Chapter III (2)

It is a well-known matter of history that, during his early struggles for existence in Vienna, while experiencing the inevitable period of probation, well named the “starvation epoch,” common to the lot of every creative artist, and the equally inevitable heritage of great genius, born fifty years in advance of its time,—lack of appreciation and scathing abuse from the self-constituted, self-satisfied foes of all progressive art, called critics,—Beethoven had the additional misfortune to fall deeply, but hopelessly, in love with a beautiful and brilliantly accomplished, though shallow, young heiress, of noble birth and lofty social position, Julie Guicciardi by name, who was, for a short time, one of his pupils. She is said to have returned his affection, but the union was, of course, under the then prevailing conditions, utterly impossible; and even if it could have taken place, would doubtless have proved most incompatible and uncongenial. She was a countess, accustomed to luxury and splendor; he an obscure musician fighting for the bare necessities of life, hardly higher in the social scale than her father’s valet and not so well paid. It was absurd; and blind Love had blundered once again in his marksmanship. Or was it an intentional, cruel shaft from the tricky little god? In any case, Beethoven was deeply smitten; and this unlucky passion darkened and saddened his life for many years, and is accountable for much of the somber tone which we find in his compositions of that period.

So much is fact. The story goes that one evening, when wandering in the outskirts of the city, on one of those long, solitary walks, which were his only relaxation, he chanced to pass an elegant suburban villa in which a gay social gathering was in progress. Some one was playing one of his recent compositions as he went by—a rare occurrence in those days. His attention was attracted and, half unconsciously, he stopped to listen—stopped, as luck would have it, in a full flood of moonlight, was recognized from within, and a laughing company of the guests, Julie among them, sallied out, surrounded and captured him, and fairly compelled him to come in and play for them. They insisted that he should improvise and should take for his theme the moonlight which had been the cause of his capture and their unexpected pleasure. The usually reticent, intractable, not to say morose, Beethoven at last consented—under who shall say what subtle spell of Julie’s voice and eyes?—and seated himself at the piano.

But those who are at all familiar with his music know that Beethoven was, except in a few rare instances, an emotional, not a realistic writer; a subjective, not an objective artist; reproducing not the scenes and circumstances of his environment or fancied situations, but the emotional impressions which they produced upon his own inner being, colored by his own personality and the mental conditions of the moment, often just the reverse of what might naturally have been expected. What he most keenly felt on this particular occasion was not the soft splendor of the summer night, or the opulent luxury and careless, superficial gaiety about him, but the bitter and cutting contrast which they afforded to his own struggling, sorrow-darkened, care-laden existence, full of disappointments and humiliations, of petty, sordid, yet unavoidable anxieties, with those twin vultures ever at his heart—a hopeless love, an unappreciated genius. The result was moonlight music in which no gleam of moonlight was reflected; only its somber shadow lying heavily and depressingly upon the stream of his emotions, which poured themselves out through the harmonies of this composition with an unconscious power and truth and a pathetic grandeur which have justly made it world-famous.

The first movement expresses unmingled sadness, but without any weakness of vain complaint; a calm, candid, but hopeless recognition of the inevitable.

The second seems to be an attempt at a lighter, more cheerful strain, a fleeting recollection of his ostensible theme; but it is only partially successful and very brief, and is followed by a reaction into a mood far more intense and darkly fierce than the first.

The last movement is full of indignant protest, of passionate rebellion, with occasional bursts of fiery defiance. In it we see the strong soul, surging like the waves of a mighty sea against the rocky borders of fate, striving desperately to break through or over them, and returning again and again to the fruitless attempt, with a courage only equaled by its futility. It is the Titan Beethoven battling with the gods of destiny.

It is, of course, unlikely, even impossible, that this improvisation,—the tradition being true,—was precisely the music of the Moonlight Sonata in its present form. It could but furnish the themes, outlines, and moods of the various movements, subsequently developed into the composition so widely known and admired.

Beethoven: Sonata Pathétique, Op. 13

With the exception, perhaps, of the “Moonlight,” this work is the best known to the world at large, and the one most frequently attempted by ambitious students of the Beethoven sonatas. Its familiar title was not bestowed by Beethoven himself, but by some publishers later, and seems to me inaptly chosen; in fact, not at all justly applicable to the composition as a whole. It was probably suggested partly by the minor key, but mainly by the second movement, which is gravely pathetic in mood. As a whole the work is far too strong, intense, and dramatic to warrant the name. _Sonata Tragica_ would have been better. I have not been able to find any authority for attributing to it definite descriptive significance in the objective sense. It is the forceful expression of a pronounced emotional condition, or rather, sequence of experiences, embodied with all the fervent glow and impetuous power of early manhood, yet with the precision and finish of maturity. Every measure is replete with intense feeling as well as intrinsic beauty. There is not a superfluous note or a meaningless embellishment in it from beginning to end; not an ounce of sawdust stuffing to fill out the defective contours of a stereotyped form—which, alas! is not true of many of Beethoven’s piano works; and, all in all, it seems to the present writer to be the most musically interesting and evenly sustained composition for the piano from Beethoven’s pen.

The broad, impressive introduction marked _grave_ is full of strength and somber majesty. It is gloomily grand rather than pathetic, like the epitome of some stern fatalist’s philosophy of life, and reminds one of Swinburne’s lines:

“More dark than a dead world’s tomb,
More high than the sheer dawn’s gate,
More deep than the wide sea’s womb,
Fate.”

The first subject of the allegro movement is anything but pathetic. It is full of fire, energy, and restless striving; of fierce conflict and desperate endeavor; of the defiant pride of genius exulting in the unequal combat with the world’s stony indifference, and the inimical conditions of life.

The second theme is warmer and more nearly approaches the lyric vein. It is half pleading, half argumentative in tone, strikingly suggestive of the mood so common to young but gifted souls, in the bitterness of their first pained surprise at the cruel contrast between the ideal and the actual in life. It seems to strive to reason with unreasoning and unreasonable facts, and to touch the heart of a heartless fate with its tender pleading. The continually reiterated embellishments upon the melody notes here should be given distinctly as a _mordente_, with marked accent on the last of the three tones in every case, not played as a triplet with accent on the first, as is so often done, and even so indicated in many standard editions, thus materially weakening the effect of the passage, rendering it trivial and characterless as well as out of keeping with the general mood. This is what Kullak used to call “the lazy way” of playing it. The striking contrast between the first and second subjects should be maintained throughout, with greatest possible distinctness, and the closing chords must be given boldly, defiantly, like a challenge proudly flung to all the powers of darkness, to fate, no matter how adverse.

With the second movement comes a radical change of mood. The first impetuous vigor has been expended in the struggle; the first joy of combat and self-reliant consciousness of strength have ebbed away like a receding tide, leaving the soul exhausted, discouraged, but not despairing. There is a moment of truce in life’s battle, a moment of calm, though sad reflection; a moment in which to contemplate the impassable gulf between the heaven-piercing heights of ambition and the petty levels of possible human achievement, in which to dream, not of victory and happiness,—those are among the unattainable ideals,—but of rest and sweet forgetfulness, and to say with Tennyson—

“What profit do we have to war with evil?
Let us alone.”

There is an occasional hint of the volcanic fires of passion, slumbering beneath this surface calm of a spirit sent to earth, but not broken, gathering its forces for a fresh uprising. But as a whole it is tranquilly thoughtful, gravely introspective, and should be rendered with great deliberation and profound earnestness.

The last movement is hardly up to the standard of the other two, either musically or emotionally. Still it is interesting, symmetrically made, and not devoid of depth and intensity. It is perhaps a logical conclusion to the work, if we regard the whole as a sort of tone-poem on life. With most of us in youth, our boundless courage and aspiration lead us to dare all things and believe in the possibility of all things; to hurl ourselves into the fight with destiny, with the limitless presumption of untried powers and unwarrantable hopes. Later comes a period of depression and discouragement, in which nothing seems worth effort, so far do realities fall below our expectations. Then, if we are reasonable, we learn, at last, to adapt ourselves in a measure to things as they are, to content ourselves in some wise with the flowers, since the stars are out of reach, and to measure achievement relatively, not by the standard of our first glorious, ever-to-be-regretted ambitions, but of the possible, the partial and imperfect, under the limitations of inflexible earthly conditions; and we quench our soul’s thirst as best we may with the meager, mingled draught of bitter-sweet that life offers.

This movement is light, rapid, and would be cheerful but for its minor key and its undertone of plaintive sadness. It seems like an attempt to take a brighter view of life, but is still shadowed by past experiences,—a touching gaiety dimmed by the mist of recent tears,—and this is, perhaps unintentionally, the most nearly pathetic of the three movements. It should be given with life and warmth, and, despite the pedants, with a free use of the rubato, but not with extreme velocity.

Beethoven: Sonata in A Flat Major, Op. 26

This sonata, like the “Moonlight” and several others in the collection of Beethoven’s piano work bearing this name, is not cast in the usual sonata mold; in fact, it is not a sonata at all, according to the modern technical application of the term. But as the name sonata was originally derived from the Italian verb _sonare_, to sound, or, in musical parlance, to cause to sound, to play upon a musical instrument, and was used to designate any piece of instrumental music whatsoever, in distinction from that which was intended to be sung, it is perhaps as correctly employed in this connection as in any other.

The first movement of this work consists of a simple, beautiful, melodious, noble lyric theme, followed by five strongly contrasted and strikingly characteristic variations, and an exquisitely tender and expressive little coda.

The _theme and variations_, not only in this, but in every case where the form is well wrought out, is a musical illustration of the natural, logical process of evolution. The simple, vital germ of thought or feeling, inherent in the theme, as the life principle inheres in the germ of wheat, is seen to expand gradually and develop through the successive variations into new and changing forms of ever-increasing beauty and suggestiveness until every latent possibility of expression has been matured and exhausted, and the idea has been presented to us in every practicable light and from every attainable standpoint; just as the gradual growth and ripening of the wheat, subjected to nature’s infinite variety of conditions and her ceaseless alternation of day and night, cold and heat, sun and rain, calm and storm, present to us daily some change of form and hue, some new phase of its progressive existence, until complete maturity is reached and its utmost limit of development attained.

A still better analogy may be drawn from human experience itself, from the constant modification and development of a given character, subjected to the shifting vicissitudes and changeful, often conflicting influences of daily life. It is interesting and helpful, in studying or listening to any work in the _theme and variation_ form, to conceive of the theme as symbolizing a definite personality, as of hero or heroine in a narrative, a personality clearly marked, but undeveloped, distinct to the mind of the composer, and which the performer or hearer should endeavor to grasp with equal definiteness. Each variation may then represent some varying phase of life, some different experience or influence, or emotional condition, bearing upon this typified personality. The peculiar mood and suggestive characteristics of each variation must be clearly perceived and strongly emphasized, and its due relation to the whole work preserved, while the underlying, all-pervading theme must be kept intelligibly recognizable through all its most capricious and widely contrasting modifications, to give purpose and continuity to the whole; just as the strongly marked individuality of a well-drawn character is traceable through all the manifold vicissitudes of life and may be counted on to follow out its own inherent laws of evolution, no matter what the circumstances or conditions to which it may be subjected.

Let us, in the case of this sonata, conceive of the first simple theme as suggesting, through the subtle symbolism of tone effects, the character of our hero, gravely tender, calmly resolute, nobly, warmly, generously affectionate, with much of innate strength, tempered by gentleness and latent passion, refined by ideality.

In the first variation life presents itself to him as a serious but interesting and agreeable problem, possessing the charm of mystery. He investigates, speculates, reflects, lingers fascinated upon the threshold of the shadowy unknown, enjoys the vague delight of its dim but inviting perspective.

In the second he faces storm and conflict, revels in the discovery and fullest exercise of his own strength and courage and in his successful wrestle with danger and difficulty. The mood here is bold, heroic, full of life and energy.

In the third our hero is suddenly confronted by the twin giants, death and despair. The shadow of their sable forms envelops him with impenetrable gloom. His soul is crushed by a weight as of a leaden pall, and from the depths it sends up a half-stifled cry of unutterable, inarticulate anguish, equaled by nothing in literature, unless it may be by the verses of Edgar Allan Poe entitled “The Conqueror Worm.”

The fourth variation brings a reaction toward a brighter mood, flashes of sunlight through parting clouds, fitful gleams of spasmodic gaiety, half hope, half defiance, showing intermittently against the somber background of grief.

Finally, the fifth and last variation is a tender, cheerful love poem, telling, with a charming intermingling of fervent warmth and playful brightness, of the sovereign magic of human affection, in which the tried spirit has at last found solace and repose; while the brief but significant little coda seems like a dreamy retrospect, a tender reminiscence of bygone joys, and griefs, and struggles, tempered by distance and brightened by the light of present happiness.

If the work ended here it would be well rounded and complete, and it may be, in fact often is, presented in this form, entirely omitting the other three movements. But though not indispensable to the symmetry of the composition, the remaining three movements of the sonata are all intrinsically interesting and enjoyable, and embody three radically differing types of emotional life. In them we are dealing no longer with an individual experience, but with general moods, with abstract elements and conditions.

The principal subject of the scherzo is bright, piquant, exhilarating; expressing unmixed, uncontrolled gaiety, toned down for a moment in the trio to a touch of arch tenderness, but immediately breaking away again into rollicking hilarity. It should be given with great clearness and crispness, very little pedal, and a clean, sparkling tone, like sharply cut glass icicles with the sun behind them. The term _scherzo_ is an Italian word, signifying a jest, and all that is most capricious, sportive, and humorous in music finds expression in this form.

The third movement is one of the two great funeral marches for the piano in existence, the other being that in the sonata, Op. 35, by Chopin. This one by Beethoven is so forcefully characteristic in mood and movement, so full of gloomy grandeur, of dramatic intensity, of depth and richness of somber harmonic coloring, that it may be ranked among his very ablest artistic creations. It should be played with the utmost fullness and sonority of tone, but not extremely loud even in the climaxes, and never hard or rough; so as to convey the impression of suppressed power and of a noble, sustained sorrow, not a spasmodic, petulant distress. Its inflexible, unvarying rhythm throughout should suggest, not only the slow, solemn movement of the funeral procession, the heavily tolling bells, the awed, hushed grief of the mourners, but as well the more abstract and universal thoughts of the slow but relentless march of time and destiny and the might and majesty of death.

The last movement of the sonata is in the usual rondo form, light, graceful, ethereal, with a certain subdued cheerfulness, telling of dreamy aspiration and vague, intuitive faith in ultimate good, of the airy, upward flight of light-winged hope toward a brighter realm beyond the grave, where pain and death shall be remembered only as the minor cadences and passing dissonances which lead to the enhanced beauty of the final major harmony.

The sonata as a whole is one of the most interesting productions of Beethoven’s second period, and is technically within the reach of most good amateurs.

Beethoven: Sonata in D Minor, Op. 31, No. 2

This is not usually considered a descriptive composition, but Beethoven, when questioned regarding it, answered: “Read Shakespeare’s ‘Tempest.’” With this hint from the most authoritative of all sources, the composer himself, we may easily trace, if not a strongly realistic, at least a suggestive reference in the music to that most romantic drama by the greatest of English play-writers. And we may also find a pertinent rebuke for those who are inclined to sneer at the idea of descriptive suggestion in music in general and in Beethoven’s works in particular, in spite of Beethoven’s own words: “I always have some picture in mind when I write.”

The first movement of this sonata opens with an extremely simple theme, consisting merely of the notes of the common triad—_do-mi-sol-do_—a theme so bald, so apparently devoid of beauty and latent resources that only Beethoven would have ventured to use it; and only his genius could have given it any degree of interest. It is evidently chosen with deliberate intention to indicate naïve simplicity and natural primitive conditions of life in the island, as Prospero found it, with that half-animal, half-savage man, Caliban, as the most prominent figure in it. His singular, ludicrously grotesque personality may have suggested some of the clumsily rollicking passages in this movement. The tempest is only hinted at, not vividly portrayed—a tempest in miniature, a storm in fairyland. Still, it is unmistakable, though divested of all its terrors, just as it must have appeared to Prospero himself, whose magic power and complete mastery over the elemental forces placed him above and beyond all fear.

The second movement, full of sweet repose, of grave, tranquil happiness, is like the hearts of the two lovers in the drama, safe in the loving and powerful protection of Prospero, living close to the gentle, passionless breast of Mother Nature, childlike in their simple trust, their spontaneous affection, their simple joy in the passing hour. It seems at first rather tame and colorless to our modern ears, accustomed to the ceaseless stress and din of complex and conflicting elements, warring together in the life and art of our own day; but if we can forget for a moment the intensity, the restless questioning and striving of the present and go back in spirit for a century or two to more normal conditions, we shall find this music restful and soothing as the green sweep of woods and meadows on a June morning in the country, after the glare and fever of a city ball-room.

The closing movement, with its light, tripping rhythm, its playful, half-facetious mood, is evidently intended to recall the pranks of that merry, tricksy sprite, Puck, so brimming over with good-natured fun and laughing mischief, yet so ready and able, at his master’s command, to “put a girdle round the world in forty minutes.”

The whole is a work of delicate fancy rather than emotional depth or dramatic force. It shows us a somewhat unusual phase of Beethoven’s genius, and is but one more proof of his versatility, one more justification for his title, “The Shakespeare of Music.”

Beethoven: Sonata, C Major, Op. 53

This is one of the best and justly most beloved of the pianoforte works from what is known as Beethoven’s Second Period; that is to say, the period when his creative power was at its zenith, when his genius had reached its fullest maturity, yet showed no sign of waning; when, in its individual development, it had outgrown all youthful crudities, all reminiscent suggestions of older masters, occasionally to be found in his earlier writings, yet before it had lapsed into that somewhat obstruse, metaphysical vein to which some of us are inclined to object in his latest works, in which individuality is sometimes exaggerated into eccentricity. The present writer is not among those who regard his latest sonatas for the piano as in any sense his greatest works, and it is something of a question whether any pianist would play or any audience tolerate the Op. 111, for instance, if it bore any signature but that of Beethoven. The works of his second or middle period are instinct with far more genuine spontaneity and true musical effect.

The Op. 53 is familiarly known among musicians under two names. It is often designated as the “Aurora Sonata,” because of its suggestive reference to, not to say actual description of, those wondrous fireworks of the heavens, the northern lights. The first movement particularly, with its constant change of key, its well-nigh infinite variety of light and shade, above all, its constant flash and play of scintillating embellishment and brilliant passage work, cannot fail to call up before the imaginative mind the varying hues, the shifting, intermittent splendors of the aurora borealis, with its flashes of crimson and orange, and its flickerings of softest violet and rose.

The second movement forms a distinct and restful contrast and quiet background to the brilliancy of the first. It is slow, reposeful, and gravely impressive, symbolizing the hushed solemnity of the quiet, frost-clear, winter night.

The last movement, a prefect rondo in form, returns to the mood and general style of the first. It is bright and crisp, full of brilliant ornamentations and striking contrasts, and should be given with the idea of the northern lights again distinctly before the mind. Its airy, buoyant melody, floating lightly upon swiftly flowing waves of accompaniment, reminding one of that Wotan’s bridge which the ancient Northman fancied he beheld in the glittering, far-spanning arch of the aurora, that bright, but perilous, path of heroes from Earth to Walhalla.

This composition is also known as the “Waldstein Sonata,” because dedicated to Count Waldstein, of Vienna, one of Beethoven’s best friends, during his earlier years in the Austrian capital. Count Waldstein was a descendant of the famous general and most prominent Catholic leader, who figured so prominently during the thirty years’ war in Germany, that sanguinary struggle between Catholics and Protestants, from 1618 to 1648. The name of this brilliant leader, a Bohemian noble of vast wealth and power, and commander of the Austrian imperial forces, is usually spelled Wallenstein; but the name and lineage are identical with that of the Count to whom this sonata is dedicated—the confusion arising from the difference between the German and Bohemian orthography. The original Wallenstein, though unquestionably a man of pronounced intellectual ability and a devout, enthusiastic Catholic, was a firm believer in what we term the obsolete science of astrology and an earnest student of its mysteries. He had fullest faith in all the mystic auguries and prophetic omens of the skies, and never undertook any important step without first carefully consulting them, aided by the profounder knowledge of a trained, professional astrologer, whom he always kept close at hand. It is of interest to note that the famous German scientist, Kepler, served for many years as the private astrologer of Wallenstein, In the researches and belief of Duke Wallenstein he included every manifestation of the aurora borealis. In fact, he seems to have laid particular stress upon these as bearing directly upon his own life and career, as fraught with special prophetic import for him personally. It is a curious coincidence, in view of these facts, that the most brilliant display of the northern lights recorded for the first half of the seventeenth century took place on the very evening on which Wallenstein was assassinated, only a few hours prior to his murder. In the light of his theories it would almost seem like an attempt of his old friends in the skies to warn him of impending peril. At all events, the aurora was, according to his belief, an important factor in his life. His descendants, who naturally treasured all the facts and traditions concerning their brilliant ancestor, would therefore regard the aurora with special interest as being, in a certain sense, connected with their own family history. It was for this reason, as a delicate and appropriate compliment to his friend, that Beethoven, in writing a work which was to be dedicated to him, chose this theme and embodied it in a composition which, for his time and in view of the then prevailing musical conditions, as well as the necessary limitations of the strict sonata form, is remarkably, even graphically, descriptive.

Beethoven: Sonata, E Minor, Op. 90

This composition is one of the shortest, easiest, and, from the standpoint of magnitude, least important of Beethoven’s later works. It has but two movements, neither of them of extreme technical difficulty, and in structure it fails, in various essential respects, to fulfil the requirements of the conventional sonata form. Indeed, the same may be said of many of his best known and most played sonatas, which are sonatas only in name, according to the generally accepted technical significance of the term, notably the Op. 26, Op. 27, No. 2, and others. Yet this little Op. 90, in E minor, is among his most genial, interesting, and gratefully musical compositions. In spite of an occasional touch of pedantry, it is full of melodic charm and emotional suggestiveness. It is not descriptive in the sense of portraying either actual scenes or events. It deals not with action, but with a series of varying, strongly contrasted moods.

It is dedicated to Count Lichnowsky, a resident of Vienna, with whom the composer was intimately acquainted, and of whose touching little love story it is a musical embodiment. The Count’s personal experiences of mind and heart suggested the work and formed its emotional content. He was a member of one of the most aristocratic Viennese families, belonged to the highest nobility, and had inherited a proud old name and vast estates. He occupied a lofty position in both social and diplomatic circles, but he had become seriously and profoundly attached to a young actress of unquestioned talent and rising fame, but of obscure and very humble origin—a girl of exceptional beauty, sterling character, and refined, winning personality, but, considered from the standpoint of worldly position and class traditions, a wholly unsuitable alliance for the great noble.

It is difficult for one educated in democratic America to grasp the conditions involved in such a situation, or to understand and to sympathize with the painful struggle in the mind of the Count, the maddening doubts, the heart-sick vacillation on her account, as much as his own, before the final decision was reached; the obstacles to be overcome, the opposition of friends and relatives to be met or defied, before the path could be cleared to his desired goal. On the one hand, love and happiness with the woman of his choice; on the other, social ostracism for his future wife, certainly, and for himself, probably; serious detriment to his promising career; a life of constant battle with class prejudice, of incessant petty slights and mortifications; a position necessarily trying and humiliating to both. At last, however, love triumphed over all doubts and difficulties, as it always should and must if genuine, and the wedding took place.

It is said, “All the world loves a lover,” and certainly the story of true love victorious over all opposition is the oldest and to most people the most interesting ever told. This story, or at least the emotions underlying it, expressed in music, Beethoven gives us in the two strongly contrasted movements of this little sonata: a simple drama of hearts, in two acts, written in the language of tone.

The first movement deals with the period of doubt and indecision, of mental conflict and moody alternation, of resolve and depression. Its strong, passionate minor first subject in chords expresses the struggle and unrest, the indignant protest against petty prejudice and inflexible conventionality; while its plaintive little counter-theme tells of tender longings, of sad discouragements, of hopes deferred and desire thwarted. In the development it reaches a vigorous, rough, almost dissonant climax, as of bitter defiance and fierce scorn of the world and its trammels.

The second movement, calm, fluent, and sweetly melodious, full of rest and tranquil content, deals with the period after love’s victory, when hope has been fulfilled and the heart’s unrest has been transformed to peace and happiness, where life flows onward like a placid stream, its waters brightened and purified by the glad sunlight of perfect love and full-orbed happiness, its waves murmuring the old yet ever new refrain, the simple, natural, yet magically potent melody, to which the symphony of the universe is harmonized.

There is an occasional brief suggestion of past strife and remembered trial, just sufficient to give enduring zest to the present, reposeful joy; but, as a whole, this last movement, with its constantly reiterated tender yet cheerful major melody, seems to sing over and over, with trifling variations of form, but untiring delight in its essential burden, the song of love’s completeness. A song without words it may be, but with a meaning passing words.

Beethoven: Music to “The Ruins of Athens”

This composition, or rather series of fragmentary musical sketches, containing some very original and telling movements, is wholly unknown to the American public, and unfamiliar to most musicians, except for the “Turkish Grand March,” the only number that has gained any considerable popularity. “The Ruins of Athens” is the name of a curious but very ingenious production for the stage, once quite popular in Germany—a sort of combination of the spectacular play, the musical melodrama and classical allegory, designated “A Dramatic Mask” by the author, a playwright of Vienna. It was written and produced at a time when the sympathies and interest of the Christian world were strongly enlisted for the Greeks in their gallant and desperate struggles for freedom from Turkish domination and oppression which ended successfully in 1829, after a contest of seven years.

The scene is laid in Athens, then practically in ruins. The characters, situations, and environment are all, of course, Greek. To this work Beethoven furnished the music, originally scored for orchestra, some numbers of which have since been transcribed for the piano. Of these, only two are of any real value or importance to the pianist.

Turkish Grand March

First, the “Turkish Grand March” referred to, written to accompany the march of the Turkish troops across the stage in one scene. Rubinstein, when in this country years ago, scored many of his greatest popular successes with his own effective arrangement of this number. It contains no great originality or musical depth, in fact is quite primitive in both content and structure, but is brilliant and pleasing, with a strongly marked, rhythmic swing and a shrill, strident melody which, in its intentional, bald simplicity, strongly suggests the rude but spirited martial music of a half-barbaric people, given by fife and drum. Its artistic effectiveness depends upon the skilful handling of an old but ever popular device, the audible illusion of approach and departure. The music, beginning with the softest possible pianissimo, swells in a gradual, almost imperceptible crescendo, to the heaviest obtainable triple forte, and then as gradually diminishes to double pianissimo, tapering off at last into silence; thus simulating the approach of marching troops from a distance nearer and nearer, till they pass across the stage in immediate proximity, and then their gradual receding till lost again in the distance. It is a device of which many composers have availed themselves, and makes great demands upon the player’s self-control and sense of proportion and gradation, as well as his command of the tonal resources of his instrument.

The Dance of the Dervishes

By far the most original of these numbers is “The Dance of the Dervishes,” the second one referred to. This brief but complete composition is full of striking originality and graphic realism. It is one in which Beethoven’s genius seems to have anticipated by half a century the pronounced modern trend toward descriptive or program music, and is as realistic a tone-painting as we might expect from the pen of Saint-Saëns, Wagner, or any of the recent writers. The dance was introduced into the play as an interesting local feature,—the dervishes being numerous in connection with the Turkish army,—and Beethoven naturally selected it as an effective subject for musical treatment. But, before speaking of their dancing as illustrated by Beethoven, it may be of sufficient historical interest to give a brief sketch of the dervishes themselves.

They developed as a sect or order from Mohammedanism after it was well established in the world. The name “dervishes,” which they assumed, comes from a Russian word which means “beggars from door to door.” The Arabic word which means the same thing is “fakirs.” So they are called dervishes or fakirs in different localities, but are the same body. They declared themselves Moslems, but their doctrines, in many respects, differed widely from those of Mohammed. Their beginnings are in obscurity, but they were a well-established order by the eleventh century. Their expressed beliefs, as we earliest come to know them, were chiefly and decidedly religious. They seemed to represent the spiritual and mystical side of Islam, having a philosophy much like that of the Hindus, and perhaps borrowed from them. Their central idea seemed to be that the soul is an emanation from God, and that man’s highest aim is to seek a total absorption in Him. Their various and strange rites and ceremonies seem only different ways by which they sought for union with the deity. In this way they claimed that they secured miraculous powers. At first they largely lived in convents, under rules and orders, giving themselves up to meditation and penance, observing the rules of poverty, abstinence from wine, and celibacy, in the higher classes. Their growth was rapid; but in time they largely fell away from their highest estate, ceased to be so strictly a religious body, broke up into various ranks and sub-orders, became more free from conventional rules, more nomadic, and more wild and fanatical; but their social and political influence ever increased, so that they have long been regarded as a dangerous element in the state. There are crowds of them all through the East that seem to belong to no society, wandering mendicants, and, though often skilled in trades, largely subsisting by professional jugglery, bigoted in their fantastic beliefs, and varying in their rites and strange ceremonies. And yet always and everywhere there is still some general adherence to the old appointed religious ways, a peculiar tie or affiliation with the distinctive body or sect, however differing in certain notions or modes of worship. The lowest devotee of them all claims that the dervishes or fakirs constitute a distinct body of religious believers in spite of all divisions and varieties in manifestation. They acknowledge no authority but that of their spiritual guides, as that of the Mahdi in the Soudan, where these fanatics have been so lately fighting the English. They agree also in not following the letter of the Koran, or the general teachings of its interpreters. As a whole body, in all its orders, all over the world, they seek, as an act of worship, to get into an ecstatic state. They do this in various ways: Sometimes by drinking hasheesh, but more generally by some physical or mental ways, and while under the excitement they perform astounding feats in jugglery or mysticism that really seem almost miraculous. We cannot stop to detail these different methods. One of them is the dance of a certain order which has received the name of the “dancing or whirling dervishes.”

This is the dance of Beethoven—an ingenious method of excitement and self-torture, and at the same time a strict religious ceremonial. It consists of little more than an exceedingly rapid gyration upon an imaginary pivot, spinning round and round like tops, with almost incredible velocity, till overcome by dizziness from the protracted rotary motion, or by physical exhaustion, they fall in a swoon, after passing through all the successive stages of delirious frenzy always attending intense fanatical religious excitement, no matter what the race or faith. The dance is accompanied by frantic gestures, wild cries, and doleful groans, and often by a species of weird oriental music, adapted to its rhythm, and intended to stimulate the dancers to greater excitement, and consequently greater exertion and speed.

This music, as well as a portrayal of the dance, Beethoven gives us in this composition, which has been admirably transcribed for the piano by Saint-Saëns. It begins softly and a little slowly. As the dancers gradually get under way and warmed to their task, it gradually grows in speed and power as the frenzy increases, till it reaches a furious, almost insane climax; then rapidly diminishes as, one by one, the dancers, exhausted or swooning, drop out of the circle.

It demands great freedom and facility in octave playing, and endless verve and abandon of style; and needs, to be comprehended and enjoyed by an audience, some explanation of its character and artistic signification, either given by the player or printed on the program.

WEBER
1786 1826

Weber: Invitation to the Dance, Op. 65

Critics have generally ascribed to this composition the honor of inaugurating a new and important department in the realm of tonal creation—namely, that of descriptive or program music; that is to say, music which attempts to embody in tone something more than mere ideal beauty of metrical form and rhythmic symmetry, and to express something more than vague emotional states, too intangible for utterance in words; music which conveys not only sensuous pleasure and indefinite moods, but a distinct, realistic suggestion; which gives, against a background of harmony, with its general emotional coloring, an actual picture of some scene in nature or experience in life; music, in a word, which takes its place in line with the advanced position of the other arts, in progress toward dramatic truth and worthy realism. Descriptive music, like landscape painting, has been the latest, and in some respects the loftiest, phase of the art to be developed.

We can scarcely with justice credit to Weber, as a strictly original departure, the opening of this new path in the domain of musical art, which was in modern times to lead so far and to such important and magnificent results. Descriptive music, of a more or less pronounced character, had already appeared from time to time, though rarely so labeled, and mostly in detached fragments, in the works of most of the greatest composers, preëminently in those of Haydn, Mozart, Gluck, and Beethoven. Even the austere Handel was not entirely free from occasional digressions into this field. But we may safely ascribe to Weber the honor of being one of the first to have the full courage of his convictions and to declare himself boldly for this phase of creative art, by giving to this distinctly descriptive composition an unmistakably descriptive title, thus fearlessly unveiling and emphasizing its realistic intentions.

The work opens with a simple but serious passage of recitative in single notes, in the baritone register, conveying the “Invitation to the Dance” as if by a mellow masculine voice. Then comes the reply, in a soft soprano, brief, kindly, but as if offering some playful objection, as the lady, true to her sex, waits to be asked a second time before saying yes. The invitation is repeated more urgently, followed by the assenting treble, as the lady steps upon the floor on the arm of her partner. A brief dialogue ensues, in which the two voices can be distinctly traced by their differing registers, alternating and interwoven, as the pair pace the polished floor, exchanging those airy nothings of the ball-room. Then the orchestra enters, with a passage of brilliant resonant chords, full of spirited life and gay challenge, calling the dancers to their places, and the waltz proper begins. Its crisp, piquant rhythm and free elasticity of movement, its bright, graceful melody and cheerful major harmony, all express youthful elation, fresh, joyous excitement, thoughtless, hence unmixed, gaiety.

As the steps and the pulses quicken, there comes on that exhilaration of mood familiar to all dancers, caused by the lights, the flowers, the perfumes, the music, the gay costumes, the beauty and the gallantry of a ball-room, the rhythmic exercise of the muscles and free circulation of the blood, all acting together to produce upon the senses and the fancy an effect amounting almost to intoxication; an echo of which is awakened in every breast, which has felt it often and keenly, on catching a strain of distant dance music, to the end of life. This mood is depicted in the composition before us by an exuberance of runs and ornamentation, following the first simple enunciation of the waltz melody.

After rising to quite a little climax of ecstasy, this mood lapses abruptly into the second waltz theme, slower, more lyric, dreamy, languorous, almost melancholy in tone, conveying that impression which every susceptible person feels, to the verge of rising tears, after listening long to waltz music, which is quite different from its first inspiring effect, and which every devoted dancer feels equally surely in the prolonged waltz. The time has come when one has grown so accustomed to the waltz movement as to be scarcely conscious of it, seems rather, in a state of rhythmic rest, to be floating on the atmosphere, which ebbs and flows to a three-four measure. Thoughts, breath, pulses, flying feet, the murmur of voices, all existence has adapted itself to this waltz tempo, as to its normal element, and the very planets seem to swing through space in triple rhythm. The true waltz has but two moods, which touch the opposite poles of emotion—that of joyous elation and of dreamy languor. We may call them the _Allegro_ and the _Penseroso_ of the waltz. And Weber, in the “Invitation to the Dance,” has recognized this and woven his composition of but two themes, representing the contrasting phases of feeling described.

In the midst of the second warm and sinuous melody, we hear again the masculine voice, in less conventional accents, and the soft responses of the treble, through quite a colloquy, while the accompaniment keeps ever steadily to the undulating waltz movement, till the two voices merge gradually into the general murmur and are drowned in the flourishes of the orchestra, as our couple disappears in the whirl, with which the waltz, taking up again the first sparkling melody with accelerated pace, draws with increasing confusion to its close. When the dance has ceased, and the orchestra is silent, the introductory theme recurs, as the gentleman leads his lady to a seat and expresses his thanks with the sedate courtesy of his first greeting; and thus ends this charming composition and this glimpse into that gay social world, where the hand some, talented, but rather dissolute young composer was only too great a favorite in his early years.

In spite of a certain baldness and primitive naïveté noticeable in the treatment at times, the “Invitation to the Dance,” so widely and justly popular, is one of Weber’s ablest pianoforte compositions, both from a musical and a dramatic standpoint. Regarded from that of pure music, it is especially interesting from the fact that it was the first composition to raise the waltz, used up to that time only as an accompaniment for dancing, to the level of legitimate and recognized artistic musical forms. In the hands of Schubert, Chopin, Strauss, Rubinstein, and Moszkowski, these successive kings of the waltz, it has since reached its present development.

The “Invitation to the Dance” was written a few months after Weber’s happy marriage with the opera singer, Caroline Brandt, and is dedicated to “My Caroline.”

Weber: Rondo in E Flat, Op. 62

The rondo is the most ancient, simple, and natural form of homophonic musical construction. It is based upon the folk-song and is always in one or the other of the more or less complex song forms. It consists of a simple melodic period, usually eight measures in length, bright and cheerful in character, alternating several times, virtually unchanged at each reappearance, with one or more subordinate subjects, in a more lyric or dramatic mood, for the sake of variety and contrast.

An apt but homely illustration of the rondo may be found in that most laborious and indigestible product of American cookery, that culinary absurdity, originating in our natural tendency toward display and dyspepsia, the layer cake. In the most primitive form of rondo, or more strictly speaking, rondino, the first theme appears but twice, corresponding to a first and second layer of cake, with the filling of cream or jelly between, represented by the second contrasting subject, of a more piquant and savory flavor, between the first theme and its reappearance—a sort of musical Washington pie. In the more extended forms, the principal melody recurs several times, occasionally with slight changes of treatment, but without radical transformation or development, like a successive series of cake layers of slightly different flavor, but the same fundamental material and an entirely different filling between them, each time; and a coda, or musical postscript, is occasionally added by way of frosting over the whole.

The rondo form is by nature adapted to the expression of the lighter, more pleasurable emotions. Graceful fancy, playful tenderness, arch coquetry, sparkling vivacity, here find their most ready and appropriate embodiment. The form is sometimes employed to express pensive sadness or restless, impatient longing, but never effectively to utter grave, profound thought or grand and lofty sentiment. Hence it most frequently appears as the final movement of symphony or sonata, a sort of light, pleasant dessert after the more substantial repast.

_Rondo_ is one of those words of many relatives, both in our own English and other languages. Probably the great-grandfather of them all is the Latin _rotundus_, and probably the first emigrant to America, in the musical line of descent, was the old-fashioned _round_, familiar to our ancestors. Cousins and other close connections of the rondo are in music the _roundelay_ and in poetry the _rondeau_, _rondel_, and _roundel_, all bearing a striking family resemblance both in external features and inward characteristics.

The poet Algernon Charles Swinburne, in his “Century of Roundels,” presents to us many charming representatives of this most modern branch of the family. The following verses, quoted from the work mentioned, are the best possible descriptive illustration of the form, scope, and characteristics of both the roundel in poetry and the rondo in music:

“THE ROUNDEL.

“A Roundel is wrought as a ring or a star-bright sphere,
With craft of delight and with cunning of sound unsought,
That the heart of the hearer may smile if to pleasure his ear
A Roundel is wrought.

“Its jewel of music is carven of all or of aught—
Love, laughter, or mourning—remembrance or fear—
That fancy may fashion to hang in the ear of thought.

“As the bird’s quick song runs round, and the hearts in us hear
Pause answer to pause, and again the same strain caught.
So moves the device whence, round as a pearl or tear,
A Roundel is wrought.”

The E flat rondo of Weber is a fine specimen of its class, perfect and considerably complex in form and charmingly exhilarating in mood, with just enough of dramatic suggestion to give the necessary contrast of shading. It is neither distinctly descriptive nor deeply emotional. It pleases like a piece of rare old lace or hand embroidery, rather than like a picture or poem, by its delicate workmanship, its fine finish, and its beautiful, skilfully combined materials. Its mission is to charm the esthetic taste, like some dainty little Italian villa of variegated marbles, half hidden in a grove of olive and orange trees, by its symmetry of outline, its harmony of varied colors, and the simple, joyous, sunshiny life and love of life which it suggests, rather than to arouse the intellect or stir the depths of feeling by historic or legendary association with vivid or tragic human interests.

This composition should be played freely and fluently, with a certain gaiety and vivacity, but at a reasonably moderate tempo, with a tone crisp and sparkling, not dry, yet not too legato; clear, but not heavy. The player should employ few, if any, of the modern rubato effects and be careful to avoid blurred or too close pedaling, especially in the first subject. A somewhat slower tempo and more decided lyric effect should be introduced when the left-hand theme in B flat major occurs, and still more during the suggestion of dramatic recitative, alternating between the two hands, which opens with the half note in the right hand on G flat, A natural, and E flat. But, as a whole, the tempo should be kept very steady, and a strongly marked rhythmic distinctness and precision are absolute essentials in the proper presentation of this, as of all Weber’s works.

Weber: Concertstück in F Minor Op. 79

Although written for piano and orchestra, and still occasionally given as a concerto in symphony concerts, this work is more familiar and more frequently heard as a piano solo merely, or with the orchestral parts arranged for second piano, in which form it is very popular, especially for use in pupils’ recitals and music schools. It is one of the best and most effective of Weber’s compositions for piano, and one of the most successful of his attempts in the line of descriptive music, in which he was a pioneer; for as Sir George Grove well says, “His talent shone most conspicuously whenever he had a poetical idea to interpret musically.” On the subject of this concerto, he continues: “Though complete in itself as a piece of music, it is prompted by a poetical idea, for a whole dramatic scene was in the composer’s mind when he wrote it.... The part which the different movements take in this program is obvious enough, but a knowledge of the program adds greatly to the pleasure of listening.”

It is rare indeed to find in print any accurate and detailed information concerning the artistic and dramatic content of any particular composition; but in regard to this Concertstück by Weber, we are fortunate enough to have the whole story on which the music was founded given in the words of Benedict, who had it from the composer himself.

“The châtelaine sits alone on her balcony, gazing far away into the distance. Her knight has gone to the Holy Land. Years have passed by, battles have been fought. Is he still alive? Will she ever see him again? Her excited imagination calls up a vision of her husband, lying wounded and forsaken on the battlefield. Can she not fly to him and die by his side? She falls back unconscious. But hark! What notes are those in the distance? Over there in the forest something flashes in the sunlight—nearer and nearer! Knights and squires with the cross of the crusaders, banners waving, acclamations of the people. And there, it is he! She sinks into his arms. Love is triumphant. Happiness without end. The very woods and waves sing the song of love. A thousand voices proclaim his victory.”