Part 12 (2/2)

Chopin's dances are conventionalized, and do not all speak the idiom of the people who created their forms, but their original characteristics ought to be known. The Polonaise was the stately dance of the Polish n.o.bility, more a march or procession than a dance, full of gravity and courtliness, with an imposing and majestic rhythm in triple time that tends to emphasize the second beat of the measure, frequently syncopating it and accentuating the second half of the first beat:

[Music ill.u.s.tration]

[Sidenote: _The Mazurka._]

National color comes out more clearly in his Mazurkas. Unlike the Polonaise this was the dance of the common people, and even as conventionalized and poetically refined by Chopin there is still in the Mazurka some of the rude vigor which lies in its propulsive rhythm:

[Music ill.u.s.tration] or [Music ill.u.s.tration]

[Sidenote: _The Krakowiak._]

The Krakowiak (French _Cracovienne_, Mr. Paderewski has a fascinating specimen in his ”Humoresques de Concert,” op. 14) is a popular dance indigenous to the district of Cracow, whence its name. Its rhythmical elements are these:

[Music ill.u.s.tration] and [Music ill.u.s.tration]

[Sidenote: _Idiomatic music._]

[Sidenote: _Content higher than idiom._]

In the music of this period there is noticeable a careful attention on the part of the composers to the peculiarities of the pianoforte. No music, save perhaps that of Liszt, is so idiomatic. Frequently in Beethoven the content of the music seems too great for the medium of expression; we feel that the thought would have had better expression had the master used the orchestra instead of the pianoforte. We may well pause a moment to observe the development of the instrument and its technique from then till now, but as condemnation has already been p.r.o.nounced against excessive admiration of technique for technique's sake, so now I would first utter a warning against our appreciation of the newer charm. ”Idiomatic of the pianoforte” is a good enough phrase and a useful, indeed, but there is danger that if abused it may bring something like discredit to the instrument. It would be a pity if music, which contains the loftiest attributes of artistic beauty, should fail of appreciation simply because it had been observed that the pianoforte is not the most convenient, appropriate, or effective vehicle for its publication--a pity for the pianoforte, for therein would lie an exemplification of its imperfection. So, too, it would be a pity if the opinion should gain ground that music which had been clearly designed to meet the nature of the instrument was for that reason good pianoforte music, _i.e._, ”idiomatic” music, irrespective of its content.

[Sidenote: _Development of the pianoforte._]

In Beethoven's day the pianoforte was still a feeble instrument compared with the grand of to-day. Its capacities were but beginning to be appreciated. Beethoven had to seek and invent effects which now are known to every amateur. The instrument which the English manufacturer Broadwood presented to him in 1817 had a compa.s.s of six octaves, and was a whole octave wider in range than Mozart's pianoforte. In 1793 Clementi extended the key-board to five and a half octaves; six and a half octaves were reached in 1811, and seven in 1851. Since 1851 three notes have been added without material improvement to the instrument. This extension of compa.s.s, however, is far from being the most important improvement since the cla.s.sic period. The growth in power, sonority, and tonal brilliancy has been much more marked, and of it Liszt made striking use.

[Sidenote: _The Pedals._]

[Sidenote: _s.h.i.+fting pedal._]

[Sidenote: _Damper pedal._]

Very significant, too, in their relation to the development of the music, were the invention and improvement of the pedals. The s.h.i.+fting pedal was invented by a Viennese maker named Stein, who first applied it to an instrument which he named ”Saiten-harmonika.” Before then soft effects were obtained by interposing a bit of felt between the hammers and the strings, as may still be seen in old square pianofortes. The s.h.i.+fting pedal, or soft pedal as it is popularly called, moves the key-board and action so that the hammer strikes only one or two of the unison strings, leaving the other to vibrate sympathetically. Beethoven was the first to appreciate the possibilities of this effect (see the slow movement of his concerto in G major and his last sonatas), but after him came Schumann and Chopin, and brought pedal manipulation to perfection, especially that of the damper pedal. This is popularly called the loud pedal, and the vulgarest use to which it can be put is to multiply the volume of tone. It was Chopin who showed its capacity for sustaining a melody and enriching the color effects by releasing the strings from the dampers and utilizing the ethereal sounds which rise from the strings when they vibrate sympathetically.

[Sidenote: _Liszt._]

[Sidenote: _A dual character._]

It is no part of my purpose to indulge in criticism of composers, but something of the kind is made unavoidable by the position a.s.signed to Liszt in our pianoforte recitals. He is relied upon to provide a scintillant close. The pianists, then, even those who are his professed admirers, are responsible if he is set down in our scheme as the exemplar of the technical cult. Technique having its unquestioned value, we are bound to admire the marvellous gifts which enabled Liszt practically to sum up all the possibilities of pianoforte mechanism in its present stage of construction, but we need not look with unalloyed grat.i.tude upon his influence as a composer. There were, I fear, two sides to Liszt's artistic character as well as his moral. I believe he had in him a touch of charlatanism as well as a magnificent amount of artistic sincerity--just as he blended a laxity of moral ideas with a profound religious mysticism. It would have been strange indeed, growing up as he did in the whited sepulchre of Parisian salon life, if he had not accustomed himself to sacrifice a little of the soul of art for the sake of vainglory, and a little of its poetry and feeling to make display of those dazzling digital feats which he invented.

But, be it said to his honor, he never played mountebank tricks in the presence of the masters whom he revered. It was when he approached the music of Beethoven that he sank all thought of self and rose to a peerless height as an interpreting artist.

[Sidenote: _Liszt's Hungarian Rhapsodies._]

[Sidenote: _Gypsies and Magyars._]

Liszt's place as a composer of original music has not yet been determined, but as a transcriber of the music of others the givers of pianoforte recitals keep him always before us. The showy Hungarian Rhapsodies with which the majority of pianoforte recitals end are, however, more than mere transcriptions. They are constructed out of the folk-songs of the Magyars, and in their treatment the composer has frequently reproduced the characteristic performances which they receive at the hands of the Gypsies from whom he learned them. This fact and the belief to which Liszt gave currency in his book ”Des Bohemiens et de leur musique en Hongrie” have given rise to the almost universal belief that the Magyar melodies are of Gypsy origin.

This belief is erroneous. The Gypsies have for centuries been the musical pract.i.tioners of Hungary, but they are not the composers of the music of the Magyars, though they have put a marked impress not only on the melodies, but also on popular taste. The Hungarian folk-songs are a perfect reflex of the national character of the Magyars, and some have been traced back centuries in their literature.

Though their most marked melodic peculiarity, the frequent use of a minor scale containing one or even two superfluous seconds, as thus:

[Sidenote: _Magyar scales._]

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