The art of music, Vol. 03 (of 14) — A Reader’s Guide

Introductory; the term 'modern'--The 'old-romantic' tradition and the 'New German' school--The followers of Mendelssohn: Lachner, F. Hiller, Rietz, etc.; Carl Reinecke--Disciples of Schumann: Robert Volkmann; Bargiel, Kirchner and others; the Berlin circle; the musical genre artists: Henselt, Heller, etc. (pianoforte); Jensen, Lassen, Abt, etc. (song)--The comic opera and operetta: Lortzing, Johann Strauss, etc.--French eclecticism in symphonic and operatic composition: Massenet--Saint-Saëns, Lalo, Godard, etc.

II. THE RUSSIAN ROMANTICISTS 37

Romantic Nationalism in Russian Music--Pathfinders; Cavos and Verstovsky--Mikhail Ivanovich Glinka; Alexander Sergeyevitch Dargomijsky--Neo-Romanticism in Russian music; Anton Rubinstein--Peter Ilyitch Tschaikowsky.

III. THE MUSIC OF MODERN SCANDINAVIA 59

The rise of national schools in the nineteenth century--Growth of national expression in Scandinavian lands--Music in modern Denmark--Sweden and her music--The Norwegian composers; Edvard Grieg--Sinding and other Norwegians--The Finnish Renaissance: Sibelius and others.

IV. THE RUSSIAN NATIONALISTS 107

The founders of the 'Neo-Russian' nationalistic school: Balakireff; Borodine--Moussorgsky--Rimsky-Korsakoff, his life and works--César Cui and other nationalists, Napravnik, and others.

V. THE MUSIC OF CONTEMPORARY RUSSIA 137

The border nationalists; Alexander Glazounoff, Liadoff, Liapounoff, etc.--The renaissance of Russian church music; Kastalsky and Gretchaninoff--The new eclectics: Arensky, Taneieff, Ippolitoff-Ivanoff, Glière, Rachmaninoff and others--Scriabine and the radical foreign influence; Igor Stravinsky.

VI. MUSICAL DEVELOPMENT IN BOHEMIA AND HUNGARY 165

Characteristics of Czech music; Friedrich Smetana--Antonin Dvořák--Zdenko Fibich and others; Joseph Suk and Vitešlav Novák--Historical sketch of musical endeavor in Hungary--Ödön Mihálovich, Count Zichy and Jenö Hubay--Dohnányi and Moór; 'Young Hungary': Weiner, Béla Bartók and others.

VII. THE POST-CLASSICAL AND POETIC SCHOOLS OF MODERN GERMANY 201

The post-Beethovenian tendencies in the music of Germany and their present-day significance; the problem of modern symphonic form--The academic followers of Brahms: Bruch and others--The modern 'poetic' school: Richard Strauss as symphonic composer--Anton Bruckner, his life and works--Gustav Mahler--Max Reger--Draeseke and others.

VIII. GERMAN OPERA AFTER WAGNER AND MODERN GERMAN SONG 238

The Wagnerian after-current: Cyrill Kistler; August Bungert, Goldmark, etc.; Max Schillings, Eugen d'Albert--The successful post-Wagnerians in the lighter genre: Götz, Cornelius and Wolf; Engelbert Humperdinck and fairy opera; Ludwig Thuille; Hans Pfitzner; the _Volksoper_--Richard Strauss as musical dramatist--Hugo Wolf and the modern song; other contemporary German lyricists--The younger men: Klose, Hausegger, Schönberg, Korngold.

IX. THE FOLLOWERS OF CÉSAR FRANCK 277

The foundations of modern French nationalism: Berlioz; the operatic masters: Saint-Saëns, Lalo, Franck, etc.; conditions favoring native art development--The pioneers of ultra-modernism: Emanuel Chabrier and Gabriel Fauré--Vincent d'Indy: his instrumental and his dramatic works--Other pupils of Franck: Ernest Chausson; Henri Duparc; Alexis de Castillon; Guy Ropartz.

X. DEBUSSY AND THE ULTRA-MODERNISTS 317

Impressionism in Music--Claude Debussy, the pioneer of the 'atmospheric' school; his career, his works and his influence--Maurice Ravel, his life and work--Alfred Bruneau; Gustave Charpentier--Paul Dukas--Miscellany; Albert Roussel and Florent Schmitt.

XI. THE OPERATIC SEQUEL TO VERDI 366

The musical traditions of modern Italy--Verdi's heirs: Boito, Mascagni, Leoncavallo, Puccini, Wolf-Ferrari, Franchetti, Giordano, Orefice, Mancinelli--New paths; Montemezzi, Zandonai and de Sabbata.

XII. THE RENAISSANCE OF INSTRUMENTAL MUSIC IN ITALY 385

Martucci and Sgambati--The symphonic composers: Zandonai, de Sabbata, Alfano, Marinuzzi, Sinigaglia, Mancinelli, Floridia; the piano and violin composers: Franco da Venezia, Paolo Frontini, Mario Tarenghi; Rosario Scalero, Leone Sinigaglia; composers for the organ--The song writers: art songs; ballads.

XIII. THE ENGLISH MUSICAL RENAISSANCE 409

Social considerations; analogy between English and American conditions--The German influence and its results: Sterndale Bennett and others; the first group of independents: Sullivan, Mackenzie, Parry, Goring Thomas, Cowen, Stanford and Elgar--The second group: Delius and Bantock; McCunn and German; Smyth, Davies, Wallace and others, D. F. Tovey; musico-literary workers, musical comedy writers--The third group: Vaughan Williams, Coleridge-Taylor and W. Y. Hurlstone; Holbrooke, Grainger, Scott, etc.; Frank Bridge and others; organ music, chamber music, songs.

LITERATURE FOR VOLS. I, II AND III 445

INDEX FOR VOLS. I, II AND III 491

ILLUSTRATIONS IN VOLUME THREE

The Garden Concert; painting by Watteau (in colors) _Frontispiece_

French Eclectics (Lalo, Massenet, Saint-Saëns, Godard) 30

Russian Romanticists (Glinka, Dargomijsky, Rubinstein, Tschaikowsky) 48

Neo-Russian Composers (Moussorgsky, Balakireff, Borodine, Rimsky-Korsakoff) 122

Contemporary Russian Composers (Rachmaninoff, Glazounoff, Rebikoff, Glière) 150

Bohemian Composers (Smetana, Dvořák, Fibich, Suk) 178

Hungarian Composers (Count Zichy, Jenö Hubay, Dohnányi, Moór) 192

Modern German Symphonic and Lyric Composers (Mahler, Bruckner, Draeseke, Wolf) 202

Modern German Musical Dramatists (Humperdinck, Thuille, Pfitzner, Goldmark) 246

Modern French Composers (Chabrier, d'Indy, Charpentier, Ravel) 298

Contemporary Italian Composers (Mascagni, Wolf-Ferrari, Puccini, Zandonai) 372

Modern British Composers (Bantock, Sullivan, Parry, Elgar) 424

CHAPTER I BY- AND AFTER-CURRENTS OF THE ROMANTIC MOVEMENT

Introductory; the term 'modern'--The 'old-romantic' tradition and the 'New German' school--The followers of Mendelssohn: Lachner, F. Hiller, Rietz, etc.; Carl Reinecke--Disciples of Schumann: Robert Volkmann; Bargiel, Kirchner and others; the Berlin circle; the musical _genre_ artists: Henselt, Heller, etc. (pianoforte); Jensen, Lassen, Abt, etc. (song)--The comic opera and operetta: Lortzing, Johann Strauss, and others--French eclecticism in symphonic and operatic composition: Massenet--Saint-Saëns, Lalo, Godard, etc.

The term 'Modern Music,' which forms the title of this volume, is subject to several interpretations. Just as in the preceding volume we were obliged to qualify our use of the words 'classic' and 'romantic,' partly because all such nomenclature is more or less arbitrary, partly because of the fusion of styles and dove-tailing of periods which may be observed in the history of any art, so it now becomes necessary to define the word 'modern' in its present application.

Now 'modern' may mean merely _new_ or _up-to-date_. And in that sense it may indicate any degree of newness: it may include the last twenty-five years or the last century, or it may be made to apply to contemporaneous works only. But in another sense--that generally accepted in connection with music--it means 'advanced,' progressive, or unprecedented in any other period. Here, too, we may understand varying degrees of modernity. The devotees of the most recent development, impatient of the usual broad application of the term, have dubbed their school the 'futurist.' In fact, any of these characterizations, whether in a time sense or a quality sense, are merely relative. Wagner's disciples, disdainful of the romanticists, called his music the 'music of the future.' Now, alas, critics classify him as a romantic composer! Bach, on the other hand, long popularly regarded as an archaic bugaboo, is now frequently characterized as a veritable modern. 'How modern that is!' we exclaim time and again, while listening to an organ toccata or fugue arranged by Busoni! Beethoven, the great classic, is in his later period certainly more 'modern' than many a romanticist--Mendelssohn, for instance, or even Berlioz--though only in a harmonic sense, for he had not the command of orchestral color that the great and turbulent Frenchmen made accessible to the world.

The newness of the music is thus seen to have little to do with its modernity. Even the word 'contemporary' gives us no definite clue, for there are men living to-day--like Saint-Saëns--whose music is hardly modern when compared to that of a Wolf, dead these twelve years, or his own late countrymen Chabrier and Fauré--not to speak of the recently departed Scriabine with his _clavier à lumière_.

But it is quite impossible to include in such a volume as this only the true moderns--in the æsthetic sense. We should have to go back to Beethoven with his famous chord comprising every degree of the diatonic scale (in the Ninth Symphony), or at least to Chopin, according to one interpretation. According to another we should have to exclude Brahms and all his neo-classical followers who content themselves with composing in the time-honored forms. (Since there will always be composers who prefer to devote themselves to the preservation and continuation of formal tradition, this 'classical' drift will, as Walter Niemann remarks, be a 'modernism' of all times.) Brahms has, as a matter of fact, been disposed of in the preceding volume, but the inclusion in the present volume of men like Volkmann, Lachner, etc., some of whom were born long before Brahms, calls for an apology. It is merely a matter of convenience, just as the treatment of men like Glinka and Gade in connection with the nationalistic developments of the later nineteenth century is merely an expedient. Such chronological liberties are the historian's license. We have, to conclude, simply taken the word modern in its widest and loosest sense, both as regards time and quality, and we shall let the text explain to what degree a composer justifies his position in the volume. We may say at the outset that all the men reviewed in the present chapter would have been included in Volume II but for lack of space.

In Volume II the two great movements known as the classic and the romantic have been fairly brought to a close. Brahms and Franck on the one side, Wagner and Liszt on the other, may be considered to have concluded the romantic period as definitely as Beethoven concluded the classic. Like him, too, they not only surveyed but staked out the path of the future. But no great art movement is ever fully concluded. (It has been said by æsthetic philosophers that we are still in the era of the Renaissance.) Just as in the days of Beethoven there lived the Cherubinis, the Clementis, the Schuberts (as regards the symphony at least) who trod in the great man's footsteps or explored important by-paths, in some respects supplemented and completed his work; so there are by- and after-currents of the Romantic Movement which also cannot be ignored. They are represented by men like Lachner, Ferdinand Hiller, Reinecke and Volkmann in Germany; by Saint-Saëns, Massenet and Lalo in France; Gade in Denmark.[1] Some of their analogous predecessors have all but passed from memory, perhaps their own works will soon disappear from the current répertoire. Especially in the case of the Germans (whose country has certainly suffered the strain of over-cultivation and over-production, and which has produced in this age the particular brand known as 'kapellmeister music') is this likely. But it must be borne in mind that these composers had command of technical resources far beyond the ken of their elder brothers; also that, by virtue of the more subjective qualities characteristic of the music of their period, as well as the vastly broadened musical culture of this later day, they were able to appeal more readily to a very wide audience.

The historical value of these men lies in their exploitation of these same technical resources. They thoroughly grasped the formulæ of their models; what the pioneers had to hew out by force, these followers acquired with ease. They worked diligently within these limits, exhausting the possibilities of the prescribed area and proving the ground, so to speak, so that newcomers might tread upon it with confidence. They were not as uncompromising, perhaps, as the pioneers and high-priests themselves and therefore fused styles that others thought irreconcilable. What seemed iconoclastic became commonplace in their hands. Thus their eclecticism opened the way for new originalities; their very conservatism induced progress.

Germany, it will be remembered, was, during Wagner's lifetime, divided into two camps: the classic-romantic Mendelssohn-Schumann school which later rallied about the person of Brahms, on the one hand, and the Wagner-Liszt, sometimes called the late-romantic or 'New German' school, on the other. The adherents of the former are those whom we have called the poets, the latter the painters, in music; terms applying rather to the manner than to the matter, since the 'painters,' for another reason--namely, because they believed that a poetic idea should form the basis of the music and determine its forms--might with equal rights call themselves 'poets.' And, indeed, their followers, the 'New Germans,' among whom we reckon Mahler and Strauss, constitute what in a later chapter we have called the 'poetic' school of contemporary Germany.

Few musicians accepted Wagner's gospel in his lifetime. Raff and other Liszt disciples, the Weimar group, in other words, were virtually the only ones. A host, however, worshipped the names of Mendelssohn and Schumann. They gathered in Leipzig, their citadel, where Mendelssohn reorganized the Gewandhaus concerts in 1835,[2] and founded the Royal Conservatory in 1843, and in the Rhine cities, where Schumann's influence was greatest. These men flourished during the very time that Wagner was the great question of the day. While preaching the gospel of romanticism, they also upheld the great classic traditions. The advent of Brahms, indeed, brought a revival of pure classic feeling. This persists even to-day in the works of men whose romantic inspirations, akin to Mendelssohn, Schumann, and Chopin, find expression in forms of classic cast.

Both Schumann and Wagner were reformers interested in the broadening of musical culture, the improvement of taste, and the establishment of a standard of artistic propriety--Wagner on the stage, Schumann in the concert room. The former was successful, the latter only partially so. For, while the standards of the concert room are much higher to-day than they were in Schumann's day, musical taste in the home, which should be guided by these standards, has, if anything, deteriorated. The reason for this lies primarily in one of the inevitable developments of musical romanticism itself--the _genre_ tendency; secondarily, in the fact that, while the Wagnerians were propagandists, writers of copious polemics and agitators, the classic romanticists were purely professional musicians who disdained to write, preferring deeds to words (and incidentally doing far too much), or else, like Hiller, were _feuilletonists_, pleasant gossips about their art and nothing more.

The development of the small forms, the miniature, the _genre_ in short, and the corresponding decay of the larger forms was perhaps the most outstanding result of the romantic movement. Wagner alone, the dramatic romanticist, continued to paint large canvases, frescoes in vivid colors. The 'poetic' romanticists were of a lyric turn, and required compact and intimate forms of expression. They had created the song, they had built up a new piano literature out of small pieces, miniatures like Schubert's 'Musical Moments,' Schumann's 'Fantasy Pieces,' Mendelssohn's 'Songs without Words,' Field's 'Nocturnes,' Chopin's Dances, Preludes, and Études. Franz, Jensen, Lassen, and others continued the song; Brahms, with his _Intermezzi_; Henselt, Heller, and Kirchner, with his piano miniatures, the piano piece. The first degenerated into Abt, Curschmann, and worse, the second into the type of thing of which 'The Last Hope' and 'The Maiden's Prayer' were the ultimate manifestations. Sentiment ran over in small gushes and drippings, even the piano study was made the vehicle for a sigh. The sonata of a former day became a sonatina or an 'impromptu' of one kind or another.

The parallel thing now happened in other fields. The concert overture of Mendelssohn had in a measure displaced the symphony. What has been called the '_genre_ symphony' of Mendelssohn, Schumann, _et al._ was also in the direction of minimization. Even Brahms in his gigantic works emphasizes the tendency by the intermezzo character of his slow movements, by the orchestral filigree partaking of the chamber music style. Now came the revival of the orchestral suite by Lachner and Raff, the sinfonietta, and the serenade for small orchestra. Again we sense the same trend in the appearance of the choral ballad and in the tremendous output of small dramatic cantatas for mixed or men's voices.

In France, instrumental literature during the nineteenth century had been largely tributary to that of Germany, just as its opera earlier in the century was of Italian stock. But the development of the 'grand' opera of Meyerbeer, on the one hand, and the _opéra comique_, on the other, had produced a truly Gallic form of expression, of which the romanticism of the century made use. Gounod and his colleagues of the lyric drama; Bizet, the genius of his generation, with his sparkling rhythms, his fine tunes and his orchestral freshness; Délibes and David with their oriental color, compounded a new French idiom which already found a quasi-symphonic expression in the _L'Arlésienne_ suites of Bizet. Berlioz stands as a colossus among his generation and to this day has perhaps not been quite assimilated by his countrymen. The Germans have profited from his orchestral reforms at least as much as the French. But he gave the one tremendous impetus to symphonic composition, stimulated interest in Beethoven and Weber and so pointed the way for his younger compatriots. Already _he_ speaks of Saint-Saëns as an accomplished musician.

Saint-Saëns is, indeed, the next great exponent of the classic tradition as well as the earliest disciple of the late romantic school of Liszt and Wagner in France. Beside him, Massenet, no less great as technician, forms the transition to modernism on the operatic side, while Lalo and Godard devote themselves to both departments. César Franck, the Belgian, stands aloof in his ascetic isolation as the real creator of the modern French idiom.

We shall now consider some of these 'transition' composers in detail; first the Germans, then the French.

Certain attributes they all have in common. Most of them lived long and prospered, enjoying a wide influence or popularity in their day; Lachner and Reinecke both came near to ninety; Volkmann near eighty; Saint-Saëns is still hale at eighty. All of them were highly productive: Hiller, Reinecke, Raff, and Lachner surpassed 200 in their opus-numbers; Saint-Saëns has gone well over a hundred; and Massenet has written no less than twenty-three operas alone. Nearly all of them were either virtuosos or conductors: Hiller, Reinecke, Saint-Saëns, Bülow, Henselt, Heller were brilliant pianists; Lachner, Saint-Saëns, and Widor also organists; Godard a violinist. The first four of these were eminent conductors. Most of them were pedagogues besides; some, such as Reinecke, Hiller, Jadassohn, Rietz, and Massenet, among the most eminent of their generation.

Franz Lachner is the oldest of them. He was born, 1803, in Rain (Upper Bavaria), and died, 1890, in Munich. Thus he came near filling out four-score and ten, antedating Wagner by ten years and surviving him by seven. His career came into actual collision with that of the Bayreuth master too, since the latter's coming to Munich as the favorite of the newly ascended King Ludwig II forced Lachner from his autocratic position as general musical director.

Many forces must have reacted upon an artist whose life thus spans the ages. He was a friend of Schubert in Vienna, where he became organist in 1824, and is said to have found favor even with Beethoven. Sechter and Abbé Stadler gave him the benefit of their learning. After holding various conductor's posts in Vienna and in Mannheim he finally found his way to Munich, where he had already brought out his D minor symphony with success. As court kapellmeister he conducted the opera, the church performances of the royal chapel choir and the concerts of the Academy, meanwhile creating a long series of successful works, nearly all of which exhibit his astounding contrapuntal skill. His seven orchestral suites, a form which he and Raff revived, occupy a special place in orchestral literature, as a sort of direct continuation of Bach's and Händel's instrumental works. They are veritable treasure stores of contrapuntal art. Perhaps another generation will appreciate them better; to-day they have fallen into neglect. This is even more true of his eight symphonies, four operas, two oratorios, etc. Of his chamber music (piano quartets, string quartets, quintets, sextets, nonet for wind, etc.), his piano pieces and songs, influenced by Schubert, some few numbers have survived.

Most prominent in Mendelssohn's immediate train is Ferdinand Hiller. His junior only by two years (he was born Oct. 24, 1811, in Frankfurt), he followed closely in the footsteps of that master. Like him, he came of Jewish and well-to-do parents; like him, he had the advantage of an early training, a broad culture and wide travel. A pupil of Hummel and a brilliant pianist, he was presented to Beethoven in Vienna; in Paris he hobnobbed with Cherubini, Rossini, Chopin, Liszt, Meyerbeer and Berlioz, taught and concertized; in Milan he produced an opera (_Romilda_) by the aid of Rossini. Mendelssohn, already his friend, brought out his oratorio 'Jerusalem Destroyed' at the Gewandhaus in 1840, and in 1843-44 (after a sojourn in Rome) he himself directed the Gewandhaus concerts made famous by Mendelssohn. Shortly after, he inaugurated a series of subscription concerts in Dresden, also conducting a chorus, and there brought out two operas (_Traum in der Christnacht_, 1845, and _Konradin_, 1847). Finally he did for Cologne what Mendelssohn had done for Leipzig by organizing the conservatory and the Gewandhaus concerts: he established the Cologne conservatory (1850) and became conductor of the _Konzertgesellschaft_ and the _Konzertchor_, both of which participated in the famous Gürzenich concerts and the Rhenish music festivals. The eminence of his position may be deduced from the fact that in 1851-52 he was asked to direct the Italian opera in Paris. As teacher and pianist he was no less renowned. For that reason alone history cannot ignore him.