Volume Ii Part 48 (1/2)
159.
FREEDOM IN FETTERS-A PRINCELY FREEDOM.-Chopin, the last of the modern musicians, who gazed at and wors.h.i.+pped beauty, like Leopardi; Chopin, the Pole, the inimitable (none that came before or after him has a right to this name)-Chopin had the same princely punctilio in convention that Raphael shows in the use of the simplest traditional colours. The only difference is that Chopin applies them not to colour but to melodic and rhythmic traditions. He admitted the validity of these traditions because he was born under the sway of etiquette. But in these fetters he plays and dances as the freest and daintiest of spirits, and, be it observed, he does not spurn the chain.
160.
CHOPIN'S BARCAROLLE.-Almost all states and modes of life have a moment of rapture, and good artists know how to discover that moment. Such a moment there is even in life by the seash.o.r.e-that dreary, sordid, unhealthy existence, dragged out in the neighbourhood of a noisy and covetous rabble. This moment of rapture Chopin in his Barcarolle expressed in sound so supremely that G.o.ds themselves, when they heard it, might yearn to lie long summer evenings in a boat.
161.
ROBERT SCHUMANN.-”The Stripling,” as the romantic songsters of Germany and France of the first three decades of this century imagined him-this stripling was completely translated into song and melody by Robert Schumann, the eternal youth, so long as he felt himself in full possession of his powers. There are indeed moments when his music reminds one of the eternal ”old maid.”
162.
DRAMATIC SINGERS.-”Why does this beggar sing?” ”Probably he does not know how to wail.” ”Then he does right.” But our dramatic singers, who wail because they do not know how to sing-are they also in the right?
163.
DRAMATIC MUSIC.-For him who does not see what is happening on the stage, dramatic music is a monstrosity, just as the running commentary to a lost text is a monstrosity. Such music requires us to have ears where our eyes are. This, however, is doing violence to Euterpe, who, poor Muse, wants to have her eyes and ears where the other Muses have theirs.
164.
VICTORY AND REASONABLENESS.-Unfortunately in the aesthetic wars, which artists provoke by their works and apologias for their works, just as is the case in real war, it is might and not reason that decides. All the world now a.s.sumes as a historical fact that, in his dispute with Piccini, Gluck was in the right. At any rate, he was victorious, and had might on his side.
165.
OF THE PRINCIPLE OF MUSICAL EXECUTION.-Do the modern musical performers really believe that the supreme law of their art is to give every piece as much high-relief as is possible, and to make it speak at all costs a dramatic language? Is not this principle, when applied for example to Mozart, a veritable sin against the spirit-the gay, sunny, airy, delicate spirit-of Mozart, whose seriousness was of a kindly and not awe-inspiring order, whose pictures do not try to leap from the wall and drive away the beholder in panic? Or do you think that all Mozart's music is identical with the statue-music in _Don Juan_? And not only Mozart's, but all music?-You reply that the advantage of your principle lies in its greater _effect_. You would be right if there did not remain the counter-question, ”_On whom_ has the effect operated, and _on whom_ should an artist of the first rank desire to produce his effect?” Never on the populace! Never on the immature! Never on the morbidly sensitive! Never on the diseased! And above all-never on the _blase_!
166.