Part 12 (1/2)

In France there has been a national school this long time in which all the young composers are educated; a school which has turned out men like Berlioz, Gounod, Bizet, Delibes, Ma.s.senet, and a great and honored roll of composers and artists. French music differs from German primarily in taking itself less seriously. Everything tends to be shorter; there is a more fanciful and capricious use of pa.s.sing tones and by-tones of every sort, and its general complexion is that of daintiness and sensuous sweetness, rather than of deep thought. The French school is therefore well adapted for imparting refinement to the style of a performer.

The writers of the Scandinavian peninsula have certain peculiarities in their melody which impart to their work a trait of local color. This one finds in the writings of Grieg, Svendsen, and to some extent in those of Gade. A similar coloring was. .h.i.t upon much earlier by Mendelssohn in the beginning of the ”Hebrides” overture.

America can not be said, as yet, to have attained a national school.

We had one genius who might be called self-instructed--viz., Louis Moreau Gottschalk. All of our composers since have been German educated, or educated under teachers who themselves were German taught, and as yet our music is little more than a slightly modified German production, although our composers are beginning to show as much originality and force as the better cla.s.s of the writers of any country.

Selecting only those names the most prominent in the several countries, and more particularly the composers who have distinguished themselves in pianoforte music, the following seem, on the whole, the most worthy of our attention:

In Germany--Brahms, Dvorak, Raff, D'Albert, Nicode, Moszkowski, Jensen, Reinecke, Paderewski, and Scharwenka.

In Russia--Rubinstein, Henselt, Tschaikowsky, Balakirew, Glazounow, and Karganoff.

In France--Stephen h.e.l.ler, Saint-Saens, Pierne, Faure, Widor, Guyrand, and Benoit.

In Scandinavia--Grieg, Gade, Svendsen, Kjerulf, and Meyer-Helmund.

In America--Gottschalk, Mason, Wollenhaupt, Foote, Chadwick, MacDowell, and others.

CHAPTER II.

BRAHMS.

JOHANNES BRAHMS.

Born at Hamburg, May 7, 1833.

Died at Vienna, April 3, 1897.

In Johannes Brahms we have a musical master of the first order. His quality as master was shown in his marvelous technic, in which respect no recent composer is to be mentioned as his superior, if any can be named, since Bach, as his equal. This technic was at first personal, at the pianoforte, upon which he was a virtuoso of phenomenal rank; but this renown, great as it is in well-informed circles, sinks into insignificance beside his marvelous ability at marshaling musical periods, elaborating together the most dissimilar and apparently incompatible subjects, and his powers of varying a given theme and of ever unfolding from it something new. These wonderful gifts--for such they were, rather than laboriously acquired attainments--Brahms showed at the first moment when the light of musical history s.h.i.+nes upon him.

It was in 1853, when the Hungarian violinist, Edouard Remenyi, found him at Hamburg and engaged him as accompanist, and having ascertained his astonis.h.i.+ng talents, brought him, a young man of twenty, to Liszt at Weimar, with his first trio and certain other compositions in ma.n.u.script. The new talent made a prodigious effect upon Liszt, who needed not that any one should certify to him whether a composer had genius or merely talent. And that Brahms on his own part made the regrettable mistake of falling asleep while Liszt in turn was playing for him his newly completed sonata for pianoforte, is an incident which was important only for the moment. The Liszt circle took up the Brahms cult in earnest, played the trio at the chamber concerts, and the members, when they departed to their homes, generally carried with them their admiration of this new personality which had appeared in music.

William Mason, the New York teacher and pianist, was at Weimar at the time, and when he came back to New York and, with the young Theodore Thomas, opened the celebrated series of chamber concerts,--modeled, as the prospectus said, ”after those of Mr. Liszt at Weimar,”--the first program included the Brahms Trio in B-flat. From that time until now, for nearly forty years, Mr. Thomas has paid his tribute to the genius of Brahms, introducing the new works as fast as they have appeared, and repeating the older ones many times.

Johannes Brahms was born at Hamburg, May 7, 1833, the son of a fine musician who was player upon the double ba.s.s in the orchestra there.

The boy was always intended for a musician, and his instruction was taken in hand with so much success that at the age of fourteen he played in public pieces by Bach and Beethoven, and a set of original variations. At the age of twenty he was a master, and it was in this year that he accompanied Remenyi, made the acquaintance of Joachim and Liszt, and had a rarely appreciative notice from a master no less than Robert Schumann himself, who, in his ”New Journal of Music,” said:

”He has come--a youth at whose cradle graces and heroes kept watch.

Sitting at the piano, he began to unveil wonderful regions. We were drawn into more and more magical circles by his playing, full of genius, which made of the piano an orchestra of lamenting and jubilant voices. There were sonatas, or rather veiled symphonies; songs whose poetry might be understood without words; piano pieces both of a demonaic nature and of the most graceful form; sonatas for piano and violin; string quartets, each so different from every other that they seemed to flow from many different springs. Whenever he bends his magic wand, there, when the powers of the orchestra and chorus lend him their aid, further glimpses of the magic world will be revealed to us.

May the highest genius strengthen him! Meanwhile the spirit of modesty dwells within him. His comrades greet him at his first entrance into the world of art, where wounds may perhaps await him, but bay and laurel also; we welcome him as a valiant warrior.”

The next few years were spent by Brahms in directing orchestra and chorus at Detmold and elsewhere, and in Switzerland, which always had great attraction for him. In 1859 he played in Leipsic his first great pianoforte concerto; most of the criticisms thereon were, however, such as now excite mirth. In the later years of his life he played in Leipsic again, conducted several of his works, and was greeted with the reverence and enthusiasm due the greatest living representative of the art of music. In 1862 Brahms located in Vienna, where he lived until his death. Mr. Louis Kestelborn, in ”Famous Composers and their Works,” says: ”About thirty years ago the writer first saw Brahms in his Swiss home; at that time he was of a rather delicate, slim-looking figure, with a beardless face of ideal expression. Since then he has changed in appearance, until now he looks the very image of health, being stout and muscular, the n.o.ble, manly face surrounded by a full gray beard. The writer well remembers singing under his direction, watching him conduct orchestra rehearsals, hearing him play alone or with orchestra, listening to an after-dinner speech or private conversation, observing him when attentively listening to other works, and seeing the modest smile with which he accepted, or rather declined, expressions of admiration.”

The Serenade, Opus 11, in D major, was written before 1859. It consists of six pieces, in form a.n.a.logous to a suite. The first is marked allegro molto. It is in the key of D, the melody opening for horn. This is followed by a counter-theme of clarinets, after which all the instruments take part. Much is made of a pleasing motive in thirds by the clarinets. There is a charming elaboration containing bold and free modulations, touching such keys as D-flat, B-flat, D minor, etc.

The second movement, scherzo, allegro non troppo, is in the key of D minor and in the style of a Beethoven scherzo, which, again, is a legitimate outgrowth of certain movements of Bach. It opens with an idea for violins and ba.s.soons, and goes on in a very buoyant and vigorous manner, with abundant syncopations, modulations, and unexpected incidents. It is beautifully developed. Then it gives place to a trio in B-flat, in which the violins start with a syncopated rhythm, and later all the orchestral persons take their turn in the development. After this is finished the scherzo is recapitulated.

The adagio opens with a melody for ba.s.soons and ba.s.ses, which later leads to a very legato and lovely melody for violins, treated at times with very elaborate figuration, especially at the return of the princ.i.p.al theme.

The first menuetto begins with a melody for clarinets, which is developed into a short form. Then follows the second menuetto, which many would have called a trio, excepting that it really is a complete little minuet, the leading idea of which is given by the second violins; after this the first menuetto returns.