Part 3 (1/2)

The ”Moonlight Sonata,” however, is less rigid in fore sonata In it, in fact, Beethoven may be said to have broken away fro phrase ”quasi una fantasia,” signifying that, although he calls the work a sonata, it has the characteristics of a free fantasy

Instead of opening with the usual rapid ins with a broad and beautiful slow one, a sustained melody, a poem of profound pathos in retto which Liszt called ”a flower 'twixt two abysses,” the second ”abyss”

being the last movement, which is one of Beethoven's most impassioned creations At the end both of the first retto the usual wait between the divisions of a sonata is o the direction ”attacca subito il sequente,” literallyan inner relationshi+p between the movements so close that there must be only the briefest possible pause between them

This sonata is a true drama of life, a story of unrequited passion It is dedicated to one of the great beauties of Beethoven's tih it is known that the composer subsequently was deeply in love with her cousin, the Countess Therese Brunswick, he is believed to have been in love with Giulietta at the tiht Sonata” The countess was not insensible to his passion She already was engaged to Count Gallenberg, but one day, co excitedly into the presence of her cousin Therese, she threw herself at the latter's feet, ”like a stage princess,” and exclai the ly, wonderfully beautiful Beethoven, if only it did not involve lowering ave up Beethoven and led a life, none too happy, with her Count Connecting the ”Moonlight Sonata” with this episode in Beethoven's life, the firstof love, deeply pathetic because no response is evoked by the longing it expresses The second retto, is the coquetish Giulietta ould not ”lower herself socially” by enius The thirdout his passion and despair to the night

Froreatest master of the classical period to a co and who has been called not inaptly, ”the Chopin of the North,”step But the pianolist can travel with seven league boots

Grieg's most widely known compositions are four of the pieces of incidental music which he wrote to Ibsen's draian literature Without atte here to follow up this parallel, it may be said that he is a curious combination of ne'er-do-well, dreamer and philosopher, with a pronounced streak of i a touch of the extravagant and grotesque to estion of the weird and supernatural

”Peer Gynt” has its roots in Norwegian folklore and ritten by Ibsen in Italy when he was about thirty-seven years old, and it precedes the probleh Peer's character is in itself a co in his incidentalor even hinting at the curiously contradictory nature of the principal role in the play, one of the ical studies in modern literature His music deals with the more superficial aspects of the story and is pictorial rather than intellectual or profoundly emotional The principal selections for the piano-player from the ”Peer Gynt” music, are contained on two rolls with two selections to each roll One of theives the music of ”Anitra's Dance” and ”In the Hall of the Mountain King”; the other the scenes ”Daybreak” and ”Death of Aase” Were these selections to be arranged in the order in which they occur in the drain with the ”The Hall of the Mountain King” and follow this, in the order mentioned, with ”Aase's Death,” ”Anitra's Dance” and ”Daybreak” On the rolls, however, the pieces are not arranged in the order of their occurrence in the play, but in the sequence which is most effective from a musical standpoint--just as in this book I have purposely refrained fro any set, historical sequence, but have adopted a purely hter kind to that of a more serious character

”Anitra's Dance” is an episode of the drama laid in Morocco which Peer has reached in the course of his wanderings Anitra is a lithe-li, and, when he promises to endow her with a soul, promptly inforradually coaxes all his jewels froallops away, showing herself a true exemplar of the ”eternal fe the better of the eternal masculine Be that as it race In the scene ”In the Hall of the Mountain King”

the trolls gather for the hter When Peer, at the last h the ceremony, the trolls dash at him One bites himself fast to his ear

Others strike him He falls They throw themselves upon him in a heap

At this criticalbeneath them in torture, the sound of distant church bells is heard, the trolls take to flight, the palace of the Mountain King collapses and Peer is standing alone on a mountain The scene may be construed as one of his supernatural experiences, as a nightory of a stricken conscience ”Daybreak” which opens the second roll is in Egypt, Peer standing before the statue of Me for the rays of the rising sun to evoke theto tradition many thousand years old, is drawn fro paints the colors of an Oriental daybreak rather than attee of the great desert, thrilling with song at the first kiss of the rising sun In the ”Death of Aase” Peer watches his mother's life slowly ebb away and seeks to divert herhih subjective suggestion, that he is the forerider of a beautiful chariot in which she is seated, so that the poor wo has felt the pinch of penury, dies with a vision of wealth and glory before her eyes created for her by the son, worry over who with the lyric trend of his genius, Grieg has ignored the grotesque and ghastly humor of the situation, and has contented hiic aspect, hisin character somewhat like a funeral ian touch in Grieg's ”Bridal Procession Passing By,” Op 19, No 2, froins with a curiously droning rhyth from a distance Over this rhyth along as if theat the head of the marchers As the procession approaches and the music becomes louder, one hears in the bass an accentuation of the characteristic rhythm, like the tap of a bass drum When the march has swelled to a forte, it sinks to a brief piano, as if the winding path had led the procession away again

Then there is another brief outburst, this time fortissimo, as if the marchers were quite near; and then a pianissimo, as if they had passed behind a hill and alain, the procession goes by, and there is a delicious effect as the march dies away in the distance, the rhyth softer and softer, while the little hopping and skipping ure, so's ”Peer Gynt” suite was coed for pianoforte by the coinal fore body of instruements for pianoforte of orchestral works usually are so co the the h the instrument on which he plays, he is able to overcome the most complicated chords and the most difficult and complex runs, as easily as if they were music of the simplest kind If the pianola sometimes is called mechanical, the injustice thus done it is due to its superhus that are wholly beyond the fingers even of the greatest virtuosos, yet can be rendered fluently and also expressively by the pianolist who has genuine feeling for music

It is this coives to Liszt's enormously difficult pianoforte transcription of Saint-Saens'

symphonic poem, ”Danse Maccabre,” which even for orchestra is an extremely difficult piece, its place in the pianolist's repertory

This is one of the raphically descriptive of its subject, which is the ”Dance of Death,”

”nifies a place of burial Both in the literature and in the painting of the Middle Ages in Europe and particularly in church decoration, figures the legend that once a year on Hallowe'en the dead arose fro Death himself as master of ceremonies Saint-Saens' symphonic poem realistically describes these scenes, and, as if to attribute the inspiration for his in, the composer has placed above his score a poem by Henri Cazalis Mr Edward Baxter Perry has made a free transcription of this poem, which, at the same time, serves capitally as a description of the h-bone, The bone of a saint, I fear, Death strikes the hour Of his wizard power, And the specters haste to appear

Fro the su round With obeisance profound, They salute the King of the Dead

Then he stands in the ruesoht In the ht Must dance to that wild refrain

Now the fiddle tells, As the hastly pleasures; And they clatter their bones As with hideous groans They reel to thosemeasures

The churchyard quakes And the old abbey shakes To the tread of thattrack, Where a skeleton whirls with a ghost

The night wind looraves And the fiddle bow leaps with glee

So the swift hours fly Till the reddening sky Gives warning of daylight near

Then the first cock crow Sends the below To sleep for another year