Chapter III (7)

One of Grieg’s most charming lyrics is this thoroughly unique and characteristic Cradle Song. This has always been a most attractive and facilely treated subject for piano-compositions, on account of the way in which it lends itself to realistic handling.

The general plan of these compositions is always substantially the same: a simple, swinging accompaniment in the left hand, symbolizing the rocking cradle, and a soft, soothing melody in the right, more or less elaborately ornamented, suggesting the song of the nurse or mother lulling the child to rest.

An almost infinite variety of effect is possible, however, within these seemingly narrow limits, dependent upon the differing ability and personality of the composer, the diversity in melodic and harmonic coloring, and especially upon the environment and conditions conceived of by the writer as the setting or background of the picture. The range of legitimate suggestion in this regard by means of such works is as broad as that of human experience itself. For instance, the child imagined may be the idolized prince of a royal line, rocked in a golden cradle with a jeweled crown embossed upon its satin canopy, and guarded by the loyalty, the hopes and pride of a mighty nation; or it may be the sickly offspring of want and suffering, doomed from its birth to sorrow and struggle and disappointment, to a crown of toil and a heritage of tears; or perhaps it may be a fairy changeling, stolen by Titania in some wayward caprice, rocked to sleep in a lily-cup upon crystal waves, or watching, with large, wondering human eyes, the pranks of the forest elves as they trace with swiftly circling feet their magic rings upon the moss, or awaken the morning-glories upon the lawn with a shower-bath of dew.

The lullaby song of the mother may thrill with the sweet content and rapturous joy of a life of love and brightness but just begun, and seemingly endless in its forward vista of ever new and ever glad surprises. Her fancies may be winged by hope and happiness to airy flights in which no sky-piercing height seems impossible; or her voice may vibrate with the songs of a broken-hearted widow, who guards the little sleeper in an agony of loving fear, as the last treasure saved from the wreck of her world. As the smallest plot of garden ground possesses the capacity to receive and develop the germs of the most diverse forms of vegetation, from the violet to the oak, from the fragrant rose to the deadly poppy, so these modest little musical forms are replete with an almost boundless potentiality of suggestion.

In the case of this particular work by Grieg, the child portrayed is no delicate rose-tinted girl-baby, downily cushioned upon silken pillows, peeping timidly from a drift of dainty laces like the first crocuses from the feathery snow of April, but the lusty son of a Viking stock, with the blood of a sturdy race of fighters coursing red through his veins, and with a will and a voice of his own, cradled in the hollow trunk of a pine or the hide-lashed blade-bones of the elk, wrapped in the skin of wolf or bear, and lulled to sleep by the rough, but kindly, crooning of a peasant nurse. May we not fancy the refrain of her song somewhat after the fashion of the following lines?

“Oh, hush thee, my baby;
The time will soon come
When thy rest will be broken
By trumpet and drum,
When the bows will be bent,
The blades will be red,
And the beacon of battle
Will blaze overhead.
Then hush thee, my baby,
Take rest while you may,
For strife comes with manhood
As waking with day.”

Grieg: The Bridal Procession, from “Aus dem Volksleben.” Op. 19, No. 2

One of the best known and most popular of Grieg’s compositions is the second movement of his piano suite entitled “Aus dem Volksleben” (sketches of Norwegian country life), a work which portrays, with all his graphic power and good-natured humor, a number of unique and characteristic phases of the peasant life in Norway. This second movement, at once the easiest and most pleasing number of the suite, is intended as a realistic representation of the music of a primitive peasant band, which leads a rural bridal procession, made up of Norwegian countrypeople, on its way to the church.

We may fancy ourselves seated on a bank by the roadside, with a jolly company of villagers in picturesque holiday costume, listening to their jests and gaiety as we await the rustic pageant. Soon our attention is caught by the sound of distant music, gradually approaching, strange, weird, uncanny music, as if the gnomes and trolls had left their work in the secret mines and caverns of the mountains, where they are ever forging new chains for the fettered earth-giants as their prisoned strength increases, and had turned musicians for a frolic and come forth into the light of day to join the festival. The rhythmic beat of drums and cymbals, the shrill, strident notes of the fife, the quaint, quavering tones of the pipe and clarinet, mingle in a strain jocosely mirthful, rather than truly gay, and becoming more insistent as it advances.

There is no trace of tenderness, no hint of sweet anticipation, no suggestive undertone of sacred solemnity, in this music. We miss the warm color and tremulous, sustained effects of the violins, which with us are always symbolic of love. It seems almost like a musical satire on the tender passion; as if the divine but dethroned Balder (the God of Love in Norse mythology), disgusted by the infidelity and ingratitude of mankind, were employing all his wondrous power as a minstrel to depreciate and deride this his best gift to humanity. But perhaps we do not rightly appreciate the significance of the music. As it draws nearer and nearer, growing stronger with every moment, we begin to suspect that perhaps its very rudeness and primitive energy express more truthfully than more delicate, dreamy, finely shaded cadences could do, the idea that human love is one of the elemental forces of nature, underlying and antedating all the subtilizing refinements of civilization, and destined to outlast them, as the rugged granite of the northern mountains antedates and will outlast all the crystal palaces of taste and luxury.

On comes the procession, the music swelling and growing with every step, till as it passes immediately before us it becomes an almost deafening crash of dissonant instruments, each player with lusty good-will doing his utmost to honor the occasion, outvie his comrades, and earn his share in the wedding feast, by making his part most prominent in the general din. First comes the band, then the bride and groom and the bridesmaids in white, with wands and wreaths, a troop of children with baskets of flowers, then a company of the immediate friends and relatives of the bridal pair, with the older neighbors and acquaintances soberly bringing up the rear. So they defile before us, and pass on their way down the sunlit country road to the church, the music gradually diminishing as it recedes into the distance, growing fainter and fainter till only occasional shriller notes or louder fragments reach us, and at last even these are sunk in the summer silence.

This movement is in march time and form, and the strict, unvarying march rhythm should be preserved throughout, absolutely without variation. The tone should be crisp and clear, with but little singing quality, to represent that of wooden wind instruments, but varying in degree from the softest possible _pp_ to the most tremendous _fff_ which the performer is capable of producing. The player is here afforded an opportunity of testing his powers in that most difficult of all elements in pianism—a long-sustained, evenly-graded crescendo and diminuendo. To produce its true realistic effect, the music should emerge almost imperceptibly out of silence, increase steadily, but by infinitesimal degrees, to the greatest quantity of tone power which the instrument will produce; then diminish as gradually and steadily till it dissolves into silence again at the close; not stopping at a given point, but simply ceasing to sound. Those who have heard Rubinstein render the Turkish march from “The Ruins of Athens” will remember it as a masterly model for this effect.

SAINT-SAËNS
1835

Saint-Saëns: Le Rouet d’Omphale

Saint-Saëns, though himself a first-rate concert pianist and the composer of some excellent things for the piano, notably in concerto form, is, nevertheless, chiefly gifted and principally celebrated as a writer for orchestra, having done his best, most original, and most interesting work in this line. Among his many important compositions for full orchestra, there are perhaps none which better represent his individuality and peculiar style than his four “Symphonic Poems,” of which two have been selected for illustration here. This form of composition, as well as its name, originated with Franz Liszt, whose twelve “Symphonic Poems” are his most important contributions to orchestra literature. In musical structure the symphonic poem corresponds to the modern overture and to the pianoforte ballade, as exemplified by Chopin, much more nearly than to the symphony proper. It consists of a single movement, without different divisions and pronounced differentiated parts, such as are to be found in the regulation symphony, though it often expresses a wide variety of moods, merging into one another without pause or interruption.

Its only radical point of similarity to the symphony lies in the fact that its first principal theme is subjected to an elaborate and logical development in most cases, as in the symphonic allegro. It is distinctly an outgrowth of modern romanticism and deals always with the somewhat definite poetic thought, or some real or imaginary episode from life. It is, in fact, program music of the most pronounced and uncompromising type, and the special thought or episode is always indicated by its descriptive title.

The four Symphonic Poems of Saint-Saëns are: (1) Le Rouet d’Omphale; (2) Phaeton; (3) Danse Macabre; (4) La Jeunesse d’Hercule.

I have selected for consideration here the first and third, entitled respectively the “Rouet d’Omphale” and the “Danse Macabre”; the one descriptive of a classic, the other of a medieval scene and tradition.

The first, the “Wheel of Omphale,” was suggested by the Greek myth of Hercules and Omphale. The story of the pair is familiar to all readers of classic mythology, and represents perhaps the most singular episode in the checkered career of this hero and demigod. The legend runs as follows: Hercules, having killed his friend Iphitus in a fit of madness, to which he was occasionally subject, fell a prey to a severe malady, sent upon him by the gods in punishment for this murder. He consulted the Delphic oracle with a view to learning the means of escaping from this disease. He was informed by the oracle that he could only be cured by allowing himself to be sold as a slave for three years, and giving the purchase money to the father of Iphitus as recompense for the loss of his son. Accordingly Hercules was sold by Mercury as a slave to Omphale, the Queen of Lydia, then reigning in that country, who had long been desirous to see this strongest of men and greatest hero of his age. He remained with her the allotted three years, and during this period of slavery, by the wish of the queen, the warrior-hero assumed female attire and sat spinning among the women, where his royal mistress often chastised him with her sandal for his awkward manner of holding the distaff, while she paraded in his lion’s skin, armed with his famous war-club. But if awkward at the distaff this son of Jupiter understood other arts which he practised upon the Lydian queen; for in the intervals of spinning he made love to her so successfully that from their union sprang the race of Crœsus, famous in antiquity. Some authorities regard this legend of Hercules and Omphale as of astronomical significance, while others give it a moral interpretation, saying it illustrates how even the strongest and bravest of men is demeaned and belittled when subjugated by a woman.

The music opens with a playfully realistic introduction, consisting of a series of light, rapid-running figures and graceful embellishments, imitatively suggesting the roll and buzz of the spinning-wheels. A series of delicate turns, each an audible circle, add their quota of pertinent symbolism to the general effect. Soon the melody enters, joyous, musical, yet with a certain arch mockery, enhanced by its odd, piquant rhythm. It is the song of the spinning maidens, cheerfully speeding their hours of toil with music and mirth, with occasional irrepressible touches of gay raillery at the expense of the clumsy captive warrior, whose long face and futile attempts at their handicraft afford them vast amusement. Now and then a distinct burst of silvery laughter is heard above the boom of the wheels, interrupting the strain. Omphale, too, is there, admonishing, chiding, ridiculing the hero, as he moodily pursues his unwonted and unwilling task with many a blunder and comical mistake; yet we can fancy a half-tender smile softening her reprimands and sweetening her playful chastisements.

Then with a radical change of mood and movement comes the second important theme, a broad, impressive, strikingly original melody in the bass, half gloomy, half indignant, the mighty manly voice of Hercules, uplifted in grave lament and dignified protest, deploring his hard lot, defying its humiliations, reproaching his gay tormentors, rebelling at his menial duties and unworthy surroundings, yet with a stern, proud gravity, a grand fortitude which scorns alike weak complainings and impotent petulance. It subsides at last into philosophic resignation and sorrowful self-repression, as if consoled by the thought that his punishment is after all just and his submission voluntary.

Then the spinning movement is resumed and the first song virtually repeated, though in a materially modified rhythm; and the work ends playfully, as it begins, with a wonderfully realistic imitation of the gradual stopping of the wheels, as their momentum exhausts itself and little by little their speed slackens and they finally come to a complete rest when abandoned by the girls, as sunset ends the day’s work.

This composition is one of Saint-Saëns’ most genial and melodious productions, as well as an excellent piece of descriptive work. It may be rendered on the piano either in the four-hand arrangement by Guiraud, or as transcribed for two hands by the composer himself. It is about equally feasible and effective in either of these forms.

Saint-Saëns: Danse Macabre

For the significance of the French word _macabre_ we must turn to the Arabic _makabir_, signifying a burial place or cemetery. The “Danse Macabre,” therefore, is simply a “cemetery dance” or “Dance of Death.”

One of the most prevalent superstitions during the middle ages throughout Europe, and especially France, was that of the “Danse Macabre,”—a belief that once a year, on Hallowe’en, the dead of the churchyards rose for one wild, hideous carnival, one bacchanalian revel, in which old King Death acted as master of ceremonies. This gruesome idea appears frequently in the literature of the period, and also in its painting, particularly in church decoration, and a more or less graphic portrayal of the “Danse Macabre” may still be seen on the walls of some old cathedrals and monasteries.

This composition, belonging as it does to the ultra-realistic French school of the present day, is a vivid tone picture of the same “Danse Macabre.” At the head of the original composition, serving as motto and undoubtedly as direct inspiration for the music, stands a curious ancient French poem in well-nigh obsolete fourteenth century idiom. I have made a free translation of these verses into English, as follows:

On a sounding stone,
With a blanched thigh-bone,
The bone of a saint, I fear,
Death strikes the hour
Of his wizard power,
And the specters haste to appear.

From their tombs they rise
In sepulchral guise,
Obeying the summons dread,
And gathering round
With obeisance profound,
They salute the King of the Dead.

Then he stands in the middle
And tunes up his fiddle,
And plays them a gruesome strain.
And each gibbering wight
In the moon’s pale light
Must dance to that wild refrain.

Now the fiddle tells,
As the music swells,
Of the charnel’s ghastly pleasures;
And they clatter their bones
As with hideous groans
They reel to those maddening measures.

The churchyard quakes
And the old abbey shakes
To the tread of that midnight host,
And the sod turns black
On each circling track,
Where a skeleton whirls with a ghost.

The night wind moans
In shuddering tones
Through the gloom of the cypress tree,
While the mad rout raves
Over yawning graves
And the fiddle bow leaps with glee.

So the swift hours fly
Till the reddening sky
Gives warning of daylight near.
Then the first cock crow
Sends them huddling below
To sleep for another year.

The composition opens with twelve weird strokes indicating the arrival of midnight, struck out upon a vibrant tombstone by the impatient hand of Death himself. There follows a light, staccato passage, suggesting the moment when, in obedience to this awesome signal, the specters appear from their graves and come tiptoeing forward to take their places in the fantastic circle. Then comes a strikingly realistic passage where Death attempts to tune up his fiddle, as he is to furnish the music for the dance. It has been lying disused since the last annual festival, is very much out of tune, and refuses to come up to pitch. In spite of his best endeavors, the E string obstinately remains at E flat. The repetition of this passage at intervals throughout the composition suggests occasional hasty and ill-timed efforts to tune up.

Now comes the first theme of the dance itself, light, fantastic, suggestive of purely physical excitement and ghastly pleasure, and graphically representing the imagery of the corresponding verse of the poem.

The second theme is slower, heavier, more gloomily impressive, with its weird minor harmonies and its strongly marked rhythms, suggesting the darkness and terror of that midnight scene, the gruesome gravity of old King Death, as master of ceremonies, and the increasingly ponderous tread of that ghostly multitude, to which the gray walls of the abbey and the very ground itself seem to reel in unison. This is the moment when “the sod turns black where each skeleton whirls with a ghost.”

Death again attempts to tune up his fiddle, with frenzied haste, and the dance grows in speed and impetuous power. Later it is interrupted by a lyric intermezzo, brief but pathetically sweet. It seems to be a plaintive lament played in a momentary pause of the dancing, expressing the sad memories and hopeless longings of the dancers, the real mood which underlies the forced gaiety of this wild revel. It is appropriately accompanied by the Æolian-like effect of the night wind sighing among the cypress boughs. An onward rush follows, more furiously impetuous than before, for just as in the small hours the boisterous and frenzied merriment of the witches in “Walpurgis Night” grew apace, so does this skeleton dance gradually reach an almost demoniac climax of hilarity, as all unite in a grand finale, a thunderous whirl of hideous merriment. Here the first and second dance themes are very ingeniously woven together, appearing simultaneously in a piece of most grotesque but effective counterpoint.

Then comes a sudden hush, in which the distant crow of the morning cock is distinctly heard, a signal that daylight is approaching and the revel must end. With a wild hurry and scurry the specters betake themselves to their graves once more, a final lugubrious wail from the fiddle closing the composition, as Death is the last to leave the field.

Counterparts among Poets and Musicians

Those who have had sufficient interest to read any considerable number of the foregoing chapters cannot have failed to perceive that, to the mind of the author, the sister arts, music and poetry, sustain to each other an even closer, more vitally intimate relation than the family connection generally conceded to them.

It is a kinship of soul and sympathy, as well as of race—a similarity of aim and influence upon humanity; a similarity, even in the kind of effect produced, and the means employed to produce it, which renders them largely interdependent and reciprocally helpful. The purpose of both is expression, chiefly emotional expression, descriptions of nature and references to natural phenomena being introduced merely as accessories, as background or setting for the human life and interest, which are of primary importance. Both express their meaning, not through imitated sounds or forms borrowed from the physical world, but by means of audible symbols devised by man for this express purpose, which have come by long usage and general acceptance to have a definite significance, but require a certain degree of education to comprehend them, and which are therefore more intellectual, more adapted to the expression of the subtler phases of life, and more purely human in their origin, than the media of form and color employed in the plastic arts.

True, the one uses tones, the other words, as its material; but the difference is by no means so radical as at first appears. Both exist in time, while all other arts have to do with space and substance. Both have but one dimension, so to speak,—namely, duration,—and owe whatever of the beauty of form and proportion they possess to a symmetrical subdivision of this given duration into correspondent parts or sections, by means of accents, brief pauses, and rhymes or cadences. Both may successfully treat a progressive series of moods or scenes, of varying character, and fluctuating intensity, which is not possible in the plastic arts, limited as they all are to the portrayal of a single situation, a single instant of time, a single fixed conception. Both, again, possess a certain warmth and inherent pulsing life, which is their common, dominant characteristic, due to the heart-throb of rhythm, which is lacking in all other arts.

Even in the media they employ, there is a strong though subtle resemblance; both appeal directly to the sense of hearing, which scientists tell us is more intimately connected with the nerve centers of emotional life than any other of the senses. In both cases the immediate appeal is to the feelings and the imagination, without recourse to intervening imagery borrowed from external nature. Both embody the cry of one soul to another, and they are not widely divergent in quality or effect. Language at its highest is almost song, and music at its best is idealized declamation. All good poetry must be musical. It should, as we say, sing itself; and all good music must be poetical, conveying a distinctly poetic impression.

To me every poem presupposes a possible musical setting, and every worthy composition, a possible poetic text. Hence the language used, in describing music, must of necessity, so far as the powers of the writer permit, possess a generally poetic character. In all my thought and reading, along this line, it has seemed to me, not only of extreme interest, but of great practical value to every musician and writer, to devote careful study to the analogy between these arts, to the correspondences between artists, in these parallel lines of work, and between their special productions in each, to obtain the widest possible familiarity with both arts and their mutual relations, with a view to letting each aid to a fuller elucidation and better appreciation of the other. I have always grouped together in my mind Bach and Milton, Beethoven and Shakespeare, Mozart and Spenser, Schubert and Moore, Schumann and Shelley, Mendelssohn and Longfellow, Chopin and Tennyson, Liszt and Byron, Wagner and Victor Hugo.

Bach and Milton seem to me to occupy corresponding niches in the temples of music and of verse, because of the strong religious element in the personality of both, of their severe, involved, lengthy, sonorous, and dignified style of utterance; their mutual disdain of mere sentiment and softer graces, and their fondness for works of large dimensions and serious import. Furthermore, because of the proneness of both to religious and churchly subjects, and the corresponding position which they occupy as veteran classics in their respective arts.

The analogy between Beethoven and Shakespeare is almost too obvious for remark. They are the twin giants of music and literature in their colossal and comprehensive powers, in the breadth and universality of their genius, and in the verdict of absolute superiority unanimously accorded them by all nations, all schools, and all factions, both in the profession and by the public. They are like the pyramids of Egypt; they overtop all altitudes, cover more area, and present a more enduring front to the “corroding effects of time” than aught else the world has known.

Mozart and Spenser resemble each other in their quaint and classic, yet naïve and sunshiny style, their abundance, almost excess of fancy, and their fondness for supernatural, though for the most part non-religious and non-mythological scenes, incidents, and characters; also in their habit of treating startling situations and normally grievous catastrophes without exciting any very profound subjective emotions in their readers and hearers. Not that they are flippant or superficial in character; far from it; but with them art was somewhat removed from humanity. With Spenser literature was not life, and with Mozart music was not emotion. We smile and are glad at heart because of them, but we are not thrilled; we are pensive or reflective, but we rarely weep and are never plunged into despair. There is a moral lesson, it is true, in the feats of the knights and ladies in the “Faery Queen,” as also in the vicissitudes of that rather admirable scoundrel, Don Juan, but it is not burned into us, as by a keener and crueler hand. Those who enjoy poetry and music, rather than feel it, love it, or learn from it, are always partial to Spenser and Mozart.

No artistic affinity is more marked than that of Schubert and Moore. They are both preëminently song-writers. Both had a gift of spontaneous, happy, graceful development of a single thought in small compass. Both are melodious beyond compare, and both wrote with an ease, rapidity, and versatility rarely matched in the annals of their arts. Moore is the most musical of poets, and Schubert, perhaps, the most poetic of musicians. One of Moore’s life-purposes was the collection of stray waifs of national airs and furnishing them with appropriate words. Likewise, one of Schubert’s main services to art was the collection of brief lyric poems and setting them to suitable melodies. Each reached over into the sister art a friendly hand, and each, unawares, won his chief fame thereby. Moreover, though clinging by instinct and preference to the smaller, simpler, more unpretentious forms, each wrote one or two lengthy and well-developed works, such as the “Lalla Rookh,” with Moore, and the “Wanderer Fantaisie,” with Schubert, which gloriously bear comparison with the masterpieces of their type from the pens of the ablest writers in the larger forms.

Shelley has been called the poet’s poet, and Schumann might as aptly be termed the musician’s composer; because the subtle, fanciful, subjective character and the metaphysical tendency of the works of both require the keen insight and the fertile imagination of the artistic temperament, to follow them in all their flights and catch the full significance of their suggestions. With both, the instinct for form is weak, and the constructive faculty almost wanting. Ideas and figures are fine, profound, and astute, but there is a lack of lucidity, brevity, and force, as well as of logical development, in their expression. A few bits of melody by Schumann, such as the “Träumerei,” and an occasional brief lyric by Shelley, like “The Skylark,” have become well-known and popular; but their works, in the main, are likely to be the last ever written to catch the public ear. They appeal the more strongly to the inner circle of initiates who are familiar spirits in the mystical realm, whose language they speak. Where Shelley is the favorite poet, and Schumann the favorite composer, an unusually active fancy and subtle intellect are sure to be found.

Mendelssohn and Longfellow are alike in almost every feature. Both are in temperament objective and optimistic. Both are graceful, fluent, melodious, tender, and thoughtful, without being ever strongly impassioned or really dramatic. Both display superior and well-disciplined powers, nobility of sentiment, and ease and grace of manner. Perfect gentlemen and polished scholars, both avoid all radical and reformatory tendencies, to such an extent as to lend a shade of conventionality to their artistic personality, as compared with the extreme romanticists of their day. Both have reached the public ear and heart as no other talent of equal magnitude has ever done. Many of the ballads, narrative poems, and shorter pieces by Longfellow, and the “Songs Without Words,” by Mendelssohn, have become so familiar as to be almost hackneyed, even with the non-poetic and non-musical populace.

Chopin is beyond dispute the Tennyson of the pianoforte. The same depth, warmth, and delicacy of feeling vitalizing every line, the same polish, fineness of detail, and symmetry of form, the same exquisitely refined, yet by no means effeminate, temperament are seen in both. Each shows us fervent passion, beyond the ken of common men, without a touch of brutality; intense and vehement emotion, with never a hint of violence in its betrayal, expressed in dainty rhythmic numbers as polished and symmetrical as if that symmetry and polish were their only _raison d’être_. This similar trait leads often to a similar mistake in regard to both. Superficial observers, fixing their attention on the preëminent delicacy, tenderness, elegance, and grace of their manner and matter, regard them as exponents of these qualities merely, and deny them broader, stronger, sterner characteristics. Never was a grosser wrong done true artists. No poet and no composer is more profound, passionate, and intense than Tennyson and Chopin, and none so rarely pens a line that is devoid of genuine feeling as its legitimate origin. But the artist in each stood with quiet finger on the riotous pulses of emotion, and forbade all utterance that was crude, chaotic, or uncouth. Both had the heart of fire and tongue of gold. Tennyson wrote the model lyrics of his language and Chopin the model lyrics of his instrument, for all posterity. Edgar Poe said of Tennyson: “I call him and think him the noblest of poets, because the excitement which he induces is at all times the most ethereal, the most elevating, and the most pure. No poet is so little of the earth, earthy.” The same words might well be spoken of Chopin.

Liszt and Byron were kindred spirits, both as men and artists. Among the serener stars and planets that move majestically in harmony with heaven’s first law, to the music of the spheres, they were like meteors or comets, appearing above the horizon with dazzling brilliance, and darting to the zenith, through an erratic career, reaching a summit of fame and popularity, attained during his lifetime by no other poet or musician, and setting at defiance all laws of art, of society, and of morals. Brilliancy of style and character, haughty independence, impetuous passion, a matchless splendor of genius, a supreme contempt for the weaknesses of lesser mortals, combined with the warmest admiration for their peers, are the distinguishing attributes of both. Byron’s devoted friendship for Moore and Shelley corresponds exactly to Liszt’s feeling for Chopin and Wagner. Liszt himself recognized this affinity between himself and Byron. The English poet was for many years his model and favorite author; many of his scenes and poems he translated into tones, and his influence is marked in most of his earlier compositions. The works of both are remarkable for a fire and fury almost demoniac, alternating with a light and flippant grace, almost impish. Both understood a climax as few others have done, and both had the dramatic element strongly developed. Both were lawless and dissolute, according to the world’s verdict, yet scrupulous and refined to an extreme in certain respects. Each scandalized the world, repaid its censure with scorn, and saw it at his feet; and each left, like a meteor, a track of fire behind him, which still burns with a red and vivid, if not the purest, luster.

Wagner and Victor Hugo are the two Titans of the nineteenth century, having created more stir and ferment in the world of art and letters than any other writers, contemporary or previous. Each is the leading genius of his nation. They resemble each other in the pronounced originality of their genius, their virile energy and productivity, and their colossal force. Of both, the rare and singular fact is true, that their productions all attain about the same level of merit. Most authors and most composers are known by one or a few sublime creations. I know of no others who have written an equal number of great works and none that are mediocre or feeble. They are also alike in the circumstance that while each has done fine work in a number of other departments, it is the dramatic element which forms the strongest feature of their artistic personality. Few French novels can compare with those of Victor Hugo; but it is the powers of the dramatist displayed in the plot, striking situations and characters, which constitute their chief merit; and in his writings for the stage he has far surpassed all that he has done as novelist. Likewise, while Wagner’s orchestral works for the concert room would alone have made him a reputation, it is by his operas that he has made the world ring with his fame. Each had a sense of the dramatic and a mastery of its effects not even approached by any other artist. They bear, furthermore, a strong resemblance in their revolutionary character and tendencies. Both were born pioneers, innovators, reformers. Both headed a revolt against the reigning sovereigns and the established government of their respective arts and after a desperate struggle came out victorious. Both have been followed by a host of disciples, belligerent and radical beyond all that the annals of music and literature can show. They were like two powerful battering-rams, attacking the bulwarks of classic prejudice and conventionality. The revolution which Wagner brought about in opera was exactly matched by Hugo with the drama. His “Hernani” was as great a shock to the established precedents of the stage, as was Wagner’s “Nibelungen.” Lastly, both display the unusual phenomenon of retaining their creative power into extreme old age, and both died when life and art and fame were fully ripe, with the eyes of the world upon them and their names on every tongue.

FINIS.