A Popular History of the Art of Music

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In the later part of the eighteenth century there were a number of
pianoforte virtuosi whose merits claim our attention at this point. At
the head, in point of time, was the great Italian master, Muzio
Clementi (1752-1832). Born at about the same time as Mozart, he
outlived Beethoven. His early studies were pursued at Rome with so
much enthusiasm that at the age of fourteen he had produced several
important compositions of a contrapuntal character. These being
successfully performed, attracted the attention of an English amateur
living in Rome, who offered to take charge of the boy, carry him to
England and see that his career was opened under favorable auspices.
Until 1770, therefore (the year of Beethoven's birth), Clementi
pursued his studies near London. Then, in the full force of his
remarkable virtuosity, he burst upon the town. He carried everything
before him, and had a most unprecedented success. His command of the
instrument surpassed everything previously seen. After three years as
cembalist and conductor at the Italian opera in London, he set out
upon a tour as virtuoso. In 1781 he appeared in Paris, and so on
toward Munich, Strassburg, and at length Vienna, where he met Haydn,
and where, at the instigation of the Emperor Joseph II, he had a sort
of musical contest with the young Mozart. Clementi, after a short
prelude, introduced his sonata in B flat, the opening motive of which
was afterward employed by Mozart in the introduction to the overture
to the "Magic Flute"; and followed it up with a toccata abounding in
runs in diatonic thirds and other doublestops for the right hand, at
that time esteemed very difficult. The victory was regarded as
doubtful, Mozart compensating for his less brilliant execution by his
beautiful singing touch, of which Clementi ever afterward spoke with
admiration. Moreover, from this meeting he himself endeavored to put
more music and less show into his own compositions. Clementi was soon
back in England, where he remained until 1802, when he took his
promising pupil, John Field, inventor of the nocturne, upon a tour of
Europe, as far as St. Petersburg, where they were received with
unbounded enthusiasm. In 1810 he returned to London and gave up
concert playing in public. He wrote symphonies for the London
Philharmonic Society, published very many sonatas for piano (about 100
in all), and in 1817 published his master work, a set of 100 studies
for the piano, in all styles, the "_Gradus ad Parnassum_," upon which
to a considerable extent the entire modern art of piano playing
depends. Clementi's idea in the work was to provide for the entire
training of the pupil by means of it; not alone upon the technical,
but upon the artistic side as well, and the majority of the pieces
have artistic purpose no less than technical. The wide range taken by
piano literature since Clementi's day, however, reduces the teacher to
the alternative of confining the pupil to the works of one writer, in
case the entire work is used, or of employing only the purely
technical part of the "_Gradus_," accomplishing the other side of the
development by means of compositions of more poetic and older masters.
The latter is the course now generally pursued by the great teachers,
and this was the reason influencing the selection of studies from the
"_Gradus_" made by the virtuoso, Tausig. Clementi's compositions
exercised considerable influence upon Beethoven, who esteemed his
sonatas better than those of Mozart. The opinion was undoubtedly based
upon the freedom with which Clementi treated the piano, as
distinguished from the gentle and somewhat tame manner of Mozart. The
element of manly strength was that which attracted Beethoven, himself
a virtuoso.

[Illustration: Fig. 64.

J.L. DUSSEK.]

Another of the first virtuosi to gain distinction upon the pianoforte,
in the latter part of this century and the first part of the
nineteenth, was J.L. Dussek (1761-1812). This highly gifted musician
was born in Czaslau, in Bohemia, and his early musical studies were
made upon the organ, upon which he early attained distinction, holding
one prominent position after another, his last being at Berg-op-Zoom.
He next went to Amsterdam, and presently after to the Hague, still
later, in 1788, to London, where he lived twelve years. It was there
that Haydn met him, and wrote to Dussek's father in high terms of his
son's talents and good qualities. Afterward he was back again upon the
continent, living for some years with Prince Louis Ferdinand, and
having right good times with him, both musically and festively. He
died in France. He made many concert tours in different periods of his
life, and his playing was highly esteemed from one end of Europe to
the other. A contemporary writer says of him: "As a virtuoso he is
unanimously placed in the very first rank. In rapidity and sureness of
execution, in a mastery of the greatest difficulties, it would be
hard to find a pianist who surpasses him; in neatness and precision of
execution, possibly _one_ (John Cramer, of London); in soul,
expression and delicacy, certainly _none_." The brilliant pianist and
teacher Tomaschek said of him: "There was, in fact, something magical
in the manner in which Dussek, with all his charming grace of manner,
through his wonderful touch, extorted from the instrument delicious
and at the same time emphatic tones. His fingers were like a company
of ten singers, endowed with equal executive powers, and able to
produce with the utmost perfection whatever their director could
require. I never saw the Prague public so enchanted as they were on
this occasion by Dussek's splendid playing. His fine declamatory
style, especially in _cantabile_ phrases, stands as the ideal for
every artistic performance--something which no other pianist since has
reached. He was the first of the virtuosi who placed the piano
sideways upon the platform, although the later ones may not have had
an interesting profile to exhibit."

The published works of this fine musician and creditable composer
number nearly 100, and the sonata cuts a leading figure among them. He
treated the piano with much more freedom and breadth than Mozart,
though this is not so much to his credit as if he had not lived many
years after Mozart died, his earliest compositions falling very near
the last years of that great genius. He was distinctly a virtuoso,
loving his instrument and its tonal powers. He was the first of all
the players whose public performances called attention to the
_quality_ of tone, and its _singing_ power. This also points not alone
to the fact of his career falling in with the increased powers of the
pianoforte, as a result of the inventions of Erard, Collard and
Broadwood, but is to his personal credit, since it was genius in him
enabling him to recognize these possibilities, at a time when most
players were still in ignorance of them. As a composer he wrote many
things of more than average excellence, and some of his lighter
compositions still have vitality. It is altogether likely that
Beethoven was influenced by Dussek's playing, in the direction of
tone-color. Indeed, the third sonata of Beethoven can hardly be
accounted for without recognizing Dussek as the composer upon some one
of whose works its general style and form were modeled.

Another pianist of considerable importance, a disciple of Mozart, yet
with originality of his own, was J.B. Cramer (1771-1858). This
talented and deserving musician was the son of a musician living at
Mannheim, who removed to London when the young Cramer was but one year
old. There the boy grew up, receiving his education from several
reputable masters, Clementi being among them. His taste was formed by
the diligent study of the works of Emanuel Bach, Haydn and Mozart. In
spirit Cramer was a disciple of the last named, but from living to a
good old age, he naturally surpassed his ideal in the treatment of the
pianoforte. In the latter part of the eighteenth century there were
few musical compositions sold over the music counters in Vienna and
the musical world generally, but those of Dussek, Cramer and Pleyel,
while those of Beethoven were comparatively neglected. Cramer's
compositions were slight in real merit, his fame resting upon his
studies for the piano, of which about thirty out of the entire 100 are
very good music. The second, and last, book of these were published
in 1810. They do not form a necessary part of the training of a
virtuoso, but they have decided merits, and are generally included to
this day in the list of pianistic indispensables. Cramer's style of
playing was quiet and elegant. Moscheles gives an idea of it in his
diary, and regrets that he should allow the snuff, which he took
incessantly, to get upon the keys. Cramer's studies preceded those of
Clementi, and very likely may have inspired them through a desire of
illustrating a bolder and more masterly style of pianism.

Among the many talented pupils of Clementi was Ludwig Berger
(1777-1838), of Berlin, whose unmistakable gifts for the piano
attracted the master's attention when he was in Berlin in 1802, and he
took him along with him to St. Petersburg. After living some years in
that city, and later in London, he returned to Berlin, where he was
held in the highest esteem as teacher until his death. Among the
distinguished who studied with him were Mendelssohn, Taubert, Henselt,
Fanny Hensel, Herzsberg, and others. He was an indefatigable composer
of decided originality. But few of his works were published. A set of
his studies is highly esteemed by many.

In further illustration of the Mozart principles of piano playing, and
with a reputation as composer, which in his lifetime was curiously
beyond his merits, was J.M. Hummel (1778-1837). He was born at
Presburg, and had the good luck to attract the favorable notice of
Mozart. He was received into the house of the master, and was regarded
as the best representative of Mozart's ideas. He made his early
appearances as a child pianist under the care of his father, in most
parts of Germany and Holland. In 1804 he succeeded Haydn as musical
director to the Esterhazy establishment. He afterward held several
other appointments of credit, and played much in all parts of Europe.
He was a pleasant player, with a light, smooth touch, suited to the
Viennese pianofortes of the time.

[Illustration: Fig. 65.

HUMMEL.]

The latest of the virtuosi representing the classical traditions of
the pianoforte, uninfluenced by the new methods which came in with
Thalberg and Liszt, was Ignaz Moscheles (1794-1870). He was born at
Prague, his father being a cloth merchant and Israelite.

[Illustration: Fig. 66.

MOSCHELES.]

He had the usual childhood of promising musicians, playing everything
he could lay his hands upon, including Beethoven's "_Sonata
Pathetique_," and at the age of seven he was taken to Dionys Weber,
whose verdict is worth remembering. He said: "Candidly speaking, the
boy is on the wrong road, for he makes hash of great works which he
does not understand, and to which he is entirely unequal. But he has
talent, and I could make something of him if you were to hand him over
to me for three years, and follow out my plan to the letter. The first
year he must play nothing but Mozart, the second Clementi, the third
Bach; but only that--not a note as yet of Beethoven, and if he
persists in using the circulating musical libraries, I have done with
him forever." Having completed his studies after this severe _regime_,
Moscheles began his concert appearances, which were everywhere
successful.

He continued his studies in Vienna with Salieri, and Beethoven thought
so well of him that he engaged him to make the pianoforte arrangement
of "_Fidelio_." This was in 1814.

In 1815 he produced his famous variations upon the Alexander march,
Opus 32, from which his reputation as virtuoso dates. His active
concert service began about 1820, and extended throughout Europe. In
1826 he settled in London, where he was held in the highest esteem,
both as man and musician. He became a fast friend of Mendelssohn, who
had been his pupil in Berlin, and in 1846 joined him at Leipsic, where
he continued until his death. Moscheles was originally a solid and
brilliant player. Later he became famous as one of the best living
representatives of the true style and interpretation of the Beethoven
sonatas. He never advanced beyond the Clementi principles of piano
playing, the works of Chopin and Liszt remaining sealed books to his
fingers, to the very last. As a teacher he was painstaking and
patient, and he was honored by all who knew him. All his life he kept
a diary, from which a very readable volume has been compiled, with
many glimpses of other eminent musicians. It is called "Recent Music
and Musicians."

II.

The art of violin playing also made great progress during this
century, its most eminent representative being Giuseppe Tartini
(1692-1770). He was born in Pirano, in Istria, and was intended for
the church, but upon coming of age he fell in love with a lady
somewhat above him in rank, and was secretly married to her. When this
fact was discovered by her relatives he was obliged to fly, and having
taken refuge in a monastery he remained there two years, during which
he diligently devoted himself to music, being his own instructor upon
the violin, but a pupil of the college organist in counterpoint and
composition. Later, being united to his wife, he made still further
studies on the violin, and by 1721 had returned to Padua, where he
evermore resided, his reputation bringing him a sufficient number of
pupils to assist his rather meager salary as solo violinist of the
cathedral. He was a virtuoso violinist greater than any one before
him. Besides employing the higher positions more freely than had
previously been the case, he appears to have made great improvements
in the art of bowing, and his playing was characterized by great
purity and depth of sentiment, and at times with most astonishing
passion. He was a composer of extraordinary merit, several of his
pieces for the violin still forming part of the concert repertory of
artists. His famous "_Trillo del Diavolo_," is well known. He dreamed
that he had sold his soul to the devil, and on the whole was well
pleased with the behavior of that gentlemanly personage. But it
occurred to him to ask his strange associate to play something for him
on the violin. Cheerfully Satan took the instrument, and immediately
improvised a sonata of astonishing force and wild passion, concluding
it with a great passage of trills, of superhuman power and beauty;
Tartini awoke in an ecstasy of admiration. Whereupon he sought after
every manner to reduce to paper the wonderful composition of his
dream. Fine as was the work thus produced, Tartini always maintained
that it fell far short of the glorious virtuoso piece which he had
heard.

Tartini was in some sort a forerunner of the modern romantic school.
He was accustomed to take a poem as the basis of an instrumental
piece. He wrote the words along the score and conducted the music
wherever the spirit of the words took it. He was also in the habit of
affixing to his published works mottoes, indicative of their poetic
intention. With this general characterization his music well agrees,
for in dreamy moods it has a mystical beauty till then unknown in
music. He is also entitled to lasting memory on account of his having
first discovered the phenomenon of "combination tones," the under
resultant which is produced when two tones are sounded together upon
the violin, especially in the higher parts of the compass. These tones
are the roots of the consonances sounding, and Tartini directed the
attention of his pupils to them as a guide to correct intonation in
double stops, since they do not occur unless the intonation is pure.
He made this important discovery about 1714, and in 1754 he published
a treatise on harmony embodying the combination tones as a basis of a
system of harmony. This having been violently attacked, his second
work of this kind, "On the Principles of Musical Harmony Contained in
the Diatonic Genus," was published in 1767. Tartini, therefore, must
be reckoned among the great masters who have contributed to a true
doctrine of the tonal system. Copies of his theoretical writings are
in the Newberry Library at Chicago.

In the latter part of the eighteenth century and the first of the next
following the art of violin playing was best illustrated by the German
artist, Louis Spohr (1784-1859), who was almost or quite as great as a
composer, as in his early career of a virtuoso. In his own specialty
he was one of the most eminent masters who has ever appeared. His
technique was founded upon that of his predecessors of the school of
Viotti and Rode, but his own individuality was so decided that he soon
found out a style original with himself. Its distinguishing quality
was the singing tone. He never reconciled himself to the light bow
introduced by Paganini, and all his work is distinguished by
sweetness, singing quality and a flowing melodiousness. He was fond of
chromatic harmonies and double stops, which imparted great sonority to
his playing. He was born at Brunswick, and early commenced to study
music. At the age of fifteen he played in the orchestra of the duke of
Brunswick, at a yearly salary of about $100. Later he studied and
traveled with Eck, a great player of the day, and upon his return to
Brunswick he became leader of the orchestra. His virtuoso career
commenced about 1803. Two years later he became musical director at
Gotha, where he married a charming harp player, Dorette Scheidler, who
invariably afterward appeared with him in all their concerts. They
traveled in their own carriage, having suitable boxes for the harp and
the violin. In 1813 he was musical director at the theater, "_An der
Wein_," at Vienna, where among his violinists was Moritz Hauptmann,
afterward so celebrated as theorist.

Soon after his arrival in Vienna, Spohr received a singular
proposition from one Herr von Tost, to the effect "that for a
proportionate pecuniary consideration I would assign over to him all I
might compose, or had already written, in Vienna, for the term of
three years, to be his sole property during that time; to give him the
original scores, and to keep myself even no copy of them. After the
lapse of three years he would return the manuscript to me, and I
should then be at liberty either to publish or sell them. After I had
pondered a moment over this strange and enigmatical proposition, I
asked him whether the compositions were not to be played during those
three years? Whereupon Herr von Tost replied: 'Oh, yes! As often as
possible, but each time upon my lending them for that purpose, and
only in my presence.'" He desired such pieces as could be produced in
private circles, and would therefore prefer quartettes and quintettes
for stringed instruments, and sextettes, octettes and nonettes for
stringed and wind instruments. Spohr was to consider the proposition
and fix upon the sum to be paid for the different kinds of
compositions. Finding on inquiry that Herr von Tost was a wealthy man,
very fond of music, Spohr fixed the price at thirty ducats for a
quartette, thirty-five for a quintette, and so on, progressively
higher for the different kinds of composition. On being questioned as
to his object, Von Tost replied: "I have two objects in view: First, I
desire to be invited to the musical parties where you will execute
your compositions, and for that I must have them in my keeping.
Secondly, possessing such treasures of art, I hope upon my business
journeys to make extensive acquaintance among the lovers of music,
which may then serve me also in my manufacturing interests." This
singular bargain was duly consummated and faithfully carried out, and
the wealthy patron proved of great service to the Spohrs in procuring
their housekeeping outfit from various tradesmen with whom he had
dealings, and he would not suffer Spohr to pay for anything, saying
only, "Give yourself no uneasiness; you will soon square everything
with your compositions."

The most important of Spohr's works is his great school for the
violin, published in 1831. He left also a vast amount of chamber
music, fifteen concertos for violin and orchestra, nine symphonies,
four oratories, of which "The Last Judgment" is perhaps the best, ten
operas, many concert overtures, etc.--in all more than 200 works, many
of them of large dimensions. His best operas are "_Jessonda_" (1823),
"Faust" (1818), "The Alchemist" (1832) and "The Crusaders" (1845). His
orchestral works are richly instrumented, and the coloring is sweet
and mellow, yet at times extremely sonorous.

During his residence in Vienna, Spohr met Beethoven many times. He was
one of the first to introduce the earlier quartettes, in his concerts
throughout Germany, and valued them properly. But in regard to the
Beethoven symphonies he placed himself on record in a highly
entertaining manner. He says of the melody of the famous "Hymn to
Joy," in Beethoven's ninth symphony, that it is so "monstrous and
tasteless, and its grasp of Schiller's ode so trivial, that I cannot
even now understand how a genius like Beethoven could have written
it."

[Illustration]

Book Fifth.

THE

Period of the Romantic.

WEBER, PAGANINI, SCHUBERT, BERLIOZ, MEYERBEER, MENDELSSOHN, SCHUMANN,
CHOPIN, LISZT, WAGNER; THE VIRTUOSI; MUSIC OF THE FUTURE.

CHAPTER XXXI.

THE NINETEENTH CENTURY, THE ROMANTIC; MUSIC OF THE FUTURE.

In ordinary speech a distinction is made between the musical
productions of the eighteenth century and those of the next following;
the former being called _Classic_, the latter _Romantic_. The terms
are used rather indefinitely. According to Hegel, whose teaching
coincided with the last years of Beethoven's life, the classic in art
embraces those productions in which the _general_ is aimed at, rather
than the _particular_; the _reposeful_ and _completely satisfactory_,
rather than the _forced_, or the _sensational_; and the _beautiful_
rather than the _exciting_. The philosopher Hegel, who was one of the
first to employ this distinction in art criticism, took his departure
from the famous group of Laocooen and his sons in the embrace of the
destroying serpents. This group, so full of agony and irrepressible
horror, belongs, he said, to a totally different concept of art from
that of the gods and goddesses of Greece, in the beauty and freshness
of their eternal youth. These qualities are those of the general and
the eternal; the Laocooen, in its nature painful, was not nor could be
permanently satisfactory in and of itself, but only through allowance
being made by reason of interest in the story told by it. According to
more recent philosophers, the romantic movement in literature and art
(for they are parts of the same general movement of the latter part of
the eighteenth century) has its essential characteristic in the
doctrine that what is to be sought in art is not the pleasing and the
satisfactory, so much as the true. _Everything_, they say, belonging
to life and experience, is fit subject of art; to the end that thereby
the soul may learn to understand itself, and come to complete
self-consciousness. The entire movement of the romantic writers had
for its moving principle the maxim, _Nihil humanum alienum a me puto_
("I will consider nothing human to be foreign to me"). Yet other
writers make the romantic element to consist of the striking, the
strongly contrasted, the exciting, and so at length the sensational.
Whichever construction we may put upon this much used and seldom
determined term, its general meaning is that of a distinction from the
more moderate writings and compositions of the eighteenth century.
_Individualism_, as opposed to the general, is the key to the
romantic, and in music this principle has acquired great dominance
throughout the century in which we are still living. Moreover, if the
principle of individualism had not been discovered in its application
to the other arts, it must necessarily have found its way into music,
for music is the most subjective of all the arts; having indeed its
general principles of form and proportion, but coming to the composer
(if he be a genius) as the immediate expression of his own feelings
and moods, or as the interplay of his environment and the inner
faculties of musical phantasy.

In this sense there is a difference between the music of Bach and
Mozart, on the one hand, and that of Beethoven and Schubert, on the
other. Beethoven was essentially a romantic composer, especially
after he had passed middle life, and the period of the "Moonlight"
sonata. From that time on, his works are more and more free in form,
and their moods are more strongly marked and individual. This is true
of Beethoven, in spite of his having been born, as we might say, under
the star of the classic. He writes freely and fantastically, in spite
of his early training. The mood in the man dominated everything, and
it is always this which finds its expression in the music.

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