Chapter III (3)

The composition is in four movements, and it is hardly necessary to add that the first, _larghetto_, represents the sorrowful meditation of the lonely châtelaine upon her balcony; the second, _allegro_, her lively imagination picturing her lord upon the field of battle; the third, _march_, the tramp of the returning crusaders with flying banners; and the fourth, _finale_, the reunion when “the very woods and waves sing the song of love.”

Those Philistines who contend that program music is but a mushroom growth of the last decades of the nineteenth century will hardly care to come face to face with this instance of it, backed by the authority of Grove, Benedict, and von Weber, and nearly a hundred years old.

Weber-Kullak: Lützow’s Wilde Jagd, Op. 111, No. 4

Among the better class of rather old-fashioned but effective transcriptions for the piano, which have fallen somewhat into neglect of later years, Kullak’s pianoforte version of Weber’s “Lützow’s Wild Ride” deserves attention.

The original ballad, which formed the text of Weber’s song, was one of the best of many of similar character by Karl Theodor Körner, that trumpet-voiced Swabian poet, the popular idol of his time in southern Germany, who sounded the notes of patriotism, conflict, and heroism in simple but ringing verses, which still echo in the hearts of his countrymen, and which describe the scenes, and glow with the fervid spirit of the century’s dawn.

Major Lützow, the hero of the ballad, was an officer in the Prussian Hussars during the brief and disastrous struggle with Napoleon in 1813, when his country went down, crushed well-nigh out of existence, by the invincible power and iron hand of the all-conquering Emperor. When Berlin surrendered, the Prussian army was disarmed and disbanded, and the King, Frederick William III, was forced to accept with thanks the most humiliating conditions of peace; and even the beautiful Queen Louisa, the people’s beloved divinity, had to humble herself in her despair to beg from the generosity of the victor the most ordinary concessions to the vanquished. Major Lützow indignantly repudiated the disgraceful treaty and openly defied the vengeance of the great Napoleon. Rallying a few of his gallant riders about him, he escaped to the forests, and there organized a guerrilla band, for months waging a phenomenally desperate but successful war on his own account with the world’s conqueror and his matchless army.

Lützow and his “Black Riders” were soon known far and near, the hope and pride of friends, the terror of foes; and hundreds of the best martial spirits of Germany flocked to his standard. He pushed his daring raids even across the Rhine into France, sweeping down like a whirlwind apparently from the sky, at the most unexpected times and places, leaving consternation and destruction in his track, and was gone again before the French could rally to oppose him. Soon the belief spread that the “Black Riders” were a supernatural phenomenon, an incarnation of the bloody spirit of the time, half men, half demons, bearing charmed lives, ignoring time, distance, and other human limitations, and liable to appear at any moment, without warning, in the midst of the imperial camp, or in the heart of Paris. Their very name was enough to shake the nerves of the bravest veteran.

This element of the supernatural Körner has ingeniously worked into the ballad, and it adds materially to the thrilling power of the heroic narration, though it is used, and very judiciously, not in the form of positive statement, but in a mood of shuddering inquiry and doubt.

Weber, in his vocal setting of the ballad, with his usual ability in grasping and utilizing every realistic suggestion of his subject, has emphasized both the martial and the spectral phases of the theme, treating with equal skill the spirit of martial daring and heroic patriotism which spoke in Lützow’s deeds, and the supernatural terrors which they awoke. One moment the “Black Huntsmen” sweep by us across some open moonlit plain, with a wild haste, with the clang of saber, the ring of bugle, and the tramp of rushing steeds; the next they flit before us through the gloom of the forests, vague, mysterious, like the indistinct phantoms of war. The distinct imitation of the rhythmic beat of galloping hoofs, so frequent a device in descriptive music, is effectively utilized here in accompaniment, while the melody of the song, full of trumpet-like suggestions, is raid to consist in part of actual bugle calls which were used among Lützow’s raiders.

Kullak, in his instrumental transcription, while preserving with artistic fidelity the composer’s intention in all the original effects of the song, has broadened, enriched, and intensified them, and at the same time adapted them cleverly to the resources of the piano. In places they may be still further enhanced by playing, as I would recommend to those possessing sufficient technic for it, all the scale passages for both hands in octaves, instead of single notes, as they are written, thus adding volume and brilliancy to the work as a whole.

The introduction, in rapid triplets, with marked accentuation, reproducing the exact rhythm of the gallop of horses, should begin softly, as if distant, and rise in a steady crescendo to a strong climax, suggesting the swift approach of a troop of riders; then the melody enters, bold and distinct, as if in trumpet tones, or given by the resonant voices of the dashing troopers. The piece must be varied by frequent and marked contrasts; now a trumpet-call, clear and sharp, answered by a distant echo; now a whispered hint of spectral terrors; again the sweep and rush, the clash and clamor, the delirious excitement of the impetuous charge.

The exultant climax, at the close, well expresses the sentiment of the final verse of the ballad:

“The Fatherland is free, famous, and triumphant,
Glory to the heroes whose blood has bought the victory!”

This composition of Weber’s, when given by a rousing, ringing, full-voiced male chorus of Germans, stirs the martial spirit in every breast, just as the Marseillaise fires the blood of the French. In its piano transcription, by Kullak, I recommend it to every player and teacher who is seeking something which is very difficult to find—namely: a good and effective number, martial and rhythmic in character, which is of real merit, and is a novelty to the audience of to-day, and yet has a classic name attached. It is admirably adapted to close a program or to end a group of several shorter compositions of varying mood.

SCHUBERT
1797 1828

Schubert: (Impromptu B Flat) Theme and Variations, Op. 142, No. 3

Franz Schubert, the golden sands of whose brief existence, rich with the jewel gleams of genius, ran all too swiftly through the glass of time, between the years 1797 and 1828, may be considered, if not the strongest, certainly the most genial, fluent, and spontaneous composer of the modern Romantic School, which arose and flourished so luxuriantly during the vigorous youth of our own century. He is most generally known as the master of the German “Lied” or song. This brief, concise, epigrammatic form of condensed musical expression, though not, of course, original with Schubert, received at his hand its fullest development, its highest perfection, both as regards intrinsic beauty and dramatic precision; while in quantity, as well as quality, he far surpasses all competitors in this vein of creative work. There are something like 600 of these songs from his pen, and such was his fluent versatility of production, that he is known to have completed seven of these inimitable musical gems in one day. His instrumental compositions, whether for orchestra or piano, though far less numerous, are for the most part equally able and effective, and deserve a much more frequent hearing in the concert-room than they at present receive, displaying, as they do, to the full, his inventive spontaneity, his inexhaustible fund of fresh, original melody, and the peculiar, tender, poetic grace of his style.

Most of Schubert’s best known pianoforte works, like the composition under discussion, belong to the smaller, more modest, and unpretentious forms. They are eminently soft, sweet, and winning, rarely exhibiting that breadth, grandeur, and passionate intensity with which such composers as Chopin, Schumann, and Liszt have made us familiar. But who would despise the wood anemone because it chances not to possess the voluptuous perfume of the queenly rose or the gorgeous hues of the wizard poppy?

The “theme and variations,” of which this work is an excellent example, is one of the most ancient, natural, and logical forms of musical construction. A simple melody, clearly enunciated at the beginning, is used by the composer as the musical germ of his work, from which he evolves, as by the process of spontaneous growth, all its manifold possibilities for varied expression and contrasted effect; much as the skilful orator expands from his tersely stated thesis or text, by means of elaborate comparison, analysis, antithesis, and peroration, all that far-reaching sequence of deduction and argument latent in his thought-germ. It is always fascinating to watch this growth, this gradual evolution, this play of many colored lights over the familiar theme, under the skilful and ingenious manipulation of a master hand. But there is, I claim, a deeper interest and a higher pleasure to be derived from seeking, beneath the smoothly flowing harmonies and graceful, rippling embellishment, for the allegorical significance or suggestion mirrored in their clear depths, as scenes and faces are reflected in the tranquil stream, and which are rarely, if ever, wanting in the true art work.

The “theme and variations” in music, which owes its origin to the first crude attempts of early composers to elongate and develop a musical idea into a symmetrical art form, corresponds to a very early phase of another art. I refer to the series of progressive pictures carved on the friezes of many ancient Oriental and Grecian temples, portraying successive episodes in the life of some god, hero, king, or prophet. The central figure is ever the same, however attitude, action, mood, and environment may vary, to suit the stage of his story represented in each scene. No smoke of battle, strangeness of garb, or storm of emotion can so obscure or distort the familiar lineaments that they are not recognizable, though they take contour and expression from circumstances, those variations in the theme of life. The same idea is carried out in pictorial art in the interiors of more modern edifices, when the walls of cathedrals are adorned with frescoes representing the life of Christ, in numerous consecutive panels, from the infant in the manger to the death upon the cross. Painting can tell a story, within certain limitations, as well as words, and more powerfully. The same is true of music, for those who have ears to hear.

As already stated in connection with the Beethoven sonata, Op. 26, to me the “theme and variations” always seems to represent a given character or personality, met at different times, amid varying scenes and circumstances, in many moods and situations, as would be the case in real life; developing with the progress of acquaintance and contrasting experiences, showing now one aspect, now another, according to the changes of inner emotion or outward environment, but always preserving the same individuality, an identity which lends itself to, but does not lose itself in, the vicissitudes of human existence. In the particular work before us, let the first fresh, simple, tender theme symbolize a maiden, the heroine of the story we will call her, fair, with the delicate freshness of first youth, full of the winning grace, the naïve simplicity and the dreamy poetic fancy of one of Lytton’s heroines: a young girl,

“Standing with reluctant feet
Where the brook and river meet—
Womanhood and childhood fleet.”

All the manifold vicissitudes of life are lying untried before her, with the latent possibilities of her nature waiting to be unfolded and developed by experience, that climate of the soul.

In the first variation, with its tremulous yet flowing embellishment, all is vague, uncertain, conjectural. She seems in a mood of speculation, of reverie, to be gazing forward down the dim vista of the years, and wondering, with a thrill at heart, what they promise or presage for her. It is the first rosy, dawning twilight of as yet indefinite hope and desire.

In the second, her pulses beat to a swifter, stronger measure. She has begun to taste the zest of life and is borne along impetuously on the stream of youthful exhilaration and unbroken confidence, out into the broad, full sunlight of the first great happiness. Light ripples of laughter, quick-drawn breaths of delight, a sunny circuit of bright and blithe fancies, envelop the theme and well-nigh conceal it.

The mournful melody, somber minor harmonies, and sobbing accompaniment of the third variation, so full of passionate pain, express the all too certain reaction from the former hilarious mood, the coming of that inevitable shadow of all great joy—its corresponding grief. The hour has come when the first great, crushing sorrow surges in upon the soul, in a resistless, overwhelming tide; and our heroine, from fancying that her life’s pathway was to be all roses and sunshine, is forced to find it, for the time at least, all thorns and midnight darkness, and to match her single strength with the might of woe in that struggle for supremacy which must come soon or late to all.

The fourth again changes wholly in character; is bold, energetic, spirited, almost martial. The struggle of life is in full progress. The resolute, forceful bass tones, with which the left hand enters from time to time, seem like the impetus of a strong will giving momentum to earnest purpose. This variation tells in stirring trumpet tones of victory, of the dauntless courage and the elastic strength born in noble natures of endurance and endeavor, of a character invigorated by conflict, deepened and matured by adversity; and it leads us back, at its close, through many winding ways and devious modulations, to a later happiness, expressed in the fifth and last—a happiness hard-won, but more complete than the first, though less exuberant, more ethereal and spiritual, with something in it of the mellow sunset glow.

The work closes with a tranquil coda, a brief evening retrospect, grave and thoughtful; but, on the whole, cheerful in tone, as if the backward glance were, all in all, fraught with satisfaction. Here we find the opening theme, the character melody, in all its first simplicity, but given an octave lower, in slower tempo and in full chords. Our heroine has not altered; the contours are clear, the proportions identical, not a note is wanting; but the _leit-motif_ of her personality is deeper, broader, and fuller for the experiences of life behind her, and seems to bear the imprint as of an epitaph, “I have lived and loved and labored. All is well.”

Emotion in Music

Not long since, when urging upon a pupil the necessity of bringing out the deeper mood and meaning of a certain composition, the present writer received this response: “I am afraid to make it say all that, to put so much of myself into it; people will call me sentimental!”

The reply voiced a prevailing and thoroughly American weakness. It is far too common here to find, especially among our girls, a bright, warm, impulsive nature, full of genuine sentiment and poetic fancy, choked and perverted, turned shallow and bitter, by this same paralyzing fear of ridicule; to meet persons who take a morbid pride in concealing and repressing their better selves so effectually, that even their most intimate friends shall never suspect them of being one degree less frivolous and heartless than their companions, who in their turn are doubtless vying with them in this deplorable, misguided effort to belittle themselves, their lives and influence.

It is one of the most significant and lamentable signs of the time, that any allusion to or expression of a warm, true, earnest sentiment is met in society with more or less open and bitter derision, even by those who are secretly in sympathy with it, admire the courage and sincerity of its champion, and would gladly take the same bold stand in its defense, but dare not, and so add their coward voices to swell the majority. This is the more deplorable, since this tendency is at once cause and effect. The continual and systematic denial and suppression of emotion and ideality result finally in their complete extinction in most cases, or leave them deformed and feeble, to struggle for a precarious existence in some dark, hidden recess of the soul, whose highest throne is their rightful heritage.

George Sand says, somewhere, speaking of the French, “We once had sentiment, but the sirocco of sarcasm has scorched it from our hearts, and where it grew is a desert place!” Alas for the people of whom this is true! Alas for the young man or maiden who can say, “I have no sentiment,” and speak truth. And let me here caution any young person against a light and frequent, even though purposely insincere, denial of any characteristic of value; for there is a strange and subtle sympathy between the heart and the lips, which works steadily, if stealthily, to bring them more and more into accord. A lie is in every sense a violation of the laws of nature; and what is first uttered as a conscious, flagrant falsehood, becomes less so with each repetition, till unawares a day will come which shall see it transformed into a glaring truth. Such a person, no matter how highly organized, or perfectly trained otherwise, is no better than a machine. He does not live, he simply runs.

One may not be to blame for a natural deficiency in those higher qualities which make a life warm and rich and attractive, which mark a personality as something more than an animated clod, or even a well-adjusted mental mechanism; he must be pitied even though instinctively shunned; but he who wantonly draws the fatal knife of sarcasm across the throat of a true sentiment or a lofty ideal, however feebly or imperfectly embodied, commits a crime against humanity at large, more injurious and far-reaching in its effects than slaughter of the body only. Above all, let us beware how we tamper with the natural, essential relations between art and the emotions. Good-by to the artist who has no place or use for sentiment in his work; he should turn his attention at once to some more practical and creditable branch of mechanics.

One grievous mistake in our American system of training is that we ignore almost altogether this phase of culture. We develop the conscience, the reason, the memory, but do nothing for the taste, the imagination, the esthetic sense, the whole ideal and spiritual side of the character. The faithful, protracted study of music, or other branch of art, even though it never result in any financial profit or the smallest degree of professional success, will develop faculties and tendencies of more advantage to the student and to all who may come in contact with him in private life, than any amount of algebra, or any number of Greek roots. The German methods of study, especially for young ladies, might teach us a valuable lesson in this connection.

He who would attain the best results in art should remember that we do not gather dates of thorns, nor figs of thistles; that “only life begets life,” and that after its own kind; that an art product, to be really good and great, must be the concentrated, crystallized essence of the best that is in him, the epitome of his highest moods and aspirations, of those rare, intuitive glimpses of a loftier existence, to which in favorable moments he can lift himself, the distilled perfume of weeks, it may be years, of living. He should subject himself to every possible cultivating, elevating influence, should train, not only hand and head, but heart as well; for these three are the inseparable trinity of art. He should increase his resources, widen his experiences, expand his horizon; not by cramming a quantity of facts, or by the conquest of mere technical means—what use in commanding words, or tones, if one has nothing to express withal?—but by increased familiarity with and capacity to appreciate and exercise the qualities so constantly requisite in his work.

Let us remember, too, what the scientists tell us, that light and heat radiated from a given center are dissipated in force and intensity in proportion to the square of the distance to be traversed. The same is emphatically true of emotion. If one would stir his audience to a pleasurable excitement, he must himself be shaken as in a tempest; to warm them, he must be at white heat.

Should the question arise, How shall one learn to feel music more deeply and make it more expressive? my answer would be, Read, think, feel, dream, love, live! Read—not musical history and biography—these give information, not culture; they are valuable, but not in this connection; read poetry, especially the lyric and dramatic, and good prose literature. A person entirely unaccustomed to understand or to utter anything in tones, will often find the key to this unfamiliar medium of expression by the following indirect method: Find some work, a poem is best, because briefer and more concrete, which expresses, approximately at least, the sentiment of the composition to be studied. Most persons are more familiar with the language of words than with that of tones, and will reach a given mood more directly and easily through that channel. Let the poem be well studied, not only with the mind, but with the imagination, dwelling upon it, trying to feel its meaning and beauty as deeply as possible; then throw the same emotional content into the music, making the tones tell what the words have said. The present writer has found this course in teaching very effective with all sensitive natures, even with those who have but the rudiments of an artistic temperament.

Above all, artist or amateur, teacher or pupil, fear not to use in your work to the full all the emotional power you have or can acquire. It may be the injudicious application of force that sometimes impairs artistic results; it is never the excess. Vital energy should be controlled, regulated, but never stinted. Ill-timed frenzy is not art, of course; but where intensity is demanded and proper gradations and proportions are observed, no dirge is ever too deeply gloomy, no dramatic climax too strong. The danger is always of tameness, rather than of excessive fervor.

Let us, then, be genuine, earnest, whole-hearted, open, in our allegiance to the ideal; and as for those who sneer at sentiment in art or in life, why, let them rave. We adhere to the creed which T. T. Munger has beautifully formulated for our profession in his “Music as Revelation”: “Emotion is the summit of existence, and music is the summit of emotion, the art pathway to God.”

CHOPIN
1810 1849

Chopin: Sonata, B Flat Minor, Op. 35

Whether regarded from the standpoint of musical form, of intrinsic beauty, or of dramatic intensity, this work may safely be pronounced Chopin’s masterpiece; and in the present writer’s opinion it ranks as the greatest composition in all piano literature. Chopin’s ability to handle the strict sonata form successfully has been sometimes called in question; but whatever may be said of his other two sonatas, this one will certainly bear comparison with the most perfect models of symmetry, finish, and architectural completeness, by the best known and most universally recognized classic masters. In the _allegro_ movement, upon which the distinguishing character of the sonata form always depends, the first and second subjects are well contrasted and admirably balanced, the development is logical, ingenious, and forceful, and the statement of the dramatic content is clear, concise, and strong, without a single irrelevant phrase or superfluous measure.

The work is founded upon an ancient Polish poem of a semi-legendary, semi-allegorical significance, by a once prominent, now well-nigh forgotten Polish writer. It consists of four movements, corresponding to the four cantos of the poem, of which it is, in a sense, a musical translation, treating successively the principal moods and situations in the story. The fact that in the first two movements the incidents are treated symbolically, emotionally, in accordance with the composer’s usual subjective mode of expression, rather than with the descriptive or imitative devices of the modern school, does not in the least detract from the poetic impression or suggestive power of the music.

In the last two movements he has recourse, for obvious reasons, to the direct method of definite realism. The first movement pictures the life and feelings of the hero, a Polish knight of the middle ages, facing storm and conflict, danger and hardship, in camp and field, fighting for king and country, cheered now and then, in lonely hours of vigil at the camp-fire, by waking visions of his distant home and his waiting bride.

The opening measures of the brief introduction tell of stern courage and inflexible resolve. Then the first subject enters, stirring, impetuous, fiery, full of the ring of trumpets, the clash of steel, the fierce exultation of desperate combat. The tranquil second subject suggests memories of the happy days of youth in his quiet home—dreams of a future brightened by the light of promised love, but still enveloped in the softening haze of distance and uncertainty. The development, with its complex, conflicting rhythms, its resistless, tempestuous sweep, thrills with the excitement of sudden onset, the rush of charging squadrons, the battle cry of struggling hosts. The closing chords express a somber triumph, the proud but sorrow-shadowed elation of a hard-won victory, purchased by the blood of many a patriot comrade.

The second movement, the scherzo, gives us the triumphant return of our hero crowned with laurel, accompanied by the jubilant strains of martial music, and the glad acclamations of the crowd. Yet, in the midst of his pride and well-earned glory, he finds time to dream again; this time more tenderly, sweetly, hopefully; to dream of his home-coming, and the fond greeting that awaits him in his own native village, where, through the difficulties and dangers of the campaign, his promised bride has been watching, and hoping, and praying for his return in faithful but anxious affection.

Here again we find two contrasting and strongly characteristic themes: The first, full of martial pride and exultation, the thoughts of victory, the glad tribute of applause to a nation’s hero; the second, tender, dreamy, pulsing with love’s anticipation. After this soulful trio melody, the first martial strains are repeated; but in the coda, a brief recurrence of the trio theme seems to emphasize the idea that with him the love thought dominates. This brings us to the third movement, the Funeral March, unquestionably the best funeral march ever written for the piano, the most intrinsically beautiful, the most touchingly, intensely sad, and the most complete, finely finished, and perfectly sustained, from first measure to last; the strongest, noblest, deepest expression of heart-crushing sorrow to be found in all piano literature.

As it is published and most often heard by itself, many who have played and listened to it have not even been aware that it affords the third chapter, so to speak, in a great tone epic, for as such this sonata must be considered.

As our hero approaches home, his heart swelling with anticipation, he is greeted by the distant, solemn tolling of cathedral bells, too evidently funeral bells, and soon is met by a slowly moving, somber procession of black-robed monks and mourners, bearing to her last resting-place in the church-yard the very bride to whose fond greeting he has so ardently looked forward. The music, soft and muffled at first, like the toll of far-off bells, gradually grows in power and intensity as the procession advances, assuming more and more the heavy, measured, inflexible rhythm of a funeral march, and swelling at last to an overwhelming climax of passionate pain.

Then the procession comes to a stand by the open grave. After a brief pause, the sweet, plaintive trio melody enters, pure and tender as a prayer, touched and thrilled to warmth and pathos by memories of happier days; after which the march movement is resumed, as the procession slowly and sadly returns to the village; the music, heavy, crushing, inexorable at first as the voice of fate, gradually recedes, diminishes, dies in the distance; and then follows the last movement, the presto, in some respects the most original and most impressive of all, the lament of the autumn night-wind over a forsaken grave, one of the few cases in which Chopin chose to be distinctly realistic, a literal and graphic imitation of wind effects; yet woven through it is an unmistakable suggestion of the mood of the hour and situation, the chill, the gloom, the wild despair, and a hint of that ever darker thought that will arise at such moments; after death, formless void, chaos.

There is an important vein of allegory underlying this whole story, like a deep substratum. The hero is a personification of the typical Polish patriot, struggling, in a forlorn hope, for his native land; the bride is Poland, and the mighty, overwhelming grief expressed is more than a personal sorrow: it is for the death and burial of a nation.

The authority for connecting the poem referred to with this sonata has been frequently questioned. I wish to state here that the poetic background to this great work is by no means hypothetically sketched in by my own imagination, however fully justified by the inherent character of the music. I have my data in full from Kullak and Liszt, the latter having been a personal friend of Chopin, as is well known, and having first presented the sonata in public to the musical world. We may safely assume, therefore, that he was correctly informed with regard to it, and that this interpretation is authentic and authoritative.

The Chopin Ballades

Probably no class of musical compositions ever presented to the world by any master has been so little understood, and consequently so much misrepresented as the ballades by Frederic Chopin. Even so standard an authority as Grove, in his “Dictionary of Music and Musicians,” writes as follows: “_Ballade_, a name adopted by Chopin for four pieces of pianoforte music, which have no peculiar form or character of their own, beyond being written in triple time, and to which the name seems to be no more applicable than that of sonnet to the pieces which others have written under that title”—a statement which proves that he had little information and less interest in regard to the subject.

The French word _ballade_, which Chopin used as title for these compositions, is derived from the Provencal _ballata_, a dancing song, which in turn comes from _bellare_, to dance; and our modern English words ballad, ball, ballet, all descend to us from the same source. In Italian, _ballata_ meant a dancing piece, in distinction from _sonata_, a sounding piece, and _cantata_, a singing piece; and the _ballade_ and _ballata_ originally meant a piece of music to be sung while dancing or accompanied by dancing. The dance element, however, was early lost, and ballade in French, like ballad in English, came to mean a short and popular narrative poem adapted for singing or recitation. The ballad is a tale in verse. It differs from the epic in being briefer, less dignified in tone, and in concerning itself with actual practical events in the lives of individuals, instead of with historic and mythological subjects, which form the main province of the epic. The true ballad treats of some knightly exploit, some national episode, or some tale of love and adventure; and, as we shall see, Chopin, in adopting this title for instrumental compositions, adhered strictly to its definition and its literary characteristics and significance.

The Chopin ballades, four in number and ranking among his most strikingly original and effective contributions to pianoforte music, introduced an entirely new and distinctly unique musical form, well-nigh limitless in its possibilities of expression and application, its facile adaptability to every phase of emotional and descriptive writing. As was natural, they opened the way for a host of more or less worthy followers, bold, independent free lances, heedless of the forms and rules which bind in rank and file the more orderly conservative compositions; all bearing a strong racial resemblance, but variously designated by such special clan cognomens as ballade, novelette, legend, fable, fairy-tale, and the like. They now constitute a complete and markedly individual school of composition, of which Chopin in his ballades was the originator, and which is differentiated from all others by its distinctly declamatory, narrative style.

Chopin used the name ballade in the sense in which it is employed in modern literature—to designate a short, poetic narrative, a miniature epic, as distinguished from the lyric, didactic, and dramatic forms of poetry. He intended the ballade in music to be a counterpart of the ballad in poetry, and his inventive genius and unerring taste supplied and perfected a form precisely adapted to the end in view; a form which is strictly akin neither to the rondo, the sonata allegro, nor the free fantasia, though having certain points of resemblance to all three, still less to any of the dance forms. It reminds us more of some of the larger, more complex song forms, as, for instance, the musical settings by Schubert and others of the more pretentious German ballads by Goethe, Berger, and Uhland; but its development is broader and ampler, at once more extended and more logical, evincing a greater degree of constructive musicianship.

Chopin’s able biographer, Karasowski, says of the ballades: “Some regarded them as a variety of the rondo; others, with more accuracy, called them poetical stories. Indeed, there is about them a narrative tone (_Märchenton_) which is particularly well rendered by the six-four and six-eight time, and which makes them differ essentially from the existing forms.” In view of these facts, patent even to the superficial student of Chopin’s life and works, it seems very strange that we should so often hear and even see in print sneering insinuations to the effect that the composer christened these works ballades for lack of any better or more appropriate name; that the title has in reality nothing of significance or distinctness, which is justified either by the form or the content of the works.

As a matter of fact, all four of these ballades, according to Chopin’s own statement to Schumann during an interview at Leipsic, are founded directly upon Polish poems by the greatest poet of that nation, Adam Mickiewicz, the father of the romantic school in Poland, a contemporary and personal friend of the composer, a man whose fervent patriotism and unswerving fidelity to national themes, as well as the warmth, tenderness, and power of his creative genius, specially endeared him to the heart of his compatriot and brother artist, the tone-poet Chopin. It is difficult, not to say impossible, to estimate the stimulating influence of Mickiewicz and his works upon the creative activity of Chopin. That the music of the latter has attained world-wide celebrity, while the poems of the former are scarcely heard of outside of the small and cultured circle of his own countrymen and women, is due perhaps not so much to the superiority of the composer’s genius over that of the poet, as to the more universal intelligibility of his chosen idiom, his medium of expression, Polish being a language understood by few persons even of cosmopolitan tendencies, and one which is ill adapted for translation into non-Slavonic tongues. Certain it is that Chopin himself was quick to acknowledge his deep indebtedness to his gifted countryman, and rose to some of his loftiest flights of creative effort when translating into his own beloved language of tone ideas, experiences, incidents, and situations which had already been molded and vivified into artistic life and beauty by the hand of the poet, as in the case of the four ballades under consideration.

Though the origin of these ballades as musical transcripts of certain poems by Mickiewicz is indisputable, it has always been a mooted question, and one fraught with the keenest interest, at least to some of us, upon what particular poem any given ballade is founded; what special experience or incident, national, personal, or imaginary, found its first embodiment in the verses of the Slavic poet, to thrill with its power and beauty a limited circle of Polish readers, and was later reincarnated by Chopin, to find a far wider sphere of influence throughout the musical world; and what may be the peculiar subtle karma of romantic or dramatic association which this vital art germ has brought with it in its transmigration from a former existence; in a word, whence and what is the essential artistic essence of each ballade?

If we could trace it to its fountain head and familiarize ourselves with the sources of Chopin’s own inspiration, the task of rightly comprehending and interpreting any one of these compositions would be vastly facilitated. This no one has hitherto done successfully. Few among English-speaking musicians are able to read Mickiewicz in the original Polish; translations of his works are meager, imperfect, and very difficult to obtain. It is therefore not without a certain glow of satisfaction that the present writer is able, after diligent, unwearying inquiry and voluminous reading, covering a period of some fifteen years, confidently to affirm that he has at last traced back to their inspirational sources three at least of the four ballades; and he submits to the reader the results of his research, in the hope that some degree of the interest and pleasure he has himself derived from this line of investigation may be shared by others.

Should any question arise with regard to the accuracy of the statements and conclusions here advanced, I would say that the authority on which they are based is derived partly from definite historical data, existing, though widely diffused, in print; partly from direct traditions gathered from those who enjoyed the personal acquaintance of the composer; and partly from the carefully considered internal evidence of the works themselves, when critically compared with the poems to which they presumably had reference. I will say further that concerning the fourth ballade, in F minor, I am still as completely in the dark as any of my readers, and would gratefully welcome any information or suggestion which might tend to throw the smallest light upon the subject.

Ballade in G Minor, Op. 23

The first ballade, Op. 23, in G minor, was published in June, 1836, perhaps written a year or two earlier. It was suggested by and is founded upon one of the most able and forceful, as well as extended, patriotic historical poems by Mickiewicz, often called the Lithuanian Epic, entitled “Konrad Wallenrod,” and published in 1828. The following is a brief synopsis of its plot:

During the latter half of the fourteenth century, the Red Cross knights, a powerful religious, political, and military order, controlling large dominions on the Baltic, in territory now included in modern Russia, were at fierce feud with Lithuania, then an independent principality, later united with Poland by a marriage of its reigning prince, Jagiello, to the heiress of the Polish throne, thus founding the dynasty of the Jagiellos, the most illustrious of the royal houses of Poland. Long and desperate was the struggle. The Lithuanians, though vastly outnumbered and frequently outgeneraled and defeated, defended every inch of their beloved fatherland, now absorbed in western Russia, with heroic valor. At last their ruling prince and idolized leader fell in battle, their army was routed and cut to pieces, the scanty remnant taking refuge from their merciless pursuers among the fastnesses of the mountains; and the country was for a time practically subjugated and forced to submit to the most cruel and tyrannical oppression. The conquerors, being Crusaders and Christian knights, considered every species of atrocious spoliation and barbaric violence, when practised against the infidel Lithuanians, as justifiable, even laudable, and for some years the sufferings of the conquered knew no limit.

Among the prisoners taken and carried into virtual slavery by the Teutonic Order, was the little seven-year-old son of the fallen prince—a bright, precocious, winsome lad, who, after serving for some time as page in the household of the grand master of the Order, so completely won the heart of the old knight, that he adopted the boy and educated him with his own children, in all the courtly and martial accomplishments of the time. Years passed. Young Konrad grew in manly power and promise, and came to be ranked among the flower of Teutonic chivalry, first in the tourney, first in the field, and first in the ladies’ hall. But ever at his side, as strange friend and secret counselor, was seen the somber figure of the aged Wajdelote, or bard, a venerable minstrel, who had come none knew whence, and, despite his proud and gloomy bearing, had won high favor at the court by the magic of his voice and lute. Ostensibly a wandering singer, he was in reality a Lithuanian noble of high degree, a former friend of Konrad’s father, the fallen prince, and stood high in the confidence of the Lithuanian people and nobility as an able, devoted patriot. He came as an emissary from them to find and win back their lost prince Konrad to his own true flag and his native land. They were still hoping and fitfully struggling to throw off the tyranny of the Red Cross knights and wanted Konrad for their leader.

Under the cloak of his minstrelsy, the Wajdelote plied this secret mission. With all the fiery eloquence of his poet’s genius, he wrought upon the spirit of the young man, rousing it to duty and action, to honor, ambition, and patriotism, to sympathy with the wrongs of his oppressed fellow-countrymen, to vengeance for the death of his slaughtered father, stirring its latent heroism, steeling it to steadfast purpose. And as his influence strengthened day by day, the open brow of the young prince grew clouded, the smile vanished from his lips, and his sunny eyes grew deeper and darker with stern resolve.

At last the occasion came. In a foray against a band of insurgent Lithuanians, Konrad and his mentor detached themselves from their companions, and feigning to be taken captive, joined the forces of their own countrymen, where they were welcomed with the wildest enthusiasm. The two years that followed were the happiest of Konrad’s life. He threw himself heart and soul into the fierce joy of combat for his native land, devoting to her service all his personal courage and ability, and all the military skill so carefully acquired at the court and camp of the Red Cross knights; yet found time in the brief pauses of activity to woo and win as wife the fairest and truest of the Lithuanian maids. For a time the pulses of his life throbbed with a full but fluctuating tide, in the swift interchange of love’s delights and the thrill of gallant deeds. Caressing whispers alternated with the clash of swords, and the tender light of the honeymoon with the lurid gleam of the camp-fire; but his happiness was destined to be as transient as his valor was vain. A sterner duty, a more self-sacrificing devotion claimed him, and his veteran mentor was still at his side to mature the plan and urge its execution. His beloved Lithuania, enfeebled, broken, disorganized for so long, was wholly unable to cope in open field with her powerful, disciplined, and well-equipped antagonist. Some daring, subtle, and far-sighted stratagem alone might save her; and such a one had formed itself in the mind of the old minstrel. Again his eloquence rang in the ears of Konrad, like the voice of fate, “Behold, this is to do! Thou art the man!”

A heart-breaking farewell to his bride, and Konrad disappears utterly from the scene for ten years; then returns irrecognizably altered in appearance, under an assumed name, with wealth and fame and following, acquired in wars with the Saracens of Spain. The old grand master of the Red Cross knights is dead, and Konrad with little difficulty secures his own election to that office; and then begins the work of vengeance. By his absolute power as grand master, and his cunning diplomacy, he involved the order in bitter internal dissensions, depleted its treasury, wasted its resources, weakened its garrisons, and in every possible way sapped its strength, and finally led the flower of its army to complete annihilation in a winter campaign against the Lithuanians, into whose snares and ambuscades the Red Cross knights were mercilessly thrown by secret and preconcerted arrangement with his countrymen.

Thus by a course of treachery, which for daring, subtlety, and sustained purpose, both in conception and execution, has hardly a parallel in history, was accomplished what could not have been done by force. The power of the order was effectually broken and Lithuania set free. But Konrad’s life, as well as his happiness, paid the price of his patriotism. His beloved bride he never saw but once again, and that only for a moment of agonized parting through dungeon bars, just before his execution. And it is said he never smiled from the hour when the voice of the stern old minstrel first stirred his heart with the trumpet call of inexorable duty, till the hour when its proud pulses were stilled forever by the daggers of the secret tribunal. For his identity was discovered; he was, of course, tried and condemned as a traitor to the order, and died in disgrace by the hands of his former comrades.

Such is the story, sad but stirring, which Mickiewicz handles in his poem, and which Chopin reëmbodied in the G minor ballade, not following literally its successive steps, but emphasizing to his utmost its spirit, character, and moral. I think no one ever played this composition, or listened to it attentively, without feeling that its mood was not of our day and land. The time it represents is the middle ages, its scene is laid in stern and rugged Lithuania, among warlike knights and resentful rebels, and its whole spirit is therefore medieval and military.

It opens with a brief but scornfully defiant introduction, a call to arms, reminding one of the first lines of that familiar address to the Roman gladiators: “Friends, I come not here to talk; ye all do know the story of our thraldom.” Then the first and principal theme enters, symbolizing the forceful personality and stern mentor voice of the old minstrel, in its somber yet resolute phrases, solemn, inflexible, relentless as fate; telling of wrongs to be avenged, of a nation in bondage awaiting its deliverer; of the imperative call of duty and patriotism; and it constantly recurs all through the composition as its leading motive, whenever, as is vividly suggested by the other contrasting, conflicting themes and passages, continually introduced, the young prince wavers in his purpose, deterred by doubts and forebodings, lured by seductive temptations from pursuance of the desperate and soul-trying venture; whenever his mind wanders, as it must at times, to regretful memories of happier days, to the splendors of feast and tournament, to the pomp and pride of a martial career under the adopted flag of the order, to the blithe hunting-horns of his gay companions in youth, and tender dreams of the first great love of his manhood, all sacrificed to a grand but pitiless cause. He is ever recalled to the heroic mood, to the proud but rugged path of duty, by this mentor voice—gravely insistent, quietly determined, which will not be gainsaid; and which finally triumphs over all other considerations. The impetuous presto which closes the work portrays the fierce excitement and fiery rush of conflict, the utter self-abandon that hurls itself jubilantly into the arms of an ignominious death for a cherished ideal; and it ends with the savage but triumphant shout of a blood-bought victory.

This ballade, though comparatively an early work, is one of Chopin’s most darkly grand and dramatically powerful efforts; and the subjective personal moods of the exiled Polish patriot are voiced in its gloomy indignation, its desperate courage, and its fierce defiance.

There is an undercurrent of political meaning in “Konrad Wallenrod,” which fortunately escaped the notice of the Russians, who allowed its publication at St. Petersburg, but which appeals to every native and friend of Poland and has had no small share in making its popularity. Lithuania in the fourteenth century, broken and crushed, represents Poland in the nineteenth, and the tyrannical Teutonic Order stands for Russian oppression. The Wajdelote’s recitals of the wrongs of a dear but downtrodden land, the indignation and resentment under a foreign yoke, and the appeal to arms for freedom and revenge, are all spoken in the cause of Poland, and are so felt by the native reader. Konrad’s dire vengeance on the conqueror is a picture of the secret hope of all Polish patriots of the final overthrow and punishment of the tyrant and the reëstablishment of Polish independence.

Ballade in F Major, Op. 38

The second ballade, in F major, is, of the three under consideration, the least of a favorite and the least played; probably because the radical extremes of mood which it presents, in abrupt, almost painful contrast, its apparent incoherency, and its sudden, startling, seemingly causeless changes of movement, render it difficult to comprehend and still more so to interpret, and difficult to follow with intelligent sympathy even when well rendered.

It opens with an exceedingly simple, undemonstrative theme, in the major key, almost too lucid and childlike in the naïve directness of its utterance, and singularly devoid of the glowing warmth and color which usually characterize the melodies by this writer. Cool, pure, and passionless, yet velvet-soft and delicately sweet, it floats upon the gentle pulsations of the simple accompaniment, like a snow-white, freshly fragrant water-lily, upon the crystal ripples of some glacier-fed mountain lake. Then suddenly, without warning or apparent reason, there bursts a furious tempest of rage, pain, and conflict, as if some vast Titanic embodiment in bronze of lurid war had been melted by a world-conflagration into a stream of fluid destruction, and poured out upon some fair scene of pastoral peace and happiness.

Almost as suddenly the storm of fury abates, or rather seems to recede into distance, sounding still for a time, but far and faint, as if its tumult reached us muffled by intervening walls. Then the first simple theme returns, sweetly calm in its pristine innocence, but soon merged into a series of plaintive minor cadences, as of pathetic pleading, of earnest, insistent supplication, interrupted by a brief and startlingly abrupt climax, in full massive chords, like the confident defiance hurled by the children of light at the hosts of darkness, certain of victory, in their reliance on the omnipotent arm of the God of battles. Once more the gentle first theme, followed by those imploring minor cadences and a repetition of the strong, courageous climax, and then the tempest breaks again with renewed intensity, the stress of desperate strife, the agony of terror, a seething, surging, rushing torrent of tone, as if men and demons were struggling for life in a swirling vortex, where the elemental forces of ocean and fire had met in a death-grapple.

The _finale_, in presto movement, an impetuous sweep of gloomy, exultant harmonies, suggests the mood of a brave but sorely tried spirit, dominating distress, rising superior to disaster, and proudly triumphant in spite of seeming defeat. At the close, in form of a coda, a few measures of the first melody return, saddened, but still gentle, ending plaintively in the minor, as if to say, “There have been great wrong and suffering and bitterness, but now is peace.”

Unquestionably this work presents two radically opposing elements in sharpest contrast; the one, reposeful purity; the other, infuriate passion. Of this much we are sure in simply listening to the music, without searching for historical origin or collateral information. It is interesting to note Rubinstein’s words with regard to it, and to see how near his art instinct led him to the discovery of its realistic significance, presumably without the aid of any definite knowledge as to its actual origin. He writes of it:

“Is it possible that the interpreter does not feel the necessity of representing to his hearers a field flower caught by a gust of wind, a caressing of the flower by the wind, the resistance of the flower, the stormy struggle of the wind, the entreaty of the flower, which at last lies broken there? This may be paraphrased: the field flower, a rustic maiden; the wind, a knight.”

Let us now examine the substance at least of the poetic material from which Chopin derived the mood and suggestion of this musical work. Again it is a ballad upon a Lithuanian theme, from the pen of Mickiewicz. But this time it is a legendary and not a historical subject which is treated. The Polish ballad is entitled “The Switez Lake,” and its substance is here given in a somewhat abbreviated and simplified form: