Chapter XII: Part 12

Of his complete musicianship there is no question. As a performing artist, an interpreter, he was a masterly pianist. We do not measure him by the phenomenal virtuosity of the Liszts, von Bülows, Rubinsteins, and Tausigs, who came after him. Such comparison would be irrelevant; he was not of their kind; not primarily a virtuoso, but essentially an artist and interpreter. In that sense his playing was remarkable; fluent, brilliant, vital, full of fire and feeling; his touch sensitive, decided, strong or delicate as the phrase required; his technique free and faultless; its perfection seemed to be spontaneous. Hiller said his playing was what flying is to a bird. Mme. Schumann said: "Of mere _effects_ of performance he knew nothing; he was always the great musician; in hearing him one forgets the player in the full enjoyment of the music." Joachim says: "His playing was full of fire, which could scarce be controlled, and yet was controlled and combined with the greatest delicacy." His adherence to strict time and to his author's meaning is said to have been absolute. He had a rare faculty of playing at sight from a MS. orchestral score, characterizing each instrument by a peculiar quality of tone. He rarely played from book, trusting to his prodigious memory. His improvisations astonished all; they were no vague, random excursions over the keyboard, all digression, with which so many flashy finger-knights dazzle their audiences; they were consistent, well-planned compositions, in which the themes were not merely touched and set in shifting lights, but were contrapuntally worked and carried out; thematic development was with him a second nature. This was partly owing to his early practice in counterpoint under Zelter.

He deeply loved the organ, and was one of the most masterly organ players and composers of his time. For intrinsic worth and beauty his Organ Sonatas rank only next to Bach and Handel.

For conductorship he showed a passion and a gift from boyhood, when he improvised little private concerts in his father's house. Older musicians did not disdain to play under his bâton. Charming pictures are given by his biographers of the overtures and symphonies, as well as his own juvenile operas, performed there under his enthusiastic lead. Later he became one of the first conductors living, whether in symphony or oratorio. He had the magnetic quality; all the grace and flexibility of his attractive person, the electric eloquence of look and gesture, made each point of the music felt by performers and hearers. The former never could mistake his meaning, which was the meaning of the music. We have heard it said by those who knew him, that in the rendering of orchestral music, even movements of his own, he was subject to his moods, would take the same movement at one time much quicker, with more fire than at others; but it was all genuine, all loyal; there was a reason for it, and the essential music never suffered from this elasticity.

His seemingly instinctive and spontaneous command of counterpoint, already seen in his improvisation, is manifest in his organ music, in his psalms and oratorios, in his fugues as such, in the clear, symmetrical development of his orchestral and chamber works, in fact in all his compositions of whatever form. He was happily at home in this soul secret of the plastic tone-art. For the truth is, he was musically, spiritually, a true child of Sebastian Bach: who more fit than he to be the first exponent to our century of the long-shelved Matthew _Passion_ of that mighty master? Through Mendelssohn has Bach gained a foothold in the more modern world of music.

His instrumentation is a model in its way, neither too much nor too little. Never dry and meagre, it is never bloated and excessive, weighed down to monotony by superfluous multitude of heavy instruments, which give each other scarcely room to vibrate freely, like so much in the "advanced" instrumentation of to-day. It is never extravagant, bent on sensational surprises and effects, if sometimes droll for cause. It is chaste, simple, clear, while it is vivid, graphic, and expressive. There is no false, exaggerated coloring, only just what suits the subject. Now it is airy, delicate, and fairylike; now bold, majestic, or sublime; now fraught with changing atmospheric quality, as in the "Rain" chorus in _Elijah_, in the _Hebrides_ overture, and the _Becalmed at Sea_ and _Prosperous Voyage_, now light-hearted and elastic, as in the "Italian" Symphony and the youthful overture to the _Return from Abroad_. If he does not touch the spiritual depths, nor strike with the lightning suddenness and fire of Beethoven, it is because he is himself, not Beethoven. But alike in his purely instrumental and his choral works, his instrumentation is always interesting, always clear and telling, and in keeping with the whole, always original, poetic, full of life and power.

We might discourse upon his mastery of Form. Enough to say, that with him all is in "good form," yet not formal, at least to a fault.

So much of his musicianship, his technical equipment, of what might be learned from masters. In him it all ministered to a creative genius of an original, rare order, as we shall see in a slight, cursory survey of his productions.

Painted by Begas.]

[Footnote A: At this age he had written two operas and almost completed a third,--six symphonies, a quartet for piano and strings, a Cantata, six fugues for the piano, a psalm for four or five voices with a double fugue, and many minor pieces.--K. K.]

We begin with the _Midsummer Night's Dream_ Overture, in which the lad of sixteen sprang into fame a masterly composer. Well had he read his Shakespeare,--the bard who fascinates the heart and soul of childhood before any child can be supposed to understand him! What a felicitous reproduction of the fairy element in tones! The perfect fairy overture, it is still heard with delight by old and young, and ever will be, it is so fresh, spontaneous, genuine, such an honest emanation from the enthusiastic heart and imagination of the boy composer. The other movements now commonly sung and played with the drama were the afterthought of Mendelssohn's riper period, when he was thirty-four years old. Schumann says: "His music is a meditation on the play, _a bridge between Bottom and Oberon_, without which the passage into Fairy Land is almost impossible." The same fairy vein, the same dainty elfin motives, or some of the same family, are met in many of the earlier and later works of Felix. That vein haunted him; it was a lucky string to play upon. Ballad movements, Canzonettas, _Volkslieder_, and the like quaint melodies, abound as well. The Overture is numbered Op. 21. Sketched or completed about the same time were the Octet, Op. 20, the first set of the Songs without Words, and the first Quintet, in A; all works of ripe and finished art of a clearly asserted, pronounced individuality. These mark the culmination of his youthful period.

His early piano efforts are in many forms, mostly with strings. He wrote three Sonatas for piano solo, but soon ceased to cultivate that field (in face of Beethoven?). But he had already opened a new and original field for himself, albeit a less ambitious one, in the Songs without Words, a field to which he returned _con amore_ from time to time until late in his short life. One is tempted to describe some of these choice little tone-poems, were there room; at least the three Gondola Songs. Had he been reading Shelley:

"My soul is an enchanted boat,
Which like a sleeping swan doth float
Upon the silver waves of thy sweet singing."

These perhaps express the daintiest, most exquisite of the many moods and themes poetic, sentimental, picturesque, or wideawake and stirring or heroic, in these eight and forty wordless songs. Perhaps the last two sets have not quite the verve of the earlier and more spontaneous numbers. But think of the _Volkslied_, the hunting and the martial strains, the deeper meditations, the _Duet_, above all the exhilarating "Spring Song" in A! In these, if in nothing else, he opened a new field in musical art, in which many followed him, but none approached him. These _Lieder ohne Worte_ are of his most genuine, most individual inspirations. There is hardly a characteristic trait of the composer's style, as developed in his larger works, which you do not find here clearly announced and pronounced in these perfect little miniatures. In them we have the whole of Mendelssohn,--we mean of the innate, the essential, not the acquired music of the man. If to some they have come to look commonplace, it is their own radiance that veils them.

Of his many other piano compositions, the most important are the Six Preludes and Fugues, Op. 35; another in E minor, full of fire and strength, his contribution to the Album "Notre Temps"; and the _Variations Sérieuses_. All the great composers, notably Beethoven, were fond of writing variations. Those of Mendelssohn are full of character, and often figure to advantage in the artistic programmes of pianists. For the piano with strings, the two Trios are the most interesting, and still challenge the chamber-concert givers. The two Sonatas with 'Cello also hold their own.

He loved to employ the piano with orchestra. The brilliant _Capriccio_ in B minor, and the Rondo in E flat, swift as an arrow and going as straight to the mark, are concert favorites; still more the _Serenade_ and _Allegro Giojoso_, full of life and charm. But most important, masterworks indeed, are the two Concertos. That in G minor, by the very fascination of its beauty, and by being such a model in form, so clear and pure throughout, has been practised so much in conservatories, and played at the début of so many callow virtuosos, that a shade of commonplace has settled over it. The other, in D minor, keeps itself more select, so that for the more exacting taste it is publicly too seldom played.

And, speaking of Concertos, we must not forget the one for the violin, which surely ranks only after that by Beethoven, and is attempted by all the violinists. Its charm is never failing. The fine intensity of the impassioned Allegro has something feminine and far reaching in its quality, so that it was a rare pleasure to hear it interpreted by such an artist as Camilla Urso, with such true nervous grasp and accent. The middle movement seemed divine; and the finale, heralded by the brass _ff_, is so uncontainable and full of fire, so brilliant and impetuous, that it admits of being taken at the most rapid tempo. It is perhaps the most popular of all violin concertos.

All the great masters have written string quartets. The Quartet for two violins, viola and 'cello, corresponding to the four essential parts in harmony, each maintaining its individuality, yet each essential to the whole, is the quintessence of musical expression. Any imperfection betrays itself inevitably; all is exposed; there is nothing hidden under an orchestral coloring or vague passages of mere effect. The four voices are four persons. Not to speak of Haydn, father and founder of the race, the greatest models are those of Mozart and Beethoven. Those of Beethoven often seem like foreshadowings in outline of later phases in his larger grand creations. Those of Mendelssohn are less purely quartet-like. They have more of a singing quality,--a melody with an accompaniment,--and seem to seek orchestral development. The early one in E flat is of highly impassioned character, and might be distinguished as the _Quartet Pathetique_. It has a pathetic introductory _Adagio_, followed by a passionate _Allegro_; then a _Canzonetta_, a quaint minor strain in the spirit of some sad old _Volkslied_ or Ballad; then an _Andante_ of profoundest melancholy; then a bold finale, in 12-8, running in very rapid triplets. The three Quartets of Op. 44 are in a riper style. But the first begins with a swift and fiery _Allegro_, of which the theme is strikingly symphonic, and which has been well said to be not quartet-writing at all, but a melody with a bass and a mere filling-in of middle parts; not a conversation between four distinct individualities. The Mendelssohnian ardor, depth of feeling, yearning aspiration, with all his grace, facility, and clearness, pervade these quartets; but more perfect as quartets are his part-songs for mixed and for male voices. His last quartet, in F minor, written just after the death of his beloved sister Fanny, so soon before his own, has spontaneous unity in all its movements. It is said to have been written in forty-eight hours, in one close closeting with grief.

Of the two Quintets, that in A, of the juvenile period, is fresh, bright, full of life and charm, having a lovely _Andante Intermezzo_, and an elfin _Scherzo_. The much later one, in B flat, by the irrepressible and soaring impetus of its _Allegro vivace_,--challenge bravely answered in the _finale_,--by the sad ballad-like _Andante scherzando_ in D minor; and by its profoundly, grandly beautiful _Adagio_, is perhaps more popular and always welcomed with sincere delight.

There remains the Octet, written just before the Midsummer Night's Dream. It is not a double quartet, two quartets reinforcing or offsetting one another; but it is a conference of eight real parts, eight individualities. The _ensemble_, especially the fiery opening _Allegro_, has the richness and fullness of an organ's diapasons, and naturally abounds in contrapuntal imitation to keep eight such parts employed. It is laid out on the broad scale of a symphony, with great contrast between its several movements, especially between the airy-light, crisp _staccato_ of its _Scherzo_ (forerunner of the fairy overture) and the grand sweep and rush, like a freshet, of the _Presto_ finale. The work bears performance by all the strings of an orchestra, and is not seldom so presented.

We come now to his poetic, fascinating Concert Overtures, already ushered in by Shakespeare's fairy wand. Three of these date shortly after the Midsummer Night's Dream. The finest of them is the first, scored in Rome a year or two after his visit to the Hebrides, the outgrowth of an attempt to convey to his sister Fanny, in a piano sketch, his impressions of the "lonely island." The overture is often called "Fingal's Cave." It does not deal in literal description. It is not realistic. It is the feeling of the scene, subjectively conceived. The leading theme (B minor) suggests the dreamy reverie of one leaning over the water, absorbed in its commingling, fluctuating, mystic ebb and flow. The same poetic spirit sang the _Gondellieder_. In the strong answering motive you feel the wild force of the waves dashing on the rock-bound shores; loud calls give the sense of distance; you hear cries of sea-birds; while all bespeaks the watery atmosphere, the solemn silence and the mystic solitude of ocean.

Then came _Meeresstille und Glückliche Fahrt_,--a reproduction as Overture of two sea-pictures from two little poems of Goethe; the first conveying the sensation of a dead calm at sea; then the rising of a breeze, the boatswain's whistle, the setting of sails and swinging round of the huge, heavy hulk, the addressing itself to motion, making smooth, gallant headway (with ever and anon great, deep, mysterious sighs!) and entering port amid a triumphal blaze of trumpets. It is a wonderfully graphic and imaginative reproduction of the subjects. The instrumentation is as telling and artistic as the thematic working. The introduction of the piccolo and of the deep serpent and contrafagotto conveys a sense of illimitable height and depth.

The third, to "the Fair Melusina," Felix tells his sister, he wrote for an opera of Conradin Kreutzer's, based on Tieck's _Mährchen_, which he saw at a theatre. He disliked Kreutzer's music, especially the Overture, which was encored, and he resolved to write another "which the people might not encore, but which would cause them more solid pleasure." It is romantic music in the fullest sense. In the two contrasted themes,--the first (in F) watery, cool and rippling, tempting one beneath the waves,--the other (F minor) chivalric, heroic, proud, impatient,--he clearly had in view the princess Melusina (supposed to be a mermaid in the hours denied to her lord), and the brave knight who weds her. Schumann says it revives "those fables of the life deep down beneath the watery abyss." How bright and beautiful the mingling colors of the instruments! With what fine contrapuntal unity in variety the imitation and development proceeds!

More to the humor of to-day, perhaps, is his much later powerfully dramatic Overture to _Ruy Blas_. It is exciting, with bold contrasts, fraught with impending tragic crises, clear, strong, concise, and very effectively instrumented. Not so great as Beethoven's _Coriolanus_ overture, it is his nearest approach to that, and shows that Mendelssohn was capable of something more impassioned, concentrated, fateful, than dreams of fairyland, breathings of sentiment and reproductions of romance.

Now for his Symphonies. First, his greatest, in A minor, which is supposed to owe its inspiration to his recollections of Scotland. In its wild, tender, melancholy melody and coloring, its romantic, breezy, sea-shore character, it has affinity with the _Hebrides_ overture. How deep and tender the introductory _Andante con Moto_, 3-4! And how charmingly the kindred _Allegro_ melody, 6-8, sets out from it and runs so smoothly and so rapidly, most of the way in octaves between the first violins and low clarinet tones! How it winds in and out among the instruments, now quiet and individual, now borne along upon the swelling, roaring tide of the whole orchestra! How it keeps its sweet, sad, minor mood, relieved only by one little bit of sunshiny major! Then, after the repeat, what wild, strange, sea-shore modulations, the cool, mysterious thrill of ocean and the Infinite! And when again those shuddering modulations cross the smooth mirror, the excitement swells to a furious climax, and all the strings rush up and down the chromatic scale with a tremendous vehemence; and it all dies down again, till only flutes and reeds are left streaming in the air, sliding leisurely down tone by tone, and leading back to the _Andante_. Compare this exciting climax with one correspondingly placed in the seventh symphony of Beethoven; if it has not that Promethean fire that could defy Olympus, is it feeble in comparison?

In the _Scherzo_ the scene shifts to sunny playfulness. Vividly the laughing theme leaps out from voice after voice; the instruments seem to speak, as Schumann says, like men. What hurrying, huddling gleesomeness in the accompaniments, like the tiny waves that crowd up round the spot where the fountain's column falls! In hushed _staccato_ the strings whisper a new motive, which is taken up by all and developed, with fragments of the laughing theme; and there seems to be a pointed allusion, fond and playful, to a characteristic of Scotch melody, in that emphatic mocking of the cadence of a minor third! It floats sportively away, in the violins, against a skyey background of oboe and horn tones, charming the soul away with it in pleased forgetfulness, when with a sudden revulsion of consciousness we are in the minor chord of D (like a great sob, escaping involuntarily), leading with solemn, stately measure and a sound of warning into the _Adagio_ in A, 2-4, a most lovely, deep and tender movement, in which the orchestra seems to sing a Psalm of Life.... Upon this bursts, like a flash of sunshine over the sombre water, the _Vivacissimo_, a most dashing, brilliant theme, pausing anon to let a more pensive melody of reeds be heard; but with rough, impatient vehemence the basses break off the episode, and the bacchic frenzy of the movement storms itself away again, until its force is spent, and the quiet naïve little reed theme gets another chance and runs fondling and chatting along in duet between bassoon and oboe, and the strain sinks to sleep as in the fairy overture. The short finale, in A major, is in kindred melody and rhythm with the first _Allegro_, but with a bold and swaggering carelessness of movement, as of a party breaking up and marching off from a glorious carouse, to the tune (at least its spirit) of "We won't go home till morning!"

After the immortal nine of Beethoven, there is no Symphony more perfect in form than this, of charm more enduring, although we have the great one of the "heavenly length" in C by Schubert, and such noble ones by Schumann. But Mendelssohn has the advantage over Schumann in point of instrumentation and of general clearness (the importance of clearness was a mooted point between the two friends and mutual admirers).

Even more enjoyable in some respects is the "Italian" Symphony in A. It was written earlier than the so-called third, the "Scotch," and is commonly numbered the fourth. Both were well advanced before he left Rome. Its movements are finely contrasted. After the fresh, sunshiny, buoyant _Allegro_, calling up the blue, blue sky and boundless green of Italy,--brought out all the more vividly by the pensive Mendelssohnian subjectivity of the low-running _staccato_ of the violins which sets in right after the announcement of the bright first theme,--how impressive is the sombre, solemn, antique-sounding, steady chant of reeds in the _Andante_, with the soft, warm gush of mingling flutes above! It is like passing from Italian noon-day into the rich gloom of some old church. The tranquil, blissful melody of the _Minuet_ flows on in limpid, peaceful beauty; and the mellow horn Trio makes a delicious episode. In the _Saltarello_ we feel the rush and whirl of Carnival, not without a dash of Mendelssohnian melancholy. The passage from that into the yet wilder _Tarantella_, with its whirling triplets, indicates the very _abandon_ and delirium of excitement, whereas the former, by the hitch in the alternate triplet, denotes a dance in which the dancer still keeps some control upon himself.

Painted by Th. Hildebrand. Engraved by E. Eichens.

This portrait was probably made in 1835, Mendelssohn being at that time in his twenty-sixth year.]

The "Reformation Symphony" (No. 5) dates back almost to his juvenile period. It was written at the age of twenty-two. With the exception of one bright gem, the _Scherzo_, it seems to labor under the proverbial fatality of _occasional_ works. As a Symphony it is exceptional in form, consisting really of only two parts, with a refreshing interlude between. The first part, in which the idea of the Old, the frowning Catholic faith, predominates, includes the _Allegro_ with its short _Andante_ prelude. The second part, the triumph of the New, with its curious variations on the Lutheran Choral, "_Ein' feste Burg_," has likewise its short _Andante_ prelude, whose rather feeble prayer for peace it answers. Suppose a curtain dropped between the two parts, while for interlude and recreation we are vouchsafed that happy _Scherzo_.--But it is hardly fair to count this early effort into his symphonic period, any more than the Symphony "No. 1," in C minor, which bears date 1824.

From Symphony to Oratorio we have a noble bridge in the Symphony-Cantata "_Lobgesang_" or "Hymn of Praise." It is of later date, to be sure, than the oratorio _St. Paul_, and was composed to celebrate the invention of the art of printing, and to lend _éclat_ to the inauguration of the statue of Guttenberg, at Leipsic, June 25, 1840. Many regard it as the most felicitous and most inspiring of his larger works, although prompted by an "occasion"! Praise and gratitude to God for LIGHT; the waiting and longing for it through the long darkness of the middle ages; then the break of day; the free career and joy of a redeemed humanity; and first and last and everywhere the Praise of God: such were the themes and promptings of Mendelssohn's heart and genius when he composed the _Lobgesang_. The three orchestral movements which prepare the chorus are essentially symphonic. From the first trombone proclamation of the pregnant choral motive, through the rapidly unfolding, fiery, complex _Allegro_; through the sweet, sad (almost over-sweet) tune (as of "the heart musing, while the fire burns," yet with a slight flutter) of the middle movement, _Allegretto_, and its alternations with the cheery, choral-like full chords of the wind; to the last deep-drawn sigh of the rich, soulful _Adagio_, it is pure symphony, all leading up to the superb outburst of the irrepressible chorus of Praise. Thenceforth we breathe the mountain air of oratorio. The work is too familiar to require description. Enough to note the innate strong dramatic tendency of Mendelssohn, as shown in the middle point and climax of the work, the thrilling scene beginning with the anxious Tenor recitative; "Watchman, will the night soon pass?" with fitful, wild accompaniment; the startling Soprano answer: "The night is departing," flooding all with instant light; and then the blazing outburst of full chorus, taking up the words in an exciting fugue.--It is surely an inspired, a master-work, both instrumentally and vocally.

Of his two great Oratorios proper,--the greatest certainly since Handel,--the one most esteemed among musicians is the earliest, _St. Paul_, produced in 1836. It shows the influence of Bach throughout, in the frequency of narrative recitative; in the use made of the Lutheran Choral; in the introduction of turbulent Jewish people's choruses (_turbae_); and in a generally dramatic conception and shaping of the whole. It stands between a Bach _Passion_, and the more epical Handel Oratorio. Depth of religious feeling and great dignity of style pervade the entire composition. The music is contrapuntal, never dry and pedantic. The overture is of quite a different character from his concert overtures; it is a solemn, contrapuntal, sacred prelude, with the old-school profundity, yet genial and interesting enough to serve as a good concert piece by itself. The orchestral resources throughout are carefully husbanded, after the way of Mendelssohn, to the great gain of true and clear effect, affording room for great variety of coloring. He relies on the intrinsic strength of his ideas, rather than on a noisy over-fulness of instrumentation.

The choruses range from grand, uplifting ones to others very lovely and tender; others mob-like and vindictive, like "Stone him to death"; again others of a vivid local coloring, like those in which the Gentile crowd worship Paul and Barnabas, "O be gracious, ye Immortals," etc., full of light-hearted, sensuous Greek adoration, of "oxen and garlands" and ear-tickling flutes. The arias are characteristic, heartfelt, deeply pious melodies. _St. Paul_ is the oratorio which is most sure to gain, at every hearing, on a serious and truly music-loving listener.

_Elijah_, most popular of oratorios (after the _Messiah_), and most familiar, requires even less comment. Description or analysis would bore. The subject began to occupy his mind in 1838. It was finished for the Birmingham Festival of 1846, where, himself conducting, it was received with utmost enthusiasm. Yet it did not satisfy himself, and he at once set about revising and polishing. This was but a year before his death. When he returned to England for the last time to conduct it, the Prince Consort addressed him as another Elijah "faithful to the worship of true Art, though surrounded by the idolators of Baal." In greatness and variety of poetic and imaginative design, in wealth of musical ideas, in ripeness of consummate musicianship, in sure calculation of effects, it is a full expression of the composer's genius. It abounds in numbers which captivate alike refined and simple listeners. It betrays the dramatic element in the opening picture of the drought relieved and culminating in the wonderful "Rain" chorus; in the episode of the Widow who has lost her son; in the scene between the Prophet and the wicked Queen; in the Baal choruses, secular, impatient, boastful, impotently clamoring for miracle; in the sweet soliloquy and meditation of Elijah in the wilderness; in his ascension in the fiery chariot; and more or less in all the great choruses, all very graphic. Then what lovely restful choruses, like "He watching over Israel," followed by the perfect Angel Trio: "Lift thine eyes"! And arias full of meaning and of exhortation, like the soprano "Hear ye, Israel," in composing which, beginning with the high F sharp, his mind was haunted by that note as he had heard it in the voice of Jenny Lind!

Judging from the few fragments published, his unfinished oratorio _Christus_ would have been his greatest sacred composition. From the first part, the Birth of Christ, we have the Trio of the Magi, teeming with wonder and anticipation; then the chorus: "There shall a star come forth," which has a sweet, pure, star-like beauty, ending with the choral: "_Wie schön leuchtet der Morgenstern!_" From the second part, or Passion, the tenor narratives, the accusing choruses before Pilate, terribly dramatic, especially the multitudinous echoes of "Crucify him," and the inexorable pronunciamento: "We have a sacred Law," bring him into still closer affinity with Bach; and even more so the exquisitely plaintive weeping chorus at the end.

Much might be said of his one Catholic work, the _Lauda Sion_, composed in 1846 for the feast of Corpus Christi at Liège, very beautiful in spite of the dry dogmatic Latin text, strange text for him! Much, too, of the three Motets for female voices; of the Hymn: "Hear my Prayer," with its soaring, bird-like soprano solo: "O for the wings of a dove!" of his masculine, strong settings of eight or ten of the Psalms, mostly for chorus with orchestra, with their Old Testament flavor; and of numerous smaller sacred compositions.

Of course so sensitive a nature, subject to many moods, quick to take impressions and to turn them into music, was prolific in songs with piano accompaniment. From his earliest composing days, at intervals throughout his life, he produced sets of _Lieder_ and duets, to the number of ninety or more. They are all musical, refined, full of feeling, some of them strikingly original; but before the few great ones of Beethoven, the numberless songs of Schubert, those of Schumann, and above all Robert Franz, they retreat into the shade. Yet they have been favorites in musical homes and concert rooms, especially in England, where they introduced the love of German song, tempting many feeble imitators, while awakening there some worthier responses from the kindred spirit, Sterndale Bennett.

More truly original, with more marrow in them, and more of the enduring quality, are his four-part songs, both for mixed and for male voices. These have been the staple and the best material on which the Liedertafeln all over Germany, and the part-song clubs of England and America have built. After more pretentious, ingenious, sensational part-songs of later origin, it is always refreshing to hear one of them; for they are sincere music, thoroughly artistic, with heart and soul and poetry in them. With them we may mention several larger pieces for male chorus, such as he composed to Schiller's Ode "To the Artists," with accompaniment of brass. The exhortation of the music is worthy of the poem; male choirs feel well when they lift their voices in a strain so manly and so edifying.

We come now to a lofty form of choral and orchestral music, which we owe to Mendelssohn. In setting two of the Greek tragedies of Sophocles he had no old Greek music for a model. The spirit of the dramas lay in the text of Sophocles. He had read the _Antigone_ in the Greek, and so far got his inspiration at first hand. He took the suggestion from Frederic William IV., King of Prussia, during a summer residence in Berlin in 1841. The peculiar function of the Chorus in the Greek tragedies, as a mediator between the actors and the audience, commenting in some sort of rhythmical chant upon what was passing on the stage, and the sublimity of some of those choruses, make us feel that there could not have been a truer artistic idea than that of setting them to music, realizing and carrying out their vague embryonic musical aspiration as it could only be realized in these modern times after music had become an art. Mendelssohn's inspiration seems to have sprung congenially from that of Sophocles; and this music is of the freshest, manliest, most original and vigorous that he has left.

_Antigone_ was the first experiment. He composed it in eleven days:--Overtures, single and double choruses for male voices, with full orchestral accompaniment for all that are lyrical in subject; melodramatic bits, as where Antigone descends into the vault; and chords here and there making expressive background to the spoken verse. The piece was first played on the royal stage at Potsdam; and afterwards on the King's birthday before a select audience, the venerable Tieck presiding. When it was given at Leipsic, a meeting of "learned Thebans" signed an address to Mendelssohn, thanking him "for substantially reviving an interest in the Greek tragedy." The music has since made its mark everywhere, whether given on the stage with action, or only sung and played in concert rooms,--at Athens in the original Greek. Nobler men's choruses are never heard than that rich, sweet, pensive moralizing one which sings of man's wondrous faculties and limitations; or that superb hymn to "Bacchus" (double chorus),--as full of pomp and splendor as the Wedding March,--in which the composer gave free rein to his enthusiasm; or the opening invocation to "Helios."

_Oedipus at Colonos_ he composed at Frankfort in 1844, about the time when he began to finish _Elijah_, and write the Violin Concerto and the music to _Athaliah_. A favorite with the men's Choral clubs is the chorus which recounts the beauties of Colonos and the glories of Athens. The music is wonderfully faithful to the ever kindling enthusiasm of the words.

The Mendelssohn Greek choruses are far beyond and above the ordinary part-song, which is a much smaller, humbler affair,--simply, as its name denotes, a _song_, harmonized in four parts. But these are themes worked up, for single and double choir, with as complete art as the choruses in great oratorios, only avoiding the Fugue form, which is Gothic, Christian, suggestive of the Infinite, not Greek.

Racine's _Athalie_, often called his greatest drama, is constructed after the old Greek model, with choruses similarly employed. Mendelssohn's music for it, compared with _St. Paul_ and _Elijah_, the _Lobgesang_, or the Greek plays, must to many seem monotonous, in some parts dry and tame. The musical work, bound by the text, lacks climax. Yet there is much beautiful and some majestic, splendid music in it. Has it a Jewish, as its congeners a Greek flavor? The overture is very noble, with the two parts finely contrasted.

During the last years of his life the dramatic tendency in Mendelssohn, which we have traced all along through so many of his works in many forms, from his child operettas in his father's house to the _Walpurgis Night_, grew upon him with an irresistible momentum. His deep interest in Jenny Lind (Goldschmidt), who was his ideal of a singer, and to whom he became a most devoted friend, led him as the last musical problem of his life to write an opera for her in which she was to take the principal rôle in London. That was _Die Lorelei_, a theme as legendary and romantic, while more poetic and more inviting to music, than the monster Norse mythology. The composition was cut short by his early death. The fragments which he left of the unfinished work are of such rare excellence, that one wonders what might have been, had that ideal been achieved! Might not the German theatre have then possessed an opera, a lyric drama, which would have forestalled the paradoxical solution of the problem which so many, whether musical or not, appear so overready to accept? And how long will the fashion hold?

Greatly unlike in temperament, in character, in quality of genius, in outward circumstances and environment, largely, too, in their ideal aim and tendency, Mendelssohn and Schumann seem to be destined to be thought of together. They lived at the same time, and were intimate associates and friends in Leipsic. Each had the warmest admiration for the other. The two together were a double morning-star in music; yet "one star differeth from another star in glory." Opinions will not soon agree which in his works is the more significant or glorious, which the more potent and far-reaching influence. We do not discuss the point. If the sweetness of Mendelssohn's music does sometimes cloy; if with all the strength of his orchestral works, his oratorios and Greek plays, with all the Jewish masculinity of his Psalms, his male choruses and his part-songs, one feels the feminine, the sentimental minor vein predominate upon the whole; if his struggles with his formidable art-problems were less Titanic than those of Beethoven, and consequently his triumphs less complete; if his resolution of the discord was a joy less absolute, less wholesome and perennial (for with Beethoven Joy, joy--_Freude_--is ever the last word,--Joy as of the gods, admitting of no surfeit, no corruption), still there is no denying, except by some weak caprice of fashion, the essential greatness of the composer Mendelssohn. The most serious deduction to be made is, that he was to a certain extent imitable. Swarms of imitators sprang up, both in his own country and in England. Hence a certain sense of sameness began to attach to his music,--a sameness not fairly chargeable to the master, but to the imitators, with whom it was too easy to confound him, or through their fog to see him falsely. Well might he have said: "Save me from my friends!"

In the Königsstrasse.]

Once Mendelssohn was overrated, in a most partisan and partial spirit, especially in England. Now it is too much the fashion, with young critics and "disciples of the newness," to estimate him far below his real worth. But all new fashions bring their own reaction. In this case the reaction will be purifying and salubrious. A reviving interest in Mendelssohn's music will be so much new guaranty against all false, extravagant, or morbid taste.--While music remains music, whatever may be the ups and downs of fashion, whatever the novelties of style or method, however startling the juggleries of brilliant execution, the genius and the art of Mendelssohn will still hold good. Their fascination may be lost awhile amid the louder clamor of phenomenal new comers; in more sane, reposeful hours, it surely will return with many a sweet surprise. What oratorio society, of high aim and standing, can afford to let the _St. Paul_ and _Elijah_, or the _Hymn of Praise_, lose any of their lustre through neglect of frequent practice? What orchestra can fill out a worthy season without one or more of his symphonies and of his poetic overtures? Is any properly ambitious male chorus or part-song club well equipped without the _Antigone_ and _Oedipus_ music, or the _Ode to the Artists_, or the part-songs of Mendelssohn? Can any chamber music club dispense yet with his string quartets, quintets, or octet? And where is the pianist, however far advanced in virtuosity, who does not like to play sometimes his compositions for pianoforte with orchestra, or who fails to find grateful audience for the _Lieder ohne Wörter_? Indeed to ignore all this is to convict oneself of a very youthful bumptiousness of spirit, an arrogant fanaticism of unreasoning modernness in taste.

Four we count above all others in the temple of tone-art and genius:--Bach, Handel, Mozart and Beethoven. Can we fill out a second four without the name of Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy? Choice may vary as to one or two names in that second quartet; of Schubert and Schumann there can be no question; some may have preference for Haydn, or for Gluck, or Weber, Cherubini, even for Rossini; but when with the other distinctions we take into account that of many-sidedness, all-round musicianship, can any other four compete with Mendelssohn except to his advantage?

_Reproduction of an etching by L. Otto, after a Danish photograph. This portrait is preferred by Schumann's family as the most faithful and characteristic._]

ROBERT SCHUMANN

Every professional musician or music-loving amateur, who examines the individual influence exerted by our great masters upon himself, should always hold in especial veneration the name of Robert Schumann. What an important factor in our dearest recollections is formed by his music, whether enjoyed in great orchestral, choral or chamber concerts, or in the familiarity and reserve of our homes! In how many directions have his compositions and writings influenced our musical feeling, knowledge and taste! That which has so early endeared itself to us must necessarily remain a lifelong companion, must, indeed, become a part of our soul; and this particular corner in our musical heart occupied by Schumann constantly requires fresh recognition of that spirit, which has found expression in such an enchanting language. Schumann being, however, a true German, both personally and artistically, the essence of this spirit is not readily recognized by foreigners. What the latter admire in him, the Germans love, and if they wish to express that which in Schumann's music is worthy of their highest esteem, they use words for which it would be difficult to find an exact equivalent in the French, English or Italian languages; as for instance, Gemüth, Innigkeit, Sinnigkeit and Schwärmerei. This is particularly true in the case of his vocal compositions, which suffer in translation both poetically and musically more than similar works of any other composer and are for this reason far from being fully appreciated outside of German speaking countries. Schumann's instrumental works, on the contrary, have made his name famous wherever music has become the object of a widespread interest.

Robert Schumann's career was not rich in striking events of a general interest, but it was of a more solitary character, revealing the inward life of a poetic dreamer whose language was to be music; of an artist who paved the way for a new and brilliant epoch of his art, who enlarged its domain, fought for its dignity, and by the splendid example of his own productions proved the possibility of his artistic creed. His works were his life; in him there was the closest union of man and artist. Just as a knowledge of his life and personal character helps us to understand his music, so the study of the latter reveals to us the man, for his works are not merely results of a natural or an acquired ability, but they form the musical history of the life of his soul.

The twenty years during which Schumann personally exerted a great influence upon the musical world cover a red-letter period of this century. Only a few years before, Beethoven, Schubert and Weber had died, closing the great epoch of the classic masters, while at the same time preparing a new one with new ideals and new prospects. In the centre of the musical world stood the masters of French and Italian opera: Auber, Halévy, Bellini, Donizetti, and soon Meyerbeer, while such men as Cherubini, Méhul and Boieldieu had already stepped into the background. Germany still had Spohr and a number of less famous composers excelling in some special field, as for instance, Marschner in opera, Lachner in song and instrumental music, Löwe in ballads and oratorios, Hummel and Moscheles in pianoforte music; but they all were far surpassed by the brilliant sun of Mendelssohn which had just risen. He, born in 1809, heads the list of those distinguished names, which opened a new epoch of our art, mainly represented beside himself by Chopin, Schumann, Liszt, Wagner, Franz, and their great French contemporary, Berlioz. Italian and French opera, and an exhibition of meaningless technical virtuosity, formed the general musical taste; Beethoven was neglected, Schubert hardly known; and it looks as if by some kind device of nature just in the right time a resurrection of the higher conception of art was brought about, no one assisting more in the great work than Robert Schumann. He was equipped not only with rarest creative gifts, but also with a superior intellect, a high general culture and a thorough and sincere character, which enabled him to persevere in his great undertaking with unflagging zeal. Alas! why has not nature been more kind to him? Why has not one so deserving been spared the saddest of all fates? Perhaps it was to make his memory still dearer to us, to increase our veneration for him so that even weaknesses or errors in his life or works elicit from us an honest sympathy, which increases whenever we read his many published letters or the story of his life as told by able and sympathetic writers like Wasielewski, Spitta, Reissmann, and others.

Robert Schumann was born on the 8th of June, 1810, in the town of Zwickau, Saxony. Neither his birthplace, nor his ancestry, were such as to favor an early development of his musical talent. His father, August Schumann, son of a minister, had, after a long struggle between business and poetry, finally entered into partnership with a brother as a bookseller, and became widely known as a publisher of valuable books and magazines, and besides as an author. He had a particular fondness for English poets, such as Milton, Scott, and Byron, whose "Beppo" and "Childe Harold" he translated into German. He was a self-made man, who owed all his success to his own untiring energy. His wife, Johanna Christiana Schnabel, whom he won only after a severe struggle, was the daughter of the town-surgeon in Zeitz; she is described as an agreeable lady, of kind disposition, deep feeling and a certain romantic sentimentality, which was also a conspicuous feature of Robert's nature. Her loving care and motherly anxiety for her son is well known to all readers of young Schumann's correspondence.

Robert was the youngest of five children. His older brothers entered upon a business career, and his only sister died in her twentieth year in a state of incurable melancholy. The handsome little boy was petted by everybody and much surrounded by women. He received his education first in a popular private school, later in the public schools, receiving piano instruction from a school teacher, Baccalaureus Kuntzsch, when only six years old. Kuntzsch, who was not a professional musician, at least taught him the most indispensable elements and was held in highest esteem by Schumann till his death. Little Robert early showed a disposition to lead his playmates. One particular friend was chosen to assist in four-hand pieces and a small boys' orchestra was even formed, which Robert directed and for which he made his first efforts as a composer, without having had any theoretical instruction. There were overtures, even operatic sketches, and especially a setting of the 150th psalm for chorus and orchestra, written in Schumann's twelfth year. He also showed a rare skill in improvising on the pianoforte, trying to portray certain persons or dispositions. In public he played the accompaniment of Schneider's oratorio "The Day of Judgment." He was very fond of poetry and private theatricals, but his love of music, which was rapidly increasing, surpassed everything else. This was particularly noticeable after the summer of 1819, when he attended a concert given by Moscheles in Carlsbad. The father had now become convinced that Providence intended Robert for a musician, and notwithstanding all the violent objections on the part of his wife, who foresaw nothing but a career full of deprivations, he applied to Carl Maria von Weber, in Dresden, as a teacher for his son. Weber consented to accept Robert as a pupil, but for unknown reasons the excellent plan was abandoned and the boy's golden opportunity was lost. In spite of this neglect of early and well directed training (which may explain why his first compositions were so original in character and style), Schumann instinctively kept steadily on in the right path, a fact that greatly increases our admiration for him. Thus he pursued his musical studies at home, besides reading as much as possible, and helping his father in his compilations and translations. But already then he began to grow more and more reserved and reflective, loving to be alone, in a world of imagination and dreams. That great romanticist and humorist Jean Paul Friedrich Richter had completely enchanted him; he knew his novels almost by heart and never ceased to adore him as the richest source for his own imagination.

In 1826 Schumann met with a severe loss in the death of his father, who left the responsibility of the lad's future in the hands of his mother and his guardian, the merchant Rudel. They wished him to learn some profession that would promise a safe position early in life, and obediently submitting, he was inscribed as a law student at the university of Leipsic. Before this he had graduated brilliantly from the Zwickau Academy and had made a trip to Southern Germany with a friend, visiting, among other places, Bayreuth, where he stopped at Jean Paul's home, and Munich, where he met Heinrich Heine.

From an engraving by A. Krausse, in Leipsic.]

The young law student had not been long in Leipsic, when he began to thoroughly dislike the chosen profession as well as the noisy student life. To the enthusiastic admirer of Beethoven, Schubert, Jean Paul and Shakespeare the law seemed utterly dry and uninteresting. However he promised his guardian that he would pursue his legal studies, although strong signs of a melancholy disposition had begun to make their appearance. He joined some students' societies, but preferred the company of a few friends who were also much given to musical and poetic dreamings. In the house of Professor Carus, whose wife was a clever singer, his musical penchant found all desired satisfaction; here he met Marschner and Friedrich Wieck, the eminent piano teacher, father of that wonderful little Clara who, then nine years old, had already become famous as a piano-player of rare ability. With his mother's consent Schumann became Wieck's pupil, enjoying at last a rational method of technical education, though still neglecting and even despising all theoretical studies. In February, 1829, Wieck's instruction ended, Schumann gaining more time for ensemble playing. Beethoven's and Prince Louis Ferdinand's chamber compositions were frequently rendered, but especially the works of Franz Schubert, whose early death in the preceding year had impressed Schumann very deeply. Bach's "Well-tempered Clavichord" never left his piano. Happy in extemporizing all kinds of new melodies and harmonies, controlled only by his musical instinct, he wrote a number of songs and piano pieces, and even a pianoforte quartet, none of which have ever been published. The law lectures he neglected, but was much interested in those on the great German philosophers Kant, Fichte and Schelling. The next year he spent in Heidelberg, that romantic old town so beautifully situated in the neighborhood of Switzerland and Italy. Here Schumann met the eminent pandectist Thibaut; but even this great professor was unable to overcome the student's aversion for the legal profession. Again music became the centre of his existence. Life was charming, the time being much occupied by social events and trips which were made to the neighboring towns and valleys. On these occasions Schumann used to practice on a dumb piano even when riding in a carriage. In the fall he enjoyed a delightful trip to Switzerland and upper Italy, and the spirit in which he describes his impressions, changing from wit or rapture into melancholy, from admiration into home-sickness, is very characteristic of his peculiar nature. The stay in Heidleberg was prolonged for another term, which, however, was again mainly devoted to piano study and composition, it being here that he composed his first piano pieces. His skill being widely known, he was often invited to parties, appearing also in a public concert, where he played variations by Moscheles. The struggle between filial obedience and loyalty to his genius had now reached its climax. At a concert given by Paganini in Frankfort, he was deeply impressed, and resolved to live no longer in uncertainty. Accordingly in July, 1830, he sent his mother that famous letter in which he pleads that his future must be devoted to art, and offers to submit unreservedly to the decision of Wieck. To his immense delight the latter's advice was favorable and removed all doubts and objections. Thus Schumann returned to Leipsic as an enthusiastic student of his beloved art.

Of the four ways in which a musician may shape his practical career, teaching, conducting, playing and composing, Schumann chose the last two as being most congenial to him, aiming particularly at the greatest possible virtuosity. He devoted himself to mechanical exercises with an almost sacred energy, even inventing devices to promote his abilities in shorter time than a natural development would allow. At the same time he continued composing, and though having no thorough instruction, he found by his wonderful instinct an adequate form for the expression of his feelings and ideas, a form which could not be called unmusical or amateurish. Indeed in looking to-day at these earlier compositions, we forget that they were written by a man who was only half educated in music, and we admire the genius which guided him in finding the truest language for his rich musical nature. But this was not all. His highly cultivated mind, his desire to promote art by every possible means, compelled him to become also a leading literary champion of its interests. Leipsic was at that time a great musical centre, although the famous epoch only began in 1835, when Mendelssohn was appointed conductor of the Gewandhaus Orchestra.

From an engraving by Weger after a photograph.]