A Popular History of the Art of Music

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He is first of all a lyrical composer of unusual merit, as can be seen
in his "Oh that We Two were Maying," "Nazareth," "There Is a Green
Hill Far Away," etc. His second element of greatness is his talent for
well sounding and deliciously blending instrumentation, in which
respect he is one of the best representatives of the French school.
This quality is happily shown upon a small scale, in connection with
the other already mentioned, in his famous "_Ave Maria_," with violin
and organ obligato, superimposed upon the first prelude in Bach's
"Well Tempered Clavier." Unfortunately his structural ability is not
equal to the strain of elaborate dramatic works, in which the interest
greatly depends upon the music following the complications of the
drama. In "Faust," and in all his other operas, the songs are the main
attractions--the songs and the choruses. The finales are poorly
constructed, with little invention and less progress of dramatic
intensity.

Among the better composers of the later French school was Felix Marie
Victor Masse (1822-1884), who experienced the usual fortunes of the
better class of French composers, having taken the prize of Rome in
1844 and produced his first opera, "_La Chanteuse Voilee_," in 1850,
which was followed by his "_Galathea_" in 1852 and the "Marriage of
Jeanette" in 1853. Encouraged by these successes he produced a large
number of operas in Italy, of which the best were "_La Reine Topaze_"
(1856) and "_Les Saisons_" (1855). In 1860 he became chorus master at
the Academy of Music, and in 1866 professor of composition at the
Conservatory. In 1872 he was elected to the Institute as successor of
Auber. In addition to the works already mentioned he produced "Paul
and Virginia" (1866), and several others, besides a number of songs.
His last opera, "_Le Mort de Cleopatre_," was written during his long
sickness, and on the whole was not a success.

Another pleasing French composer is Jules Emile Frederic Massenet
(1842- ), who took the prize of Rome in 1863, and in 1867 produced his
first opera, "_La Grande Tante_." In addition to this he composed a
number of operas, "_Le Roi de Lahore_" (1877), "_Marie Madeleine_"
(1873), an oratorio, and "Eve" in 1875. He has also written a number
of orchestral suites which have been very popular in all countries.
His latest work, "_Le Mage_," was produced at the Grand Opera, Paris,
March, 1891.

One of the most brilliant and versatile of the French musicians of
this generation is M. Camille Saint-Saens (1835- ), a virtuoso upon
the piano and organ, and an orchestral tone-poet of very rare quality.
Educated in the Conservatory, he composed his first symphony when he
was sixteen, and was organist of the Church of St. Marri at the age of
eighteen. In 1858 he became organist at the Madeleine. He has produced
a number of operas, of which "_Le Timbre d'Argent_" (1887), "Samson
and Delilah" (1877), and "_Etienne Marcel_" (1879), "Henry VIII"
(1883) and "_Ascanio_," produced in 1890 at the Grand Opera. In
addition to these, Saint-Saens has produced a large number of
orchestral pieces, including "_Le Mouet d'Omphale_," "_Le Dance
Macabre_," and other symphonic poems of the programme character. He
has also written several oratorios, of which "The Deluge" is the most
important, and a large amount of chamber and pianoforte music. He is a
brilliant writer about music, and is favorably known in Germany and
all the rest of Europe as a virtuoso upon the piano and organ. His
second concerto for piano is one of the best virtuoso pieces for that
instrument. In his "_Melodie et Harmonie_," a collection of newspaper
essays, he discusses many interesting questions. His fame with
posterity is more likely to rest upon his orchestral pieces, which are
extremely clever and interesting, than upon his operas. Personally he
is said to be very witty and entertaining. He has been a member of the
Institute since 1874.

Another French composer, versatile and well gifted in orchestral
composition, is Clement Philibert Leo Delibes (1848- ). After his
education at the Conservatory, and his service as accompanist at the
Grand Opera, he received, in 1866, a commission to compose a ballet,
"_La Source_," in which he displayed such a wealth of melody and such
fortunate rhythm that his talent was henceforth unmistakable. He has
since composed a large number of ballets, many of which are known in
all parts of the world, such as "Sylvia"; also a large number of
songs. His principal opera was "Lakme" (1883). He is a professor at
the Conservatory, a member of the Legion of Honor, and the successor
of Victor Masse at the Institute.

Still another very talented composer of orchestral music is Edouard
Victor Antoine Lalo (1823- ), who was originally a violinist in a
favorite string quartette. He has composed a large amount of
orchestral music, a violin concerto in F (1874), "_Symphonie
Espagnole_" (1875), for violin and orchestra, a rhapsody
"_Norvegienne_," and many other orchestral works, besides several
operas, of which the "_Roi d'Ys_" (1888) is the most important. He
received the Cross of the Legion of Honor in 1880, and is one of the
best of the French composers. Many of his works have been played by
Theodore Thomas.

Georges Bizet (1838-1875) is best known as the composer of "_Carmen_"
(1875). He had previously produced a considerable number of smaller
works, which had been but moderately successful. In "_Carmen_,"
however, he showed qualities of rhythmic and harmonic coloration which
promised brilliant results in the future. His career was prematurely
cut short by death. He was a fine pianist.

The Nestor of still living French composers is M. Charles Ambroise
Thomas (1811- ), born at Metz in the same year as Liszt, and only one
and two years after Schumann and Chopin. This venerable and highly
gifted master early succeeded in catching the ear of the French
public, and between 1837, when his "_La Double Echelle_" was performed
at the _Opera Comique_, until 1848, he produced a succession of
charming light pieces in the taste of the day. There was a sort of
middle period in which he wrote several very witty works for the same
stage, but the time of his greatest career dates from the production
of "_Mignon_" (1866), "_Hamlet_" (1868), and "_Francesca da Rimini_"
(1882). He was elected to the Institute in 1851, and at Auber's death
in 1871 was made director of the _Conservatoire_, in which important
position he has accomplished much toward systematizing and deepening
musical education. M. Thomas is a highly cultivated man of the world;
tall, slender, fond of physical exercise, he has retained the
faculties of an active and very versatile mind to an old age. His
opera of "_Mignon_" is probably the one of his productions which will
last longest.

Of French opera as a whole during this century, the general
characterization may be made that it has gained in cosmopolitan
quality, nearly all the composers mentioned in the present chapter
having gained a world-wide fame. The distinguishing feature of this
class of opera is its sprightly rhythm, and the clearness of the
melodic forms. The instrumentation, also, is generally clever. The
music is pleasing rather than deep, and the popularity of French opera
in Germany, for example, is mainly due to its value as a relief to the
often undue elaboration of the original German article.

[Illustration]

CHAPTER XXXIX.

LATER COMPOSERS AND PERFORMERS.

Before summing up the remaining names of musical history, a brief
retrospect over the present century may be in place. The first quarter
of the nineteenth century was distinguished by two composers of the
first order--Beethoven and Schubert; and by a large number of highly
gifted lesser artists, some of whom, such as Spohr and Weber, bid fair
to remain long enrolled in the list of immortals. The second quarter
of the century was made memorable by the rise and blossoming into full
glory of the romantic school, all the works of this school (excepting
a few of the earlier of Mendelssohn) having been produced during this
period. Mendelssohn, Schumann, Chopin and the young Wagner were the
active spirits of this time, and their productions not only enriched
the store of the world's tone poetry, but changed the general
direction of musical ideals in many ways.

The great feature of the third quarter of the century was the
conception and execution of the Wagnerian music-drama, with its wealth
of sense incitation and its somber appeal to accumulated experiences
of the race. The "Ring of the Nibelungen" was completed during this
period and received its first performance at Bayreuth in 1876. During
the same period Franz Liszt had conceived a modification of the
symphony form, bringing its four movements into a single one, or
uniting the different movements (if such there were) by means of
motives common to all or several of them. In this way a certain
novelty was attainable in the most important province of instrumental
music; and while the new compositions generally acknowledged their
indebtedness to external incitation by titles, such as: "What One Sees
from a Mountain," the "Battle of the Huns," "Romeo and Juliette," and
the like, there was nothing to prevent them being in the fullest sense
musical works, having a musical life as such wholly independent of the
suggestion given by the title. Berlioz had been the founder of
programme music, and his leading works had been produced during the
second quarter of the century, but their full force was not recognized
until later. It was a follower of Liszt, the brilliant Frenchman,
Camille Saint-Saens, who stated the central thesis of the whole
romantic school, when he said that a composer had the same right to
affix a title to his work, in order to give a pleasing standpoint for
judging it, as a painter had to name his picture. And in the case of
music, he added, as in that of painting, the real question finally was
not whether the suggestion of the title had been fully satisfied, but
whether the picture were good painting and the composition good music.
If it were good music, no flaw in the title and no disagreement
between the title and the work could impair its value and lasting
quality.

When carefully scrutinized, the progress of music during the present
century has been governed by certain leading principles which are not
contradictory, although at first glance they might appear so. Since
the time of the Netherlandish contrapuntists, the primary impulse in
musical creation has been the _musical_ ideal--the creation of tonal
fancies, novel, inspiring, musical, satisfactory. Out of this desire
has arisen the entire fabric of fugue, sonata, symphony and the whole
world of free music. And at every period there have been those also
who sought to connect these tonal fancies with the inner life of the
spirit--to awaken feeling, inspire imagination, deepen dramatic
impression; in short, to give us in place of irresponsible tonal
crystallizations a poetically conceived discourse, operative upon the
feelings and stimulative to the entire mind. This was the ideal of the
new movement in Italy at the beginning of the seventeenth century, and
opera has steadily worked along this ideal. Sebastian Bach had moments
when he himself attempted the programme music; and Beethoven made many
attempts of the same kind, some of which are significant and lasting.
Hence the romantic impulse was not something new in the history of
music, but the blossoming of buds from seeds planted long before. The
programme music of Berlioz was simply larger and more flamboyant than
the little exercises of Bach in the same direction. Wagner's idea of
bringing together the entire resources of musical, dramatic and scenic
art into a single highly complex work was merely the idea of the unity
of all the arts, upon which AEschylus worked two thousand years
earlier, and upon which Jacopo Peri and Claudio Monteverde worked at
the beginning of the seventeenth century. In short, the art of music,
while in this century being enriched by a multitude of new creations
representing a variety of subordinate ideals, is nevertheless still a
unity, constantly becoming more elaborate and masterly upon the tonal
side, and continually more and more in touch with the deeper springs
of duration in art, the intuitively realized correspondence between
certain art forms and modes of expression and human feeling.

The composers of the last quarter of the century are very numerous;
indeed, so numerous that a catalogue even of their names would occupy
too much space. Moreover, their proximity to our own times brings them
too near for successfully estimating their places in the pantheon of
art, or even for the much simpler task of deciding upon certain names
which undoubtedly should occupy places in the list. For present
purposes it will be more convenient to notice them by nationalities,
since every racial stock has certain individualities and ideals which
the national composers eventually bring into art, as we see
brilliantly illustrated in the case of the Russians, both in music and
in painting.

There are, however, certain names which stand out above all others and
at the present writing appear destined for place among or very near
the immortals of the first order. These great names are those of
Johannes Brahms, Camille Saint-Saens, Peter Ilitsch Tschaikowsky,
Antonin Dvorak and Edvard Grieg.

I. MUSIC IN GERMANY.

In Germany, very naturally, the activity in the higher departments of
music remains more intense than in any other country, and the seat of
musical empire may be said to still abide in southern Germany, where
it was established by Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven. The most eminent
living composer in the higher department of the art, Johannes Brahms,
resides at Vienna since these many years; there also Max Bruch long
resided, and there the greatest of the light opera composers, the
Strauss family and Von Suppe, have lived and worked. It is in the
provinces of the Austro-Hungarian empire, moreover, that the Bohemian
composer, Dvorak, has his home.

In Johannes Brahms (1833- ) we have still living a musical master of
the first order, whose quality as master is shown in his marvelous
technique, in which respect no recent composer is to be mentioned as
his superior, if any can be named since Bach his equal. This technique
was at first personal, at the pianoforte, upon which he was a virtuoso
of phenomenal rank; but this renown, great as it is in well informed
circles, sinks into insignificance beside his marvelous ability at
marshaling musical periods, elaborating together the most dissimilar
and apparently incompatible subjects, and his powers of varying a
given theme and of unfolding from it ever something new. These
wonderful gifts, for such they were rather than laboriously acquired
attainments, Brahms showed at the first moment when the light of
musical history shines upon him. It was in 1853, when the Hungarian
violinist, Edouard Remenyi, found him at Hamburgh and engaged him as
accompanist and having ascertained his astonishing talents, brought
him, a young man of twenty, to Liszt at Weimar, with his first trio
and certain other compositions in manuscript. The new talent made a
prodigious effect upon Liszt, who needed not that any one should
certify to him whether a composer had genius or merely talent. The
Liszt circle took up the Brahms cult in earnest, played the trio at
the chamber concerts, and the members when they departed to their
homes generally carried with them their admiration of this new
personality which had appeared in music.

Johannes Brahms was born at Hamburgh, May 7, 1833, the son of a fine
musician who was player upon the double bass in the orchestra there.
The boy was always intended for a musician, and his instruction was
taken in hand with so much success that at the age of fourteen he
played in public pieces by Bach and Beethoven, and a set of original
variations. At the age of twenty he was a master, and it was in this
year that he accompanied Remenyi, made the acquaintance of Joachim and
Liszt, and had a rarely appreciative notice from a master no less than
Robert Schumann himself, who in his _New Journal of Music_ said:

"He has come, a youth at whose cradle graces and heroes kept watch.
Sitting at the piano he began to unveil wonderful regions. We were
drawn into more and more magical circles by his playing, full of
genius, which made of the piano an orchestra of lamenting and jubilant
voices. There were sonatas, or rather veiled symphonies; songs whose
poetry might be understood without words; piano pieces both of a
demoniac nature and of the most graceful form; sonatas for piano and
violin; string quartettes, each so different from every other that
they seemed to flow from many different springs. Whenever he bends his
magic wand, there, when the powers of the orchestra and chorus lend
him their aid, further glimpses of the magic world will be revealed to
us. May the highest genius strengthen him! Meanwhile the spirit of
modesty dwells within him. His comrades greet him at his first
entrance into the world of art, where wounds may perhaps await him,
but bay and laurel also; we welcome him as a valiant warrior."

The next few years were spent by Brahms in directing orchestra and
chorus at Detmold and elsewhere, and in Switzerland, which has always
had great attraction for him. In 1859 he played in Leipsic his first
great pianoforte concerto; most of the criticisms thereon were,
however, such as now excite mirth. Lately he has played in Leipsic
again, conducted several of his works, and was greeted with the
reverence and enthusiasm due the greatest living representative of the
art of music. In 1862 Brahms located in Vienna, where he has almost
ever since resided. Mr. Louis Kestelborn, in "Famous Composers and
Their Works," says: "About thirty years ago the writer first saw
Brahms in his Swiss home; at that time he was of a rather delicate,
slim-looking figure, with a beardless face of ideal expression. Since
then he has changed in appearance, until now he looks the very image
of health, being stout and muscular, the noble manly face surrounded
by a full gray beard. The writer well remembers singing under his
direction, watching him conduct orchestra rehearsals, hearing him play
alone or with orchestra, listening to an after-dinner speech or
private conversation, observing him when attentively listening to
other works, and seeing the modest smile with which he accepted, or
rather declined, expressions of admiration."

The most important works of Brahms, aside from his "German Requiem,"
are four symphonies for orchestra, two concertos for pianoforte, a
concerto for violin and 'cello with orchestra, a violin concerto, many
songs, a variety of compositions for chamber, embracing a number for
unusual combinations of instruments (such as clarinet and horn with
piano), sonatas for piano solo, etc. In the songs he attains a simple
and direct expression, not surpassed in musical quality since
Schubert and Schumann; in the concertos he is more for music than for
display, which is merely to say that in conceiving the display of his
solo instrument, he has sought rather to display it at its best in a
musical sense than to exhibit its peculiar tricks of dexterity. As a
symphonist he follows classic form, and is more successful than any
other writer in the slow movements, a department in which most of the
later writers are distinctly weak, since in an idealized folk song
(which is the essential ideal of the symphonic slow movement) poverty
of imagination cannot be concealed by dexterity of thematic treatment
and modulation. As a writer for the pianoforte he has made important
enlargements of the technique, not alone in his arrangement of easier
compositions by earlier writers, but still more by original demands
upon the fingers, as illustrated in his great sets of variations.

Distinguished among German composers is Max Bruch (1838- ) who was
born at Cologne, and educated there and almost everywhere else in
Germany. Bruch is best known by his works for chorus with orchestra,
of which "Frithjof," "A Roman Song of Triumph," "The Song of the Three
Kings," "Odysseus," "Arminius" are best known. His concerto for violin
is also played in all parts of the world, but his opera of "Hermione"
made but a moderate success at Berlin in 1872. Riemann considers his
greatest works for mixed chorus to be "Odysseus," "Arminius," "The
Song of the Bell," and for male chorus "Frithjof," "Salamis" and "The
Normans." His style is closely wrought, musical, full of deep and
natural musical expression, and well colored instrumentation.

Anton Bruckner (1824- ) a highly gifted organist and composer, has
written seven symphonies, in which the style is very modern, and shows
the influence of the theatrical style of Wagner. He is a composer of
considerable vigor.

II. MUSIC IN RUSSIA.

The awakening of musical art has been remarkable in all parts of the
civilized world, and in many countries not previously distinguished in
music composers have arisen who have embodied the rhythms and spirit
of the national songs in their works, composed dramatic works upon
national subjects, and so have created a national school of music. In
some cases the works of these men have proven of world-wide
acceptance; in others they have set in operation musical life in their
own country, and have been followed quickly by younger composers
working in a more cosmopolitan vein, who have created works which have
been taken into the current of the world's music and bid fair to hold
an honorable position in the pantheon.

[Illustration: MICHAIL IVANOVITCH GLINKA.]

One of the most brilliant cases of this kind is Russia, that country
so vast, so powerful, so mysterious. The first composer in Russia to
distinguish himself and to create a national opera was Michail
Ivanovitch Glinka (1803-1877), born near Selna. His first schooling
was at the Adelsinstitute in St. Petersburg, where he distinguished
himself in languages. But presently, under the teaching of Bohme upon
the violin and Carl Mayer in pianoforte and theory, he showed the
musical stuff which was in him. Leaving Russia for his health, he
resided four years in Italy, constantly studying and incessantly
composing. On his way back to Russia he placed himself for a time
under the teaching of the distinguished S. Dehn in Berlin, in theory.
Dehn recognized his originality and encouraged him to write "Russian"
music. His first opera, "A Life for the Czar" (December 9, 1836), was
a great triumph. The subject was national, the contrast between Polish
and Russian subjects in the music was brilliant, and actual or
simulated folk songs gave a local coloring highly grateful to the
Russian audience. The work received innumerable repetitions and still
remains one of the most popular operatic works upon the Russian stage.
His next work, "Ruslan and Ludmilla," was also successful, and Liszt,
who happened to be in Russia at the moment of its production, accorded
the young composer distinguished praise. Berlioz took up the pen in
honor of Glinka and of his new Russian school of music, and so the
composer's powers were widely celebrated. During the remainder of his
life Glinka made long residences in the south, especially in Spain,
and several orchestral works, with Spanish coloring, represent this
portion of his creative career. His last years were spent in rural
life near St. Petersburgh, busy with new opera projects, and
especially seeking some rational manner of harmonizing the Russian
popular songs. Riemann calls Glinka "the Berlioz of Russia," in the
originality of his invention and his clever technique; and something
more, namely, that he created a national school of music for his
country. The list of his works is very long, embracing compositions in
almost every province. There are two symphonies, both unfinished,
several dances for orchestra, a number of chamber compositions of
various combinations of instruments, a tarantella for orchestra, with
song and dance ("_La Kamarinskaia_"), etc. His operas, however, are
his lasting monument.

[Illustration: ANTON VON RUBINSTEIN.]

The next great name in the roll of Russian music is that of the
pianist, Anton von Rubinstein (1830-1895), who was born at
Wechwotynez, in Bessarabia. His father presently removed to Moscow,
where he carried on a manufactory of lead pencils. The boy Anton
showed such talent for music under the skillful and affectionate
teaching of his mother, that at the age of ten he was brought before
various musical authorities in Paris for opinions concerning his
talent. His concert life began almost immediately from this period.
His mother went with him, and wherever there were pauses of a few days
the studies were resumed, exactly as had been the case with Mozart,
long before. In 1848 he found a friend and appreciative companion in
the Princess Helene, and then he wrote several operas upon Russian
subjects, of which two were published--"Dimitri Donskoi" and "Toms der
Narr." The success of these works was such that in 1854 the composer
was given a subvention for further foreign study by the Princess
Helene and Count Wielhorski, upon which followed four brilliant years
of incessant activity as virtuoso pianist and composer, extending as
far as London and Paris. Rubinstein had already lived some years in
Berlin, where he was as well known as at home. Returning to Russia in
1859, he received important appointments as musical director, founded
the St. Petersburg musical conservatory, of which he remained the
director until 1867, when ensued a new series of concert journeys
covering Europe, and in 1872-1873 extending to America, where he had a
wonderful success, carrying back to Russia as proceeds of the American
tour the at that time unprecedented sum of $54,000.

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