gradual, usually not more than half conscious. It would
hardly be wrong to say that the whole change, up to a certain point, is
accidental. But it is often difficult to study such a transition in its
early stages. And the peculiar interest of Fauré’s songs consists in
the fact that they enable us to study the whole preliminary transition
from the old to the new in French music, in simple terms and in steady
development. Fauré was in a sense the laboratory for the new French
impressionistic school. His experiments suggested dimly what could be
done. His groping achievements showed how one might set about to do
it. In his songs, from the earliest to the latest we see in successive
stages of development the harmonic procedure of the new school.
What was this change? What distinguished the old school from the new?
It is worth while to answer this question briefly before touching
Fauré’s work in order to have some touchstone to hold up to the songs
when we come to look at them. In general terms the change from the
old to the new in French music was a change from the conscious, the
deliberate, the intelligent to the subconscious, the subjective, the
sensuous. The older composers sought always to appeal in some degree
to the hearer’s judgment, to please his sense of design, to speak with
chastened clearness. We have often, in the course of this book, had
occasion to mention the coldness and conventionality of the French
music of the nineteenth century. Now the newer composers reacted
against all this and set out to change it. In place of judgment they
would have feeling; in place of the brain they would have the nerves.
What matter about the sense of design if the _effect_ was beautiful?
What matter whether or not you adjudge it to be good, so long as you
feel it to be good? In the new French music the intelligence can
usually go to sleep. Intelligence is in the music (or rather it was in
the making of the music) but it keeps out of sight. All the hearer
needs is to surrender himself to the sensations. He needs delicate ears
and responsive nerves. If he has these he will get poetry and pictures
out of the music in plenty. In other words, it is our old conflict
between knowledge and experience, between judging and feeling, between
the brain and the senses.
Considered concretely, the change from the old to the new was a change
which broke down completely all the old rules of musical harmony. The
old harmony is represented at its purest in the chorales of Johann
Sebastian Bach. It was a system of harmony based on pure (triad)
chords, with dissonances properly prepared and resolved. In the old
harmony each chord was like a chiselled block of stone, sharply
differentiated from every other; the stones must fit well together, but
they must always be distinct. The new system of harmony was founded
upon the dissonance used for the sake of its effect on the ear.
Queer mixtures of dissonance were used freely to produce an unusual
impression on the ear, an impression which soon took on the name
‘color.’ Chords were now merged and confused, instead of being kept
distinct. Tonalities and musical ‘keys’ were now becoming meaningless
in a system whose notes rarely agreed with any tonality. The whole
effect was that of being in a world of pure sensation, a world that
seemed to be without reason and was therefore the better adapted to
being _felt_. Along with the tendency toward vagueness in harmony came
a tendency toward vagueness in melody. Various notes of the ordinary
major scale would be altered at the whim of the composer and the
surprises resulting were a fruitful source of sensuous effects. This
freedom in the use of scales tended toward the now famous ‘whole-toned’
scale--a thing popularly supposed to have been invented by Wagner,
but used, in reality, in the early days of Wagner by the Russian
Dargomijsky. The whole-toned scale makes every interval a whole step,
thus robbing the scale of all internal variety and of any tonic or
central ‘pivotal’ point. This would seem to rob the scale of its
possibilities for color. But curiously enough, it actually increased
them. For as long as the scale is strange, our ears will inevitably
compare it with the scale with which we are familiar. The result is
a constant succession of surprises to our ears and senses--in short
an increase in the sensuous element. The newer school also uses the
chromatic element to a great extent. In this it was only continuing the
work of Wagner in his ‘Tristan.’ But there was this difference: that
whereas in Wagner’s procedure the chromatic element was chiefly in the
movement of the individual voices, the chords being constituted much as
before, in the new French school both the voice leading and the chord
building make free use of the semitone. To sum up, the new tendency
is characterized concretely by vagueness of chord and of scale (with
a continual tendency toward the whole-toned scale); by a free use of
unprepared dissonance chosen chiefly for its sensuous effect; and by
its constant effort to rid itself of the domination of a set key.
Gabriel Fauré (born 1845) started exactly on a par with the other
French song writers of the seventies. His melody was tenuous and
colorless; his harmony was thin and regular. Very gradually and very
steadily he developed his colorful and unconventional harmony and
a type of melody which, without being declamatory, was irregular
and intimately fused with the accompaniment. Besides this cautious
radical development, Fauré had a fairly generous fund of musical
ideas and a sense of form and design superior to that of most of his
contemporaries. It is doubtful if any one of his songs could be called
first-class in absolute musical value. But his general standard was
unusually high and steady. In nearly every case his songs are finished
works of art. His faculty of self-criticism was keen and his attitude
toward his art sincere. Though never a man of power, he possessed a
lively intelligence which served to make him one of the most important
figures in the French musical transition. He was not a pioneer in the
more strenuous sense of the word. But he was truly a forerunner.
His earliest songs show little that is distinctive beyond a sensitive
feeling for design and proportion. The best of them are ‘May,’ ‘In the
Ruins of an Abbey,’ and ‘Alone.’ In the ‘Tuscan Serenade’ we catch
perhaps the first definite note of a change. It is a very slight
indication, but it is truly a foreshadowing of the development which
was destined to be shown in his songs and in all modern French music.
The indication we are referring to is in the following phrase:
[Illustration: Music score]
The unconventional note is the G flat. A composer of the previous
musical generation would certainly have written G natural. The reason
is that a long succession of whole steps is contrary to the spirit of
the diatonic scale, upon which the classical musical system is based.
The diatonic scale contains two half steps within the octave, thus
giving to the succession of notes variety and to the scale itself
individuality. The four notes which Fauré here uses are the only four
adjacent notes in the scale which do not contain a half step. Even
such a sequence without a half step was too long to suit the older
composers. This sequence was to them the awkward place in the scale.
It was within the letter of the scale but contrary to its spirit. So
the older composer would have changed the G flat to G natural and
would have felt a distinct gain in grace and fluency. Perhaps Fauré
used the G flat only because it was different. He may have started
his experiments purely in a search for variety. But he soon saw its
possibilities. For this increased use of whole tones develops logically
into the whole-toned scale (without any semi-tones and hence without
any existence as a tonality). And this whole-toned scale is one of
the chief features of the modern French music. But in addition to its
melodic significance this bit of unconventionality on Fauré’s part had
deep harmonic significance. For if the identity of the diatonic scale
is destroyed the whole system of classical harmony falls down. Without
a definite scale you have no tonic for your harmony to centre around.
And your harmonic scheme loses all its value as a system and reduces
to a use of chords for themselves (that is, their sensuous value) or
for their relation one with another. When you have done this your whole
musical basis has changed and a new musical world has come into being.
This first timid attempt on Fauré’s part was rapidly followed by
other experiments, still cautious but logical and continuous in their
direction. In the song entitled ‘Lydia’ we have the following opening
phrase:
[Illustration: Music score]
Lydia sur tes roses joues Et sur ton col frais
Here the tonality is disturbed not only in the melody but in the
harmony also. Without preparation or warning Fauré disregards the
half-step (B flat) which would have kept his music true to the
diatonic, plunges apparently into a new key. But the change is
not truly a modulation; the new key is really not a key. For the
persistence of the F in the bass is a foreign element and shows that
Fauré was not aiming at modulation at all. What he was aiming at
was color. It is significant that the ‘color’ accompanies the words
_roses joues_. This gentle dislocation of our conventional harmonic
sounds like a blush translated into tones. Fauré had discovered modern
‘atmosphere.’
From now on Fauré’s experiments in this sort of thing become more
frequent and more radical. In ‘The Absent One’ he uses ordinary
suspensions for their atmospheric effect. Other songs of the same
period--among which ‘Silvie,’ ‘After a Dream,’ ‘Barcarolle,’ and ‘Over
There’ are the best--show traces of the development. ‘Nell,’ in opus
18, shows an increasingly delicate feeling for the inner voices in the
accompaniment; the broken chords that support this melody are not a
mere harmonic support but a delicate weaving of suggested voices. The
‘Traveller’ shows increased power and vigor. The ‘Lullaby,’ in opus
23 (one of his best songs), shows an attempt to get color by means of
regular suspensions and dissonances, secondary seventh chords, and the
like, all permitted in the old system but employed here with a special
emphasis which is unescapable. ‘The Secret,’ in the same group, shows a
similar attempt. The _Chanson d’amour_ in opus 27 should be mentioned
in passing.
In opus 39 we find the beautiful song, ‘The Roses of Ispahan.’ Here
Fauré uses exactly the same harmonic device that we have pointed out in
‘Lydia,’ but this time with more confidence:
[Illustration: Music score]
Ont un parfum moins frais ont une odeur moins douce
The awkwardness and uncertainty in the former passage is not to be
found here. Fauré has discovered his medium. Henceforth he will use it
with increasing boldness and success.
The ‘Nocturne’ of opus 43 and _Les présents_ of opus 46 show still
more freedom in the use of constantly changing tonality. ‘Tears’ in
opus 51 uses the chromatic shift of key almost continuously. But the
trick has ceased to be a technical experiment. It has become a means of
artistic expression. For this song, along with ‘In the Cemetery,’ shows
tragic energy and a moving personal appeal which, as we have seen, had
been all but absent from French song for half a century. _Mandoline_
and _En Sourdine_ in opus 58 are songs of consummate artistry and ‘The
Prison’ of opus 74 reaches a very high emotional standard. The later
songs show Fauré using generously the technical freedom which he so
laboriously attained. But the songs are now less interesting. They are
too likely to be abstruse without being inspired. Technically they are
of extreme interest, but they suggest that Fauré had been left behind
by the modern musical movement and was rather breathlessly trying to
catch up.
Though Fauré’s songs do not speak with the authority of genius they are
extraordinarily fine in their deftness of handling, in their delicacy,
in their unfailing sense of artistic fitness. Fauré, among the first
of his generation, treated the accompaniment with respect. His piano
parts are filled with interesting voices and gently stimulating
movement. Each song has its individuality and style. The melody is
sometimes truly eloquent, but too often partakes of the colorless
nature of contemporary music. In the later songs the voice part is
apt to be without much charm or even existence of its own, being only
accommodated to the accompaniment. On the whole, though the absolute
value of his songs would not justify the relative space we have here
devoted to them, they reveal a sensitive and thorough craftsmanship
which French music had too long been without.
II
Emmanuel Chabrier (1841-1894) was, with Fauré, one of the great
forerunners of the modern French tendency. His service was chiefly
performed in the field of orchestral coloring, but his songs show the
influences of the new technique and are of much value in themselves.
Chabrier was a more vital man than Fauré. His abundant animal spirits
can be felt in all his music. His musical ideas were not always of
much value, but the creative energy of the man is felt always. He was
a great practical joker and has written some of the most delightful
humorous songs we have. Three of his animal songs in particular are
worth study. ‘The Grasshoppers’ makes continual use of the interval of
the diminished second, lightly played in arpeggio chords on the piano,
to suggest the chirping and rattling which we hear on a summer night.
The melody, too, is extremely graceful. ‘The Pigs’ Pastoral’ suggests
the animals’ grunts and offers even more dignified points of technical
interest. The ‘Villanelle of the Little Ducks’ is a masterpiece. The
charming words by Rosemonde Gérard (later the wife of the poet Rostand)
are caught with absolute fidelity by the composer. The dignity, the
absolute soldier-like seriousness of the little birds is inimitably
suggested and the clear and richly varied accompaniment shows a
musicianship of a high order. The simple ‘Romance of the Star’ reveals
the genuine lyric ability of the composer and his colorful romanticism
is shown in the ‘Song for Jeanne’ and ‘The Happy Island.’ Chabrier’s
songs show admirable energy and resourcefulness. As a practical joker
the man can hardly be surpassed.
Among the pioneers of modern French music César Franck (1823-1890)
holds the highest place of all. His profound musicianship, his
open-mindedness, his strain of religious mysticism in the service
of his high personal integrity, produced results than which French
music can show nothing more admirable. A large number of the most
eminent modern French composers were his pupils and their daring
(though various) individualities show that his teaching was really a
stimulation and nourishment of artistic power, not an imparting of
rules. His songs (at least the later ones, which are all that interest
us here) are few, but among them are several which are artistically
flawless. The melody of ‘The Marriage of the Roses’[32] has a grace
and a cogency which utterly charm the hearer. ‘The Bells of Evening’
and ‘The Procession’ have become classics in modern song literature.
Technically these songs are not radical. But they make effective use of
the new harmonic method, in Franck’s own peculiar and convincing manner.
Four of Franck’s pupils have done fine service in the cause of modern
French song. Guillaume Lekeu (1870-1894) was an extremely talented man
who would certainly have been one of the greatest of French composers
had he lived to artistic maturity. His fine song, ‘On a Tomb,’ proves
his creative power and his technical control. Henri Duparc (born 1848)
was by birth one of the older generation and his use of the modern
harmonies is conservative. Of his numerous songs some are marked by
much grace and sensuous beauty, notably ‘Invitation to the Journey,’
the _Chanson triste_, and ‘Ecstasy,’ the last one of the finest
songs of the period. Ernest Chausson (1855-1894) showed remarkable
talents--energy, individuality, command over romantic expression. In
his incomplete career he produced many songs, some of rare charm.
But most important of the Franck pupils is Vincent d’Indy, probably
the most vigorous creative power in modern French music. In him the
intellectual quality dominates all the others. To many his music quite
lacks charm. The gentler qualities are absent. There is no obvious
appeal to the senses. But his music is extremely stimulating to the
musician and if well presented can plead for itself to the general
public. His songs are few, but are evidently worked out with great
care. Best known is the ‘Sea Song,’ which has a large rhythmic sweep
admirably suggesting the swell of the ocean. His arrangements entitled
_Chansons Populaires du Vivarais_, though applied to the simplest of
musical materials, reveal his intellectual quality of musicianship.
A list of his other songs (nearly complete) includes: ‘Thecla’s
Complaint,’ ‘Madrigal,’ _L’Amour de la crane_, ‘The First Tooth,’
‘Mirage,’ and ‘The Eyes of the Beloved One.’ All these songs are fine
and musicianly. But their appeal is limited, for many will find them
lacking charm and sensuous beauty.
III
At the present time it is difficult to regard Alfred Bruneau (born
1857) as a pioneer. His style is extremely thin and his melody seems
at first glance to be cut from the same piece as Massenet’s. But it
is as an innovator that Bruneau is chiefly valued in France. In the
early nineties, when Debussy was still an unknown experimenter (a
‘crazy man,’ like all radical innovators in their early years), he was
thrilling Paris with his strange, new expressive harmonies, accurately
delineating moods and suggesting colors. His operas, to librettos or
adaptations from Zola, were a new thing in France. He experimented
largely with unconventional harmonies and phrases for the voice which
fell into no known category. Paris was at first puzzled, but quickly
caught the idea. This was because, while Bruneau’s music was truly
an innovation and absolutely in line with the work of the new French
school, it was based on an idiom that France knew well and was managed
so cautiously that the novelties were clear to the audience without
being painful. By this time Bruneau seems little more than a composer
of a past generation. Yet we must give him full credit for courage,
for artistic feeling, and for considerable musical creativeness. His
songs are not many. The _Lieds de France_ (words by Catulle Mendès)
are simple lyrics somewhat in the older traditional style of French
songs, executed with a wealth of the most delicate suggestion of color.
‘The Gay Vagabond’ is in Bruneau’s most typical style--a clear-cut and
flowing melody over the simplest of chords, with the unusual features
so discreetly written that at first hearing they hardly seem to be
there at all.
Paul Vidal (born 1863) is only by courtesy included in the present
chapter. He has escaped the curse of the old French school but his
talent lies not at all in the field of innovation. He is a born
lyricist, spontaneous, fresh, graceful. He is master of more than one
style, as his settings of Shakespeare’s lyrics prove. The ‘Winter
Song,’ from ‘Love’s Labor Lost,’ preserves a certain archaic flavor
that is charming. The _Psaume nuptial_ is grandiose but not pompous,
an invigorating piece of honest music. In the children’s song, ‘The
Play Leader,’ Vidal attempts the descriptive, with a liberal use of
dissonance and modern harmony, but it is evident that he has no natural
turn toward the new style. Yet the song is dainty and picturesque. The
_Ariette_ ‘Were I a Sunbeam’ and the ‘Address to the Well Beloved,’ as
well as a more recent song, ‘Loving,’ are well worth knowing for their
simple musicianly beauty, and _Madame la fée_ is a model of delicate
lyricism. In his more ambitious mood Vidal is represented by ‘Thine
Eyes.’ But he is a composer to whom we turn not for stimulation in
technical matters, but for simple beauty. His songs are in that class
which can hardly enter into a history at all, but are delightful
byways to turn to for mere pleasure.
Gustave Charpentier (born 1860), composer of the world-famous opera
‘Louise,’ has written a handful of songs, some of superior quality. The
_Chansons à danser_ are written in imitation of the old French dances,
the spirit and the form being caught with keen insight. The best of
the group is the ‘Sarabande.’ In the _Fleurs du mal_ he is working
in more familiar vein--that spirit of intense and somewhat chaotic
emotionalism that distinguishes his operas. When we list the fifteen
_Poèmes chantés_ we have named all his songs. Charpentier’s style is
modern and genuinely French, but it is sharply distinguished from that
of Debussy and Ravel. It is a development of that of Massenet (whose
pupil Charpentier was), but it is developed an immense distance beyond
‘Thaïs.’ It contains more of the flesh (and more of the open air) than
Debussy ever shows. ‘Atmosphere’ for its own sake enters into his work
not at all. Everything is expressive and nearly everything expressive
of human emotions. The musical style is admirably adapted to the
purpose, choosing from the modern French technique just those elements
which it can use. It makes constant use of detached or irregular
phrases of melody and these it interweaves in great abundance into
the harmonic texture. Charpentier strikes an admirable middle path in
modern French music, being neither too intellectual, like d’lndy, nor
too technical, like Ravel.
IV
Concerning Claude Debussy (born 1862) the world is not yet decided. At
one time he seemed the supreme innovator and the master tone-poet of
modern times. Nothing so utterly new had ever come to people’s ears
since ‘Tristan,’ or probably since the later symphonies of Beethoven.
He was for a number of years the chief spokesman for the ultra-modern
to the whole world. For fully ten years he worked away, striving for
the vision he had before him, until recognition finally came. From
this very fact we may assume that he is an entirely sincere artist and
not a charlatan as he was once considered. And, because he could work
so consistently in his own style, he seemed to the world supremely
creative. Possibly sober opinion has modified somewhat the opinion of
ten years ago, when _Pelléas et Mélisande_ was a startling novelty. The
technical power with which he presented an absolutely new case remains
as admirable as ever. But opinion of the absolute musical value of
his work is somewhat diminishing, now that we are accustomed to the
idiom. In plain words, it is beginning to be understood that Debussy
repeats himself more than do most great composers, certainly more than
a composer of the first rank would do. Moreover, his music does not
hold a place in people’s hearts. It is truly expressive of delicate
moods (moods in which the nerves and senses are chiefly involved);
but it does not express the things that are nearest to human beings.
At bottom, the variety possible to Debussy’s style is slight. He has
painted many pictures, bearing many different titles, but all are mere
rearrangements of the same figures and setting.
We find, to a greater extent than with most composers, that his whole
art is fairly represented in his songs. They are numerous. And they
are of a very high order of musicianship. It is evident Debussy put
the best he had into these songs. They are luxuriant with the finest
inventions of his remarkable technique. Not one is carelessly executed.
Not one but is in some degree truly creative. Whether simple or
abstruse, they make no concessions to popular effect. Some are valuable
chiefly in their parts; as a whole they are not firmly bound. But
others are admirable in design and proportion. In most of them the
accompaniment is so luxuriant that set form goes by the board; the
song consists of its various parts. But in the accumulation of these
various sensuous effects we get a new kind of unity. It is the unity
of the impressionist painters--a synthesis performed in the observer
or listener instead of being performed in the work itself. To speak
concretely, the various parts reveal sometimes little to connect them
with each other; they seem little amenable to any formal scheme. But
when the listener simply listens, without trying to apply mental
standards, he finds that he has lived through a single and definite
_experience_.
It is hard to speak in detail of Debussy’s songs. They present so
many individual elements of interest that, if they are to be studied
at all, they must be studied in the concrete. Any attempt to describe
or characterize them at a distance must be vague and colorless. We
can only point out a few of the songs that stand out from the others
by reason of great technical originality or impressionistic power.
Debussy gained the _grand Prix de Rome_ in 1884 and spent the next
three years in Italy. His prize cantata, ‘The Prodigal Son,’ shows
evidences of the impressionistic style, but, being offered to please
a conservative committee, was kept in reserve. But Debussy knew what
he wanted to do and promptly sent back from the Villa Medici a work
which the committee could not accept because of its daring style.
Even then he was approaching maturity in the manner which made him
famous. The first of the well known songs were published in 1890 and
were probably written in the course of the five years just preceding.
They are not so involved as the later songs, but they cannot be called
experimental works. The _Mandoline_, a masterly little genre song,
has attained great popularity, and ‘The Fountain’ shows the composer
working on a most elaborate scale with a fully developed technical
method. We should also mention in this place the famous aria, ‘Azaël,’
from ‘The Prodigal Son.’ The most strongly creative of Debussy’s works
(exclusive of the opera) seem to centre around the year 1904. And
here we find some of the best songs. We may instance the five fine
‘Poems’ from Baudelaire. In these Debussy is putting forth his very
best. The _Harmonies du soir_ may be taken as an epitome of his whole
harmonic method. ‘The Balcony’ is very long and rich in descriptive
imagination. The _Jet d’eau_ and ‘The Death of Lovers’ should also be
mentioned from this group. ‘The Faun’ and ‘The Grotto,’ from the same
period, show Debussy at his best. The former in particular reveals him
admirably as a painter of pictures in tones. Among the fairly simple
songs (always the best for the student who is approaching a new style)
we may mention _Beau soir_ and the _Romance_. The _Proses lyriques_ are
very ambitious, very long, and very difficult. Even the most capable
singer will find it hard to hold them unified when they are sung. The
voice part is free, not exactly declamatory, but fragmentary and merged
with the symphonic comment which is the accompaniment. Of the four _Les
Fleurs_ is perhaps the best, while the last, _Le soir_, is the simplest
and the most approachable. The _Chansons de Bilitis_ are more emotional
and not so good. But the three ‘Ballads of François Villon,’ published
in 1910, are masterpieces. The Prayer to the Virgin Mary is admirably
pathetic, and the third, ‘The Ladies of Paris,’ shows Debussy in his
sprightly vein, which he manages with capital humor and verve. The
_Fêtes galantes_ (words by Verlaine) include two very typical songs,
_En Sourdine_ and _Clair de lune_; the second extremely successful
in the creating of ‘atmosphere’ and the first unusually appealing in
melody. Finally we may mention the _Ariettes oubliées_, published in
1913, which include one admirable song, the ‘Belgian Landscape,’ which
is clear and picturesque.
Maurice Ravel (born 1875) has a more vital talent than Debussy. Though
the idiom he uses is remarkably similar, he manipulates it with greater
incisiveness of effect and hence can make it expressive of emotion and
physical energy to a greater extent. Where Debussy avoids the harsh
and crude, Ravel often delights in it. Moreover, of late years, he has
shown a marked change in his style (which cannot be said of Debussy).
For, while the radical French music of the nineties was preëminently
harmonic (insisting on the absolute effect of strange chords for its
effect), Ravel has made his increasingly polyphonic. This he seems
to have got from the Russian, Stravinsky. Undoubtedly this is a more
vigorous method and especially one which is capable of a longer life
and more variety of expression. And with it Ravel has accomplished fine
things. The new French school, which with Debussy seemed in danger of
degenerating into meticulous preciosity, will surely not see its energy
exhausted at Ravel’s hands.
Perhaps most typical of Ravel’s songs, and admirably representative of
his earlier technique, are the five descriptive songs grouped under
the title _Histoires naturelles_. The animals here described with
inimitable humor are respectively the peacock, the cricket, the swan,
the king-fisher, and the guinea fowl. It is evident that these offer a
wide variety of effect. In each case Ravel has seized the opportunity
in masterly fashion. The accompaniment to ‘The Peacock’ fairly shimmers
with gorgeous coloring. ‘The Cricket’ is strident and mechanical, ‘The
Swan’ slow and sensuous, and so on. Perhaps the student may not find
such subjects proper for song treatment. But if descriptive music is
admitted at all in song writing, one must admit the fine and supple
technique displayed in these extraordinarily successful songs. The
group entitled ‘Scheherezade’ is no less masterful in its description
of scenery and moods. The first, called ‘Asia,’ is unbelievably rich
in this respect. Finally we may mention the three poems from Mallarmé,
published in 1914. These are the most elaborate and difficult, the most
remote from conventional expression of anything Ravel has done. They
are more solid and stimulating in their musicianship than anything
he had done before. The irregular melodic line of _Placet futile_ is
luxuriant in the extreme. All three show a gain toward freedom in
the management of the voice, a gain which means a great increase in
absolute musical value for the voice part. He seems here even to be
creating a new sort of melody, one which has few elements of formal
regularity but is rich in sensuous loveliness. The accompaniments for
these songs are elaborate in the extreme. What the ultimate artistic
value of them will be can not be told until they have been generously
tried out by experienced singers. But they certainly give the musician
pause. They, along with certain recent orchestral works, prove that
Ravel is a man of immense energy, of an artistic genius that cannot be
curbed, altogether one of the important men in modern music.
FOOTNOTES:
[32] See Musical Examples (Vol. XIII).
CHAPTER XV
MODERN LYRICISTS OUTSIDE OF GERMANY AND FRANCE
The new Russian school: Balakireff, etc.; Moussorgsky
and others--The Scandinavians and Finns--Recent English
song-writers.
I
We have referred in another chapter to the neo-Russian school of
composers, who worked under the influence of Mily Balakireff and
based their composition largely upon the native folk-songs. It is
this group that has created Russia’s musical art. Tschaikowsky and
Rubinstein are, in the Russian view, out of the direct line of
succession. In the direct line, which commences with Glinka, we find
a distinguished company of geniuses. After Glinka comes Alexander
Dargomijsky (1813-1869), one of the earliest converts to Wagnerian
principles outside of Germany and a radical innovator in dramatic and
harmonic method. His opera, ‘The Stone Guest,’ looks forward a quarter
of a century to modern harmonic effects, whole-toned scale and all.
But, in consideration of the time he was working, it is not to be
expected that his songs are of a radical cast. They, however, show the
innovating genius of the man and his full-blooded artistic life. Some
ninety in all, they are extraordinarily varied in style and contents,
some graceful and elegaic, some exotic, and some humorous. Dargomijsky
took the traditional mantle of Russian genius upon his shoulders in
satirizing the bureaucracy and wrote some of his finest humorous songs
on the subject. Among the best of his songs we may mention ‘An Eastern
Song,’ ‘I Think that Thou Wert Born for This,’ and ‘O Maid, My Rose.’
His dramatic ballads, of which ‘The Knight Errant’ and ‘The Old
Corporal’ are the finest, are marked by directness and simplicity which
give them a rare laconic force.
[Illustration: Famous Song Interpreters.
Top: Julia Culp and Elena Gerhardt
Bottom: Ludwig Wüllner and David Bispham]
Dargomijsky was one of the older generation, a sort of father confessor
to the neo-Russian group. This group worked under the inspiration of
Mily Balakireff (1837-1910), a young enthusiast with fine visions and
a considerable knowledge of music, mostly self-learned. It was he
who first of all gave the great emphasis to the use of folk-songs in
Russian composition and this he made the cornerstone of the new school.
As members of his little group he was lucky enough to have two geniuses
of very nearly the first order, one Modest Moussorgsky (1835-1881) and
the other Nicholas Rimsky-Korsakoff (1844-1908). Balakireff’s own songs
show artistic qualities of a high order; they are marked by unfailing
taste and proportion and range over a broad field of expression, nearly
everywhere successfully. But, though his artistic and critical sense
was superb, he had not the creativeness of most of the group. One man
who has done much finer work in song than he is Alexander Borodine
(1834-1887). Borodine entered the neo-Russian group as a mere amateur,
but he became filled with the new enthusiasms and set himself to
work in earnest. The high and consistent creative level of his work,
considering his short and interrupted study and the smallness of his
output, is amazing. He wrote some twelve songs in his lifetime and
fully half of them are masterpieces. Borodine was courageous in his
attitude toward new musical principles and extremely happy in his use
of the new materials. Expressive dissonance, in particular, he uses
with rare effectiveness. The ballad or romance entitled ‘The Sleeping
Princess’ is surely one of the finest things of its kind in existence.
The spell of the enchanted forest, the calm beauty of the sleeping
princess, are suggested in a succession of major second dissonances
which weave a web over the mysterious melodies of the accompaniment.
The same power of creating ‘atmosphere’ with simple means is shown
in ‘The Sea-Queen,’ which is an exquisite inspiration. The romance,
‘A Dissonance,’ is a gem of concentrated lyricism. But the most
original of Borodine’s songs, one of the most memorable of the whole
Russian product, is ‘The Song of the Dark Forest.’[33] This is written
purely in the Russian idiom, with a great and savage melody which is
irresistible in its vigor. The accompaniment only duplicates the voice
part, with the addition of dissonances that sound forth like trumpet
blasts. With his handful of songs and his definite quantity of genius
Borodine has made a place for himself in the history of lyric music.
César Cui (born 1835), who was in early years the press agent of the
neo-Russian group, need be mentioned here only to be passed over. His
song output is generous and nearly always marked with much grace and
good taste. But Cui took less stock in the adoration of the folk-song
than the other members of the group and his art product is in every way
weaker. Rimsky-Korsakoff combined an intense feeling for the native
Russian idiom with an exhaustive knowledge of the technique of music
and produced a large number of works which, while being truly Russian,
seem not unnatural to western ears. He is shown in romantic vein in
two early songs, ‘On the Georgian Hills’ and ‘A Southern Night.’ His
oriental songs are perhaps the best known of his lyric works. In these
the greatest modern master of musical exoticism has brought vividly to
our ears not only the phrases, but the very spirit of the east. The
‘Hebrew Love Song’ may be taken as one of the best of the group. But
the greatest of the neo-Russian group, the greatest Russian composer
hitherto, and one of the great composers of all musical history, was
Moussorgsky. This man was utterly absorbed in the Russian folk-song and
based his style on nothing else. He had the faculty of genius which
goes straight to the heart of something new and produces his result
without seeming effort. Few musicians of the nineteenth century have
spoken with so individual a voice. The world is only beginning to
appreciate the greatness of his operas. As for his songs, they have
made their way even more slowly, but where they are once known they
are never forgotten. Moussorgsky’s many remarkable qualities are not
to be set down in a single paragraph like the present. Suffice it to
point out his harmonic originality, which made use of atmospheric
chords, unusual scale combinations, and powerful modulation long before
Debussy’s time (Debussy, in fact, confesses to have learned much from
Moussorgsky); his freshness of inspiration, which has produced some
of the most glorious of melodies; and his unsurpassed ability in the
delineation of character and mood. His songs are not a great many,
but there are few of them that are not masterpieces. His pictures of
peasant life are marvellous in their persuasive picturesqueness. As an
example we may quote the ‘Peasant Cradle Song,’ one of the greatest
of songs anywhere. The ineffable pathos of the beginning, the strange
ethereal light of the end, are hardly to be paralleled in the whole
range of song. But it is more than a mere lullaby; it is a peasant’s
lullaby and the music almost makes us see the poor hut in which the
mother croons her song. Another lullaby, the ‘Cradle Song of the Poor,’
is hardly less appealing, but is totally different in design. Another
song showing Moussorgsky’s highest genius is the _Hopak_, a long piece
with admirable picturing of various phases of Russian character. The
song is tremendously effective in concert.
Moussorgsky’s three song groups are all of the highest rank. In the
Nursery Songs he has done what no other composer has ever done better,
and not more than two or three have done so well. He has depicted
the events and emotions of a child with the simplicity of spirit of
a child. The songs, however, are not simple technically--so much the
contrary that, composed in 1868 to 1870, they are prophetic of future
musical procedure. This freedom and delicacy of delineation had never
been seen in songs before. The four ‘Death Dances’ are tremendous songs
of grim tragedy; in ‘Death and the Peasant’ the accompaniment depicts
the indifference of nature at the fate of the peasant who is dying in
the snow after a debauch. The most amazing product of Moussorgsky’s
lyrical genius, however, is his last group of six songs--‘Where
No Sun Shines.’ These, written in the later years of his life,
under the influence of the deepest pessimism, are perhaps the most
intense expression of spiritual despair in all song literature. The
extraordinary technical method of these pieces, hardly less than that
of the remarkable children’s songs, was Debussy’s chief guiding light
in the early years of the development of his style. In absolute musical
value these six last songs stand very high and ‘By the Water’ has few
parallels in song literature.
The remaining Russian song writers can be summed up briefly. Antony
Arensky (born 1861) is the composer of many songs, graceful and
pleasing but not highly original in style. Sergius Taneiev (born
1856) inclines to the conservative and classical, but is an able
musician and capable song-writer. Alexander Glazounoff (born 1865)
has worked with most success in the smaller forms and in his graceful
songs has put much that is charming, though little that is genuinely
inspiring. His work is marked by its extraordinary suavity and taste.
Michael Ippolitoff-Ivanoff (born 1859) has composed some ninety songs,
distinguished by a straightforward honesty of method and healthfulness
of feeling. Sergei Rachmaninoff (born 1873) is a much greater man than
those we have just named and a masterful song-writer. He is not always,
however, writing in the strenuous eastern idiom. ‘Before My Garden’ and
‘Lilacs’ are excellent in the conventional way. But he has written at
least one truly great song of genuine Russian inspiration. This is ‘Oh,
Thou Billowy Harvest Fields,’ which deserves to rank with Borodine’s
‘Song of the Black Forest’ in daring and stark power.
II
Since the time of Grieg, song writing in Scandinavia has flourished.
The chief Norwegian exponent of the art is Christian Sinding (born
1856), a hardworking and sincere artist, with occasional flashes of
something near genius. His many songs include settings and adaptations
of Norwegian folk-songs, which he has handled with rare taste. He has
put something of their directness into his own art, for he is one of
the best of the modern song-writers in his power of getting the nub of
an emotion in a few notes. His song product is uneven, for much of his
work has been hurried and routine in quality. But there are many pieces
of superior character and these reveal a quality which is above all
things lyrical.
Emil Sjögren (born 1853) is probably the foremost song writer of
Sweden. He is not a man of power. His range of expression is limited
to the graceful and tender. Much of his work is of the second order.
But very often he produces lyrics of quite original beauty. Among
these we may mention _Du schaust mich an_, _Jahrlang möcht’ ich_, and
_Ich möchte schweben_. The second, in particular, should prove highly
effective in concert. Of recent years Sjögren has cultivated the new
harmonic style with much industry and acquisitive talent. He has, in
fact, changed his style completely. It is doubtful if he can be said
to be wholly successful in his metamorphosis. He seems over-concerned
with details and fails to attain cogency of form.
Jean Sibelius (born 1865) is the greatest of Finnish composers and is
rapidly coming to be recognized as one of the greatest in the world.
We must remember that the Finns are dominantly Teutonic, and that
culture has been Teutonic in the past and not Russian or Mongolian
as is sometimes supposed. But Sibelius has developed a marvellous
individuality of expression which is at once expressive of him and
of his nation. Some of his songs are epoch-making in their form and
method. In the more graceful lyrical mood Sibelius is often charming.
We may mention ‘Idle Wishes’ and ‘Oh, Wert Thou Here’ as of this class.
In the simple folk-style Sibelius is even more individual. ‘A Little
Flower Stood on the Wayside’ is a thing of remarkable tenderness and
beauty. But it is when Sibelius strikes his national idiom that he is
at his greatest. This idiom is characterized by long, slowly-moving,
angular phrases, with frequent repetitions of the same note. The style
is admirably presented in the long song ‘To Frigge.’ The accompaniment
is scarcely less simple than the voice part, yet it is truly
delineative. The song is a model of pure genius creating something
quite new and very beautiful out of materials so simple that they have
been left by the wayside as useless. _Des Fahrmanns Bräute_ is a very
long ballad of great strength. But Sibelius is at his greatest and most
original in the ‘Autumn Evening,’ a song which has no fellow anywhere.
Sibelius’s method here is unique. The song is almost recitative, but
the various irregular phrases of the voice have an incisive quality
which makes them rank as descriptive. The accompaniment is little
more than a chord support at most points, but now and then rises into
great delineative power. The method is one of selection until only the
essentials remain. Each unit of expression which Sibelius has here
used is ideally fitted for its purpose. Moreover, the song, though free
in the extreme, has a close structure which is entirely convincing. The
originality of this song should ultimately make a deep impression on
current song-writing.
III
In latter-day England song-writing has risen to a dignity and
importance which it had not possessed since the time of Purcell. With
Arthur Goring-Thomas, whom we have already mentioned, a new note of
artistic sincerity entered the art. This was continued by an unusually
talented man, Arthur Somervell (born 1863), who has composed some
of the best song cycles of recent times. Somervell is by no means a
radical in his method. But his lyric sense is keen and his invention
fertile. His cycle from Tennyson’s ‘Maud’ attains rare fidelity and
tragic intensity. Among his other numerous songs are the two cycles,
‘A Shropshire Lad’ and ‘James Lee’s Wife,’ the latter scored for
orchestral accompaniment. These both show his happy invention and his
high musicianship. A song-writer who has gained a much more glittering
reputation less deservedly is Edward Elgar, whom people regard for
some reason as the chief representative of modern English song. As
a matter of fact, Elgar’s song output has been slight and has not
pretended to show the best he was capable of (as Reger did attempt to
show in _his_ songs). There is little of Elgar’s forceful musicianship
which comes across to us in these songs. The ‘Sea Pictures’ have made
their effect chiefly through the effective orchestration which their
composer provided for them. Considered as independent music, they are
inferior and somewhat conventional. The best is probably ‘Where Coral
Lies.’ ‘The Swimmer’ will serve to suggest Elgar’s descriptive style.
The conventional, in fact, hangs over most of Elgar’s songs. The one
which notably escapes it is the beautiful lyric, ‘My Love Lives in a
Northern Land,’ which is worthy to be signed by a first-class musician.
Of the others we may mention ‘Queen Mary’s Song,’ which, with its
accompaniment in imitation of a lute, is effective in concert; ‘Through
the Long Days,’ The Shepherd’s Song,’ and The Pipes of Pan.’
Granville Bantock (born 1868) may justly be called a radical modern
composer, whereas Elgar has much of the classical reserve about him.
Bantock’s very great ability and learning sometimes produce rather
chaotic results, the more so because his output is unusually great.
But frequently it produces results that are altogether admirable. To
singers he is known chiefly through his ‘Songs of the East.’ These
are published as cycles, as follows: Songs of Egypt, Songs of India,
Songs of Persia, Songs of the Seraglio, Five ‘Ghazels of Hafiz,’ lyrics
from ‘Ferishtah’s Fancies,’ Songs of China, and Songs of Japan. The
exoticism of these many songs is rarely genuine and Bantock’s facile
technique extends over them all to make them seem rather too much
alike for the good of his reputation. But the _effect_ of exoticism
is frequently attained with rare skill and the musical standard is
kept far higher than is usual in this class of music. Bantock’s
powerful technique, which is obviously influenced by Richard Strauss,
is to be studied to advantage in many of these songs, especially the
more pretentious ones. From the Songs of Egypt we should mention the
majestic ‘Invocation to the Nile,’ the mystical song ‘The Unutterable’;
and the poignant ‘Lament of Isis.’ Of the Hindoo songs that of the
Nautch girl is ever memorable for its effect of fierce physical motion.
The songs from Persia include two of high quality, the ‘Drinking Song’
and the ‘Hymn of the Ghebers.’ Let us further pick out, as among the
best, the Persian Love Song from the ‘Songs of the Seraglio’; and the
‘Shah Abbas’ and ‘Mahirab Shah’ from ‘Ferishtah’s Fancies,’ the last
remarkable for its expression of physical pain. The songs of China
and Japan are in no way unusual. Nor are the six Jester Songs, though
they sometimes catch the joy of life in engaging fashion. But Bantock
has one very ambitious work, the cycle of fragments from Sappho, which
is sufficient to put him in the front rank. It is hard to describe
the richness of the technique he has lavished on this work. We should
find it difficult to name anything similar to it in its peculiar
emotional intensity. The best that Bantock has to show of his art (his
instrumentation aside) is all to be found in this remarkable group
of songs. Every one of them is admirable, as is also the very long
introduction. But one remembers especially the opening number, the
‘Hymn to Aphrodite,’ dramatic and passionate; the painfully beautiful
song, ‘The Moon Has Set’; the masterful description of ‘Peer of the
Gods’; and the profuse musical richness of ‘In a Dream I Spake.’
Possibly these songs will in later years be judged too pretentious.
But while the judgment is still unmade we must regard with the highest
respect the musician who has done this thing in the musical conditions
that have prevailed in England.
It only remains to speak of the most radical of the young English
composers, Cyril Scott (born 1874). He broke away completely from
the traditional English style, founded on conventional church music,
and embraced the ‘atmospheric’ manner of the modern Frenchmen. In
this style he has displayed great energy and no small amount of
inventiveness. It remains to be seen whether he can make his influence
permanently felt in music. His songs well exemplify the general style
of his music. The best are ‘Lovely Kind and Kindly Loving’ and ‘Why
so Pale and Wan,’ both from opus 55. Others which should be mentioned
are ‘My Captain’ (to Walt Whitman’s words), ‘A Reflection,’ and
‘Afterday.’ The song writing of the modern English school has not yet
gathered body. It is only beginning to make itself felt beyond the
seas. But it has already shown so much vigor and independence that we
may justly look for abundant and fine results from it.
FOOTNOTES:
[33] See Musical examples, Volume XIV.
APPENDIX
THE FRENCH-CANADIAN FOLK-SONG
The songs of the French Canadians, which show considerable originality,
are in part transplanted from France, modified and localized in
the natural course of popular music. But a considerable part are
indigenous, with a history dating back, possibly, more than two
centuries. They are all, of course, made in imitation of the parent
stock, but in many instances they have taken on a new character,
befitting the wild and uncouth environment in which they were composed.
In some instances they show model characteristics, as in the _Mon Cri
Cra, Tir’ la Liretta_, sung by the boatmen on the Red River. This old
song shows scarcely any traces of the omnipresent influence of the
court of Louis XIV. Other songs bear the marks of the French priests,
through whose hands they passed on their way to the Canadian natives,
Indians or Frenchmen. Such a song is _Jesos Ahatonhia_, the music
of which was evidently an ecclesiastical melody with a strong modal
character indicating its great age. But on the whole the refined and
graceful influence of French civilization is strongly marked in the
Canadian songs, even when these songs originated in the New World. The
one department in which they are supreme is that of playful humor--not
the humor of the old English songs, which is somewhat bumptious and
muscular, but a more delicate humor, into which the singer enters
from pure effervescence of human sympathy and childlike playfulness.
We must range a long way through folk-song literature before we find
a song of this sort to equal ‘The White Duck,’ or ‘I Hear a Mill
Go Tick-Tack.’ A provocative playfulness sings in the words of ‘My
Faithful Bottle,’ ‘The Lost Chance,’ and the inimitable ‘When Returning
from Varennes,’ with its continuous refrain, _Cach’ton joli bas de
laine_. The spirit of Gascony, famous home of the practical joke, is in
the ‘Song of Lies,’ in which the singer turns the world topsy-turvy and
hopes to be hung if a single word he says is true. The sentimental note
is not so often struck, but we find it charmingly in such occasional
songs as ‘The Traveller’s Return,’ and ‘From Yonder on the Mountains.’
Gagnon’s collection, made in 1865 (the earliest of all), contains a
number of gentle and lovely airs, such as _C’est la belle française_.
We may also notice in this book a number which have been transported
from France and forgotten in the home country while they lived and
flourished under their foster mother. Such a song is _Dans les Prisons
de Nantes_. _Mon Per’ n’avait fille que moi_ is one of the most
interesting examples of the old modal style. The Canadian songs are
peculiarly addicted to the use of the refrain. This device, which is
always a mark of unsophisticated playfulness, is relied upon to such
an extent that one would call it excessive if the high spirits of the
music and words did not carry the little game through to complete
success. As so often happens, the refrain frequently has nothing
whatever to do with the sense of the text. The primitive innocence
of the mind is absolutely demanded of any singer who attempts, for
instance, ‘The White Duck.’ On the whole, the Canadian songs, though
very limited in range, can show a few types of folk-expression
managed with such consummate art that they deserve a place in the
folk-literature of the world.
LITERATURE FOR VOLUME V
(_In English_)
A. B. BACH: The Principles of Singing (London, 1897).
J. FRANK BOTUME: Modern Singing Methods (London, 1885).
LENNOX BROWNE and EMIL BEHNKER: Voice, Song and Speech (2nd
ed., London, 1884).
ANNA CHAPIN: Makers of Song (New York, 1904).
WILLIAM CHAPPELL: Old English Popular Music, 2 vols. (London,
1893).
H. HOLBROOK CURTIS, M. D.: Voice Building and Tone Placing (New
York, 1896).
HENRY T. FINCK: Songs and Song Writers (New York, 1910).
FFRANGCON-DAVIES: The Singing of the Future (London, 1904).
Folk-Songs from Somerset, 5 vols. (London, 1904-8).
HARRY PLUNKETT GREENE: Interpretation in Song (New York, 1912).
MAX HEINRICH: Correct Principles of Classical Singing (Boston,
1910).
H. L. F. HELMHOLTZ: The Study of Sensations of Tone (Trans. by
A. J. Ellis, 1875).
W. J. HENDERSON: The Art of Singing (New York, 1906).
GORDON HOLMES: A Treatise on Vocal Physiology and Hygiene
(1879).
JOHN HOWARD: The Physiology of Artistic Singing (1886).
DORA JONES: Lyric Diction (New York, 1913).
KICKSON AND NEAL: English Folk-song and Dance (Cambridge, Eng.,
1905).
H. E. KREHBIEL: Afro-American Folk-song (New York, 1914).
LOUIS LABLACHE: Complete Method of Singing.
FRANCESCO LAMPERTI: A Treatise on the Art of Singing (Trans. by
J. C. Griffiths, 1876).
LILLI LEHMANN: How to Sing (New York, 1912).
EUGENIE LINEVA: Peasant Songs of Great Russia (Engl. and
Russian text, Imperial Academy of Science, St. Petersburg).
SIR MORELL MACKENZIE: The Hygiene of the Vocal Organs (London,
1890).
GIOVANNI BATTISTA MANCINI: Practical Reflections on Figured
Song (Engl. transl. by Pietro Buzzi, Boston, 1913).
MATILDA MARCHESI: Ten Singing Lessons (London, 1901).
WESLEY MILLS, M. D.: Voice Production in Singing and Speaking
(1906).
SIR C. HUBERT H. PARRY: The Evolution of the Art of Music
(1899).
C. K. ROGERS: My Voice and I (Chicago, 1910).
E. W. SCRIPTURE: The Elements of Experimental Phonetics (1902).
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE: The Art of Singing, 3 parts (London, 1898).
W. WARREN SHAW: The Lost Vocal Art (Phila., 1914).
SHAYS: English Folk-Carols (London, 1911).
SHAYS: English Folk-Chanteys (London, 1914).
SHAYS: English Folk-Songs; Some Conclusions (London, 1907).
DAVID C. TAYLOR: The Psychology of Singing (New York, 1908).
PIETRO FRANCESCO TOSI: Observations on the Florid Song (1723).
(Reprint by William Reeves, London, 1905.)
GEORGE P. UPTON: The Song (Chicago, 1915).
_In German_
ERK UND BÖHME: Deutscher Liederhort, 3 vols. (Leipzig, 1893).
MAX FRIEDLÄNDER: Das deutsche Lied im 18. Jahrhundert, 2 vols.
(Stuttgart and Berlin, 1902).
H. L. F. HELMHOLTZ: Die Lehre der Tonempfindungen.
R. G. KIESEWETTER: Schicksale und Beschaffenheit des weltlichen
Gesanges, etc. (1841).
DR. L. MANDL: Die Gesundheitslehre der Stimme (1876).
CARL LUDWIG MERKL: Der Kehlkopf (1873).
_In French_
F. J. FÉTIS: Histoire générale de la musique (1869).
Méthode de chant du Conservatoire de Musique (Paris, 1803).
JULIEN TIERSOT: Histoire de la chanson populaire en France
(Paris, 1889).
J. B. WECKERLIN: Chansons populaires du pays de France, 2 vols.
(Paris, 1903).
_In Italian_
GIOVANNI BATTISTA MANCINI: Reflessioni pratiche sul canto
figurato (1777).
GIULIO CACCINI: Le nouve musiche (Florence, 1600).
INDEX OF VOLUME V
N. B.--_Figures in Italics indicate major references._
A
_A Highland Lad My Love was Born_ (Scotch folk-song), 113.
Abdominal breathing, 4f.
Abyssinians, 86.
Acoustics (rel. to human voice), 13.
Adam de la Halle, 138.
Adams, Stephen, 327.
Adaptive change, 2.
_Adeste Fideles_, 113.
African folk-songs, 105.
Agricola, Martin, 164.
Airs du cour, 166.
Albéniz, Isaac, 120.
Albert, Heinrich, 162f.
America, (folk-music) 129;
(song-writers), 298, 319ff, 322f.
Anatomy of the vocal organs, 1-23.
Ancient methods of vocal culture, 30ff.
_An die ferne Geliebte_ (Beethoven), 154f.
André, Johann, 191f.
‘Annie Laurie,’ 107, 113.
Archilei, Vittoria, 40.
Arensky, Antony, 368.
Aria, (_da capo_ form), 154ff;
(development), 172ff;
(German), 175.
Arioso, 175.
Aristotle, 55.
Arne, [Dr.] Thomas, 171.
Arnold, Samuel, 172.
Art-ballad (German), 272ff.
Art-song, (compared with folk-song) 72, 89ff;
(early rise and decline), 151ff;
(in 17th cent.), 162ff;
(rise of modern), 186ff.
Articulation, 3, 16ff, 63ff.
Artificial soprano, 44.
Athens, early vocal culture in, 32f.
Assyria, vocal culture in, 30.
_Auld Lang Syne_, 72f, 102, 112f.
B
Bach, Johann Sebastian, (spiritual songs), 147;
(secular songs), 164;
(in rel. to German song), 175.
Bach, Carl Philipp Emanuel (_Geistliche Lieder_), 189f.
Balakireff, Mily, 127, 365.
Balfe, Michael, 267.
Ballad form, (compared to lyric form), 202;
(Schubert), 225f;
(Löwe), 272ff.
Ballad opera, (18th cent.), 170ff;
(19th cent.), 267.
Bantock, Granville, 372f.
Baritone voice, 62.
Bass voice, 14.
Bassani, Giovanni Battista, 160.
Beethoven, 96, 177, 184, 187, 193, 196.
_An die ferne Geliebte_, 154f.
_In questa tomba_, 184.
_Busslied_, 184.
‘Beggar’s Opera,’ 170f.
Behnke, 28.
Bel canto, 16, 29, 44, 158f.
Benedict, Julius, 267.
Béranger, 260f.
Bergerette, 166f, 179f, 204.
Berlioz, Hector, 262ff.
Bierbaum, Otto Julius, 331.
Bishop, [Sir] Henry, 105, 172, 267.
Bizet, Georges, 315.
Blondel (minstrel), 137f.
Bohemian folk-songs, 127f.
Bologna (early music school in), 37.
Borodine, Alexander, 128, 365f.
Brahms, Johannes, 125, _276-290_.
_Æolian Harp_, 286.
_Anklänge_, 285.
_As the Clouds_, 285.
_Before the Window_, 282.
_Consolation of Spring_, 288.
_Fidelity_, 284.
_Going to My Sweetheart_, 282.
_Gold Outweighs Love_, 288.
_Gypsy Songs_, 277f, 282f.
_Have a Care_, 288.
_Hey, Bow and Arrow_, 287.
_Hey, Ye Gypsies_, 283.
_I Call from the Bank_, 288.
_Is it Sorrow_, 287.
_Joy Hath Left Me_, 282.
_Lament_, 282.
_Longing_, 282.
_Love and Spring_, 284.
[_The_] _Lover’s Oath_, 282.
_Magyar Love Song_, 288.
[_The_] _Maiden_, 282f.
[_The_] _Maiden’s Curse_, 288f.
_Minnelied_, 289.
_Motionless Air_, 288.
[_The_] _Mournful One_, 282.
_Nicht mehr zu dir zu gehen_, 286.
_Nightingale_, 285.
[_The_] _Nut Brown Lad_, 283.
_Oh, Come, Holy Summer Night_, 288.
_Oh, kühler Wald_, 289.
_Oh, Would I Knew the Returning Road_, 288.
_On Sunday Morning_, 288.
_Red Evening Clouds_, 283.
_Remembrance_, 288.
_Rest, Sweet Love_, 287.
[_The_] _Return_, 285.
_Sapphic Ode_, 289.
_Serenade_, 282.
[_The_] _Smith_, 285.
_So steh’n wir, ich and meine Weide_, 287.
[_The_] _Song of Herr von Falkenstein_, 287f.
_Spanish Song_, 285.
_Three Roses in a Row_, 283.
_Twilight Falls_, 288.
_Vain Serenade_, 289.
_Volkslied_, 282.
_Wie bist du, meine Königin_, 287.
_With, Eternal Love_, 287.
Breath control, 58.
Breathing, 1ff;
(faulty methods) 65.
Breathing exercises, 60f.
Browne and Behnke (‘Voice, Song and Speech’), 28.
Bruneau, Alfred, 356f.
[_The_] _Brunette_, 166.
Bungert, August, 312.
Burns, Robert, 91, 95f, 113f.
Burton, Frederick R., 42.
C
Caccini, Giulio, 47ff, 154.
_Amarilla_, 159.
Cadman, Charles Wakefield, 105.
Caffarelli, 44.
Caldara, Antonio, 160.
_Caller Herrin_ (Scotch song), 113.
Cambio, Perrisone, 153.
[_The_] _Campbells are Coming_, 112f.
Canadian folk-songs, 375ff.
Cantus firmus, 148f.
Carey, Henry, 171.
Carissimi, Giacomo, 160.
Catholic Church. See Roman Catholic Church.
Cavalli, Francesco, 159f.
Cavatina, 175.
Chabrier, Emmanuel, 354.
Chaldea (ancient), vocal culture in, 30.
Chaminade, Cécile, 318.
Chanson, 166.
Charlemagne, 131.
_Charlie is My Darling_ (Scotch folk-song), 113.
Charpentier, Gustave, 358.
Chausson, Ernest, 355.
Cherubini, Luigi, 49f.
Chest cavity, 4f.
Chest register, 11f.
Chest resonance, 14f, 62ff.
Chinese scale, 86.
Chivalry (influence of, on song), 136ff.
Choir master, in early Roman church, 33ff.
Choir schools, 33ff.
Chopin, Frédéric, 256.
Chorale, 147.
Church, Roman, (early vocal culture in), 33ff;
(early music of), 130f;
(use of popular music in),
148.
See also Greek Catholic Church; Lutheran Church.
Classic song (The), 151-185.
Coloratura, 39ff, 155ff, 160.
Comic opera (French), 166, 179.
Conservatoire method of singing, 49f.
Consonants, 17f, 64, 66.
Coquard, Arthur, 319.
Cornelius, Peter, 298, 302ff.
Counterpoint, 24, 35ff, 129, 149, 153;
(modern), 343, 345.
Courts of Love, 139f.
Cowen, Frederick, 327.
Crescendo (vocal), 15.
Cricoid cartilage, 6ff.
Cui, César, 366.
Curschmann, Karl Friedrich, 256.
D
Da capo form, 154ff, 172, 175.
Dalayrac, Nicolas, 180.
Dance, (primitive), 83;
(popularity of, in Italy), 120.
Danish folk-songs, 123.
Dargomijsky, Alexander, 349, 364f, 365.
Darwin, Charles (theory of origin of song), 87.
David, Félicien, 315.
Davy, John, 172.
Debussy, Claude, 346, 356;
(compared with Charpentier), 358;
(his songs), 358ff;
(compared with M. Ravel), 362;
(influenced by Moussorgsky), 367.
Declamation, art of (in ancient Athens), 32;
(compared with recitative), 202f.
Dehmel, Richard, 331.
Delivery, in singing, 97.
Denmark, folk-songs of, 123.
Denza, Luigi, 323.
_Der du von dem Himmel bist_
(settings of Liszt and Schubert compared), 294.
Descriptive music, 219f.
Diaphragm, 4f.
Dibdin, Charles, 172.
Dissonance, unprepared, 159, 162.
Doric mode, in Irish folk-song, 114.
Dramatic recitative, influence of, on solo singing, 42.
Drinking, effect of, on singer’s organism, 19.
_Du bist wie eine Blume_ (Schumann), 240;
(Liszt), 294;
(Rubinstein), 324.
Dufay, Guillaume, 148.
Duparc, Henri, 355.
Durchkomponiertes Lied, 176f.
Dutch folk-song, 108.
Dutrochet, cited, 56.
Dvořák, Anton, 312.
E
Ear control of voice, 28f, 52f.
Eating, effect of, on singer’s organism, 19.
Ecclesiastical modes. See Modes.
Education, musical, viii-ff.
_Edward_ (settings of Löwe and Brahms), 275.
Egypt, vocal culture in, 30.
_Ein Fichtenbaum steht einsam_ (settings of Schumann and Lassen), 307.
Eleanor of Aquitaine, 140.
Elgar, Edward, 371f.
England, (folk-song), 104, 108ff;
(mediæval minstrels), 34, 38, 132;
(classic song), 167ff;
(songs of early 19th cent.), 266, 267f;
(late romantics), 298, 326ff;
(modern lyricists), 371ff.
English ballad-opera, 170ff, 267.
English folk-song, 167ff.
Enunciation, 66.
_Erlking_, (Schubert), 193f, 203, 205, 209, 225;
(Löwe), 274.
_Es ist bestimmt_ (Mendelssohn), 107.
Ethmoid sinus, 15.
Expiration, in correct breathing, 5.
Expressive style. See Representative style.
F
Fabricius of Aquapendente, 55f.
Falsetto, 62.
Farinelli, 44.
Fasolo, G. B., 160.
Fauré, Gabriel, 347, 349ff.
Ferrein (anatomist), 56.
Fétis, F. J., cited, 27.
Fielitz, Alexander von, 310f.
Finck, Henry T., cited, 319.
Finland, modern, 370f.
Fiorituri, 41.
_[The] Fisher_ (folk-song), 119;
(Schubert), 212.
_[The] Fisher Boy_, (Schubert), 226;
(Liszt), 292f.
Florid song. See Coloratura, Ornamentation.
Folk-song, 25, _70-99_, _100ff_, 147f, 150, 308ff, 337;
(English), 110f, 167ff;
(Scotch), 111ff;
(Irish), 113f;
(French), 115f, 164f;
(Italian), 116ff, 153, 266ff;
(Spanish), 119f, 364ff;
(German), 120f, 162f, 191f, 229f;
(Scandinavian), 121, 299, 301f;
(Hungarian), 122ff;
(Russian), 125ff;
(Norwegian), 121, 369;
(Bohemian), 127f;
(Polish), 128;
(influence on art-song), 152ff;
(compared to early church song), 164f;
(influence on Schubert), 205.
See also Songs in the folk-manner.
‘Forward tone,’ 64f.
Foster, Stephen C., 107, 129, 163f.
France, (mediæval minstrels), 133f;
(Troubadours), 136ff;
(classic song), 164ff, 178ff;
(romantic period), 258ff;
(late romantics), 298, 313ff.
Franck, César, 354f.
Franz, Robert, 268ff;
(compared with Brahms), 278;
(compared with Grieg), 299f;
(compared with Hugo Wolf), 334f.
French folk-song, 115ff;
(in 16th cent.), 164f.
French-Canadian folk-songs, 375f.
French comic opera, 179.
French influence, (on early German song), 164;
(on early English song), 168f.
French lyricism, modern, 346-363.
Frottola, 153.
_Funicula_, (Italian folk-song), 103;
(Denza), 323.
G
Gagnon (collector of French-Canadian songs), 118.
Galen (anatomist), 55.
Galilei, Vincenzo, 154.
García, Manuel, 10, 57f.
Gastoldi, Giacomo, 153.
Geibel, Emmanuel, 330f.
German folk-song, 106f, 119, 120ff;
(in rel. to the singspiel), 191f.
German opera, 176, 228.
German vowels, 16.
Germany (attitude of, toward folk-songs, compared with England’s), 109;
(mediæval minstrels), 132, 141ff;
(Meistersinger), 144ff;
(Reformation), 147f, 150;
(classical song), 162ff;
(song in 18th cent.), 175ff;
(time of Schubert), 197, 198ff, 227f;
(Schumann), 231ff;
(romantics after Schumann), 298, 302ff;
(since Franco-Prussian War), 330ff. See also German folk-song.
Gibbons, Orlando, 167.
Glazounoff, Alexander, 368.
Glinka, Michail Ivanovitch, 127, 257.
Glottis, 12f, 21, 55f;
(correct management of), 61.
Gluck, Christoph Willibald, 177;
influence on Berlioz, 263.
_God Save the King_, 171.
Godard, Benjamin, 317f.
Goethe, 193, 198f;
(quoted on the ballad form), 274.
Gordigiani, Luigi, 266.
Goring-Thomas, Arthur, 298, _327f_, 371.
Gossec, François Joseph, 183.
Gounod, Charles François, 278f, 298, _313f_.
Graben-Hoffmann, Gustav, 312.
Graun, Johann Gottlieb, 164.
Great Britain, folk-songs of, 108ff.
See also England.
Greece, 167.
Greek Catholic Church, 40f.
Grétry, André Erneste Modeste, 180.
Grieg, Edvard, 299ff.
_[The] Swan_, 300.
Guido d’Arezzo, 34.
Guilbert, Yvette, 111.
Gypsies, 123f.
Gypsy songs. See Brahms.
H
Hahn, Reynaldo, 319.
Handel, George Frederick, 171.
Harmonics, vocal, 15.
Harmony, (in early Italian part-songs), 153f;
(in 17th cent. French song), 166;
(Wagner), 291f;
(Arnold Schönberg), 343;
(modern French school), 348ff;
(Alfred Bruneau), 356;
(Dargomijsky), 364.
Harp, mediæval, 136.
_[The] Harp That Once Through Tara’s Halls_ (Irish folk-song), 114.
Hassler, Hans Leo, 162.
Haydn, Joseph, 177f, 187.
Head cavities, 16f.
Head register, 12.
Health, influence of, on singing, 18.
Hebrews, early vocal culture of, 30ff, 40f.
_Heidenröslein_ (Schubert), 107.
Heine, Heinrich, 224f, 233ff, 248f.
Helmholtz, Hermann Ludwig Ferdinand von (quoted), 16, 58.
Henderson, W. J. (cited), 207f.
Henry VIII, King of England, 110.
Henschel, Georg, 308ff.
Herder, Johann Gottfried, 110.
Heyse, Paul, 331.
Hiller, Johann Adam, 176f, 191, 197.
Himmel, Friedrich Heinrich, 229.
Hippocrates, 55.
Hoffmannsthal, Hugo von, 331.
Holland, folk-songs of, 108.
Holmès, Augusta Mary Anne, 319.
_Home, Sweet Home_, 105.
Hook, James, 172.
Huë, George Adolphe, 319.
Hugo, Victor, 259f.
Humfrey, Pelham, 168f.
Hungarian folk-songs, 122ff.
Hygiene of the voice, 1-23.
Hymns, in Lutheran Church, 147.
I
_I Hear a Mill Go Tick-Tack_ (French folk-song), 117.
_Ich hab’ im Traum geweinet_ (settings of Schumann and Lassen), 307.
Impressionistic school, 346-363.
Indians (American), folk-songs of, 72f, 105, 129.
[d’]Indy, Vincent, 355f, 358.
Inspiration (physical action), 3ff.
Instruments of mediæval minstrels, 136.
Ionian mode, 167.
Ippolitoff-Ivanoff, Michael, 368.
Ireland, folk-songs of, 108f, 113ff.
_It was a Dream_ (settings of Schumann and Lassen), 307.
Italian folk-songs, 116f, 153, 266.
Italian influence on German music, 164.
Italian method of vocal culture, 24-54, 68f.
Italian opera, (rise of), 151f, 155ff;
(influence of, in Germany), 164;
(in England), 170f;
(and the aria), 172ff.
Italy, (_Trovatori_), 138;
(classical song), 151ff;
(18th-19th cent.), 265f;
(late romantics in), 298, 323.
See also Italian folk-songs.
J
Jadassohn, Salomon, 256.
James II, King of England, 169.
Japan, primitive song of, 86.
Java, primitive music of, 86.
Jensen, Adolf, 303, _305ff_.
Jerusalem (ancient), vocal culture in, 31f, 40f.
_Jesos Ahatonhia_ (old French song), 117.
Joke-songs, Italian, 120.
Jongleurs, (origin of the name), 132;
(music of), 132ff.
Jugglers, 132ff.
K
Kehlkopf. See Larynx.
Keiser, Reinhard, 164.
Kiesewetter, Raphael Georg, 40.
_[The] King of Thule_ (settings of Schubert and Liszt), 226;
(Liszt), 293f.
Kittredge, G. L. (cited), 75.
Kjerulf, Halfdan, 311f.
Korbay, Francis Alexander, 126.
Kreutzer, Conrad, 228.
L
Ladré, 181.
Lamartine, 260.
Laryngeal action, 60f.
Laryngoscope, 10, 12f;
(influence of on modern voice culture), 45, 55, 57f.
Larynx, 6ff.
Lassen, Eduard, 307f.
Lawes, Henry, 168.
Lehman, Liza, 328f.
_Leise, leise_ (Weber), 107.
Lekeu, Guillaume, 355.
Léroux, Xavier, 318f.
Lied. See Germany (classic song, etc.).
Lieder-singer, art of the, 93f, 97.
Liliencron, Detlev von, 331.
Lindpainter, Peter Joseph von, 229.
Lineva (Mme.), 125ff.
Lips (in singing), 3.
Liscovius, 56.
Lisle, Rouget de, 182.
Liszt, Franz, (Hungarian Rhapsodies), 123, 125;
(_King of Thule_), 226;
(songs), 292ff.
_Loch Lomond_, 113.
_[Die] Loreley_, (Silcher), 230;
(settings by Liszt and Silcher compared), 293.
Lortzing, Albert, 228.
Love, influence of, on early song, 137, 139f.
Love-songs, primitive, 81.
Loewe, Johann Carl Gottfried, 226, _272ff_.
Ludwig the Pious, 131.
Lungs (in singing), 1, 2ff.
Lute, 136.
Luther, Martin, 147.
Lutheran Church, 122, 147.
Lydian mode, 167.
Lyric form, compared to ballad form, 202.
Lyric impulse, 85ff.
M
MacDowell, Edward, 298, _319ff_.
Mackenzie, [Sir] Morell, cited, 18.
Madrigal, 149f, 153f, 157;
(English), 167.
Mahler, Gustav, 336ff.
Major mode, 148f, 167.
See also Scales.
Male soprano, 44.
Mancini, Giovanni Battista, 49.
Mandl, Louis, 58.
Mannstein, Heinrich F., 27, 56f.
Mark, Adolph Bernhard, 56f.
Marot, Clément, 165.
Marschner, Heinrich, 228.
_Marseillaise_, 72, 182f.
Martinengo-Cæsaresco, Countess, 70f, 80.
Marx, Joseph, 345.
Massenet, Jules, 317, 358.
Mastersingers, rise of, 144ff, 150.
Maybrick, M. See Adams, Stephen.
Mazarin, Cardinal, 165.
‘Mazarinades,’ 165.
Méhul, Étienne Nicolas, 49, 183.
Meistersinger (rise of), 144ff, 150.
[_Die_] _Meistersinger_ (Wagner), 142.
Melody (in primitive song), 76, 83f;
(in early folk-song), 153f;
(modern French school), 348ff, 363.
Mendelssohn-Bartholdy, Felix, 107, 254f.
Mengozzi, Bernardo, 49f.
Mercadante, Giuseppe, 265f.
Merkel, Karl Ludwig, 58.
Methfessel, Albert Gottlieb, 229.
Méthode de Chant du Conservatoire de Musique, 49f.
Methods (vocal), standardization of, 59.
Meyer-Helmund, Eric, 312.
Mezzo-soprano, 62.
Minnesingers, (rise of), 141ff;
(nature and value of their songs), 143f.
Minor mode, in Russian folk-song, 127f.
Minstrels, 25, 75, 77, 131ff.
Modern scientific methods, of vocal culture, 55-69.
Modes. See Major mode, Minor mode; Ionian mode; Lydian mode.
Modes, ecclesiastical, 135, 145, 152.
Modulation (Schubert), 208f.
_Mon Cri Cra, Tir’ la Liretta_ (French-Canadian folk-song), 375.
Monodic style, 39, 153ff, 162, 172f.
Monpou, François Louis Hippolyte, 265.
Monsigny, Pierre Alexandre, 116, 180.
Monteverdi, Claudio, 43, 155, 159, 172f.
Moore, [Sir] Thomas, 113f.
Möricke, Eduard, 331.
Moszkowski, Moritz, 326.
Moussorgsky, Modeste, 128, 365, 367f.
Mouth (in singing), 3.
Mouth-pharynx, 14ff;
(resonance), 63ff.
Mozart, Wolfgang Amadeus, 178, 187ff, 205.
_The Violet_, 178.
Müller, Johannes, 56.
Muset, Colin, jongleur, 134.
Musette, 166.
Musical education, viii-ff.
Musset, Alfred de, 261.
N
Nägeli, Hans Georg, 229.
Nahua Indians, 86.
Naples, folk-songs of, 119. See also Italian folk-songs.
Napoleon I, 183, 260f.
Nasal resonance, 14ff, 62ff.
Naumann, Karl Ernst, 143.
Neapolitan folk-songs, 119. See also Italian folk-songs.
Nevin, Ethelbert, 322f.
Newman, Ernest (cited), 334.
Norway (folk-songs), 123;
(modern song-writers), 369.
See also Scandinavia.
Norwegian folk-songs, 369.
Nose (in singing), 3.
_[Le] Nuove Musiche_ (Caccini), 47ff.
O
_O, Mama mia_ (Italian folk-song), 119.
_O, ma tendre Musette_ (French folk-song), 116.
‘Observations on the Florid Song’ (Tosi), 49.
‘Ode to Joy’ (Schiller), 192.
Odes, German, 175.
Old Italian Method, 24-25, 68f.
Opera (rise of), 151f, 155ff;
(in England), 170ff;
(German), 176, 228;
(Italian), 164, 172ff.
Opéra comique, 166, 179.
Oratorio, 151, 156.
Orient, music of, 42.
Ornamentation, 31f, 39ff, 124f.
Overtones, vocal, 15.
P
Paesiello, Giovanni, 161f.
Pagan song, 130ff.
Palate (in singing), 15.
Palestrina, Giovanni Pierluigi, 38.
Paris Conservatory, vocal method of, 49f.
Part-song, 149f, 153.
_[Le] Pauvre laboureur_ (French folk-song), 116.
Pentatonic scale, in Scotch folk-songs, 112.
Pergolesi, Giovanni Battista, 161.
‘Persian Songs’ (Rubinstein), 325.
Pharynx, 3.
Philidor, François-André-Danican, 180.
Philip Augustus, King of France, 133.
Pianoforte, 231.
Pianoforte style, 236ff, 240, 295.
Pierné, Gabriel, 318.
Pinsuti, Caro, 266.
_Piper of Dundee_ (Scotch song), 113.
Pitch, determination of (vocal), 11f.
Placing of the voice. See Voice placing.
Plato, 167.
Poetry, ancient, in relation to song, 75ff.
Polish folk-songs, 128f.
Polyphonic style, influence of, on vocal culture, 35ff.
Polyphony, 149, 153, 166;
(modern), 362.
Primitive song. See Folk-song.
Protestant Church. See Lutheran Church.
Provençal song. See Troubadours and Trouvères.
Psychological theory of tone production, 28f.
Psychology (in relation to music), 245f.
‘Psychology of Singing’ (Taylor), 28.
Purcell, Henry, 169f.
R
Rachmaninoff, Sergei, 128, 369.
Raff, Joachim, 312.
Ramis de Pareja, 37.
Range of human voice, 14.
Ravel, Maurice, 358, _362f_.
Realism, in songs of Schubert, 210f.
Recitative, (influence of, on solo singing), 42;
(compared with declamation), 202f;
(in songs of Schubert), 241.
Recitativo secco, 156.
[_The_] _Red Sarafan_ (Russian folk-song), 127.
Reformation, 147, 150.
Reger, Max, 340ff, 371.
Registers, vocal, 11ff, 61f.
Reichardt, Johann Friedrich, 192f, 195.
Reimann, Heinrich (cited), 125f.
Reinecke, Karl, 255f.
Religion, influence of, on primitive song, 78.
_Remember the Glories of Brian the Brave_ (Irish folk-song), 114.
Renaissance, 150.
Representative style, 162.
See also Monodic style.
Resonance, laws of, 58.
Resonance cavities, 1, 2f, 13ff;
(control of), 62ff.
Respiratory system, 2ff.
Rimsky-Korsakoff, Nicholas, 365f.
Rhythm, (in primitive song), 83;
(in Italian folk-songs), 120;
(in Spanish song), 121f;
(in Hungarian music), 124f.
Roman church (early vocal culture
in), 33ff;
(introduction of popular music), 148.
Romance, (French), 166;
(in French opera), 179f.
Romantic poetry, 231ff.
Romantic song, 231ff;
(in France), 258ff;
(after Schumann), 296ff;
(in Russia, Scandinavia and England), 364ff.
Romanticism, (Schubert), 186f;
(Schumann), 248f.
Ropartz, J. Guy, 318.
Rousseau, Jean Jacques, 179f.
Rubinstein, Anton, 127, _323ff_, 364.
_Rule Britannia_, 171f.
Russia, (Glinka), 257;
(late romantics), 298, 323ff;
(modern lyricists), 364ff.
Russian folk-songs, 105, _125ff_, 364ff.
S
Sachs, Hans, 146.
Saint-Saëns, Camille, 315ff.
_Sally in Our Alley_ (Carey), 171.
Savart, Félix, 56.
Scales, 84, 86;
(modern), 152f;
(major), 165.
See also Whole-tone scale.
Scandinavia (modern), 369f.
Scandinavian folk-songs, 123, 299, 301f.
Scarlatti, Alessandro, 156f, 159, 161.
_O cessate di piagarmi_, 157.
Scena, 202.
Schiller, 199.
Schönberg, Arnold, 342ff.
Schopenhauer (cited), 87.
Schrecker, Franz, 345.
Schubert, Franz, 89f, 91f, 107, 177, _186-230_, 231;
(compared with Schumann), 235f, 238;
(compared with Liszt), 293f;
(compared with Hugo Wolf), 331f, 334.
_[Die] Allmacht_, 208, 214.
_Am Meer_, 210, 225.
_Aufenthalt_, 210, 225.
_Ave Maria_, 206.
_Courage_, 221ff.
_Dead Flowers_, 219.
_Death and the Maiden_, 209, 212.
_Death Music_, 204.
_Der du von dem Himmel bist_, 294.
_[Der] Doppelgänger_, 207, 225.
_[The] Erl King_, 193f, 203, 205, 209, 225.
_[The] Fisher_, 212.
_[The] Fisher Boy_, 226.
_Fülle der Liebe_, 204.
_[Der] greise Kopf_, 221.
_Gretchen am Spinnrad_, 155.
_Gretchen’s Prayer_, 214.
_Harper’s Song_, 212.
_Heather Rose_, 212.
_Hermann and Thusnelda_, 226.
_Ihr Bild_, 206, 225.
_Im Dorfe_, 221.
_[The] Inn_, 221, 223.
_[The] King of Thule_, 226.
_Kolma’s Complaint_, 226.
_[Die] liebe Farbe_, 218f.
_[Der] Lindenbaum_, 107, 212, 222.
_Litany_, 211.
_Morning Greeting_, 217.
_Müllerlieder_ (song cycle), 209, 212, 215ff.
_Nebensonnen_, 223.
_[The] Organ Grinder_, 223f.
_[The] Post_, 221.
_Praise of Tears_, 212.
_Rest_, 221.
_Schwanengesang_ (song cycle), 215.
_Sea Calm_, 213.
_Serenade_, 224.
_[The] Signpost_, 222.
_[The] Singer_, 226.
_Suleika’s Second Song_, 210.
_Swan Songs_, 224f.
_Täuschung_, 221.
_[The] Trout_, 210, 212f.
_Viola_, 204.
_[The] Wanderer_, 202, 205, 213.
_Wandering_, 216, 218.
_Wanderer’s Evensong_, 214.
_[Der] Wegweiser_, 221.
_Whither_, 216f, 219f.
_Will-o’-the-Wisp_, 220.
_Winterreise_ (song cycle), 201, 206, 220ff.
_[Das] Wirtshaus._ See _[The] Inn_.
_The Young Nun_, 214, 216.
Schola cantorum. See choir schools.
Schulz, Johann, 192.
Schumann, Clara, 254.
Schumann, Robert, 184, _231-257_;
(and Robert Franz), 268, 270;
(his setting of _Two Grenadiers_ compared with Wagner’s), 290f;
(his settings of Heine poems compared with Lassen’s), 307.
_A Young Man Loved a Maiden_, 252.
_[Die] alten, bösen Lieder_ (_The Old and Evil Songs_), 253.
_An den Sonnenschein_, 242f.
_An das Trinkglass_, 242.
_[Die] beiden Grenadiere_ (_The Two Grenadiers_), 242.
_Blondels Lied_, 242.
_Das ist ein Flöten und Geigen_, 250.
_Dichterliebe_ (cycle), 238, 248ff.
_Du bist wie eine Blume_, 240.
_Du Ring an meinem Finger_, 245f.
_Each Night in Dreams_, 253.
_Fair Hedwig_, 254.
_Frauenliebe und Leben_ (song cycle), 238, 244ff.
_From Out My Tears_, 251.
_Frühlingsnacht_ (_Spring Night_), 243.
_[The] Glove_, 254.
_He, the Noblest of All_, 246.
_Helft mir, ihr Schwestern_, 245.
_[Der] Hidalgo_, 241.
_[The] Highland Cradle Song_, 24Of.
_The Highlander’s Farewell_, 240f.
_I Wept in My Dreams_, 253.
_I cannot grasp it, I cannot believe it_, 245f.
_Ich grolle nicht_, 249, 252.
_In the Wondrous Lovely Month of May_, 251.
_Intermezzo_, 243.
_Lass mich ihm am Busen hängen_, 240.
_Liederkreis_ (song cycle), 243.
_[The] Lion’s Bride_, 241.
_[Die] Lotusblume_, 240.
_Mondnacht_, 243f.
_Mit Myrthen und Rosen_ (cycle), 239.
_Myrthen_, 239.
_[Der] Nussbaum_, 240.
_On the Bright Summer Morning_, 252f.
_Poet’s Love_ (cycle), 238, 248ff.
Romances and Ballades, 248.
_[The] Rose, the Lily, the Dove, the Sun_, 251.
_Schöne Wiege meiner Leiden_, 239.
_Seit ich ihn gesehen_, 245.
_Somebody_, 240f.
_Stille Liebe_, 242.
_Stille Thränen_, 242.
_Stirb, Lieb und Freund_, 242.
_Talismane_, 240.
_Waldesgespräch_, 243, 306.
_Wanderlust_, 242.
_Western Divan_, 253.
_When I Into the Garden Go_, 253.
_When I Look Into Thine Eyes_, 251.
_Widmung_, 96f, 239.
_Wilhelm Meister_ songs, 253.
_Woman’s Life and Love_ (cycle), 238, 244ff.
Scientific methods of vocal culture, 55-69.
Scotch folk-songs, 108f, 111ff;
(compared with Irish), 114f.
Scotch songs (Edward MacDowell), 320.
_Scots Wha Hae_, 91, 112f.
Scott, Cyril, 373f.
Scott, [Sir] Walter, 110.
Shakespeare, 149, 168.
Sharp, Cecil, 107, 109ff.
Sibelius, Jean, 370f.
Sicilian folk-song, 119.
Sight-singing, 34ff.
Silcher, Friedrich, 107, 229f, 293.
Sinding, Christian, 369.
Singing, (as physical exercise), 18;
(‘style’ in), 97f;
(technique of), see Vocal culture, Tone production.
Singspiel, 175f, 190ff.
Sjögren, Emil, 369f.
Slavic folk-songs, 125ff.
‘Slide of the glottis,’ 61.
_Sol-fa_ system, 34.
Solo singing, 24;
(florid style), 32;
(before 17th cent.), 38ff.
Somervell, Arthur, 371.
Song, value of, vii;
(nature and origin of), 70-99;
(early development), 130-150.
See also Classic song; Folk-song; Romantic song.
Song-cycle, 215, 220.
_Song of Roland_, 135.
Songs in the folk-manner, 106f, 229f;
(Brahms), 278, 281ff, 289;
(Henschel), 308ff;
(Mahler), 337.
Soprano, 14, 62. See also Artificial soprano.
Spain (_Trobadores_), 138.
Spanish folk-songs, 119f.
Spencer, Herbert (theory of origin of song), 88.
Sinuses, 15.
Spohr, Ludwig, 183.
Stile rappresentativo. See Representative style; also Monody.
Stimulants, effect of, on singer’s organism, 19.
Strauss, Richard, 338ff.
Stravinsky, Igor, 362.
‘Stroke of the glottis,’ 61.
Style, in singing, 98f.
Sullivan, [Sir] Arthur, 326f.
_Sumer is icumen in_, 150.
Sweden (modern), 369f.
Swedish folk-songs, 123.
_[The] Sword Shining Brightly_ (Irish folk-song), 114.
T
Taneieff, Sergius, 368.
Tannhäuser, 142.
Taubert, Karl Gottfried Wilhelm, 256.
Technique. See also Vocal Culture.
Teeth (in singing), 3.
Telemann, Georg Philipp, 164.
Temples (ancient), vocal culture in, 30ff, 40f.
Tenaglia, 156.
Tenor voice, 62.
Thomas, Ambroise, 315.
Thomas, Arthur Goring, 298, 327f, 371.
Throat (ailments), 20ff;
(relaxation of), 60f.
Throaty production, 65.
Thyroid cartilage, 6ff.
Tobacco, effect of, on singer’s organism, 19.
Tonality, vagueness of, in modern music, 348ff.
Tone emission, 64ff.
Tone production, (vocal), 11ff;
(effect of incorrect methods), 20;
(as taught in early music schools), 37f;
(old Italian method), 53f;
(modern methods), 59ff.
Tongue (in singing), 3, 15.
Tosi, Pietro Francesco, 46, 49.
Tosti, Francesco Paolo, 323.
Trachea, 3, 6.
_Traum durch die Dämmerung_ (Strauss), 340, (Reger), 341.
_Tre giorni_ (Pergolesi), 161.
Tremolo (vocal), 65f.
Trobadores (rise of), 138.
Troubadours, 25, 42, 135;
(rise of), 137ff;
(nature and value of their songs), 143f.
Trouvères, (rise of), 138f;
(influence in Germany), 141.
See also Troubadours.
Trovatori (rise of), 138.
Tschaikowsky, Peter Ilyitch, 298, _323ff_, 364.
_[The] Two Grenadiers_ (Schumann), 242;
(settings of Wagner and Schumann), 290f.
U
United States, folk-music of, 129.
Unprepared dissonance, 159, 162.
V
Vacaresco, Helen, 81.
Vaudeville (French song form), 166.
Venice, folk-songs of, 118f.
Vidal, Paul, 357f.
Villanette, 153.
Villette, 153.
_[The] Violet_ (Mozart), 178.
Vocal cords, 2, 9ff, 60f.
Vocal culture (old Italian method), 24-54;
(modern scientific methods of), 55-69.
Vocal hygiene, 1-23.
Vocal methods, standardization of, 59.
Vocal organs, structure and hygiene of, 1-23;
(scientific investigation of), 55ff.
Vowel sounds (how formed), 16.
Vowels, use of, in exercises, 64f.
Voice placing, 59ff.
Volkmann, Robert, 256.
_Volkstümliches Lied_, 163, 176;
(Silcher), 229f;
(Henschel), 308ff;
(Mahler), 337.
See also Songs in the folk-manner.
W
Wagner, Richard, 142, 172, 285, _290ff_, 348;
(and Peter Cornelius), 303;
(and Hugo Wolf), 332f.
_Waldesgespräch_ (settings by Schumann and Jensen), 306.
Wallace, William Vincent, 267.
Walther von der Vogelweide, 44, 142.
Weber, Carl Maria von, 107, 227f.
Webern, Anton von, 345.
Weckerlin, Jean Baptiste, 107.
_When in Death_ (Irish folk-song), 114.
_[The] White Duck_ (French-Canadian folk-song), 376.
Whole-tone scale, 348ff, 364.
_Widmung_ (Schumann), 96f, 239;
(Franz), 270, 272.
William de Longchamps, Bishop of Ely, 134.
_William of Nassau_ (Dutch folk-song), 108.
_Will Ye Gang Over the Lea?_ (Scotch folk-song), 113.
Windpipe, 6.
Wolf, Hugo, 331ff.
Wolfram von Eschenbach, 142.
Wyman, Loraine, 111.
Z
Zelter, Karl Friedrich, 191, 193, 195.
Zumsteeg, Johann Rudolph, 192f, 197.
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