A Popular History of the Art of Music

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[Illustration]

CHAPTER XXI.

BEGINNINGS OF INSTRUMENTAL MUSIC.

The beginning of instrumental music, apart from vocal, is to be found
in the latter part of the sixteenth century, but the main advances
toward freedom of style and spontaneous expression were made during
the seventeenth, and, as we might expect, originally in Italy, where
the art of music was more prosperous, and incitations to advance were
more numerous and diversified. Upon all accounts the honor of the
first place in the account of this part of the development of modern
music is to be given to Andreas Gabrieli (1510-1586), who from a
singing boy in the choir of St. Mark's, under the direction of Adrian
Willaert, succeeded in 1566 to the position of second organist, where
his fame attracted many pupils. Among the numberless compositions
emanating from his pen were masses, madrigals, and a considerable
variety of pieces for organ alone, bearing the names of "_Canzone_,"
"_Ricerari_," "_Concerte_," and five-voiced _Sonatas_, the latter
printed in 1586, being perhaps the earliest application of this now
celebrated name to instrumental compositions. The pieces of Gabrieli
were mostly imitations of compositions for the voice, fugal in style,
and with never among them a melody fully carried out. Among the pupils
of Andreas Gabrieli were Hans Leo Hassler, the celebrated Dresden
composer, and Swelinck, the equally celebrated Netherlandish organist,
of whom there is more to be said.

The beginning of organ composition, and the higher art of organ
playing, made by Andreas Gabrieli, was carried much farther by his
nephew and pupil, Giovanni Gabrieli (1557-1612), who, born and trained
at Venice, early entered the service of its great cathedral, and in
1585 succeeded Claudio Merulo as first organist of the same. As a
composer Giovanni Gabrieli continued the double-chorus effects which
had been such a feature of the St. Mark's liturgy since the time of
Willaert, but especially he distinguished himself in improving the
style of organ playing, and in giving it a freedom and almost secular
character somewhat surprising for the times. A large number of his
compositions of all sorts are in print, very many "for voices or
instruments." The alternative affords a good idea of the subordinate
position still occupied by instrumental music, but a beginning had
been made, which later was to lead to great things.

[Illustration: Fig. 48.

JEAN PIETERS SWELINCK.]

The art of organ playing found its next great exponents in Holland and
Germany, all of them having been pupils of the Venetian master. The
most celebrated of these, considered purely as an organist, was Jean
Pieters Swelinck (1560-1621), who was born at Deventer in Holland, and
died at Amsterdam. He was more celebrated as a performer and
improviser than for the instrumental pieces he published. Among his
pupils was the celebrated Samuel Scheidt (1587-1654), organist at
Halle, who is memorable as the first who made artistic use of the
chorale. Scheidt is also famous as the author of a book upon organ
tabulature, or the notation for organ, which in Germany at this period
was different from that of the piano, and in fact much resembled the
tabulature for the lute, from which it was derived. It consists of a
combination of lines and signs, by the aid of which the organist was
supposed to be capable of deciphering the intentions of the composer.
No especial importance appears to have been attached to the difference
of notation for instruments and voices in this period. And in fact,
until our own times certain instruments, the viola, for example, have
had their own notation, different from the voices, and different from
that of other instruments. Another celebrated German organist of this
period was Johann Hermann Schein, who, with Scheidt and Swelinck,
constituted the three great German musical S's of the sixteenth
century. Schein (1586-1630) was appointed cantor of the Leipsic St.
Thomas school in 1615, and worked there as above. His numberless
compositions are more free in style than the average of the century,
and a number of them are distinctly secular. Nevertheless, in the
development of instrumental music he had but small part, not being one
of the highly gifted original geniuses who impress themselves upon
following generations. The great German master of this period was
Schuetz, chapel master at Dresden, whose career forms part of the
story of the oratorio, a form of music which he had so large a share
in shaping into its present form.

[Illustration: Fig. 49.

SAMUEL SCHEIDT.]

II.

In order to come once more into the path of musical empire, we must
return again to Italy, where there was an organist at St. Peter's, who
had in him the elements of greatness and originality. Girolamo
Frescobaldi (1587-1640) was organist of St. Peter's at Rome from
1615. His education had been in part acquired in Italy, and in part in
the Netherlands. As a virtuoso he attained an extraordinary success,
and one of his recitals is reputed to have been attended by as many as
30,000 people. He distinguished himself as composer no less than as
organist, and particularly by his compositions in free style. His
Ricerari, Concertos and Canzones were all protests against the bondage
of instrumental music to the fetters of vocal forms. It was the
compositions of this master, together with those of Froberger, that
Sebastian Bach desired to have, and which, in fact, he stole out of
his brother's book case, and copied in the moonlight nights.

It would take us too far were we to enumerate all the composers who
distinguished themselves in this century, no one of them succeeding in
composing anything satisfactory to this later generation, but all
contributing something toward the liberation of instrumental music,
and all adding something to its too limited resources. Among these
names were those of Johann Kasper Kerl, organist at St. Stephen's
church in Vienna, who, after having served with distinction at Munich,
returned later and died at Vienna in 1690. Another of these German
masters, also one of those whose compositions Bach wished to study,
was Johann Pachelbel, of Nuremberg (1635-1706). In 1674 he was
assistant organist at Vienna, in 1677 organist at Eisenach, and soon
back to Nuremberg a few years later. His multifarious works for organ,
among which we find a variety of forms, were perhaps the chief model
upon which Sebastian Bach formed his style. He especially excelled in
improvising choral variations, and in fanciful and musicianly
treatment of themes proposed by the hearer. Yet another name of this
epoch, that of George Muffat, is now almost forgotten. He studied in
France, and formed his style upon that of the French. A later master,
also very influential in the style of Sebastian Bach, was Dietrich
Buxtehude (1637-1707). For nearly forty years he was organist at the
Church of St. Mary at Luebeck, where he was so celebrated that the
young Sebastian Bach made a journey on foot there in order to hear and
master the principles of his art. Buxtehude wrote a great number of
pieces in free style for the organ, and, while his works have little
value to modern ears, there is no doubt that this master was an
important influence upon the enfranchisement of instrumental music.
Among all these Netherlandish organists few are better known by name
at the present day than Johann Adam Reinken (1623-1722), who was born
at Deventer, Holland, and after the proper elementary and finishing
studies, succeeded his master, Scheidemann, as organist at Hamburg.
Here his fame was so great that the young Bach made two journeys there
on foot, in order to hear him. He was a virtuoso of a high order, and
his style exercised considerable influence over that of Bach.

[Illustration: Fig. 50.

JOHANN ADAM REINKEN.]

III.

Return we now to Italy, where the violin led also to an important
development of instrumental music, having in it the promise of the
best that we have had since. In Fusignano, near Imola, was born in
1653 Archangelo Corelli, who became the first of violin virtuosi, and
the first of composers for the instrument, and for violins in
combination with other members of the same family, and so of our
string quartette. He died in 1713 at Rome. Of his boyhood there is
little known. About 1680 he appears in high favor at the court of
Munich. In 1681 he was again in Rome, where he appears to have found a
friend in Cardinal Ottoboni, in whose palace he died. His period of
creative activity extended from 1683, when he began the publication of
his forty-eight three-voiced sonatas, for two violins, in four numbers
of twelve sonatas each. He also composed many other sonatas for the
violin, for violin and piano, and for other instruments. These
epoch-marking works are held in high esteem at the present time, and
are in constant use for purposes of instruction.

Meanwhile the orchestra had been steadily enriched through the
competition of successive operatic composers, each exerting himself to
produce more effect than the preceding. In this way new combinations
of tone color were contrived, and now and then introduced in a
fortunate manner, and effects of greater sonority were attained
through the greater number of instruments, and the more expert use of
those they had. In the present state of knowledge it would be very
difficult, if not impossible, to trace the successive steps of this
progress, and to give proper credit to each composer for his own
contribution to the general stock. At best, the orchestra at the end
of this century was somewhat meager. The violin and the other members
of its family had taken their places somewhat as we now have them, but
the number of basses and tenors was much less than at present, their
place being filled by the archlute and the harpsichord. The trumpet
was occasionally employed, the flute, the oboe, and very rarely the
trombone. The conductor at the harpsichord, playing from a figured
bass, filled in chords according to his own judgment of the effect
required. Nothing approaching the smoothness and discreet coloration
of the orchestra of the present day, or even of the Haydn orchestra,
existed at this time. The violin players were very cautious about
using the second and third "positions," but played continually with
their hands in the first position. This part of the music, therefore,
wholly lacked the freedom which it now has, and the whole progress of
this century was purely apprentice work in instrumental music, its
value lying in its establishing the principle, first, that
instrumental music might exist independently of vocal, and, second,
that it might enhance the expressiveness of vocal music when
associated with it. The groundwork of the two great forms of the
period next ensuing, the fugue and the sonata, had been laid, and a
certain amount of precedent established in favor of free composition
in dance and fantasia form. Meanwhile the pianoforte of the day, the
_clavicembalo_, as the Italians called it, had been considerably
improved. The present scale of music had been demonstrated by Zarlino,
and the ground prepared for the great geniuses whose coming made the
eighteenth century forever memorable as the blossoming time of musical
art.

Upon the whole, perhaps the most important part of the actual
accomplishment of this century was in musical theory. While musicians
for centuries had been employing the major and minor thirds, and the
triads as we now have them, the fact had remained unacknowledged in
musical theory, and the supposed authority of the Greeks still
remained binding upon all. Zarlino, however, made a new departure. He
not only assigned the true intervals of the major scale, according to
perfect intonation, but argued strongly for equal temperament, and
demonstrated the impossibility of chromatic music upon any other
basis. Purists may still continue to doubt whether this was an
absolute advantage to the art of music, since it carries with it the
necessity of having all harmonic relations something short of
perfection; but the immediate benefit to musical progress was
unquestionable, and according to all appearance the art of music is
irrevocably committed to the tempered scale of twelve tones in the
octave.

[Illustration]

Book Fourth.

THE

Flowering Time of Modern Music.

BACH, HAeNDEL, HAYDN, MOZART, BEETHOVEN. THE FUGUE AND THE SONATA.

CHAPTER XXII.

GENERAL VIEW OF MUSIC IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY.

It is not easy to characterize simply and clearly the nature of the
musical development which took place during the eighteenth century.
The blossoming of music was so manifold, so diversified, so
irrepressible in every direction, that there was not one single
province of it, wherein new and masterly creations were not brought
out. The central figures of this period were those of the two Colossi,
Bach and Haendel; after them Haydn, the master of genial proportion and
taste; Mozart, the melodist of ineffable sweetness, and finally at the
end of the century, the great master, Beethoven. In opera we have the
entire work of that great reformer, the Chevalier Gluck, and a
succession of Italian composers who enlarged the boundaries of the
Italian music-drama in every direction, but especially in the
direction of the impassioned and sensational. Add to these influences,
already sufficiently diversified, that of a succession of brilliant
virtuosi upon the leading instruments, whereby the resources of all
the effective musical apparatuses were more fully explored and
illustrated, with the final result of affording the poetic composer
additional means of bringing his ideas to a more effective
expression--and we have the general features of a period in music so
luxuriant that in it we might easily lose ourselves; nor can we easily
form a clear idea of the entire movement as the expression of a single
underlying spiritual impulse. Yet such in its inner apprehension it
most assuredly was.

Upon the whole, all the improvements of the time arrange themselves
into two categories, namely: The better proportion, contrast, and more
agreeable succession of moments in art works; and, second, the more
ample means for intense expression. In the department of form, indeed,
there was a very important transition made between the first half of
the century and the last. The typical form of the first part of this
division was the fugue, which came to a perfection under the hands of
Bach and Haendel, far beyond anything to be found in the form
previously. The fugue was the creation of this epoch, and while based
upon the general idea of canonic imitation, after the Netherlandish
ideal, it differed from their productions in several highly
significant respects. While all of a fugue is contained within the
original subject, and the counter-subject, which accompanies it at
every repetition, it has an element of tonality in it which places it
upon an immensely higher plane of musical art than any form known, or
possible, before the obsolescence of the ecclesiastical modes.
Moreover, the fugue has opportunities for episode, which enable it to
acquire variety to a degree impossible for any form developed earlier;
and which, when these opportunities were fresh, afforded composers a
field for the display of fancy which was practically free. This, one
may still realize by comparing the different fugues in Bach's "Well
Tempered Clavier" with each other, and with those of any other
collection. It is impossible to detect anywhere the point where the
inspiration of the composer felt itself bound by the restrictions of
this form. It was for Bach and Haendel practically a free form. And the
few other contemporaneous geniuses of a high order either experienced
the same freedom in it, or found ways of evading its strictness by the
production of various styles of fancy pieces, which, while conforming
to the fugue form in their main features, were nevertheless free
enough to be received by the musical public of that day with
substantially the same satisfaction as a fantasia would have been
received a century later. Roughly speaking, Bach and Haendel exhausted
the fugue. While Bach displayed his mental activity in almost every
province of music, and like some one since, of whom it has been much
less truthfully said, "touched nothing which he did not adorn," he was
all his life a writer of fugues. His preludes are not fugues, and
their number almost equals that of the fugues; but the operative
principles were not essentially different--merely the applications of
thematic development were different. Yet strange as it may seem,
within thirty years from his death it became impossible to write
fugues, and at the same time be free. Why was this?

A new element came into music, incompatible with fugue, requiring a
different form of expression, and incapable of combination with fugue.
That element was the people's song, with its symmetrical cadences and
its universal intelligibility. Let the reader take any one of the
Mozart sonatas, and play the first melody he finds--he will
immediately see that here is something for which no place could have
been found in a fugue, nor yet in its complement, the prelude of
Bach's days. The same is true of many similar passages in the sonatas
of Haydn. Music had now found the missing half of its dual nature. For
we must know that in the same manner as the thematic or fugal element
in music represents the play of musical fantasy, turning over musical
ideas intellectually or seriously; so there is a spontaneous melody,
into which no thought of developing an idea enters. The melody flows
or soars like the song of a bird, because it is the free expression,
not of musical fantasy, as such (the unconscious play of tonal fancy),
but the flow of _melody_, _song_, the soaring of spirit in some one
particular direction, floating upon buoyant pinions, and in directions
well conceived and sure. The symmetry of the people's song follows as
a natural part of the progress. The spontaneous element of the music
of the northern harpers now found its way into the musical productions
of the highest geniuses. Henceforth the fugue subsides from its
pre-eminence, and remains possible only as a highly specialized
department of the general art of musical composition, useful and
necessary at times, but nevermore the expression of the unfettered
fancy of the musical mind.

The discovery of the secret of musical contrast, in the types of
development, the _thematic_ and the _lyric_, led to the creation of a
new form, in which they mutually contrast with and help each other.
That form was the Sonata, which having been begun earlier, was
developed further by the sons of Bach, but which received its
characteristic touches from the hands of Haydn and Mozart. This was
the crowning glory of the eighteenth century--the sonata. A form had
been created, into which the greatest of masters was even then
beginning to breathe his mighty soul, producing thereby a succession
of master works, which stand without parallel in the realm of music.

CHAPTER XXIII.

JOHN SEBASTIAN BACH.

All things considered, the most remarkable figure of this period was
that of the great John Sebastian Bach, who was born at Eisenach, in
Prussia, in 1685, and died at Leipsic in 1750. It is scarcely too much
to say that this great man has exercised more influence upon the
development of music than any other composer who has ever lived. In
his own day he led a quiet, uneventful life, at first as student, then
as court musician at Weimar, where he played the violin; later as
organist at Arnstadt, a small village near Weimar, and still later as
director of music in the St. Thomas church and school at Leipsic. In
the sixty-five years of his life, Bach produced an enormous number of
compositions, of which about half were in fugue form, a form which was
at its prime at the beginning of this century and which Bach carried
to the farthest point in the direction of freedom and spontaneity
which it ever reached.

[Illustration: Fig. 51.

JOHN SEBASTIAN BACH.]

It is the remarkable glory of Bach to have rendered his compositions
indispensable to thorough mastery in three different provinces of
musical effort. The modern art of violin playing rests upon two works,
the six sonatas of Bach for violin solo, and the Caprices of Paganini.
The former contain everything that belongs to the classical, the
latter everything that belongs to the sensational. In organ playing
the foundation is Bach, and Bach alone. Nine-tenths of organ playing
is comprised in the Bach works. Upon the piano his influence has been
little less. While it is true that at least four works are necessary
for making a pianist of the modern school, viz., the "Well Tempered
Clavier," of Bach; the "_Gradus ad Parnassum_," of Clementi; the
"Studies," of Chopin, and the Rhapsodies, of Liszt, the works of Bach
form, on the whole, considerably more than one-third of this
preparation. Nor has the influence of Bach been confined to the
province of technical instruction alone. On the contrary, all
composers since his time have felt the stimulus of his great tone
poems, and Mendelssohn, Schumann, Chopin and Wagner found him the most
productive of great masters.

The life of Bach need not long detain us. A musician of the tenth
generation, member of a family which occupies a liberal space in
German encyclopedias of music, art and literature, Sebastian Bach led
the life of a teacher, productive artist and virtuoso, mainly within
the limits of the comparatively unimportant provincial city of
Leipsic. His three wives in succession and his twenty-one children
were the domestic incidents which bound him to his home. Here he
trained his choir, taught his pupils, composed those master works
which modern musicians try in vain to equal, and the even tenor of his
life was broken in upon by very few incidents of a sensational kind.
We do not understand that Bach was a virtuoso upon the violin,
although no other master has required more of that greatest of musical
instruments. Upon the piano and organ the case is different. Bach's
piano was the clavier, upon which he was the greatest virtuoso of his
time. His touch was clear and liquid, his technique unbounded, and his
musical fantasy absolutely without limit. Hence in improvisation or in
the performance of previously arranged numbers he never failed to
delight his audience. It was the same upon the organ. The art of
obligato pedal playing he brought to a point which it had never before
reached and scarcely afterward surpassed. He comprehended the full
extent of organ technique, and with the exception of a few tricks of
quasi-orchestral imitation, made possible in modern organs, he covered
the entire ground of organ playing in a manner at once solid and
brilliant. Many stories are told of his capacity in this direction,
but the general characterization already given is sufficient. He was a
master of the first order. The common impression that he played
habitually upon the full organ is undoubtedly erroneous. He made ample
use of registration to the fullest extent practicable on the organs of
his day.

The most remarkable feature of the career of Bach is his productivity
in the line of choral works. As leader of the music in the St. Thomas
church, he had under his control two organs, two choirs, the children
of the school and an orchestra. For these resources he composed a
succession of cantatas, every feast day in the ecclesiastical year
being represented by from one to five separate works. The total number
of these cantatas reaches more than 230. Some of them are short, ten
or fifteen minutes long, but most of them are from thirty to forty
minutes, and some of them reach an hour. Their treasures have been but
imperfectly explored, although most of them are now in print. In the
course of his ministrations at Leipsic he produced five great Passion
oratorios for Good Friday in Holy Week. The greatest of these was the
Passion of St. Matthew, so named from the source of its text. This
work occupies about two hours in performance. It is in two parts, and
the sermon was supposed to intervene. It consists of recitative, arias
and choruses, some of which are extremely elaborate and highly
dramatic. The other Passions are less fortunate. Nevertheless they
contain many beautiful and highly dramatic moments. Bach's oratorios
belong to the category of church works, as distinguished from those
intended for concert purposes. This is seen especially in the
treatment of the chorale, in which he expects the congregation to
co-operate. In one direction Bach was subject to serious limitation.
His knowledge of the voice, and his consideration for its convenience,
were far below the standard of composers of the same time educated in
Italy. In his works, while many passages are very impressive, and
while the melody and harmony are always appropriate to the matter in
hand, the intervals and especially the convenience of the different
registers of the voice are very imperfectly considered, for which
reason his works have not been performed to anything like the extent
to which their musical interest would otherwise have carried them.
This is especially true of the greatest of all, the Passion according
to St. Matthew. It was first performed on Good Friday, 1729, in the
St. Thomas church at Leipsic, and it does not appear to have been
given again until 1829, when Mendelssohn brought it out. Since that
time it has been given almost every year in Leipsic, and more or less
frequently in all the musical centers of the world, but its
elaboration is very great and its vocal treatment unsatisfactory to
solo voices, for which reason it succeeds only under the inspiration
of an artistic and enthusiastic leader. In fact, all the great works
of Bach are more or less in the category of classics, which are well
spoken of and seldom consulted. While, in Beethoven's time, the whole
of the "Well Tempered Clavier" was not thought too much for an
ambitious youngster, at the present time there are few pianists who
play half a dozen of these pieces. The easier inventions for two
parts, some of the suites, several gavottes, modernized from his
violin and chamber music, and a very few of his other pieces for the
clavier, are habitually played.

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