Part 11 (2/2)

as _Verrath_, or _Entfuhrung_, or _Meine Liebe ist Grun_, we shall hardly a.s.sert that their limit has here been suggested by any timidity or any lack of emotional force. In short, when confronted with the facts, the whole attack dwindles into a statement that Brahms' pa.s.sion is sane and manly--a conclusion which we are not in any way concerned to deny.

But at least, it may be urged, the range of feeling is circ.u.mscribed: there is little humour, little gaiety, little expression of the brighter and more genial aspects of life. Granted, with a few notable exceptions, but the same may be said of aeschylus and Dante, of Milton and Wordsworth. It is merely a relic of primitive barbarism that makes us look upon music as an adjunct to conviviality, as an appanage to the 'banquet of wine,' as a pleasant emotional stimulus designed for the amus.e.m.e.nt of an idle hour. Music is an art of at least the same dignity as poetry or painting, it admits of similar distinctions, it appeals to similar faculties, and in it, also, the highest field is that occupied with the most serious issues. Not that we have any need to undervalue the charm of its more playful moments: we may enjoy Offenbach in precisely the same way as we enjoy Lab.i.+.c.he; but it is no very extreme paradox to say that Tristan is a greater work than Orphee aux Enfers, and that La Cagnotte is on a different literary plane from Lear and Hamlet. And in like manner, if we are disposed to find fault with Brahms because the greater part of his work is grave and earnest, let us at least endeavour to realise how such a criticism would sound if it were directed against the Divina Commedia, or the Agamemnon, or Paradise Lost.

Indeed, it is incredible that anyone should listen to Brahms' melody and not be convinced. Do we want breadth? There is the Sestett in B flat, the Second Symphony, the Piano Quartett in A. Do we want tenderness?

There is the Minnelied, there is 'Wie bist du meine Konigin,' there is the first Violin Sonata. Is it simplicity? We may turn to Erinnerung, to Sonntag, to the later pianoforte pieces. Is it complexity? We have the Symphony in E minor, the four Concertos, the great masterpieces of vocal counterpoint. For pure, sensuous beauty, apart from all other attributes, it is impossible to surpa.s.s the Schicksalslied, or the F major Symphony, or the Clarinet Quintett. Indeed, the difficulty in Brahms is to find a poor tune or a clumsy pa.s.sage. No doubt, in work of such wide scope and extent, there will always be parts that do not appeal to a given hearer, that represent a mood with which he is out of sympathy, or contain some form of expression that fails to interest him; but, at the very lowest, we may say that the mood of Brahms is never ign.o.ble, and its expression very seldom inadequate. Even the unlucky and much-abused theme in the third movement of the Clarinet Trio has certain qualities of style which redeem it from triviality; and in any case it remains almost a solitary exception--one cankered bud in a whole garden of delight.

Here a word may be said on Brahms' indebtedness to the actual melody of previous musicians. It is indisputable that in his work we sometimes find phrases, and very rarely complete strains, which recall Beethoven, or Schubert, or Schumann. But, in the first place, there is seldom or never any case of direct quotation, the outline of an idea is borrowed and filled with a new content; and in the second place, a charge of plagiarism is only serious if it implies poverty of invention. That one man may steal a horse while another may not look over the hedge, is, if considered aright, the highest embodiment of abstract justice: the thief may be your personal friend, in whose honesty of intention you have every reason to confide, the face at the field-edge may wear a hang-dog look which fills you with not unnatural apprehension.

And seriously, it is idle to suppose that Brahms adopted these pa.s.sages--half-a-score, perhaps, in a list of a hundred and twenty elaborate compositions--because he felt that his own supply was running short, and that it must needs be supplemented by a raid over the border. Plagiarism means either the appropriation of an entire work, or the embellishment of a poor texture with some patch of purple that does not belong to the artist. It has nothing whatever to do with these casual and unimportant reminiscences.

There are one or two matters of detail in Brahms' melody which it may be worth while to notice. In the first place, it is conspicuously diatonic, founded for the most part on the ordinary notes of the simplest scale, and so indued with a robustness and a virility which is wanting to the progression by semitones. Besides, he is thus enabled to keep his chromatic effects in reserve, either for purposes of remote modulation, as in the aeolsharfe, or for marking an emotional crisis, as in the slow movement of the Horn Trio, or the close of the stanza in Feldeinsamkeit.

Against this, no doubt, may be set his use of the flattened sixth, which is so frequent as to be almost a mannerism, but it will be observed that this appears more often in the harmonisation of the melody than in its actual statement. It is a point of colour, not a point of drawing.

Again, there are two general types of melodic curve; one which rises and falls by a progression of consecutive notes, one which follows the const.i.tuent parts of a chord in arpeggio. As a rule, the great melodies of the world contain elements of both, with a characteristic preponderance of the former; and attempts to construct tunes out of the latter alone, as, for instance, the opening theme of Weber's Second Pianoforte Sonata, have usually ended in disappointment. But to this rule Brahms is an exception. In a large number of his themes the arpeggio predominates, and always with a special interest and a special personality. Thus, in Von ewiger Liebe, in the Sapphic Ode, in the Violoncello tune, from the first movement of the B flat, Sestett we have melodies designed after this pattern which are not only clear and salient, but strikingly beautiful as well. It will be seen that in all three cases the same device is employed, a pa.s.sage from dominant to mediant, which leaves the intervening tonic untouched, and in this small matter is indicated the real secret of their effectiveness. Brahms does not merely take the harmonic notes as they are presented by the simple arpeggio, he makes selection among them, omitting one and emphasising another, until he has given character to the whole progression. It is hardly extravagant to say that there is as much difference between a chord-tune of Brahms and a chord-tune of Weber as between a well-written accompaniment figure and an Alberti ba.s.s.

A third feature is the remarkable variety and ingenuity of his metrical system. The device of cross-rhythm acquires with him an entirely new significance; it does not defy the restrictions of the bar, but totally disregards them. In the first movement of the Violin Concerto, for instance, the measure of three crotchets is traversed by a phrase of five thrice repeated, the effect of which is a momentary obliteration of the time signature, and the subst.i.tution not of a similar rhythm in slower tempo, but of an interpolated phrase, which seems to stand wholly out of relation to the beat: and yet the pa.s.sage does not project from the general plane of the movement, as do the famous syncopated chords in the Eroica, it is woven into the texture, and forms a h.o.m.ogeneous part of the substance. Again Brahms is fond of placing his melody so that the stress falls outside the princ.i.p.al accent of the bar, thus baffling the hearer who feels that rhythm and tempo are really the same, but is yet conscious that for the moment they do not coincide. It would be an interesting experiment for any musician, who has never seen the Quartett in G minor, to write down from dictation the first Pianoforte phrase of the intermezzo; and an instance even more striking may be found in the first movement of the Clarinet Quintett, where the string melody seems to be s.h.i.+fted forward a quaver in advance of the beat, until the solo instrument sets the pa.s.sage back in its place, and the discrepancy is resolved. Here, then, is another reason why the music of Brahms is difficult at a first hearing. 'Was ist das uberhaupt fur ein Takt?' said the Viennese critics, after vainly endeavouring to count their way through a complicated pa.s.sage, and the inexperienced beginner will often feel tempted to sympathise with their impatience. But, as we gradually learn how to thread the intricacies of the phrase, and how to balance the alternatives that proffer their incompatible claims, we gain a more lasting pleasure from the intellectual stimulus than can ever be afforded by glowing harmony or by opulence of tone. And if it be objected that this is little better than a musical enigma, a mere piece of child's play below the dignity of a serious art, then the answer is, that dramatic irony must fall under the same condemnation, for it aims at precisely the same effect. To confuse the n.o.ble with the trivial employment of artistic illusion, is to see no difference between a play of Sophocles and a puppet show.

Lastly, we may notice the rightness and finality which mark the most characteristic of his phrases. In Shakespear it often happens that we come across a line where there is nothing unusual in the thought, nothing recondite in the language, nothing but the simplest idea exhibited in the simplest words, and yet when we read it we feel at once that it could have been said in no other way, and that it can never be said again. And, in his own art, Brahms too has this gift of making simplicity memorable. For instance, in the opening theme of the F minor Quintett, there is nothing that can be called a device; the short loop, by which the second melodic curve picks up the first, is common enough in music; so is the use of the two alternative leading notes, so is the repet.i.tion of the same emphatic sound on the chief accent of three successive figures. But no one who has once heard the phrase can ever forget it: and no one can imagine its being altered by a single note without serious loss and detriment. In a word, it is inevitable, and therefore final: a plain statement of a primary truth which remains with us as a delight when the most elaborate epigrams have pa.s.sed away into weariness or oblivion. And in two of the Violin Sonatas, in the A minor Quartett, in a hundred other works and movements, we shall find that the first sentences give an equally striking ill.u.s.tration of this power.

Many composers become commonplace when they try to be simple: they can only seize our attention with an effort, with some special trick of colour or contrast. Brahms, who has at his command every shade in the whole gamut of colour, can make an abiding masterpiece with a few strokes in black and white.

In the foregoing a.n.a.lysis, nothing has been attempted except a bare description of the organism. The mystery of life, the breath of thought and inspiration, the secret language by which mind speaks to mind,--all these are beyond our reach, and in dealing with them we should only confess our ignorance of our own inadequacy. But this at least we may say, that wherever the divine principle is present, it makes itself known by the witness of visible signs--by law, by progress, by inter-relation of parts and unity of function. If, then, we can read the signs, we may guess at the thing signified: if the words be clear and consecutive, we may claim that there is a meaning in the sentence. In music it is possible, as the old Psychologists fabled, that the soul is the true realisation of the body, the power that moulds and shapes the organs into their fulness of existence and energy. And thus, though we can never put into words what we mean by the soul of music, we may yet point to perfection of body as its evidence. No man will deny that the art of Brahms is a living force--a genuine, spontaneous outcome of personal feeling and personal vitality. And, if it be so, the a.n.a.lysis of its external form may, to some extent, indicate its possession of the more spiritual gifts.

That he stands beside Bach and Beethoven is hardly any more a matter for controversy. All three are poets of the same order--n.o.ble, dignified, majestic--followers of the statelier muses, and of Apollo, who teaches to men the truths of prophecy. All three are consummate artists, in whose supreme mastery of utterance the highest message has found fit and adequate expression; and finally, in all three alike may be seen the culmination and fulfilment of an epoch in musical history--a climax of achievement which not only closes the chapter of its own age but renders possible the further record of the ages, to come. True, the work of Brahms is still too near us to receive its proper meed of appreciation.

We are not yet so familiar with his method as with that of his two forerunners: in his speech there is still something new and strange which now and again baffles our understanding. But all true art is unfathomable: we see the play of colour upon its surface, and know from the very richness and glory of the sight, that below are depths which no plummet can measure. By our century of experience we have learned to know a little of Beethoven: we shall no more master his secret than we shall enter into the mind of Shakespear or Goethe. And in like manner, if we call Brahms obscure, we are imputing our own weakness as the fault of a man who is too great for us. It is not for nothing that we love best those of his writings which we have most carefully studied. It is not for nothing that every decade adds to the number of those who see in him the highest expression of our present ideal. When music attains to fuller knowledge and n.o.bler practice, it will grant him a due place among its foremost leaders, and to us who honour him as a monarch, will succeed a generation which reverences him as a hero.

FOOTNOTES:

[55] Dr Parry, _Art of Music_, pp. 173-4.

[56] Compare the corresponding movements in Schumann's D minor Violin Sonata and Pianoforte Quintett.

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