Chapter IV: The Thrill of the Great Masters

In his choice of music the pianolist need not pause to consider the slow evolution of the art from the simple to the more complex, since for him nothing is complex. Thus he is free to disregard all traditions, even such an absurd one, for example, as that which insists that a sonata or symphony should be played as a whole, that, if a work in this form consists of three or four movements, none of these should be "lifted" out of the whole and played as a separate composition.

The pianolist calmly looks upon these movements as so many different pieces and chooses between them. Thus among the hundred classical compositions most in demand by pianolists, the slow movement of Beethoven's "Fifth Symphony" ranks seventeenth, while the first is as far down on the list as thirty-seventh, and the roll with the last two movements as sixty-fifth. That in future the consensus of opinion of thousands of music lovers who are unhampered by pedantic tradition, will have immense influence in determining the standard of composers and of their several works, and will have immense effect in hastening the introduction and appreciation of works by new composers, in spite of opposition from the ultra-conservative element, goes without saying, and will be one of the most important factors in the revolution this new musical instrument is destined to effect.

All this readily can be appreciated when the attitude of this great musical public toward Liszt's "Hungarian Rhapsodies" is taken into account. For years the critical camp has been divided on Liszt, some considering him a composer whose unequalled greatness as a player of the pianoforte led him to write music that was superficially brilliant but barren of genuine musical inspiration. Others, like Henry T. Finck and that band of advanced commentators on music among whom I am proud to number myself, unhesitatingly rank him with the greatest composers. This phase of musical life, this warring of factions, the pianolist happily ignores entirely, and following his unbiased intuition, places Liszt's second "Hungarian Rhapsody" at the head of the repertory, closely follows it with the twelfth and fourteenth, and, all told, includes nine of these fifteen compositions in the top list of one hundred pieces of serious music which have proved most popular with pianola players. The pianolist is not aware of the fact, but that most inexorable of all critics, time, most emphatically justifies his choice.

Liszt brought out these rhapsodies fifty-three years ago. They are not compositions which suddenly are offering themselves as candidates for popular favor. For more than half a century has passed over these master works, which still are as fresh and modern as if they had been struck off but yesterday in the white heat of inspiration. Their roots go back even further than fifty-three years. As long ago as 1838 Liszt published them as short transcriptions of Hungarian tunes. Then he worked them over and, in 1846, issued them in somewhat more elaborate form as "Melodies Hongroises." Still further elaborated they became in 1854 the "Rhapsodies Hongroises" as we know them.

These rhapsodies reflect the weird romanticism of that most mysterious and fascinating of races, the Gypsies, as successfully as Chopin's music reflects the crushed aspirations of his unhappy country, Poland. Although they are called Hungarian, they are neither derived from nor founded upon national Hungarian music, but are purely of Gypsy origin. The Hungarians, however, have adopted the Gypsies as their national musicians, and it is by reason of this adoption, or, in order to express through the title this mutual assimilation, that Liszt has called these rhapsodies "Hungarian." With a Gypsy parentage so authentic that he speaks of the melodies on which they are based, as "the songs without words" of the Gypsies, his rhapsodies form the only channel through which the intense inner life and mystic idealism of this strange race has found expression. They are the long suppressed cry of souls struggling for self utterance and they constitute nothing less than an epic, the "Iliad," of that strange race which centuries ago cast itself upon the continent of Europe like a wave coming, none knew from where or whither bound.

This race, as Liszt describes it in his book on Gypsy music, brought no memories, betrayed no hope; possessed no country, religion, history. Divided into tribes, hordes and bands, wandering hither and thither, following each the route dictated by chance, they still preserve under the most distant meridian, the same infallible rallying signs, the same physiognomy, the same language, the same traditions. The ages pass. The world progresses. Countries make war or peace, change masters and manners, but this people that shares the joys, the sorrows, the prosperity and the misfortunes of none other; that laughs at the ambitions, the tears, the combats of civilization; still obstinately clings to its hunger and its liberty, its tents and its tatters, and still exercises, as it has exercised for centuries, an indescribable and indestructible fascination upon poetic minds, passing it on as a mysterious legacy from age to age.

Such is the race of which Liszt recites the epic in the "Hungarian Rhapsodies." They portray the life, the scenes, the mood of the Gypsy camp, vividly, brilliantly, yet with an undercurrent of tragedy--the tragedy of homeless wanderers. Because they represent life, because they are true to life, because they depict life with a wonderful union of realism and beauty, they will, in spite of critical detraction, live as long as the Bach fugues, the Beethoven sonatas or the Wagner music dramas.

An elaborate musical analysis of these wonderful works would be futile. They are too racial, and in parts too pictorial to be dissected in narrative style. What I have said of the race from which they derive their characteristics should serve as a general explanation of their purport. The second, twelfth and fourteenth rhapsodies are admirable examples of the series. In general these "Hungarian Rhapsodies" open with a few brief bars suggestive of tragic recitative, which leads into a broad yet strongly marked and searching rhythm, upon which is built a slow, stately yet mournful melody, broken in upon here and there by strange weird runs and rapid passages. These latter serve a double purpose. They imitate the curious æolian harp effects of the most characteristic instrument of the Gypsy orchestra, the cembalon, a large, shallow box with strings about as numerous as those of the pianoforte, and played with two little mallets, with which the player produces the weird arpeggios or rapid, broken chords and the improvised runs characteristic of Hungarian Gypsy music; and they also prepare the player and listener for the rapid movement into which the slow melody passes over, finally to dash into the very frenzy of emotional and physical excitement.

These three divisions, the slow movement introduced by a recitative, the rapid movement following, and the still more rapid one with which the rhapsodies generally end, are based upon three distinct kinds of melodies of the Gypsies, and their startling contrast contributes to the effectiveness of the composition. The slow melody in the first part of the rhapsodies (a different melody in each rhapsody of course) is the "lassan," a sad song giving utterance to the pathos of the race. The dance music that follows, so full of playful humor, grace, caprice, coquetry and dashing contrast, is the "frischka"; while the delirium, almost demoniac in its fury, with which the rhapsody rushes to its intoxicating finale, and compared with which the Italian tarantella and even the Dervish dance of the East are tame, is the "czardas." In playing these rhapsodies one must try to imagine a Gypsy camp, the flicker of firelight in the deep forest or on the wild plains of Hungary, a sense of loneliness or of vast distance, forms of swarthy men and women suddenly appearing from a shadowy background to be illumined for a moment in the light of the fire, their swaying, whirling forms vanishing the next, back into the vague darkness from which they issued. Of the "Hungarian Rhapsodies" hostile critics may say what they please; he who plays them understandingly, will feel in them the thrill of a great master.

A composition of impassioned, yet mournful beauty is Liszt's "Liebestraum" (Dream of Love) one of a set of three nocturnes, this one being based upon a well known German poem, Freiligrath's,

O love as long as love thou canst,
O love as long as love will keep;
The day will come, the day will come,
When at a grave you stand and weep.

Liszt's "At the Spring" is a charming composition somewhat in the same style as the "Campanella," but instead of describing silver-toned chimes of bells, reproducing the purl of a bosky spring. One hears the clear rippling water and sees its sparkling jets in glints of sunlight, as it dashes against the stones, and its shimmering spray. The work is the forerunner and model of numerous similar pieces, all of them, however, lacking its freshness and originality and its high order of musicianship.

The pianolist who is led by the examples of Liszt's music which I have cited to choose liberally from the numerous compositions by him in the catalogue of music rolls, hardly can go amiss. If, however, he prefers to leave this for some other time, and to turn to another composer, he will find Mendelssohn's "Rondo Capriccioso," Op. 14, a capital roll. This rondo was composed in 1826, the same year in which he wrote the overture to Shakespere's "Midsummer Night's Dream," with its wonderful depiction of fairy life. The "Rondo Capriccioso" might be part of the "Midsummer Night's Dream" music, it is so much in the same character. Nothing could be more crisp and dainty. It seems to depict elves romping through the forest by moonlight. Nor is it without romantic moods, as if love-making were going on even among these light-footed, light-hearted revelers. But when this is said, it still is all touch and go; a breath, a sigh, the iridescence of the moonglade on a woodland lake--then off and away:--

Over hill, over dale,
Through brush, through brier,
Over park, over vale,
Through flood, through fire,
I do wander everywhere,
Swifter than the moon's sphere;
And I serve the fairy queen,
To dew her orbs upon the green.

or

Light as any wind that blows
So fleetly did she stir,
The flower she touch'd on dipt and rose,
And turned to look at her.

This "Rondo Capriccioso" is indeed a fascinating piece, written in its composer's most facile vein. It is one of the finest rolls from among which the pianolist can select. There can be no doubt that Mendelssohn has been losing ground as compared with the enormous popularity which he enjoyed in his lifetime. But the pendulum has swung too much the other way. Certain of his compositions have been too much neglected. The "Rondo Capriccioso" is one of them. As it actually sounds crisper and daintier on the pianola than on the pianoforte no matter by whom played, it enjoys well merited popularity in the pianolist's repertory and may contribute toward restoring the appreciation of Mendelssohn's music to its proper balance.

I would be greatly surprised if a beautiful work like Schubert's "Rosamunde" impromptu were not among the most popular pieces of the pianolist's choice. The word impromptu is sufficiently self-explanatory, but it needs to be pointed out that this work of Schubert's differs from the usual impromptu in being an air with variations, the variations, however, giving the impression of free fantasies or improvisations on the original air. There are five variations and the composition ends with a repetition of the air.

The work is written in the truest Schubertian style. I like to fancy that the melody with its serene, lyric beauty is a picture of the fair Rosamunde herself. The first variation, a plaintive melody over an agitated accompaniment, I should be inclined, still referring to Rosamunde and regarding each variation as expressing an experience in her life, to entitle "Moods." The second variation is more playful in character but without any loss of romantic charm, and I should say that we might call it an expression of her "Fancies." The third an impassioned meditation, a cry from the heart, Rosamunde's heart, may be called "Love." The fourth variation, which again is frankly playful like the second, is "Hope." The fifth, as brilliant as a cascade on which the sun is shining, is "Joy." It ends suddenly without coming to a full stop in the musical sense, and, after a pause, the original air now couched in broad and beautiful chords, begins in the lower register, rises successively to the middle and higher ones, then dies away--an exquisite ending. Is this not Rosamunde, the more charming for the romance of which she is the heroine; Rosamunde, looking at her engagement ring, musing on the past and trustful of the future?

Schubert was one of the most famous song composers and Liszt in addition to being an original composer, rendered a great service to music by transcribing, in most admirable style, many of Schubert's most famous songs for pianoforte. Widely known as they are for voice, they have through these transcriptions become almost as familiar for pianoforte. The delicate and dainty "Hark, Hark the Lark" is a favorite work in Paderewski's repertory. So spontaneous was Schubert's inspiration that he wrote the music of this song at a tavern where he chanced to see the poem in a book which he was examining. "If only I had some music paper!" he exclaimed. One of his friends promptly ruled lines on the back of his bill of fare and Schubert, with the varied noises of the tavern going on about him, jotted down the song then and there.

Another splendid Schubert song that has been made popular on the pianoforte through Listz's transcription is "The Erlking." As it ranks among the greatest songs, and by many people actually is considered the greatest, the illustration it affords of the rapidity with which Schubert worked is most interesting. Two friends calling upon him one afternoon, toward the close of the year 1815, found him all aglow reading "The Erlking" aloud to himself. Having read the poem, he walked up and down the room several times, book in hand, then suddenly dropped into a chair, and, without a moment's pause and as fast as his pen could travel over the paper, composed the song. Schubert had no pianoforte, so the three men hurried over to the school where formerly he had been trained for the Imperial choir--this was in Vienna--and there "The Erlking" was sung the same evening and received with enthusiasm. Afterwards the Court organist played it over himself without the voice, and, some of those present objecting to the dissonances which depict the child's terror of the Erlking, the organist struck these chords again and explained how admirably they expressed the situation described in the poem and how well they were worked out musically. Schubert was only thirty-one when he died and was only eighteen when he set this poem of Goethe's to music, yet the whole song is almost Wagnerian in its descriptive and dramatic qualities, and its climax thrilling.

The work of Beethoven's which seems most to appeal to the pianolist is the "Moonlight" sonata. Possibly the attractive title, which, however, Beethoven probably did not give to it, may have something to do with its selection. But why not attribute its popularity to the fact that the music bears out the title?

A sonata is a composition in several movements, usually four, and follows a clearly outlined, in fact, an almost rigid form, not to say formula. It attained its highest development during the classical period and left its impress upon all the larger compositions of that time, for a symphony is nothing more than a sonata composed for orchestra, instead of for the pianoforte, and trios, quartets, and other pieces of chamber music of the classical period are sonatas for the corresponding combination of instruments.

The "Moonlight Sonata," however, is less rigid in form than the average sonata. In it, in fact, Beethoven may be said to have broken away from form, for after the word sonata he adds the qualifying phrase "quasi una fantasia," signifying that, although he calls the work a sonata, it has the characteristics of a free fantasy.

Instead of opening with the usual rapid movement, the work begins with a broad and beautiful slow one, a sustained melody, a poem of profound pathos in musical accents. This is followed by a lighter allegretto which Liszt called "a flower 'twixt two abysses," the second "abyss" being the last movement, which is one of Beethoven's most impassioned creations. At the end both of the first movement and of the allegretto the usual wait between the divisions of a sonata is omitted, Beethoven giving the direction "attacca subito il sequente," literally meaning "attack suddenly the following," indicating an inner relationship between the movements so close that there must be only the briefest possible pause between them.

This sonata is a true drama of life, a story of unrequited passion. It is dedicated to one of the great beauties of Beethoven's time, the Countess Giulietta Guicciardi. Although it is known that the composer subsequently was deeply in love with her cousin, the Countess Therese Brunswick, he is believed to have been in love with Giulietta at the time he wrote the "Moonlight Sonata." The countess was not insensible to his passion. She already was engaged to Count Gallenberg, but one day, coming excitedly into the presence of her cousin Therese, she threw herself at the latter's feet, "like a stage princess," and exclaimed: "Counsel me, cold, wise one! I long to give Gallenberg the mitten and marry the wonderfully ugly, wonderfully beautiful Beethoven, if only it did not involve lowering myself socially." And so she gave up Beethoven and led a life, none too happy, with her Count. Connecting the "Moonlight Sonata" with this episode in Beethoven's life, the first movement of the sonata may appropriately be regarded as a song of love, deeply pathetic because no response is evoked by the longing it expresses. The second movement, the graceful allegretto, is the coquetish Giulietta who would not "lower herself socially" by marrying a genius. The third movement is the rejected lover crying out his passion and despair to the night.

From Beethoven to Grieg, from Vienna to Norway, from the greatest master of the classical period to a composer who still is living and who has been called not inaptly, "the Chopin of the North," may seem a long step. But the pianolist can travel with seven league boots. Grieg's most widely known compositions are four of the pieces of incidental music which he wrote to Ibsen's drama "Peer Gynt." Peer Gynt is the Faust of Norwegian literature. Without attempting here to follow up this parallel, it may be said that he is a curious combination of ne'er-do-well, dreamer and philosopher, with a pronounced streak of impishness running through his character and giving a touch of the extravagant and grotesque to many of his actions and to some of them even a suggestion of the weird and supernatural.

"Peer Gynt" has its roots in Norwegian folklore and was written by Ibsen in Italy when he was about thirty-seven years old, and it precedes the problem plays by which he is best known, although Peer's character is in itself a complex problem. Grieg in his incidental music, adroitly avoids the difficult task of interpreting or even hinting at the curiously contradictory nature of the principal rôle in the play, one of the most interesting psychological studies in modern literature. His music deals with the more superficial aspects of the story and is pictorial rather than intellectual or profoundly emotional. The principal selections for the piano-player from the "Peer Gynt" music, are contained on two rolls with two selections to each roll. One of them gives the music of "Anitra's Dance" and "In the Hall of the Mountain King"; the other the scenes "Daybreak" and "Death of Aase." Were these selections to be arranged in the order in which they occur in the drama it would be necessary to begin with the "The Hall of the Mountain King" and follow this, in the order mentioned, with "Aase's Death," "Anitra's Dance" and "Daybreak." On the rolls, however, the pieces are not arranged in the order of their occurrence in the play, but in the sequence which is most effective from a musical standpoint--just as in this book I have purposely refrained from following any set, historical sequence, but have adopted a purely musical method of guiding the pianolist from music of the lighter kind to that of a more serious character.

"Anitra's Dance" is an episode of the drama laid in Morocco which Peer has reached in the course of his wanderings. Anitra is a lithe-limbed daughter of the East who entrances Peer with her dancing, and, when he promises to endow her with a soul, promptly informs him that she would rather have the opal from his turban; gradually coaxes all his jewels from him; then swiftly throws herself upon his horse and gallops away, showing herself a true exemplar of the "eternal feminine," so called, I presume, because it eternally is getting the better of the eternal masculine. Be that as it may, "Anitra's Dance" is the very essence of witchery and grace. In the scene "In the Hall of the Mountain King" the trolls gather for the marriage of Peer to the Troll King's daughter. When Peer, at the last moment, refuses to go through the ceremony, the trolls dash at him. One bites himself fast to his ear. Others strike him. He falls. They throw themselves upon him in a heap. At this critical moment, when he is writhing beneath them in torture, the sound of distant church bells is heard, the trolls take to flight, the palace of the Mountain King collapses and Peer is standing alone on a mountain. The scene may be construed as one of his supernatural experiences, as a nightmare, or as the allegory of a stricken conscience. "Daybreak" which opens the second roll is in Egypt, Peer standing before the statue of Memnon in the first hush of dawn and waiting for the rays of the rising sun to evoke the music which according to tradition many thousand years old, is drawn from the statue by the sunrise. In this number Grieg paints the colors of an Oriental daybreak rather than attempts to convey the thrill of an ancient sculpture, on the edge of the great desert, thrilling with song at the first kiss of the rising sun. In the "Death of Aase" Peer watches his mother's life slowly ebb away and seeks to divert her mind from death by grotesque tales, even throwing himself astride a chair and persuading her through subjective suggestion, that he is the forerider of a beautiful chariot in which she is seated, so that the poor woman, who all her life long has felt the pinch of penury, dies with a vision of wealth and glory before her eyes created for her by the son, worry over whom has hastened her death. In keeping with the lyric trend of his genius, Grieg has ignored the grotesque and ghastly humor of the situation, and has contented himself with portraying its sombre and tragic aspect, his music being in character somewhat like a funeral march.

The pianolist will find a characteristic Norwegian touch in Grieg's "Bridal Procession Passing By," Op. 19, No. 2, from his "Sketches from Norwegian Life." It begins with a curiously droning rhythm, played softly as though the procession were approaching from a distance. Over this rhythm is introduced a piquant march figure, hopping and skipping along as if the musicians were dancing at the head of the marchers. As the procession approaches and the music becomes louder, one hears in the bass an accentuation of the characteristic rhythm, like the tap of a bass drum. When the march has swelled to a forte, it sinks to a brief piano, as if the winding path had led the procession away again. Then there is another brief outburst, this time fortissimo, as if the marchers were quite near; and then a pianissimo, as if they had passed behind a hill and almost out of hearing. The music grows loud again, the procession goes by, and there is a delicious effect as the march dies away in the distance, the rhythmic beats with which it opened becoming softer and softer, while the little hopping and skipping march-figure, somewhat curtailed, flutters over it.

Grieg's "Peer Gynt" suite was composed for orchestra, but was arranged for pianoforte by the composer. Notwithstanding the fact that in its original form the suite is intended to be played by a large body of instruments of different tone coloring and that arrangements for pianoforte of orchestral works usually are so complex that even great pianists find difficulty in rendering them effectively, the "Peer Gynt" selections are among the most attractive in the pianolist's repertory. For, through the instrument on which he plays, he is able to overcome the most complicated chords and the most difficult and complex runs, as easily as if they were music of the simplest kind. If the pianola sometimes is called mechanical, the injustice thus done it is due to its superhuman capacity of playing with perfect ease things that are wholly beyond the fingers even of the greatest virtuosos, yet can be rendered fluently and also expressively by the pianolist who has genuine feeling for music.

It is this combination of technique and expression that gives to Liszt's enormously difficult pianoforte transcription of Saint-Saëns' symphonic poem, "Danse Maccabre," which even for orchestra is an extremely difficult piece, its place in the pianolist's repertory. This is one of the most interesting of modern compositions, and most graphically descriptive of its subject, which is the "Dance of Death," "maccabre" being derived from the Arabic "makabir," which signifies a place of burial. Both in the literature and in the painting of the Middle Ages in Europe and particularly in church decoration, figures the legend that once a year on Hallowe'en the dead arose from their graves for a wild and hideous dance, with King Death himself as master of ceremonies. Saint-Saëns' symphonic poem realistically describes these scenes, and, as if to attribute the inspiration for his music to its precise origin, the composer has placed above his score a poem by Henri Cazalis. Mr. Edward Baxter Perry has made a free transcription of this poem, which, at the same time, serves capitally as a description of the music:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The composition opens weirdly with the hollow strokes of the hour. There is a light, staccato passage suggesting the spectres tiptoeing from their graves to take their places in the fantastic circle. Then comes one of the most strikingly realistic passages in the composition--Death attempting to tune up his fiddle, an effect that is repeated at intervals throughout the composition. After reading the poem, the pianolist will not require a detailed description of the work. He will recognize the details even to the moaning of the night wind and the crowing of the cock, the scurry of the spectres and their final wail, as the grave closes upon them for another year.