Chapter VI: Part I: "Nature"--of the "Triple Overture" was thus interpreted, (3)

"When the last glow has passed of this the most alluring of illusive
joys, undreamed-of sounds ascend from even deeper abysses. Here
hide the sinning souls forgetful of all benefit, contemptuous of
mercy, strangers to all reverence, rebellious in their ingratitude.
The accents here resound of mockery and scorn and gnashing of
teeth. These phantom shrieks of raging impotence are merged in the
strange harmonies that lead to the returning motive of the _Allegro
frenetico_. The terrible tumult of the damned is enhanced at the
close by the thought of the loss of all hope--a final refrain of the
_Lasciate_, an all-destroying lightning-blast, seems to reveal the
horrid scene of torture in the bosom of the archangel of evil himself.
The music here seems to rival the impression of Dante's graphic views
and forceful lines upon our minds."

* * * * *

PURGATORIO AND MAGNIFICAT

"The episode of Francesca da Rimini, when she sings of the fatal charm
of the sweetest of human errors, was chosen by Liszt from all the many
scenes of the 'Inferno.' So in the 'Purgatory' we find one vision
taken from the poem. Right in the initial bars Liszt follows the poet
through the first canto. After the horrors of hell, the mild azure
of heaven calms the risen souls. In ecstasy they greet the 'Sapphire
of the East.' A wonderfully gentle murmur, quieting the spirit, puts
us in dreams of the sea rocking in eternal radiance. We think of
the ship that glides o'er its mirror without breaking the waves. The
stars are still twinkling before the nearing splendor of the sun. A
cloudless blue o'ervaults the sacred stillness, where we seem to hear
the winged flight of the angel that soars over the ocean of infinity.

"This is the first, soul-stirring moment of redemption. Vanished are
all the ghosts of an obstinate fancy, of a pride that at once exalts
and destroys itself. Dead are the echoes of unbelieving mockery. The
last throes of convulsive blasphemy have left the spirit free. A
solemn, soothing silence now prevails in which the soul is loosed from
painful rigor, where it breathes freely, though still without a full
pervading consciousness. After the angry tempest of flaming nights,
peace has appeared, but peace alone--the dawn, the light, without the
sun. The wearied soul is not yet ready for a more intense experience.
This is perhaps the general meaning of the introduction (_Andante_).

"This gentle, passive state, however, is but transitory. The secret
powers and senses soon awaken, and with them a ceaseless longing. The
more it grows, the stronger the thirst for the divine reality, the
keener the desire for its immediate view, the deeper is the sense of
weakness, of unworthiness, of inability to reach and comprehend it.
Here a certain dread appears, together with a healing, a redeeming
pain. The barren anguish of envious impotence has turned to devout
penitence. This is, however, a moment of sombre elegy. Dante has
uttered its oppression most forcefully in the tenth canto, where the
sinners recall in remorse the good and beautiful deeds that they have
left undone. There is no other feeling that can so bow down a lofty
spirit.

"Here the main motive sounds as a choral hymn. A second theme is then
sung _lamentoso_, in fervent self-reproach, in passive resignation,
in unutterable grief. The fugue is the most fitting figure for the
perpetual play of the feeling at once of retrospection and of hope.
At the height of the fugue the main motive (of the choral hymn) rises
proudly aloft, presently returns humbly and in contrition, and, broken
by phrases of lament, dies finally away. Slowly the heavy clouds of
inexpressible woe are lifted. The Catholic chant of the _Magnificat_
proclaims softly deliverance by prayer, "the breathing of the soul."
We feel that a conquering penitence is soaring towards eternal
blessedness, is leading us up through the purifying circles to the
summit of the mystic mount that lifts us to the gates of paradise.

"Now we have reached the point when the poet of the Divine Comedy,
at the first song of paradise, stands on the edge of purgatory and
catches the glow of the divine light, that his eyes as yet cannot
directly bear. Art cannot paint heaven itself, but merely the earthly
reflection in the soul that is turned towards the light of divine
mercy. And so the full splendor stays hidden from our eyes, though
it grows ever brighter with the purer contemplation. Thus far only,
the tonal poet wanders in the footsteps of the seer; he does not
follow him from star to star, no more than yonder through the various
circles of the damned. The idea of absolute bliss transcends human
description. The composer could only point to it as a spiritual state
that grows from a chain of experience. The union of the soul with
God, in prayer, is foreshadowed in the instrumentation. After the
sacred glow of divine love has inflamed the human heart, all pain has
ceased, all other emotion is lost in the heavenly ecstasy of surrender
to God's mercy. The _Magnificat_ of individual praise, extending to
the universe, passes into a common Hallelujah and Hosanna, that rises
_pianissimo_ in a mighty scale of ancient tone, and creed as well,
like a symbolic ladder up to heaven.

"For a long time the soul dwells in this blessed contemplation, that
is made sensible by the soft, invisible choir [a hidden chorus of
women]. The human heart, attaining a full exaltation, is kindled with
a holy fervor and breaks forth with all its strength into a loud
jubilation that embraces all worlds of men and spirits. The contrition
of the sinner has changed into a knowledge of God and has awakened a
champion of God.

"When the instrumental climax that stresses this final moment rings
out after a pause, again passing through the seven steps of the
scale, and the choir add a last overpowering Hallelujah, we think of
all the martyrs whom Dante beheld--holy fathers and soldiers of God,
who died for their faith and formed the heavenly hosts who surround
the throne of God.[88] Thus closes this mysterious work with the
sense of eternal reconciliation, of hope fulfilled, in the glory of
transfiguration."[89]

TWO EPISODES FROM LENAU'S "FAUST"

1. THE NOCTURNAL PROCESSION
2. THE DANCE IN THE VILLAGE TAVERN (MEPHISTO WALTZ)

In 1858-59 Liszt composed two orchestral paraphrases of episodes from the "Faust" of Nicolaus Lenau (1802-1850)--_Der nachtliche Zug_ ("The Nocturnal Procession") and _Der Tanz in der Dorfschenke_ ("The Dance in the Village Tavern"). These two pieces he desired should be played together; there was, he admitted, "no thematic connection" between the two; "but, nevertheless, they _belong together_, owing to the contrast of ideas." In spite of Liszt's wish, however, the two pieces are seldom heard together, the first ("The Nocturnal Procession") being, in fact, but seldom played, while the second--generally known as the "Mephisto Waltz"--is a familiar number on contemporary concert programmes. Mr. Frederick Niecks has thus presented the gist of the first episode, "The Nocturnal Procession":

"Heavy, dark clouds, profound night, sweet, spring feeling in the
wood, a warm, soulful rustling in the foliage, fragrant air, carolling
of the nightingale. Faust rides alone in sombre mood; the farther
he advances the greater the silence; he dismounts. What can be the
approaching light illuminating bush and sky? A procession, with
torches, of white-dressed children carrying wreaths of flowers in
celebration of St. John's Eve, followed by virgins in demure nuns'
veils, and old priests in dark habits and with crosses. When they have
passed by and the last glimpses of the lights have disappeared, Faust
buries his face in his horse's mane and sheds tears more bitter than
ever he shed before."

The programme of the second episode, "The Dance in the Village Tavern" or "Mephisto Waltz," has been set forth as follows by Mr. Philip Hale:

"Lenau, in this episode of his 'Faust,' pictures a marriage feast at
a village tavern. There is music, there is dancing. Mephistopheles,
dressed as a hunter, looks in at the tavern window, and beckons Faust
to enter and take part in the sport. The fiend assures him that a
damsel tastes better than a folio, and Faust answers that for some
reason or other his blood is boiling. A black-eyed peasant girl
maddens him at first sight, but Faust does not dare to greet her.
Mephistopheles laughs at him, 'who has just had it out with hell,
and is now shame-faced before a woman.' The musicians do not please
him, and he cries out: 'My dear fellows, you draw a sleepy bow. Sick
pleasure may turn about on lame toes to your waltz, but not youth full
of blood and fire. Give me a fiddle: it will sound otherwise, and
there will be different leaping in the tavern.' And Mephistopheles
plays a tune. There is wild dancing, so that even the walls are
pale with envy because they cannot join in the waltz. Faust presses
the hand of the dark girl, he stammers oaths of love. Together they
dance through the open door, through garden and over meadow, to the
forest. Fainter and fainter are heard the tones of the fiddle: they
are heard through songs of birds and in the wondrous dream of sensual
forgetfulness."

It has been recalled--and the fact is historically interesting--that when the "Mephisto Waltz" was first played in Boston under Theodore Thomas (October 10, 1870), in a day that knew not the _Till Eulenspiegel_ or _Salome_ of Strauss, Mr. John S. Dwight, a critic of wide influence in the earlier days of music in America, was moved to stigmatize the music as "positively devilish, simply diabolical"; for, he held, "it shuts out every ray of light and heaven, from whence music sprang."

FOOTNOTES:

[70] Without opus number.

[71] Without opus number.

[72] Without opus number.

[73] This translation (the preface in the score is printed both in the original French of Liszt and in a German version made by Peter Cornelius) is probably the work of Mr. W. F. Apthorp.

[74] Without opus number.

[75] The English translation of this title, "Sounds of Festivity," would not identify it in the minds of most readers with Liszt's symphonic poem, which is most familiarly known by its German name.

[76] Without opus number.

[77] The Polish princess to whom Liszt was devoted for many years, and with whom he sought unsuccessfully to effect a legal union. She was born in Monasterzyska (Kieff), February 8, 1819, and died in Rome, March 3, 1887.

[78] Without opus number.

[79] Translated by Constance Bache.

[80] Without opus number.

[81] The order in which the verses are quoted by Liszt is not the order which they follow in Schiller's poem; and Liszt has included certain passages which Schiller omitted in the final revised form of _Die Ideale_.

[82] The quotations in verse are from Lord Lytton's translation. The prose passage in the "Aspiration" section is from a translation by Mr. Frederick Niecks.

[83] Without opus number.

[84]

"Alles Vergängliche
Ist nur ein Gleichniss;
Das Unzulängliche,
Hier wird's Erreigniss;

"Das Unbeschreibliche,
Hier ist's gethan;
Das Ewig-Weibliche
Zieht uns hinan."

[85] Without opus number.

[86] This translation, and those that follow, are from the English version of Longfellow.

[87] The translation of these lines in the prose version of Dr. John A. Carlyle--"There is no greater pain than to recall a happy time in wretchedness"--may appear to some to be more felicitous, as it is more precise, than that of Longfellow.

[88] The final passage is said to have been conceived as an expression of the thought in these lines of Dante (from the twenty-first canto of the "Paradiso"):

"I saw rear'd up,
In color like to sun-illumined gold,
A ladder, which my ken pursued in vain,
So lofty was the summit; down whose steps
I saw the splendors in such multitude
Descending, every light in heaven, methought,
Was shed thence."

--_Translated by H. F. Cary._

[89] The English of this "introduction" is from the translation of Mr. Philip H. Goepp.

LOEFFLER

(_Charles Martin Loeffler: born in Mülhausen (Alsace), Germany,
January 30, 1861; now living in Medfield, Massachusetts_)

"THE DEATH OF TINTAGILES" SYMPHONIC POEM: Op. 6

_La Mort de Tintagiles: Poème Dramatique (d'après le drame de M. Maeterlinck),[90] pour grand orchestre et viole d'amour_, was composed in 1897. It was written originally for orchestra and two violas d'amore[91] obbligato, and was played in this form, for the first time, by the Boston Symphony Orchestra, on January 8, 1898. The score was subsequently remodelled, the second viola-d'amore part being eliminated and the prominence of the remaining solo part reduced; the instrumentation throughout was changed, and the score amended in other ways. In its present form it dates from September, 1900.

Loeffler has not essayed a literal and detailed paraphrase of Maeterlinck's play. His music is rather the expression of moods which it suggests, of emotions aroused by the singularly potent and haunting conception of the dramatist. A description and condensed paraphrase of the action of the play, written by Mr. Philip Hale, is printed on a fly-leaf of the score.[92] It reads as follows:

"_La Mort de Tintagiles_, a little drama for marionettes, is in five
short acts. The characters are the tender boy Tintagiles; his older
sisters, Ygraine and Bellangère; Aglovale, the warrior retainer, now
very old and tired; and the three handmaidens of the Queen.

"Tintagiles is the future monarch of the nameless land in the
strange years of legends. He and his sisters are living in a gloomy
and airless castle far down in a valley; and in a tower that shows
at night red-litten windows lurks the enthroned Queen. The serene
ancients portrayed Death as beautiful of face; but this Queen in the
nameless land is not beautiful in any way; she is fat as a sated
spider. She squats alone in the tower. They that serve her do not go
out by day. The Queen is very old; she is jealous, she cannot brook
the thought of another on the throne. They that by chance have seen
her will not speak of her--and some whisper that they who are thus
silent did not dare to look upon her. 'Tis she who commanded that
Tintagiles, her orphaned grandson, should be brought over the sea to
the sombre castle where Ygraine and Bellangère have passed years, as
blind fish in the dull pool of a cavern.

"The sea howls, the trees groan, but Tintagiles sleeps after his fear
and tears. The sisters bar the chamber door, for Bellangère has heard
strange muttering in rambling, obscure corridors, chuckling over the
child whom the Queen would fain see. Ygraine is all of a tremble;
nevertheless, she believes half-heartedly and for the nonce that he
may yet be spared; then she remembers how the Horror in the tower has
been as a tombstone pressing down her soul. Aglovale cannot be of
aid, he is so old, so weary of it all. Her bare and slender arms are
all that is between the boy and the hideous Queen of Darkness and of
Terror.

"Tintagiles awakes. He suffers and knows not why. He hears a vague
something at the door, and others hear it. A key grinds in the lock
outside. The door opens slowly. Of what avail is Aglovale's sword
used as a bar? It breaks. The door is opened wider, but there is
neither sight nor sound of an intruder. The boy has fainted, and the
chamber suddenly is cold and quiet. Tintagiles is again conscious and
he shrieks. The door closes mysteriously.

"Watchers and boy are at last asleep. The veiled handmaidens whisper
in the corridor; they enter stealthily and snatch Tintagiles from
the warm and sheltering arms of life. A cry comes from him: 'Sister
Ygraine!' a cry as from some one afar off.

"The sister, haggard, with lamp in hand, agonizes in a sombre vault,
a vault that is black and cold; agonizes before a huge iron door in
the tower tomb. The keyless door is a forbidding thing sealed in the
wall. She has tracked Tintagiles by his golden curls found on the
steps, along the walls. A little hand knocks feebly on the other
side of the door; a weak voice cries to her. He will die if she does
not come to him, and quickly; for he has struck the Queen, who is
hurrying towards him. Even now he hears her panting in pursuit; even
now she is about to clutch him. He can see a glimmer of the lamp
through a crevice which is so small that a needle could hardly make
its way. The hands of Ygraine are bruised, her nails are torn, she
dashes the lamp against the door in her wild endeavor, and she, too,
is in the blackness of darkness. Death has Tintagiles by the throat.
'Defend yourself!' screams the sister: 'don't be afraid of her! One
moment and I'll be with you! Tintagiles? Tintagiles? Answer me! Help!
Where are you? I'll aid you!--kiss me!--through the door!--here's the
place!--here!' The voice of Tintagiles--how faint it is!--is heard
through the door for the last time: 'I kiss you, too--here--Sister
Ygraine! Sister Ygraine! Oh!' The little body falls.

"Ygraine bursts into wailing and impotent raging. She beseeches in
vain the hidden, noiseless monster....

"Long and inexorable silence. Ygraine would spit on the Destroyer,
but she sinks down and sobs gently in the darkness, with her arms on
the keyless door of iron."

Loeffler's music opens with a suggestion of the sombre and portentous scene which begins the drama; a suggestion of the gathering storm, the tossing trees, the wild and sinister night. A mood is created--a mood appropriate to the prevailing emotional atmosphere of the play; and this mood is developed in the music without particular relation to the progress of the drama until near the close, where the composer takes up the thread of the action at the point in the last act were Ygraine, waiting in agonized vigil before the keyless door of iron, hears, from behind the barrier, the despairing voice and piteous appeals of the doomed Tintagiles. Here the music becomes definitely dramatic in its expression: "There is the plaintive voice of the timorous child; there are the terrifying steps in the corridor, the steps as of many, who do not walk as other beings, yet they draw near and whisper without the guarded door." As the themes of the score were conceived in accordance with the spirit of the play, it may be pointed out, on the authority of the composer, that there are musical symbols for certain of its principal characters and events. Thus a forbidding and threatening phrase which occurs persistently throughout (its first appearance is near the beginning, where it is declaimed, _forte_, by double-basses, 'cellos, bassoons, and bass clarinet, against string tremolos and agitated runs in the higher wood-wind) typifies the Dread Queen, the Queen of Darkness and of Terror--or, not to put too fine a point upon it, the idea of predestined and over-shadowing death: for, as it has been observed of another of Maeterlinck's plays, "the symbol floats like a flag" in this drama. The plaintive and dolorous tones of the viola d'amore may be said to voice the pathos of those who are foredoomed--typified in the play by the child Tintagiles. The culminating and concluding scene of the tragedy has its counterpart in the climax of the symphonic poem: an anguished _crescendo_ ascent of the strings and wood-wind, _allegro frenetico_, punctuated by gasping ejaculations of trumpets and cornets, is suddenly cut short, as it were, in mid-air, while above a roll of the drums and the sinister vibration of the gong the theme of the Evil Queen--the theme of Death--is proclaimed _fortissimo_ by violins, English horn, and clarinet. Then begins an epilogue which has no actual equivalent in the drama--which transcends yet fulfils it. The ending of the play is grievous and terrible in the extreme, but the ending of the tone-poem, while it is conceived in a mood of deep and piercing sadness, is at once elegiac and tender: violins and horns intone, _molto dolente_, a poignant phrase most acutely harmonized; 'cellos and double-basses recall the Death theme; the 'cellos alone sing an expressive phrase which bears a striking resemblance to a melodic idea in the composer's song, _Les Paons_,[93] and this introduces a _cantabile_ passage, of intense and vivid sweetness (likewise suggestive of _Les Paons_), for strings, brass, wood-wind, and harp. The music dies away with long-sustained chords, _piano_, in the trombones, trumpets, horns, and higher wood-wind.

"POEM" ["LA BONNE CHANSON"]: Op. 8

In 1901 Loeffler wrote, as a companion piece to his _Villanelle du Diable_ (see the following pages), an "aubade" for orchestra inspired by Paul Verlaine's ecstatic lines addressed to his bride, Mathilde Mauté, and printed in the volume of poems entitled _La Bonne Chanson_.[94] Loeffler's paraphrase was originally entitled _Avant que tu ne t'en ailles_, after the opening line of the poem; later this was changed to _La Bonne Chanson_; the title finally chosen by the composer is the French of that given above--_Poème_.

Verlaine's poem, in English prose, is as follows:

"Before you fade and disappear, pale morning-star--a thousand quails
call in the thyme--

"Turn towards the poet, whose eyes brim with love--the lark mounts
skyward with the day--

"Turn your face which the dawn drowns in its blue--what joy among
ripe wheat-fields!--

"Make my thought shine yonder--far off, O so far!--The dew shines
brightly on the hay--

"In the sweet dream wherein my love still sleeping stirs--Quick! be
quick! for, lo, the golden sun!"[95]

Loeffler's tonal translation of Verlaine's poem is in spirit a rhapsody, in form "a fantastic kind of _thème varié_" (theme with variations), as he describes it, "the theme appearing even in canonic form and in inversion."[96] The music opens with a passage suggestive of the opening verse of the poem: harp, glockenspiel,[97] and strings evoke the thought of the early dawn, the fading and disappearing star. The strings sing the principal theme. After an _allegro_ passage (some will find here the thought of the ascending lark), there is a return to the serener mood of the opening; antique cymbals hint at the sparkle of the dew on the hay. The music keeps pace with the mounting eagerness and desire of the poet-lover; the excitement grows, reaching its climax in an effulgent outburst of the full orchestra, announcing the rising sun.

"THE DEVIL'S VILLANELLE," SYMPHONIC FANTASIA: Op. 9

_La Villanelle du Diable, d'après un poème de M. Rollinat, Fantasie symphonique, pour grand orchestre__et orgue_, was composed in 1901. Its subject is Maurice Rollinat's[98] strange poem, _La Villanelle du Diable_. A "villanelle" (in the sense in which the term is used by Rollinat) is an old verse-form in which a couplet is followed by a refrain. In Rollinat's poem there are two alternating refrains, or burdens, which are united at the end.

The first is:

"Hell's a-burning, burning, burning."
(_L'enfer brûle, brûle, brûle._)

the second:

"The Devil, prowling, runs about."
(_Le Diable rôde et circule._)

Each refrain has been given a musical counterpart by the composer, and each couplet is illustrated, though suggestively rather than in literal detail.

The following prose translation of Rollinat's verses, made by Mr. Philip Hale, is prefixed to the published score of Loeffler's fantasia:

"Hell's a-burning, burning, burning. Chuckling in clear staccato, the
Devil, prowling, runs about.

"He watches, advances, retreats like zig-zag lightning; Hell's
a-burning, burning, burning.

"In dive and cell, underground and in the air, the Devil, prowling,
runs about.

"Now he is flower, dragon-fly, woman, black cat, green snake; Hell's
a-burning, burning, burning.

"And now, with pointed mustache, scented with vetiver, the Devil,
prowling, runs about.

"Wherever mankind swarms, without rest, summer and winter, Hell's
a-burning, burning, burning.

"From alcove to hall, and on the rail-ways, the Devil, prowling, runs
about.

"He is Mr. Seen-at-Night, who saunters with staring eyes. Hell's
a-burning, burning, burning.

"There floating as a bubble, here squirming as a worm, the Devil,
prowling, runs about.

"He's grand seigneur, tough, student, teacher. Hell's a-burning,
burning, burning.

"He inoculates each soul with his bitter whispering: the Devil,
prowling, runs about.

"He promises, bargains, stipulates in gentle or proud tones. Hell's
a-burning, burning, burning.

"Mocking pitilessly the unfortunate whom he destroys, the Devil,
prowling, runs about.

"He makes goodness ridiculous and the old man futile. Hell's
a-burning, burning, burning.

"At the home of priest or sceptic, whose soul and body he wishes, the
Devil, prowling, runs about.

"Beware of him to whom he toadies, and whom he calls 'My dear sir.'
Hell's a-burning, burning, burning.

"Friend of the tarantula, darkness, the odd number, the Devil,
prowling, runs about.

"--My clock strikes midnight. If I should go to see Lucifer?--Hell's
a-burning, burning, burning; the Devil, prowling, runs about."

"A PAGAN POEM," FOR ORCHESTRA AND PIANO: Op. 14

This tone-poem was written originally (in 1901) for a small combination of instruments,[99] and was intended for performance as chamber-music. It was afterwards arranged for two pianos and three trumpets, and was performed in private in this form. In 1905-6 the work was recast in its present shape--for orchestra with piano. Its inspiration is derived from the Eighth Eclogue of Virgil, the subject of which consists of two love-songs, placed in the mouths of Damon and Alphesibœus. The poetic basis of Loeffler's music is found in the second of these love-songs. A Thessalian girl has resorted to magic incantations in the hope that she may bring back to her cottage her truant lover Daphnis. The passage which inspired the mood of the music, and which is quoted as a preface to the score, is as follows (beginning, in the original, at the line _Effer aquam, et molli cinge hæc altaria vitta_):

"Fetch water forth, and twine the altars here with the soft fillet,
and burn resinous twigs and make frankincense, that I may try by
magic rites to turn my lover's sense from sanity; nothing is wanting
now but the songs.

"_Draw from the city, my songs, draw Daphnis home._

"Songs have might, even, to draw down the moon from heaven; with
songs Circe transformed the crew of Ulysses; by singing, the cold
snake is burst asunder in the meadows.

"_Draw from the city, my songs, draw Daphnis home._

"Threefold first I twine about thee these diverse triple-hued
threads, and thrice round these altars I draw thine image: an odd
number is god's delight.

"_Draw from the city, my songs, draw Daphnis home._

"Tie the threefold colors in three knots, Amaryllis, but tie them;
and say, 'I tie Venus's bands.'

"_Draw from the city, my songs, draw Daphnis home._

"As this clay stiffens and as this wax softens in one and the
self-same fire, so let Daphnis do for love of me. Sprinkle
barley-meal, and kindle the brittle bay-twigs with bitumen. Cruel
Daphnis burns me; I burn this bay at Daphnis.

"_Draw from the city, my songs, draw Daphnis home._

"So may Daphnis love, as when the heifer, weary with seeking the
steer through woodland and high grove, sinks on the green sedge by a
water-brook, in misery, and recks not to retire before the falling
night: so may love hold him, nor may I care to heal.

"_Draw from the city, my songs, draw Daphnis home._

"This dress he wore of old the traitor left me, dear pledges of
himself; which now I even in the doorway, O earth, commit to thee;
for these pledges Daphnis is the debt.

"_Draw from the city, my songs, draw Daphnis home._

"These herbs, and these poisons gathered in Pontus, Mœris himself
gave me; in Pontus they grow thickest. By their might I have often
seen Mœris become a wolf and plunge into the forest, often seen him
call up souls from their deep graves and transplant the harvests to
where they were not sown.

"_Draw from the city, my songs, draw Daphnis home._

"Fetch ashes, Amaryllis, out-of-doors, and fling them across thy head
into the running brook; and look not back. With these I will assail
Daphnis: nothing cares he for gods, nothing for songs.

"_Draw from the city, my songs, draw Daphnis home._

"See! the embers on the altar have caught with a flickering flame,
themselves, of their own accord, while I delay to fetch them. Be
it for good! something there is for sure; and Hylax barks in the
doorway. May we believe? or do lovers fashion dreams of their own?

"_Forbear: from the city--forbear now, my songs--Daphnis comes._"[100]

The refrain--_Ducite ab urbe domum, mea carmina, ducite Daphnim_--is intoned by three trumpets behind the scenes.

FOOTNOTES:

[90] _La Mort de Tintagiles_ is one of the _Trois petits drames pour marionnettes_ published in one volume in 1894. The two others were _Alladine et Palomides_ and _Intérieur_.

[91] The _viola d'amore_, or _viole d'amour_, is a member of the now virtually obsolete family of viols. Its characteristic feature is a supplementary set of strings, passing beneath the fingerboard and through holes drilled in the lower part of the bridge, which vibrate sympathetically with the strings actually engaged by the bow. The tone produced is of a singularly rich and beautiful quality. Until Loeffler wrote for it in _La Mort de Tintagiles_, the only conspicuous modern use of the instrument was by Meyerbeer in his opera _Les Huguenots_, where it is employed in the accompaniment to _Raoul's_ air in the first act, _Plus blanche que la blanche hermine_. This obbligato part, written by Meyerbeer especially for Chrétien Urhan (see foot-note on page 39), is now commonly given to an ordinary viola.

[92] This work is issued, as is all of Loeffler's published music, by G. Schirmer.

[93] One of a set of four songs (_Timbres Oubliés_, _Adieu pour jamais_, _Les Soirs d'Automne_, _Les Paons_), to words by Gustave Kahn, published in 1904 with the title, _Quatre Mélodies pour chant et piano_ (op. 10).

[94] _La Bonne Chanson_ was published in 1870, the year of Verlaine's marriage to Mathilde Mauté. In his _Confessions_ he praises it as "so sincere, so amiably, sweetly, purely thought, so simply written." On another occasion he spoke of it as follows (the English is Mr. Arthur Symons's): "The author values it as perhaps the most _natural_ of his works. Indeed, it was Art, violent or delicate, which had affected to reign, almost exclusively, in his former works, and it was only from then that it was possible to trace in him true and simple views concerning nature, physical and moral.... Life had its way, and distress soon came, not without his own fault, to the household of the poet, who suddenly threw up everything and went wandering in search of unsatisfying distractions." Verlaine and his wife were divorced a few years after their marriage.

[95] Translated by Mr. Philip Hale.

[96] A "canon" is the most strict and rigid form of what musicians call "imitation." In canonic writing, two or more parts, or "voices," take up and repeat, or "imitate," in succession precisely the same phrase or subject. A theme is said to be "inverted" when it is repeated in contrary motion, turned upside-down, as it were, ascending intervals being represented by descending, and _vice versa_.

[97] An orchestral implement used to produce a bell-like tone.

[98] Maurice Rollinat, a godson of George Sand, was born in Châteauroux, France, in 1853 (some authorities say 1846). He was both poet and composer--though his music has not compelled respect among the knowing. He was a celebrity in Paris during the early eighties, when his volume of poems, _Les Névroses_, appeared, the volume which contained _La Villanelle du Diable_. He died in a mad-house at Ivry on October 26, 1903. Two other poems from _Les Névroses_--_L'Étang_ and _La Cornemuse_--have suggested music to Loeffler: they form the poetic bases of his two "Rhapsodies" for oboe, viola, and piano, published in 1905.

[99] Piano, two flutes, oboe, clarinet, English horn, two horns in F, three trumpets (behind the scenes), viola, and double-bass.

[100] From the English version of F. W. Mackail, London, 1889.

MACDOWELL

(_Edward MacDowell: born in New York City, December 18, 1861; now
living there and in Peterboro, N. H._)

"LANCELOT AND ELAINE," SYMPHONIC POEM: Op. 25

This symphonic poem was composed at Wiesbaden in 1886. The published score contains no indication of the specific moods, scenes, or incidents which gave rise to the music; there is merely the brief line: "After Tennyson," printed beneath the title. Yet it is known that MacDowell conceived his music to correspond, point by point, with certain definite happenings in the story of Lancelot and the Lily Maid of Astolat, as narrated by Tennyson; and this correspondence between the poem and the music it is possible to indicate here in some detail.

These are the incidents which are successively illustrated in the music:

I. "LANCELOT AND GUINEVERE. THE QUEEN INDUCES LANCELOT TO ENTER THE
LISTS AT CAMELOT." [101]

[An expressive theme for the strings, suggestive of the love of
Lancelot and Guinevere, afterwards repeated by the wood-wind.]

II. "LANCELOT RIDES SADLY TO THE TOURNAMENT" --

[A knightly theme (the Lancelot motive) for the horns, against an
opposing figure in the basses.]

III. --"AND, COMING TO THE CASTLE OF ELAINE'S FATHER" --

IV. --"SEES ELAINE"--

[An oboe solo, gentle and pensive, is heard against an exceedingly
delicate accompaniment figure in the strings.]

V. --"AND GOES TO THE TOURNAMENT WEARING HER TOKEN."

VI. "THE HERALDS."

[Martial phrases (an expansion of the opening theme) for horns,
trumpets, and trombones, declaimed "very forcibly, almost roughly."]

VII. "THE TOURNAMENT."

[An energetic figure in the violins (the Tournament theme),
increasing in speed and force, brings a climax in which the Lancelot
theme is heard _fortissimo_ in the brass.]

VIII. "LANCELOT'S VICTORY"--

[The Lancelot theme is proclaimed, _furioso_, by horns and wood-wind.]

IX. --"AND DOWNFALL."

[A precipitous descent of the violins, followed by a dramatic pause.
Clarinets and bassoons have a mournful reminiscence of Lancelot's
motive.]

X. "THE COMING OF ELAINE."
("What matter, so I help him back to life?")

[Lancelot's theme, in the wood-wind and horns, is heard, _diminuendo_,
against trills and tremolos, _pianissimo_, in the strings.]

XI. "THE SADNESS OF ELAINE."
("I fain would follow love, if that could be:
I needs must follow death, who calls for me.")

[The theme of the opening (the love-theme of Lancelot and Guinevere)
recurs significantly in the muted[102] strings.]

XII. "LANCELOT GOES BACK TO THE COURT."
[The Lancelot theme is heard in the strings and wood-wind.]

XIII. "LANCELOT AND THE QUEEN."
("Take ...
These jewels, and make me happy, making them
An armlet for the roundest arm on earth.")

[An impassioned episode. Trumpets and trombones sound an imperious
phrase, _fortissimo_, against tempestuous passages in the strings.]

XIV. "GUINEVERE THROWS THE TROPHIES INTO THE RIVER."

[A tumultuous orchestral outburst, followed by a sudden descent of
the strings through three octaves.]

XV. "LANCELOT SEES THE BLACK BARGE BEARING ELAINE DOWN THE RIVER."

("In her right hand the lily, in her left
The letter--all her bright hair streaming down--
And all the coverlet was cloth of gold
Drawn to her waist, and she herself in white
All but her face, and that clear-featured face
Was lovely, for she did not seem as dead,
But fast asleep, and lay as tho' she smiled.")

[A solemn episode for wood-wind, horns, and strings; the violins have
a persistent tremolo.]

XVI. "ELAINE'S MESSAGE."

("I loved you, and my love had no return,
And therefore my true love has been my death.

* * * * *

"Pray for my soul, thou too. Sir Lancelot,
As thou art a knight peerless.")

[The Elaine theme is dolorously recalled, _pianissimo_, by the oboe,
under a trill in the violins.]

XVII. "AND LANCELOT SITS BY THE RIVER-BANK"--

[Under a weaving accompaniment figure in the violins, _ppp_, two
horns intone, very softly and tenderly, a variant of the Lancelot
theme.]

XVIII. "--NEVER DREAMING THAT HE SHOULD DIE 'A HOLY MAN'"

[Long-sustained chords, _pianissimo_, for full orchestra.]

TWO FRAGMENTS (AFTER THE "SONG OF ROLAND"): Op. 30

1. THE SARACENS (_Die Sarazenen_)
2. THE LOVELY ALDÂ (_Die schöne Aldâ_)

MacDowell, while living in Wiesbaden, Germany (from 1885 to 1888), projected a symphony on the subject of the Song of Roland, and a portion of it was composed; but the plan was afterwards abandoned, and the music which was to have formed part of the symphony was published, in 1891, in the form of two short tone-poems founded upon episodes in the poem, and entitled: _Die Sarazenen_; _Die schöne Aldâ: Zwei Fragmente (nach dem Rolandslied) für grosses Orchester_. MacDowell has quoted on the fly-leaf of the score those portions of the poem from which the conception of his music sprang.

"The Saracens," a tempestuous _Allegretto feroce_, is a sombre portrayal of the scene in which Ganelon swears to commit treason against Roland, while the Saracens feast amid the flaring of pagan fires and the wailing of sinister music. It is based on these lines from the Song (printed in the score in old German):

THE SARACENS

"With blasts of trumpets and amid festal and warlike scenes,
tumultuously rushed forward the heathen hordes and all their high
chiefs. Quoth Ganelon: 'I swear to you that of Roland I shall make an
end.'"[103]

The second "fragment," "The Lovely Aldâ," an _Andantino teneramente_ of grave tenderness, depicts the loveliness and the grieving of Aldâ, Roland's wife.[104] MacDowell uses as a preface lines from the German version, which, in translation, read thus:

THE LOVELY ALDÂ

"Then came forward the lovely Aldâ; graciously was she received by
the Emperor himself and all his court. Spake she: 'Karl, consecrated
sovereign, where is my Roland? Bring back to me my hero, he to whom
you gave me as wife! Ah, what joy should I have in beholding him once
more!'"

SUITE (No. 2), "INDIAN": Op. 48

This suite, in five movements, was composed in 1891-92. It is MacDowell's last and most important orchestral work. Its thematic material, as he acknowledges in a prefatory note to the score, is based upon melodies of the North American Indians, with the exception of a few subsidiary themes of his own invention. "If separate titles for the different movements are desired," he says in his note, "they should be arranged as follows [I give them here together with the expression marks at the head of each movement, which are highly indicative of their character]:

1. "LEGEND"
("_Not fast; with much dignity and character_")

2. "LOVE-SONG"
("_Not fast; tenderly_")

3. "IN WAR TIME"
("_With rough vigor, almost savagely_")

4. "DIRGE"
("_Dirgelike, mournfully_")

5. "VILLAGE FESTIVAL"
("_Swift and light_")

Although there is no reason to believe that MacDowell has here based his music upon such a detailed dramatic plan as underlies, for example, his symphonic poem "Lancelot and Elaine" (see pages 191-194), it is evident that he was inspired by moods and pictures the nature of which is sufficiently indicated by the titles of the different movements. It may be interesting to note that there is authority for the statement that the principal theme of the first movement ("Legend") was taken from a harvest-song of the Iroquois Indians in New York State; that for his second movement ("Love-Song") the composer used a love-song of the Iowas; that the dominant theme of "In War Time" is one to which the Indians of the Atlantic coast attributed a supernatural origin and character; that a Kiowa theme (a woman's song of mourning for her lost son) dominates the "Dirge"; and that the chief melodic ideas of the last movement are a war-song and a woman's dance of the Iroquois.

In this music, it has been said, MacDowell "has caught and transfixed the essential character of his subject: these are the sorrows and laments and rejoicings, not of our own day and people, but of the vanished life of an elemental and dying race: here is the solitude of dark forests, of vast and windswept prairies, and the sombreness and wildness of one knows not what grim tragedies and romances and festivities enacted in the shadow of a fading past."

[MacDowell's three remaining works for orchestra--the symphonic poem
"Hamlet; Ophelia" (Op. 22),[105] the "Suite" (No. 1: Op. 42), and its
supplement, "In October"--have no programmes whatsoever. The suite is
in four movements, titled as follows: (1) "In a Haunted Forest" (_In
einem verwünschten Walde_); (2) "Summer Idyll" (_Sommer-Idylle_); (3)
"The Shepherdess' Song" (_Gesang der Hirten_); (4) "Forest Spirits"
(_Waldgeister_). "In October," the supplement, is in one movement.
This episode formed part of the original suite, but was not published
until several years after (the first four parts were published in
1891; the supplement in 1893). Both are included under the same opus
number.]

FOOTNOTES:

[101] The headings are those chosen by the composer.

[102] See page 12, foot-note.

[103] Ganelon (or Ganelonne) was the traitor in Charlemagne's camp through whose perfidy Roland met his death. After the war Ganelon was taken to Aix and was there sentenced by the Emperor to be torn in pieces by four horses, pulling apart his arms and legs; the execution took place before the entire court.

[104] This according to the German version used by MacDowell. In the French, Aldâ appears not as the wife, but as the betrothed, of Roland. This is the passage as it occurs in the (modern) French version:

"L'Empereur est revenu d'Espagne,
Il vient à Aix, la meillure ville de France.
Monte au palais, entre en la salle,
Une belle damoiselle vient à lui;
C'est Aude.
Elle dit au Roi, 'Où est Roland le capitaine,
Qui m'a juré de me prendre pour femme?'"

[105] This work was composed at Frankfort in 1884, and was published in the following year with the title: "Hamlet; Ophelia: Two Poems for Grand Orchestra"; but the composer afterwards changed his mind concerning this designation, and preferred to entitle the score: "First Symphonic Poem (a. 'Hamlet'; b. 'Ophelia')." "Lancelot and Elaine" was published in 1888 with the sub-title: "Second Symphonic Poem."

MENDELSSOHN

(_Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy: born in Hamburg, February 3, 1809;
died in Leipsic, November 4, 1847_)

OVERTURE, "A MIDSUMMER-NIGHTS DREAM": Op. 21

Mendelssohn, knowing Shakespeare through German translations by Schlegel and Tieck, wrote in 1826 (he was then seventeen years old) his overture to "A Midsummer-Night's Dream." The music was begun July 7th, and finished August 6th. It was first written as a piano duet, and afterwards scored for orchestra. Mendelssohn's incidental music to Shakespeare's play was not composed until seventeen years later. The following comments by Mr. Frederick Niecks furnish an excellent indication of the significance of the overture: "Before our mind's eye," he writes, "are called up Oberon and Titania as they meet in 'grove or green by fountain clear or spangled starlight sheen'; the elves, who, when their king and queen quarrel, creep into acorn-cups; ... Peaseblossom, Cobweb, Moth, and Mustardseed; the knavish sprite Puck, _alias_ Robin Goodfellow, who delights in playing merry pranks.... But there are other things in the overture than fairies. There are Duke Theseus and his betrothed, Queen Hippolyta, and their train; the two pairs of lovers--Lysander and Hermia, Demetrius and Helena; and those hempen homespuns, the Athenian tradesmen--Quince, Snug, Bottom, Flute, Snout, and Starveling.... But let us see where the different _dramatis personæ_ are to be found in the overture.

"The sustained chords of the wind instruments [which begin the work] are the magic formula that opens to us the realm of fairyland. The busy, tripping part of the first subject [violins and violas] tells us of the fairies; the broader and dignified part, of Duke Theseus and his following; the passionate first part of the second subject [at first wood-wind, then strings, later the full orchestra], of the romantic lovers; and the clownish second part, of the tradesmen, the braying reminding us of Bottom's transformation into an ass. The development is full of the vivacious bustle and play and fun of the elves; ... the _pianissimo_ passage towards the end ... signifies the elves' blessing on the house of the Duke. In conclusion we have once more the magic formula [the four sustained chords of the opening], which now dissolves the dream it had before conjured up."

OVERTURE, "FINGAL'S CAVE" [OR, "THE HEBRIDES"][106]: Op. 26

Mendelssohn, visiting the Hebrides in 1829, was deeply impressed with what he saw. "In order to make you realize," he says in a letter written August 7, 1829, "how extraordinarily the Hebrides affected me, the following came into my mind there"--then follows, in notation, a passage from the overture. Later in the month he wrote from Glasgow: "How much lies between then and now! ... Staffa--scenery, travels, people: Klingerman [the friend who accompanied him] has described it all, and you will excuse a short note, especially as what I can best tell you is contained in the above music." In September he wrote from London: "'The Hebrides' story builds itself up gradually"; and early in the following year (January 21, 1832) he wrote from Paris: "I cannot bring 'The Hebrides' to a hearing here because I do not regard it as finished in the form in which I originally wrote it [the first version of the overture was finished late in 1830]. The middle portion ... is very stupid, and the whole working out smells more of counterpoint than of blubber, sea-gulls, and salt fish." His friend Klingermann wrote as follows of the impressions produced by Fingal's Cave: "We were put out in boats, and climbed, the hissing sea close beside us, over the pillar stumps to the celebrated Fingal's Cave. A greener roar of waters surely never rushed into a stranger cavern--comparable, on account of the many pillars, to the inside of an immense organ, black and resounding, lying there absolutely purposeless in its utter loneliness, the wide, gray sea within and without."

It has been said of the music of this overture that, in hearing it, "you will think of yourself in a ship, gliding over rocking waves, about you a vast expanse of sea and sky, light breezes blowing, the romantic stories of the past coloring the sights that one has seen." Wagner, on the strength of this work, praised the composer as "a landscape painter of the first order."

OVERTURE, "BECALMED AT SEA AND PROSPEROUS VOYAGE": Op. 27

Mendelssohn's _Meeresstille und glückliche Fahrt_[107] was written in illustration of two short and contrasted poems by Goethe, entitled _Meeres Stille_ and _Glückliche Fahrt_ (published in 1796). They have been translated into English prose as follows:

"BECALMED AT SEA"

"A profound stillness rules in the water; the ocean rests motionless;
and the anxious mariner looks on a smooth sea round about him. No
breeze in any quarter! Fearful quiet of death! Over the monstrous
waste no billow stirs."

"PROSPEROUS VOYAGE"

"The fog has lifted, the sky is clear, and the Wind-god looses the
hesitant band. The winds sough, the mariner looks alive. Haste! Haste!
The billows divide, the far-off grows near; already I see the land!"

The overture was composed in 1828, and revised five years later. The introduction (_Adagio_) pictures the ominous calm, the deathlike quiet of the waters, the vast and motionless expanse of windless sea. The flute-calls which end this first section have been interpreted as "the cry of some solitary sea-bird," as "whistling for the wind," as a portrayal of "dead silence and solitude." Then follows (_Molto allegro vivace_) the picture of the sudden and inspiriting change which comes with the springing up of the breeze--the clearing of the sky, the joyous resumption of the voyage, the exhilarated spirits of the mariners. The conclusion suggests the happy arrival in port, the salutes, the dropping of the anchor.

OVERTURE TO THE LEGEND OF THE LOVELY MELUSINA: Op. 32

We know, on the testimony of Mendelssohn himself, that this overture, based on the ancient legend of the fair being who was part woman and part fish, was suggested to the composer by an opera on the subject which he saw at Berlin in 1833. Under date of April 7, 1834, he wrote to his sister Fanny: "You ask me which legend you are to read. How many, then, are there? And how many, then, do I know? And do you not know the story of the lovely Melusina?... Or have you really never heard of the beautiful fish? I have composed this overture to an opera by Konradin Kreutzer ["Melusine," libretto by Fr. Grillparzer, music by Kreutzer, produced at Berlin February 27, 1833] which I heard last year about this time at the Königsstadt Theatre.... Hähnel [the singer--Amalie Hähnel--who took the part of _Melusine_] ... was very charming, especially in one scene where she presents herself as a mermaid and dresses her hair; it was then that I conceived the idea of writing an overture.... I took what pleased me of the subject (and that is, precisely what coincides with the legend). In short, the overture came into the world, and this is its family history."

The _Ouvertüre zum Märchen von der Schönen Melusine_ was finished November 14, 1833. Schumann wrote of it as follows in the _Neue Zeitschrift für Musik_, after a performance in Leipsic: "To understand it, no one needs to read the longspun, although richly imaginative, tale of Tieck;[108] it is enough to know that the charming Melusina was violently in love with the handsome knight Lusignan, and married him upon his promising that certain days in the year he would leave her alone. One day the truth breaks upon Lusignan that Melusina is a mermaid--half fish, half woman. The material is variously worked up, in words as in tones. But one must not here, any more than in the overture to Shakespeare's 'Midsummer Night's Dream,' wish to trace so coarse an historical thread all through.... Always conceiving his subject poetically, Mendelssohn here portrays only the characters of the man and the woman, of the proud, knightly Lusignan and the enticing, yielding Melusina; but it is as if the watery waves came up amid their embraces and overwhelmed and parted them again. And this revives in every listener those pleasant images by which the youthful fancy loves to linger, those fables of the life deep down beneath the watery abyss, full of shooting fishes with golden scales, of pearls in open shells, of buried treasures, which the sea has snatched from men, of emerald castles towering one above another, etc. This, it seems to us, is what distinguishes this overture from the earlier ones: that it narrates these kind [_sic_] of things quite in the manner of a story, and does not experience them. Hence, at first sight, the surface appears somewhat cold, dumb; but what a life and interweaving there is down below is more clearly expressed through music than through words, for which reason the overture (we confess) is far better than this description of it."[109]

It has been said that the music illustrates "the loveliness and the loving nature of Melusina; the hardness of her fate and the anxiety caused by it. The waving motion [the flowing theme heard at the beginning] is indicative of her grace, and at the same time reminds us of the element with which she was connected." A more energetic theme is said to suggest Melusina's knightly consort; a third theme (in the violins) is a love-motive; later there is a return, _fortissimo_, of the energetic knightly theme of the beginning. There is a development of these themes; and "near the end we may recognize [Melusina's] cries on being discovered by her husband. The rest is like the vanishing of a beautiful reality into a beautiful memory."

SYMPHONY No. 3 ("SCOTCH"): Op. 56

1. _Andante con moto_
_Allegro un poco agitato_
2. _Vivace non troppo_
3. _Adagio_
4. _Allegro vivacissimo_
_Allegro maestoso assai_

To Mendelssohn's Scotch visit in the summer of 1829 may be traced this third symphony in A minor, as well as the "Fingal's Cave" ["Hebrides"] overture (see page 200-202). In a letter dated July 30, 1829, he wrote from Edinburgh: "We went, in the deep twilight, to the Palace of Holyrood, where Queen Mary lived and loved. There is a little room to be seen there, with a winding staircase leading up to it. This the murderers ascended, and, finding Rizzio, ... drew him out; about three chambers away is a small corner where they killed him. The chapel is roofless, grass and ivy grow abundantly in it; and before the altar, now in ruins, Mary was crowned Queen of Scotland.[110] Everything about is broken and mouldering, and the bright sky shines in. I believe I found to-day in that old chapel the beginning of my Scotch symphony."

The symphony was planned in 1831. In a letter written from Rome in March of that year he says: "From April 15th to May 15th is the heyday of the year in Italy. Is it to be wondered at that I cannot call up the misty Scotch mood?" The work was not completed until more than a decade later--January 20, 1842.

The first movement has been said to record the sombre impressions
made upon the composer by his visit to Holyrood. The second movement
has been described as "a picture of pastoral nature, characterized
by a continuous flow of rural gaiety," and as "the most wonderful
compound of health and life, heath and moor, blowing wind, screaming
eagles, bagpipes, fluttering tartans, and elastic steps of racing
Highlanders, all rounded off and brought into one perfect picture."
The third movement (_Adagio_) has been characterized as "a revery in
which the composer meditates upon the ancient state and grandeur
of the country. Its majestic strains might almost have been swept
from Ossian's harp." In the last movement "the romantic sentiment
disappears. In its place we have the heroic expressed with astonishing
force and exuberant spirit." This movement has also been called "the
gathering of the clans."