Chapter XV: Part 15

After the _Huguenots_ three years passed during which France received no new work from Meyerbeer. Meanwhile people had much to say about the _Prophète_; but Meyerbeer, exceptionally anxious about the good execution of his works, not finding in the _personnel_ of the _Opéra_ at that time the artists of whom he had dreamed for this work, waited patiently. Moreover, the office of capellmeister of the king of Prussia, to which he had been appointed, called him often to Berlin during this period. It was in this capacity that he composed a grand Italian cantata, _la Festa nella corte di Ferrara_, which was performed at court in 1843, and a German opera in three acts, _A Camp in Silesia_, composed for the inauguration of the new royal theatre of Berlin (Dec. 7, 1844) and which was rather coldly received. It was at this time also that he published, with French words, a great number of admirable songs, of which a collection in four volumes has recently been formed in Paris. It was during this period that he composed the beautiful music for his brother's drama, _Struensée_, and his first March (Fackeltanz), performed for the marriage of the princess Wilhelmina of Prussia with the king of Bavaria.

Finally, on April 16, 1849, the _Prophète_, so long expected, made its appearance at the Paris _Opéra_, interpreted by Roger (Jean de Leyde), Levasseur (Jacharie), Mme. Viardot (Fidès) and Mme. Castellan (Bertha).

_Le Pardon de Plöermel_ was the last of Meyerbeer's works brought out before his death, which occurred at Paris, May 2, 1864. For nearly twenty years _l'Africaine_ had been under consideration, but the master waited for this work as he had done for _le Prophète_, until the _personnel_ of the _Opéra_ could offer him such artists as he deemed necessary for its proper execution. Meanwhile, he had drawn up instructions relative to this _Africaine_, which he wished to have carried out after his death. Among other things he requested that the rôle of Sélika be confided to Mme. Marie Lasse, and that of Vasco to M. Naudin, whose voice he had admired at the _Théâtre Italien_. The direction of the _Opéra_ took pains to conform to this posthumous desire and _l'Africaine_ appeared at this theatre, under the conditions specified by the composer, April 28, 1865. While fully taking into account the great value of certain episodes of this work, it will surely be no violation to Meyerbeer's memory to say that _l'Africaine_ has added nothing to his glory. Even without _l'Africaine_ he would still have remained one of the most magnificent geniuses that has illumined the art of the nineteenth century.

From large lithograph Memorial published at the time of Meyerbeer's death.]

* * * * *

The transformation of the _genre_ of the French grand opera had begun with Auber's _La Muette de Portici_, performed in 1828. _La Muette_ was the first work conceived in the new forms and in the vast proportions of the school which was to succeed the school of Gluck and his followers. The scenic development, the pursuit of new and piquant harmonies, the importance given to the orchestra; all this, joined to a more varied and less uniform melodic expression, had produced a deep impression on the public, and dethroned with a single blow the ancient opera which had reigned for more than half a century. Rossini had come later with his _William Tell_, in which the splendor of the style, the richness of inspiration and the fullness of dramatic expression, all carried to their highest degree, had marked an advance over the remarkable work of the French composer, without, however, surpassing the latter's elegance and originality. With _Robert le Diable_, Meyerbeer, in his turn, struck a note entirely personal, and in this work the passionate vigor of accent, the power of orchestral combinations, the particular character and relief given to each of the personages, indicated a musician of a new and profoundly original genius; a genius more complex than that of his predecessors, seeking for effects in the detail as well as in the _ensemble_, but arriving like them, and by different means, at an intensity of expression which was difficult to surpass.

It goes without saying that the score of _Robert le Diable_ contained suggestions of the forms adopted by the author in the course of his Italian career. This is especially noticeable in the first act and the beginning of the second, and it would not have been an easy matter to avoid it. But the general style of the work has an incontestable grandeur, the declamation, noble and powerful, assumes the character of the French lyric declamation, the contrasts of situations are striking and managed with a remarkable intelligence, and the color of the music, its fantastic character, so well in accord with the subject, are of such an intensity as to produce on the hearer an ineffaceable impression. It is in the third act especially, divided into two distinct parts, that the genius of the composer is given full scope, and attains its most complete magnificence. The comic scene between Bertram and Raimbaut, that in which voices from below call to Bertram, the dramatic scene between Bertram and Alice, are all of a great beauty, and the tableau following, that of the evocation of nuns in the depth of their cloister, with the episode of the seduction of Robert, is of a wonderful poetry and grace, and contrasts in a striking manner with that which precedes. In the fourth act it is the human passion which speaks its most pathetic language from the grand duet of Robert and Isabelle to the moment when the powerful finale comes to prove to us that Gluck's genius and his transports are not unknown to the genius of Meyerbeer. As to the fifth act, it is of an admirable dramatic feeling.

The novelty of the forms and the hitherto unusual development of the score of _Robert_ at first surprised the public, which was cautious about passing judgment. But surprise soon gave way to admiration, admiration grew to enthusiasm, and triumph, a triumph perhaps without precedent on the French stage, welcomed a work so abounding in beauties of a very high order. It is well known how rapidly the whole world ratified the judgment of the Parisian public.

Meyerbeer has been criticised for his Italian souvenirs in his opera _les Huguenots_, particularly that pretty air of Marguerite's in the second act, charming in itself and from a strict musical point of view, but which is evidently an aside, a concession made to virtuosity, and which breaks the _ensemble_ and the unity of an otherwise strong, noble and severe work. This fault aside, however, what a masterpiece is this score of the _Huguenots_, in which the interest steadily increases, and which, from the first scene to the last, never ceases to rise higher and higher! Admiration knows not how to choose nor where to pause, so constant and varied are the demands made upon it, whether by the marvellous tableaux, like that of the arrival of Raoul at Marguerite's house, the picturesque curfew scene in the third act, the duel scene which follows, the powerful episode of the benediction of the poignards in the fourth, followed by the splendid duet of Raoul and Valentine, finally the scene of the massacre of the Huguenots in the fifth,--or by the delineation of the characters, traced with a surprising vigor and sureness of hand, such as those of Marcel, of Saint-Bris and of Nevers, which make an ineffaceable impression on the memory. And what color, what style, what grandeur from the beginning to the end of this work! Whether it be the dramatic element which dominates, as in the duel scene or that of the conjuration, whether it be the pathetic and passionate element, as in the _duo_ of the lovers, whether it be the popular and picturesque element, as in the entire third act, the superiority of the artist is always the same, always equally complete, with no sign of weakness nor faltering. In this opera he recalls with vividness and truth a world which has disappeared, and his music is marvellously in accord with the period which he undertakes to depict, the personages which he presents to us, and even the costumes of those personages. As to the inspiration, always warm, noble and vigorous, it is of an inexpressible richness and power.

Fac-simile of Meyerbeer's musical manuscript, written in 1852.]

The austere subject of the opera of _le Prophète_, in which the element of passion played only a very secondary rôle, caused it to be received at first with a certain reserve on the part of the public. But Meyerbeer had never been better inspired, and the nobleness, the grandeur and the severity of the style of this composition raises it to a level which he did not exceed. The beautiful introduction to the first act, the scene of the three anabaptists, the marvellous ballet of skaters, the arioso of Fidès in prison, a truly sublime and pathetic page, finally the grand tableau of the cathedral, are so many superb and living proofs of Meyerbeer's powerful and versatile genius. The public grew to admire the beauties of this bold and dignified work; as to the artists, there are many who unhesitatingly place the _Prophète_ above all that he has written for the stage; for myself, I divide my highest admiration between _le Prophète_ and _les Huguenots_.

From archives of the Paris Opera.]

The success of _l'Etoile du Nord_, performed at the _Opéra-Comique_, Feb. 16, 1854, was much more spontaneous and considerable than that of the _Prophète_ at the _Opéra_. Yet, after the lapse of forty years, the latter is still played on all the stages of the world, whereas _l'Etoile du Nord_ is well-nigh forgotten. Assuredly there are some beautiful pages in this score, in which Meyerbeer embodied several pieces from his German opera, _A Camp in Silesia_, and especially should be mentioned the songs and the ballad of Catherine in the first act, the quintet in the second, the superb song of Pierre in the third, as well as the comic duet and trio; but the work is essentially lacking in unity, it is too heavy as a whole, and the orchestration is too noisy and brilliant for the demi-character of the opera. Meyerbeer was much better inspired in _le Pardon de Plöermel_ (Dinorah), given also at the _Opéra-Comique_, April 4, 1839. This work contains some exquisite pages, among which I will mention particularly the overture with invisible chorus, Hoël's air in the first act, the drinking chorus and the trio in the second, and the touching and melancholy song of Hoël in the third. Unfortunately the insignificance and emptiness of the libretto have always been a drawback to this beautiful score.

What are the salient traits of Meyerbeer's genius, and what influence has this genius exerted upon his contemporaries? Such is the double question which presents itself to us in the presence of the works of this great man. First of all should be remarked his power of inspiration and power of conception. He was the first to give to France the example of these five-act operas of colossal dimensions, the performance of which requires fully five hours, and the richness, the power of his inspiration is such that so far from weakening during the course of these five long acts, it is often higher, more sublime at the end than at the beginning. Witness the fifth acts of all his great works; _Robert_, _les Huguenots_, _le Prophète_, _l'Africaine_; every one of them is a masterpiece! As to the power of conception, that mysterious faculty of unifying the different parts of a work so large and complex as each of his operas, and forming of them a harmonic, homogeneous whole, it is trully marvellous, and indicates a peculiarly organized and quite exceptional musical brain. Everything, indeed, is to be found in his works; dramatic sentiment is carried to its highest power, the musical style is full of splendor, the general form is superb, the harmony is solid and substantial, and the union of the voices with the instruments admits of no criticism. If there were any fault to be found with him it would be in the excess of sonority, sometimes overwhelming, which he gives to the orchestra. But on the other hand, how much he has improved the orchestra, giving it increased interest and life, as well as variety of color, of timbre and of effect! What an important part it takes in certain situations, and how carefully, conscientiously and cleverly it is managed!

Conscience, indeed, was one of Meyerbeer's master qualities. Others, so richly gifted, might perhaps have been content to follow the course of their inspiration, without taking the trouble to enrich it, to fortify it with the aid of all the means which art puts at the disposal of the composer. He neglected nothing, no detail, no effect, no method that enabled him to augment his resources, to complete his thought, in a word, to attain perfection, or what he believed to be perfection. Nothing dismayed him, he spared no pains to realize his ideal, to obtain the result at which he aimed, and he never felt that he had done a thing so well that it could not be improved. Thus his works have the solidity of marble and the strength of iron. And if a blemish be sometimes discovered in them, it is like the spots on the sun, which do not interfere with its dazzling light.

In regard to the influence exerted by Meyerbeer upon his contemporaries, although genuine and unmistakable, it cannot be said to be so complete or so general as that exerted by Rossini. And this is due to the nature of his genius, which was very complex, and in which cerebral reflection and the combination of means held as important a place as inspiration properly speaking. It was easy to imitate, without obtaining the same results, the methods and the forms employed by Rossini (I refer to the _Italian_ Rossini, and not the Rossini of _William Tell_); very much less easy was it to imitate the forms and the methods of Meyerbeer, these being not only more complicated, more varied, but essentially dependent on the subject, on the situations, on the episodes. This is why Meyerbeer's influence has been mainly felt in the conception and general form of a work, and has been much less sensible in technical detail and musical method.

In closing, I would say that Meyerbeer is one of the noblest, most glorious artists who have ever shed lustre not only upon the French stage, but on musical art as applied to the theatre. A great musician, but especially a great dramatic musician, he has power, nobility, bold and heroic inspiration, and above all the gift of emotion, of that poignant and vigorous emotion which stirs the spectator, wrings his heart, lays hold upon his very vitals, and forces the tears from his eyes.

Illustrating Meyerbeer's Opera "The Huguenots."]

_Reproduction of a photograph from life of the younger Johann Strauss._

_Published by Reichard & Lindner, Berlin, 1887._]

STRAUSS

The name of Strauss bids fair to become as numerously represented in the annals of Nineteenth Century music as was that of Bach in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries; with this difference, however, that while the Bachs were all of one family, three of the Strausses who have become sufficiently famous to win a place in the musical dictionaries are not related to the other three or four. It is with those that _are_ related, the family of Johann Strauss, the Viennese "Waltz-King," that this article is concerned.

A few years ago (1887) the famous Leipsic publishing house of Breitkopf and Härtel commenced the issue of a complete collection of the waltzes, polkas, and other dance pieces of the elder Johann Strauss. The first volume has an interesting though brief biographic sketch by Johann Strauss, Jr., who relates some of his personal reminiscences of his father, besides other facts previously known to the public. "My father," he says in the opening paragraph, "was a musician by the grace of God. Had he not been guided by an inner, irresistible impulse, the difficulties which confronted him in his youth would have pushed him into another path."

It is interesting to note how this "impulse" would have its own way, as in the case of other famous musicians, notwithstanding parental opposition. Strauss was born at Vienna on March 14, 1804. When he was a mere child he used to amuse himself (as Haydn had done in his childhood) by taking two sticks and imitating the movements of a fiddler. Great was his joy when his father, having discovered this instinctive trait, made him a present of a small violin and allowed him to take lessons on it in the primary school. But this was as far as parental encouragement went. Little Johann's desire to become a professional musician was not countenanced, and at the age of fourteen he was sent to a book-binder to learn his trade; but he soon tired of this work and when his master added insult to injury by forbidding him to play the violin, he packed up his beloved instrument and his few other possessions and ran away. In a suburb of Vienna he came across a friend who induced him to return to his parents, whom he persuaded at the same time to give up opposing his musical inclinations. So he received regular lessons and was soon able to play in a small local orchestra.

As luck would have it, another musician, who was destined to be Strauss's colleague and rival, Joseph Lanner, was at that time beginning his brilliant career in Vienna. He was four years older than Strauss, and had associated himself with two other musicians for the purpose of playing in the cafés which abounded in that city. Strauss begged permission to join this club, and was accepted as viola player, one of his duties being the passing around of the plate for collections. There was so much animation and true musical feeling in the performances of this club that it became immensely popular and soon Lanner found it impossible to accept all the engagements that were offered. This led him to engage more musicians and ultimately to divide his orchestra into two smaller ones, over one of which he himself presided, while Strauss was placed at the head of the other.

But Strauss was an ambitious man, and after this companionship had lasted six years (1819-1825) he made his "declaration of independence" of Lanner and conducted an orchestra of his own, which soon became "all the rage" in Vienna. His son has sketched this important episode so eloquently that I cannot do better than translate his words: "The public now learned to know him as an independent conductor, and as such he soon became so popular that the dance-loving Viennese were divided into two parties--the _Lannerianer_ and the _Straussianer_--each of which championed its idol with ardor. It redounds to the credit of the good old times that this partisanship could not cloud the personal relations between Lanner and Strauss, who continued to remain good friends. Their professional separation at this time was brought about by another circumstance: my father accidentally discovered his talent for composition. Composing was obviously at that time an easier matter than it is to-day. To produce a polka, contemporary musicians study the whole literature of music and perhaps a few philosophical systems too. Formerly, only one thing was needed to compose: One had to have a happy thought, as the popular saying is (_es musste Einem was einfallen_). And strange to say, these happy thoughts always came. Self-confidence in this respect was so great that we of the old school (_wir Alten_) frequently announced for a certain evening a new waltz of which on the morning of the same day not a single note was written. In such a case the orchestra usually went to the composer's house, and as soon as the latter had finished a part it was immediately copied for the orchestra. Meantime, the miracle of the 'happy thought' repeated itself for the other parts of the waltz; in a few hours the piece was completed, whereupon it was rehearsed, and in the evening it was played before a usually enthusiastic public.

"Lanner--light-hearted and careless--hardly ever composed any other way. One morning it happened that he felt ill and unable to work, while a new set of waltzes had been promised for the evening, and of course not a bar was on paper. He sent my father the simple message: 'Strauss, see if you can think of something' (in the quaint Viennese dialect: _Strauss, schauen's dass Ihnen was einfällt_.)--In the evening the new waltz was played--as Lanner's, of course--and was received with extraordinary favor. This circumstance, combined with his marriage in the same year, induced my father to secure his independence. He organized at first a quintet, but after barely a year his orchestra already numbered fourteen men. At what rate his fame and his popularity both as composer and conductor grew, is a thing of which we, in these prosaic days, can hardly have a conception. The years 1830 to 1836, during which my father presided over the music at the Sperl, will always remain memorable in the history of music at Vienna. The audiences were enormous, the enthusiasm unbounded, and as my father was persuaded to accept engagements for other amusement places too, he had at his disposal, during the carnival, about two hundred musicians. From this he selected a corps of _élites_--his _Stammorchester_--which he succeeded by unceasing rehearsals in bringing to a point of perfection such as no other private orchestra had ever reached. Visitors to Vienna carried the fame of these musicians to other parts of the world, and invitations soon came to him to play in other cities."

The rest of Johann Strauss's life is simply a record of his triumphs in the cities of Germany, Holland, France, Belgium and England, as well as in Vienna, where he was appointed director of the Court balls in 1835. From 1833 to 1849, the year of his death, he made a tour almost every year, and he was the first musician, so far as the records show, who undertook to travel with a whole orchestra. In 1837-38 his tour extended as far as Paris and London. In evidence of his great success in Paris it is related that when he gave a series of thirty concerts in conjunction with the popular Musard, whose orchestra played after Strauss's, one half of the audience usually left the hall after Strauss had finished his part of the program. In London he arrived most opportunely about the time of Queen Victoria's coronation, when merry music was in great demand, and here he gave no fewer than seventy-two concerts, besides playing at many balls. London, however, did not agree with his health. At his first visit he fell ill there, and his second visit, in 1849, proved fatal, for he brought with him the germs of disease (scarlet fever) to which he succumbed shortly after his return to Vienna. He died on Sept. 25, aged 45. All the Viennese joined in doing him homage, and a vast concourse--his son says one hundred thousand--accompanied his coffin to the grave.

Regarding his personal appearance, Herr C. F. Pohl, the Viennese librarian says, that "though small he was well made and distinguished looking, with a singularly formed head. His dress was always neat and well chosen. Though lively in company, he was naturally rather silent. From the moment he took his violin in his hand he became another man, whose whole being seemed to expand with the sounds he drew from it." In his own home the "Waltz-King," who contributed so much to ball-room merriment, appears to have been unhappy. His father had been the keeper of a beer house, and he himself married the daughter of an innkeeper, Anna Streim, from whom he was divorced on the ground of incompatibility of temper, after eighteen years. They had five children--two daughters and three sons, Johann, Joseph and Eduard, all three of whom have became famous in the annals of dance music.

Drawn and lithographed by C. Lutherer.]

Eduard, the youngest, born on Feb. 14, 1835, has proved the least talented of the three. His compositions, numbering over two hundred, though often piquant in harmony and cleverly orchestrated, are deficient in melodic spontaneity and originality and often a mere echo of his brother Johann's genius. (There are melodious exceptions, the Doctrinen Walzer, opus 79, e. g.) He is a good conductor of dance music, and since the death of his brother Josef, in 1870, and the retirement of Johann from executive music in the same year, he has been sole conductor of the Strauss orchestra at court balls and in the Volksgarten.

Josef, the second of the brothers, had more talent for composition than Eduard. He was of delicate constitution and lived only forty-three years (Aug. 22, 1827, to July 22, 1870), yet the number of his original pieces is two hundred and eighty-three, to which must be added about three hundred arrangements. Some of his waltzes and polkas--like the "Village Swallows" and "Woman's Heart"--have become great favorites, and deservedly so, but I cannot agree with the opinion, which has been held, that he was the superior--or even the equal--of his brother Johann. He was a good pianist, and for a number of years divided with his brothers the task of conducting the Strauss orchestra in Vienna.

We now come to Johann Strauss, the oldest of the brothers, born Oct. 25, 1825, and still living. It is not often that a man of genius has a son who attains even greater eminence than himself, but in this case the palm must be awarded to Johann Strauss, Jr., whose creative power was not only greater than that of his brothers, but soared into regions of which even his father never dreamed.

His talent for music was manifested at a very early age, but his father did not encourage it--forgetting how much he himself had suffered in his childhood from parental opposition to his natural inclinations. It was Horace who remarked, almost two thousand years ago, that no man is quite satisfied with his occupation, and everyone fancies he would have been happier had he chosen some other career. This may have been the reason why the elder Strauss, in the midst of his honors and remarkable popularity, decided that none of his sons should become musicians. Johann was to be a merchant, Josef an engineer, and for Eduard, too, some non-musical employment would have been selected had not his father died before he was fourteen.

Fortunately for Johann, his mother secretly encouraged his fondness for music, allowing him to take lessons on the violin and in composition. His first waltz was written when he was only six years old, and called his 'First Thought.' That was sixty years ago, and every one of these years has added several waltzes to his list. As a conductor he made his first venture at the age of nineteen, with a band of his own; and when his father died, five years later, he took his place and remained at the head of his orchestra for ten years. As an "orchestral traveller" he was even more enterprising than his father had been, for he extended his journeys as far as America and St. Petersburg, being heard at Gilmore's Jubilee at Boston in 1869, while in St. Petersburg he gave a series of concerts every summer, from 1856 to 1866, always returning to Vienna in winter to furnish the music for the court festivities and the numerous other balls given in that gay city during the carnival.

The eminent Viennese critic, Dr. Hanslick, a personal friend of Strauss, says of this early period of his career: "The incessant dispenser of joys to all Vienna, Father Strauss, was a tyrant at home. The sons grew up amid the embittering and demoralizing impressions of an unhappy family life. Finally Johann emancipated himself, trusting in his talent, of which he felt certain, and on that Dommayer-evening suddenly came forth as a musical rival of his father. The first three works, with which he made his début, were the waltzes, 'Gunstwerber,' 'Sinngedichte' and the 'Herzenslust' Polka.... The young man's animal spirits, so long repressed, now began to foam over; favored by his talent, intoxicated by his early successes, petted by the women, Johann Strauss passed his youth in wild enjoyment, always productive, always fresh and enterprising, at the same time frivolous to the point of adventurousness. As in appearance he resembles his father, handsomer, however, more refined and modern, so also his waltzes had the unmistakable Strauss family physiognomy, not without a tendency to originality. Our Viennese, the most expert judges in such matters, at once recognized the budding talent of the young Strauss, who promised soon to overtake his famous parent."

From a lithograph by Maurin, at the Paris Opera Library.]

For more than a quarter of a century Strauss continued to devote himself to the creation and the conducting of dance music; and the number of his pieces in this _genre_ rose to over three hundred. His opus 314 was the "Blue Danube Waltz," which has since become famous not only as a sort of second Austrian national hymn, by the side of Haydn's "Gott erhalte Franz den Kaiser," but as the transition to a new sphere of activity. For it was _a vocal waltz_, being written for male chorus and orchestra; and just as Beethoven's choral symphony, according to Wagner, pointed to the necessity of the music-drama, so it seems that Strauss used this vocal waltz as a transition to the Viennese operetta, a new style of stage-music which owes its present form and vogue chiefly to his genius.

It is said that Strauss's wife was largely instrumental in making him change his sphere from the humble dance hall to the more ambitious theatre. She was a famous singer and actress, named Jetty Treffz, when Strauss married her in 1863, and if she was really responsible for her husband's "new departure," the world owes her a large debt of gratitude. She died in April, 1879, and toward the close of the same year Strauss married the dramatic singer, Angelica Dittrich.

Two years after his first marriage he sent Eduard in his place to St. Petersburg, and in 1870 he also resigned his position as conductor of the court balls in his brother's favor. But if any one fancied that he had lost his interest in music, or, like Rossini, intended to retire from active life when his triumph was at its height, the error was soon made manifest; for in 1871 Johann Strauss appeared on the boards of the Theater an der Wien with something which no one had ever expected of him--an operetta. "Indigo" was its name, and its reception was sufficiently gratifying to encourage him to try another and still another, with ever-increasing success.

Caricature by Dantan in the Carnavalet Museum, Paris.]

Some of these operettas--especially _The Bat_ (_Fledermaus_), the _Merry War_, the _Queen's Lace Handkerchief_, and the _Gypsy Baron_--became enormously popular in Austria, Germany and the United States (where they have been sung successfully in both German and English), and if anything had been needed to make the "Waltz King" known to the whole world, and admired by everybody, these operettas would have brought about that result.

* * * * *

It is a strange but suggestive fact that although no name is better known in the musical world than that of the Strauss family, most of the histories of music ignore it almost entirely. And why should the erudite historians honor with their attention a mere Strauss, who was _only a man of genius_ and never constructed any symphonies, oratorios, or operas? Scores of composers are treated of in these histories whose genius was not a tithe of that of Johann Strauss, father or son; but because they wrote a number of (tedious and now forgotten) sonatas and symphonies, they are considered worthy of attention by these writers! Even Chopin has often been treated by historians in a similar gingerly manner, because he wrote hardly anything but short pieces for the pianoforte; as if there were not more genius and beauty and suggestiveness in most of Chopin's five-minute pieces than in many one-hour symphonies and four-hour operas. The same may be said of not a few Strauss waltzes.

Johann Strauss, (Junior.)]

Wherein lies this originality that entitles the name of Strauss to so prominent a place in musical history? It lies partly in the individuality of their style and ideas; but still more in their having succeeded in making the waltz the most popular form of modern dance-music throughout the civilized world, and in the creation of a new style of operetta, or comic opera. In the first of these achievements all the members of the Strauss family have coöperated, while in the last the credit belongs to the second Johann alone.

Strauss (Johann Strauss--Senior.)]

To inoculate the world with a passion for a special form of dance music is not such an easy thing as it seems at first sight. National customs and inclinations stand in the way. As Rubinstein has remarked, "A melody which moves a Finn to tears will leave a Spaniard cold, a dance rhythm which makes a Hungarian skip will not disturb an Italian in his rest, etc." To have made all the young people in the world dance to the rhythm of the Austrian waltz is, therefore, a feat which required the magic power of genius for its performance. And not only has the waltz been universally adopted, but it has become the dance of dances, the modern dance _par excellence_, the rapturous dance in which the _young people_ find an embodiment of the glowing passion of love, while in the old-fashioned dances,--the minuet at their head--it was the _old people_ and the chaperons who did the stiff and formal dancing in a slow and stately movement.

Of course the honor of making the waltz cosmopolitan does not belong to the Strausses alone. The Austrian Lanner, the Bohemian Labitzky, the Hungarian Gungl and others had their share, but they can be regarded merely as satellites, who could only revolve around the world by revolving around Strauss. Nor did Strauss invent the waltz. It "just growed," like Topsy, among the people, and the time and even the country of its origin are under dispute. It was at Vienna however, about a century ago, that it first came into notice; and as it was developed chiefly by Viennese composers, and is danced most generally by the people of that part of Europe, the popular notion that Vienna is the home of the waltz does not call for correction. A few waltz-like pieces had been written by Mozart and Beethoven, but they are, as Dr. Hanslick remarks, "astonishingly dry and insignificant," and it remained for that genuine Viennese genius Franz Schubert, to first infuse true musical genius into this form of composition. Schubert is the real originator of the modern waltz, as of the Lied for the voice, and the song for the piano. In the Peters edition there is, besides a volume of Schubert's Marches and one of Polonaises, one of his "Dances" (seventy-four pages), mostly waltzes, "valses nobles," "valses sentimentales." No. 13 of the last name is that most exquisite piece which Liszt has made such fine use of in his "Soirées de Vienne," and which may be regarded as the predecessor, and the equal, of the noble waltzes of Chopin, Rubinstein, Brahms and other modern composers. Indeed, these Schubert waltzes contain the germs of most of the later developments of the waltz for the piano.

In thus giving Schubert his due we do not detract from the merit of the elder Strauss. He was of course far from having the genius of Schubert, but he did a great work in transferring the Schubert spirit to the orchestral and dance-waltz. For the first time people came to cafés and dance halls to listen to music for its own sake instead of regarding it merely as an aid to conversation and dancing. Strauss not only had the gift of inventing original themes, he also had the skill to clothe them in a charming orchestral garb. Great composers, like Cherubini, Meyerbeer and Mendelssohn, recognized his talent, and Wagner wrote in 1863 that "a single Strauss waltz surpasses in grace, refinement and real musical substance, the majority of the oft-laboriously-collected foreign products."

To quote Johann the younger once more on his father: "He has borne the fame of German dance-music over the whole world, and severe judges have not hesitated to acknowledge that his gay and piquant rhythms bubbled from the pure fount of musical art. As a conductor he had that indefinable quality which carried away the performers, was communicated by them to the hearers, and made their hearts and pulses beat faster." He was the first to introduce the custom of giving a name to his dance music, and each of his pieces--including one hundred and fifty waltzes, fourteen polkas, twenty-eight galops, nineteen marches, and thirty-five quadrilles, has its own title, either characteristically Viennese, or referring to his travels or the emotions which a dance piece is apt to evoke, or purely fanciful. The quadrille was imported by Strauss from Paris. His marches are the least interesting of his compositions, and his waltzes the most fascinating and meritorious, the polkas ranking next.

In his early waltzes the elder Strauss often begins, like Schubert, without an introduction and ends with a very short coda. Gradually, however (though with exceptions), the introduction and coda assume greater dimensions; but it remained for Johann the son to show how greatly the musical and emotional value of the waltz can be increased by elaborating the slow amorous introduction as well as the coda, in which all the themes of the preceding numbers can once more be brought forward and ingeniously developed or combined. Schubert's last set of waltzes consists of a chain of twenty links or parts. The elder Strauss has usually only five or six links in his chain; and his son shows a tendency to decrease that number to three or four separate parts, while giving the introduction the aspect of a short overture, with several changes of tempo, often delightfully fore-shadowing the waltz themes in a dreamy, passionate and tender manner, as if interpreting the thoughts of the young lovers who perchance are looking forward to their first embrace in the disguise of a waltz. In the "Stories from the Vienna Forest" Waltzes, opus 325, the introduction covers more than two pages of the piano score--one hundred and twenty bars, with four changes of tempo. The first number consists of forty-four bars, whereas originally each number consisted of eight or sixteen bars only; and the coda of one hundred and fifty-seven bars. And that this waltz, like all his best ones, is intended quite as much for the concert hall as for the ball room is indicated by the signs for retarding or accelerating and by the insertion of eighteen bars which are marked "to be omitted in playing for a dance." I have noticed, however, that at Viennese dances, when conductors, players, and dancers are simultaneously entranced by the intoxicating Strauss music, there is a slight tendency on the part of the couples to yield to the _rubato_ or capricious coquetry of movement which is natural to this music. Such _rubato_ dancing raises that art itself to a poetic height; but it is perhaps vain to hope for it outside of a Viennese dance hall.

As the younger Johann's waltzes ceased to be a mere accompaniment to dancing and assumed the function of interpreting the thoughts and feelings of lovers as they are whirled along, "imparadised in one another's arms," his harmonies became more and more piquant and novel, his instrumentation more tender, refined, dreamy and voluptuous. Berlioz, himself, in orchestrating Weber's superb "Invitation to the Dance," has not shown greater genius for instrumentation than Strauss the son has in his later waltzes. It might be said that whereas Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven built up the symphony from dance forms, Strauss, conversely, applied the symphonic resources of the orchestra to his dance pieces. One can get no idea of their real charm at the piano; but Americans have been fortunate in having had in Mr. Theodore Thomas for many years such a sympathetic and animated interpreter, who knew how to give them the true Strauss swing. Not all of these waltzes are of equal value, and popularity is no test of merit. Thus, the "Blue Danube" Waltz, of which over a million copies have been sold, is really one of the poorest, just as Schubert's Serenade is far from being his best song and the Wedding March from being the gem of "Lohengrin." Their number is enormous--440 is the opus number of the "Gross-Wien" Walzer, the last one printed up to the end of 1891.

When Strauss turned to composing operettas, there was great consternation, because it was feared that the Carnival in Vienna and elsewhere would have to dispense thereafter with its annual gifts from his pen. These fears were unfounded; his operettas were so full of waltz and polka buds and full-blown roses, that it was easy to pick them for a concert-hall and ball-room bouquet; so that some of his best recent dance pieces are taken from his operettas. Equally unfounded were the fears that after devoting more than a quarter of a century to the composition of dance music, Strauss would be unable to win distinction as a dramatic writer. In his first operettas, it is true, the libretto was little more than a peg to hang on waltzes, polkas and marches; but gradually he emancipated himself more and more from the simple saltatorial style, until, in "The Bat," the "Merry War" and subsequent works, he created a new type of operetta, with beautiful flowing, lyric melodies, and stirring dramatic ensembles. True, the "Waltz King" is never quite able to disguise his character, but in this very fact lie the originality and unique charm of the Strauss operetta. It is a new style of stage play--the Austrian operetta, a new "school" of comic opera; and in creating this, Strauss placed himself far above his father and his brothers. Millœcker would not have been possible but for Strauss, and Suppé did not write his best works till after Strauss had shown the way.

That J. Strauss, the younger, wrote four hundred and forty pieces of dance music has already been stated. The complete list of his operettas is as follows: _Indigo_, 1871; _The Carnival in Rome_, 1873; _The Bat_, 1874; _Cagliostro_, 1875; _Prince Methusalem_, 1877; _Blind Man's Buff_, 1878; _The Queen's Lace Handkerchief_, 1880; _The Merry War_, 1881; _A Night in Venice_, 1883; _The Gypsy Baron_, 1885; _Simplicius_, 1887. In my opinion there is in these operettas more good music than in the operettas of any other composer, but Strauss has been less fortunate in his librettists than Offenbach and Sullivan, and this has not only diminished the present popularity of his works in some countries, but will prevent them from enjoying as long a life as their truly prodigal wealth of new and charming melodies would otherwise entitle them to. Moreover, few things are so short-lived as operettas, and it is therefore probable that, to the next generation, Strauss will be chiefly known as the "Waltz King," after all, partly by the pieces which he wrote directly for the dance hall, and partly by those which are culled from his dramatic works. He is still at work, with greater ambition than ever, for his latest opus is a grand opera, _Ritter Pásmán_, which had its first performance at the Imperial Opera at Vienna on January 1, 1892. It is modelled partly on Wagner's _Meistersinger_, and the _Neue Zeitschrift für Musik_ finds in it the true type of the comic opera of the future, "combining the _esprit_ and grace of French opéra comique with German depth of sentiment, and that spontaneous melodiousness which is an Austrian specialty--that flow of fresh and natural melody which we find in Schubert and Haydn." Dr. Hanslick recommends the score as a model to students of instrumentation.

From lithograph published at the time.]

* * * * *

+----------------------------------------------------------------+
| Transcriber notes: |
| |
| P. 247. Illustration, "Birthplace of Joseph Hayden in Rohrau", |
| keeping typo, but should read "Joseph Haydn". |
| P. 249. 'bouyant' changed to 'buoyant'. |
| P. 265. 'Hadyn' changed to 'Haydn', in 'Hadyn ever wrote'. |
| P. 279. 'antichamber' changed to 'antechamber'. |
| P. 279. 'pianoforte sonates', changed 'sonates' to 'sonatas'. |
| P. 283. 'finnished' changed to 'finished'. |
| P. 286. 'Bach motett', 'motett' changed to 'motet'. |
| P. 354. "Auguste jam Cœ estium", changed to "Auguste jam |
| Cœlestium". |
| P. 380. 'interruped' changed to 'interrupted'. |
| P. 395. Caption, Dec. 6th? 1826. |
| |
| Music Transcriber Notes: |
| |
| P. 261. The autograph manuscript is difficult to read but |
| appears to track the second movement of Haydn's String Quartet |
| in C Major, Op. 76, with the "Austrian Hymn" theme and first |
| variation reversed. The transcription was made from a public |
| domain score of the quartet (available at the Petrucci Music |
| Library, http://imslp.org/wiki). |
|
| P. 426. The caption on this image erroneously gives the title |
| of the piece as "Farewell to the Forest," which is a different |
| piece by Mendelssohn ("Abschied vom Walde"). The piece in the |
| image is actually "The Hunter's Farewell," as indicated by the |
| title in the manuscript ("Jägers Abschied"). |
+----------------------------------------------------------------+