TheMainStreamofMusicandOtherEssays 10853955

THE
MA I N ST REAM
OF MUSIC
AND
O T H E R E S S AY S
D ON A L D F RAN C I S T O VEY
S O M ETI M E REI D PRO FESS O R O F M US I C
IN TH E UN I VERS I TY OF EDI NBU RGH
C ollec ted, with an I n troduc tion ,

by H U BERT FO S S
Geoffrey Cumberlege
O XF O R D U N I VE RS I TY PRE S S
N EW Y O RK
Firs t p ri nte d in E n glan d in 1 949 u n de r
the title and L ec tures on
Prin ted in Great Britain by

Wa tern Printing S ervice: L td .
,
Bris to l
CONTENTS
I NTR O D UCT I ON
HAY D N S C H A MB ER
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MUS I C
C H R I S TO PHE R WI LL IB A LD GL UCK
FRANZ S C H UBERT
TONAL I T Y IN S C H U BERT
M US I CA L F O R M AN D M ATT E R
N ORM AL I TY AN D F REE D O M IN M US I C
WO RD S AN D M US I C : S O ME Obiter Dicta
BRAH MS S C H AM BER M US I C
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S O M E A S PE CT S O F BEET H O VE N S ART F O RMS

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E L GA R MAS T E R O F M U S I C
,
DOH NANYI S C H A MB E R M USI C

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T HE L EAN AT H L ET I C S T Y L E O F H I N D E M I T H
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PREFACE S TO C A D ENZ A S F O R C L A SS I CA L C O N C ERTO S
T HE M A I N S T REA M O F MUSI C
A N OT E O N O PERA
S T IM U L US AN D T HE C L ASS I C S O F M USI C
TH E T RA I N I N G O F T HE M US I C A L I M A GI NAT I ON
T HE M EA NI N G O F M US I C ,
I N D EX
I NTROD U CTION
IT was one of my nai ve undergradu ate ambitions to m ake a cont ri

b u tio n to aesthetic philo s o phy b y a systematic review of music
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So wr it es Don ald Francis Tovey I n the lectu re printed o n pp 1 60 .
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1 82 ct his b o o lt He continues : Forty years on I come to you
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wit h empty han ds That is not a w holly true stat ement That
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s yste matic revie w which he discussed with the w riter and othe rs
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over so many y ears was indee d never written B ut despite t h e fact , , .
that on ly one of his bo oks was (so to say) dureheomponirt T o vey

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w as in practice a vo lu m in ou s w riter He w rote when occasion calle d .
him an d in t hat bus y life of practic al music making of playing

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c onducting an d le cturing oc cas ion called him ve ry frequently T h e

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p h i lo soph y expre s sed in those sixteen volum e s that stand massivel y

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o n o ur sh e lves may not be systematic nor exp res sed in the form
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of argue d re view but it is cons istent of the widest possible re fer

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enc e developed and posit ive It has the added advantage of b e ing
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e II pre ss e d in a prose that it is a pleas u re t o rea d: fo r it s o w n art istry .
I n this volu m e a co m panio n to the ot her sixteen are gathe re d:the

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l arger part o fs Donald Tovey s writings that have not already been
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g a r nere d in t o s he ave s C omplet e

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ne ss has b een neither aimed at nor
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attained Of the fe w deliberate omissions one ess ay ( a con tribu t ion

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to a volume lo ng out o f print) was not thou ght su itable for in clu
)
sio n : of! the fi rs t series of Cram b lect ures no compl ete cop y has yet ,
be en found, and i£ it were th e di fficulty would arise in re prin ting t he

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lecture s that the y we re copiously illustrated at the piano For t he .
s ame re as on the bro adcast s cript s cannot be se nsibly reproduc e d

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On ly those wh o kne w Tovey pers onall y are aw are of ho w readil y '
and continuously he illustrated his seemingly incessant fl ow 013 talk

w ith passage s at t h e piano
»
I was not present in person at L ady .
Margare t Hall on 4 J u ne 1 9 3 4 w hen h e gave the P hilip M aurice ,
Deneke Lect u re but I am as certain as if I w ere hearin g it no w that

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he s ang t h e text of th at S w e elin clr P salm ( see p 1 7 7 of t his
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volum e) to its proper tune of the Old Hu ndredth B ut though
the rigours of print and its met al must to some extent clip the eagle s
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win gs I venture to express th e opinion that he soars the morning

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clo uds above at an altitude unattained b y contemporary writers on

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mu s ic .
( O xfo rd
1
A C o mp anion to The A rt f
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o F ug u e ,
V11
viii I NT R O D U CT I ON
A collection of scattered writings cannot avoid the dangers of the

miscellany whi c h too h as its p l easures There is varied fare in
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these pages essays that are wide and general in their approach to
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the subject others that are severely technical and analytical I

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repeat with warm agreement the words of Dr E rnest Walker in his .
preface to A M usician Talks

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It is by these man y hundreds of pages that he has achieved a
world reputation ; and indeed there is nothing lik e it at all in , ,
English nor s o far as I know in any other language Perhaps we

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s e e the quint e ssence of hi s thought most completely in M usical

Form and M atter ( p 1 60 of this volume) !
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Here then are Tovey s scattered hundreds of pages collected

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into o n e accessible volume Every word contained herein has been .
printed before but fo r the most part those words are inaccessible
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outside the major libraries and some had only the ephemeral life ,
of t he periodical I t may thus be realized that Tovey himself read

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all the proofs of these essays and lectures and in presenting his ,
text anew I have had occasion to make onl y the most trivial co rre c
tions and to add a reference to an example or a page here and there .
But final though this reprinted form is we must not take it that it
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represents more than what the author decided at that moment of

proof correcting It is in my view not u nl ikely that that great
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reviser would have desired ( even if he had not been allowed) t o
On p 1 68 et seq there occurs an interesting and pertinent refer

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ence to Tovey s own methods and experience of composition and ,
A N ote on O pera ( p 3 5 is the essay which he wrote to introduce

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his opera The Bride of Dionysus They give u s a timely reminder of .
Tovey the composer t oo soon neglected and now almost forgotten, ,
though I do not myse lf believe that his music will long endure this
The problem of indexing this allusive talkative prose style is no ,
easy one ; the indexer is racked with constant tortur es of indecision ,
of over fulness repentant excision and a nervous final jump to

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, ,
what he hopes is safe ground For the adoption of an entirely .
arbitrary plan I am solely respo n sible and wo uld apolo gize in

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advance for those omissions which each reader will observe and
those redundancies whi ch no doubt will irritate many I am , , .
responsible t o o for the text as definitively printed But I record

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here my great gratitude t o those who read the first proofs and who ,
indeed assisted me in the task o f gathering together the material :

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IN T R O D U C T I O N ix
I refer of course to those indefatigable w orkers in the Tovey cause
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Dr M ary Grierson Dr E rnest Walker and M r R C Trevely an

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, . . . .
The debt to them cannot be paid .
It may be expecte d that no more w ords from Tovey s pen will ’
ever be published save only the letters w hich he wrote so full y and
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entertainingly Dr M ary G rierson s forthco ming biography will

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give the world I have no doubt a taste of that banquet of wit and
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wisdom with which in his letters Tovey regaled his friends

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H U B ER T F O S S
H A Y D N S C H A M BE R
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MUSIC 1
IN the history of music no chapter is more important than that

filled b y the life w ork of Joseph Hay dn He effected a revolution
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in musical thought hardly less far reaching than that effected at the -
clo se of the s ixteenth century by the monodists who wrote the

earliest operas and supplanted the pure vocal polyphony of P al
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e st rin a by the new art of supporting solo voices on iiiSt ru m e n t al

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chords B ut w hereas the monodic revolution destroyed a great art

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so effectively that there is a gap of a century between Palestrina and

the new polyphony of Bach and Handel the revolution effected b y ,
H aydn has its only immature phases in unpretending tuneful efforts

within the lifetime of Handel whose art forms Hay dn supplants ,
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not b y destruction but by reabsorption into his own new musical

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life as soon as this has fi rmly established its independent basis .
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B efore it is possible to measure Haydn s achievement it must be
realiz ed that his conscious musical culture rested on a music much
older than that of the generation before him ; and that except in so ,
far as his music is derived literally from the streets its foundations ,
are not in B a c h and Handel but in P alestrina When the y oung , .
Hay dn came to Vienna Fu x the court organist had not long been
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dead and Fu x s Gradus ad Parnassum was more I mportant to him

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than victuals for his body and fuel for his garret in mid winter -
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Fu x s C hurch music w hich is still drawn upon by serious Roman

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C atholic choir mast ers is genuinely masterly work b y an eighteenth

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century composer w ho prefers to write in pure sixteenth century -
style T O Fu x if to nobody else at the time that style was still a

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living langu age ; and even if it could be prove d that Hay dn knew -
nothing n e are r t o P alestrina than Fu x the fact would remain that

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he educated himself with a sixteenth century musical culture In -

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his old age he even lent his name to a project for publishing the
archaic works of O brecht .
No w the pure poly phony of the Golden Age had solved for all
time the central problems of vocal harmony Its medium was the .
unaccompanied chorus of v o ices producing a mass of harmony b y

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singing indepen dent melodies ; and its gram m atical laws ( surviving
for the vexation of students to day in the form of garbled and -
1
An art ic le p ub lish e d in C o b b e t t
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s Cyclopedic S u rvey of Chamber M usic ( O xfo rd
U n ivers it y Pre ss ) , 1 9 29 .
B
z HAYDN S CHAMBER
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MUSIC
arbitrary rules for exercises that exist only on paper and represent
n o musical language ) were essentially practical rules of instrumenta
tion F o r n o t only w as the chorus the only inst rument seriously

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cultivated but no other instrument had familiarized the ear with

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any complete ideas that the voi c e could n o t spontaneou sly express .
The great monodi c revolution at the beginning of the seventeenth

century is far t o o complex a process to s u m up in a phrase or even ,
in a volume ; into the world of Palestrina it opened out the aspira

tions o f Wagner and provided no technical experience fo r the
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equipment o f it s pioneers After Bach and Handel had closed their

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epo ch the latter half o f the eighteenth century sti l l found need for
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a fuller sol ution o f what might be supposed to be the simplest

musi c al problem o f the seventeenth century— that of produ cing an
instrumental harmony n o t less c omplete and satisfactory than a
purel y pol yphoni c Chorus I t is vain t o regard vio l mus ic as in any
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l ine of ancestry to the string quartet The viols merely playe d vo c al

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music which w as enjoyed for the sake of the voc al sense and ,
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hard l y if at al l fo r the tone o f the vio l s As the word monody
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implies the revo l utionary composers of the early seventeenth c e n

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tury dire cted their attention t o the solo voi c e ; and their first urgent
practical question w as how to organize a harmonic acc ompaniment
for the supporting instruments Within a surprisingly sh ort time.
they developed the art o f playing a semi extempore accompaniment -
from a figured bass o n a keyboard instrument At the same t ime the .
vio l in an d it s family were ousting the fiat backed husky toned -
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viols and were raising more important new issues by flying and
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diving into regions far beyond the compass o f human voi c es .
Thus at the outset o f the seventeenth century the two problems

o f the solo performer and the instrumental ac c ompaniment were
al ready defined U ncharted di ffi culties remained in the special

.
te chniques of the various instruments and contrasting and blend ,
ing their tones in a mass o f harmony A full century passed before .
these difii c u lt ie s were artisti c al ly solved ; and the solution as

a chieved by Ba c h and Handel is s o remote from the aesthetic sys
tem of even Haydn s and M ozart s orc hestra that it is only now
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beginning to be realized that it is a genuine solution and that to ,
dismiss Bach s and Handel s or chestral intentions as primitive is as

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P hilistine as to moderni z e Palestrina s modal harmony The life

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w ork of Haydn effected the whole transition from the aesthetic

system of Ba ch to that which is c ommon to al l instrumental music
from Haydn t o Brahms ; and it effe cted it by n o destructive revo lu
HAYDN ’
S CHAMBER MUSIC 3
tion but in an orderly progress of works full of promise at the
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outset and culminating in a long series of masterpieces .
Haydn s culture in the P alestrina style remained a fundamental

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though undisplayed element throughout his art ; but the hypothesis

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of Bach s and Handel s instrumentation was immediately and

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irretrievably abolished by him in his earliest instrumental works .
Yet on that hypothesis every musician in Haydn s young days ’
was trained and there was no definite period in Haydn s long

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life at which the hypothesis was consciously aband oned The .
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hypothesis still depended on the monodists device of t he continuo .
C arl P hilipp E manuel Bach the most famous of B ach s sons and
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the master Whose clavier works and treatise on clavier playing were -
appearing as a revelation to the boy Haydn in his Vienna garret ,
protested bitterly against the growing neglect to provide a con

t in u o for performances of oratorios and orchestral music The . .
hypothesis of the continuo is based on a truth which is as important

to day as it was in the time of B ac h ; for neither practically nor
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ideally does the orchestra produce a homogeneous mass of har

mony like a Chorus endowed with instrumental powers The con .
trast between ba ckground and foreground is involved in the nature

of all instrumental combinations and is only artificially impo rted
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into pure vocal polyphony If a composer writes choral harmony

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according to certain old grammati c al rules without troubling to ,
imagine the effect he will never be disappointed with the result

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for the rules are absolutely safe and the composer who writes cor
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re ct ly without u s m g his mental ear is unlikely to appreciate any

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thing better even when he hears it But with all instrumental .
combinations the limits Within which vocal rules apply are soon
reached ; and the composer who writes concerted music without
using his mental ear is quickly brought to his s enses by defects ‘
obvious to everybody as soon as he ve ntures beyond vocal idioms .
The pioneers of instrumental music in the y ears 1 600 2 0 show ed

—
an accurate instinct b y promptly treating all groups of instruments

as consisting of a firm bass and a fl orid treble held together b y an ,
unobtrusive mass of harmony in t h e middle U p to the death of .
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Handel and beyond throughout Haydn s boyhood this harmonic
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welding was entrusted to the continuo player and nobody ever ,

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supposed that the polyphony of the real or c hestral parts could ’
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except accidentally or b y way of relief sound well without this ,
supplement The written instrumental parts are an aristocracy for

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whom the problems of domestic servi c e are perfectly solved b y that

4 HAYDN S CHAMBER ’
M U SI C
most learned and most modes t of artists the continuo player who , ,
was in the best performances generally the com pos e r himself

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I t is n o t too much to s ay that one half of the problems of in st ru

mentation both in chamber music and in the orchestra since
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H aydn began to work up to the present day lies in the dis trib u
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tion of the continuo fun ction among all the instruments But for
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Haydn most of the other half o f the problem arose from a feature
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in early eighteenth century music whi ch concerns only the keyboard

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instruments and whi ch leaves no trace in the written record of

c ompositions Hence its existence is often overlooked though the
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modern art o f instrumentation has to replace it besides the con

t inu o . I n the early eighteenth century everybody who played upon ,
keyboard instruments (that is to s ay every edu c ated musician ) was ,
brought into c onstant conta ct with the power o f the organ and t he
harpsi chord t o double in higher or lower octaves whatever was
played upon them On e obvious result of this is that good counter
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point in two o r three parts need never sound thin fo r by merely , ,
pulling o u t a stop it becomes a mass o f sounds whi c h would t e

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quire four o r s ix vocal parts to produce but whi c h adds nothing ,

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more than a quality o f timbre much as if the upper p artials of ,

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each clan g were heard through a s et Of Helmho ltz resonators
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And there is n o more striking illustration o f the correct instincts of

medieval musicians than the fa ct that o n e o f the most an cient
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devices o f the organ is the u s e o f mixtures ext ending t o the whole ’
first s ix overtones thus anticipating Helmholtz s theory of timbre

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by half a millennium .
fi With these facts in mind it is more easily understood that when ,
Haydn began his work his auditory imagination w as fed on e xpe ri

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e n c e s fundamentally opposed t o the whole hypothesis of future
chamber music the hypothesis that the written notes completely

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define the c omposition Ho w c ould the string quartet develop in a

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musi c al world where ne cess ary harmonic fillin g out w as al w ays left -
t o be extemporized and where a single written note might sound

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in three different octaves at once ? There were string quartets

before Haydn but nobody troubles t o revive them In his later
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years Haydn w as indignant at the suggestion that he owed anything

t o the quartets o f Glu c k s master Sammartini saying that he had
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indeed heard them in his youth but that Sammartini w as a dauber,

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S chmierer o r
( Haydn s o w n first quartets were c o m ’
missioned by a patron in whose house quartet playing w as an estab - :
lis h e d custom The date given by early a cc ounts is 1 7 5 0 the year

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HAYDN ’
S C H A M BE R M U S I C 5
of Bach s death ; but P ohl assigns Hay dn s fi rst quartets to 1 7 5 5
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partly for vague biographical reas ons and partly because he con
siders the technique too advanced to have been achieved without
long study and leisure The growt h of ideas and sty le in Haydn s
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fi rst eighteen quartets ( opp 1 2 3 ) is so fascinating that P ohl may

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be forgiven for overrating their artistic value ; but there is really

nothing in the first eighteen quartets which is techni cally bey ond
the power of a talent ed y oung musician between 1 7 5 0 and 1 7 60 ;
some features ( e g the structure of the finale of o p 1 no 6) could
. . .
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hardly have survived any study at all ; and the merits Of the works .
are not a ccountable for by study for the w hole significance of ,

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Haydn s development is that it took a direction which no other
composer before M o z art ever suspected or even recogniz ed when
it became manifest .
0
There w as at the outset no clear distinction betw een a string

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quartet and a string orchestra The fifth quartet is undoubtedly .
H ay dn s fi rst sy mphony though it is at least four ( if not more)

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years earlier than the w ork th at has been catalogue d as such by all
authorities including Haydn himself Authentic wind parts have
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been found for this quartet ; and here the point is not merely that ’
it is indistinguishable from orchestral music but that H aydn never ,
objected to its inclusion among his published quartets though he ,
omits it in his own M S catalogue In external form it differs

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from the quartets and conforms to the fi rst tw o acknowledged

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sy mphonies inasmuch as it has no minuets and its three movements

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are occupied with formulas and argumentative sequences to the

exclusion of anything like a tune The fi rst eleven real quartets .
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on the other hand have five movements including two minuets

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one on each side of the middle movement ; and the other three
movements often combine tunefulness with a certain tendency at
first hardly diSt in gu is h ab le from awkward irregularity but already ,
urging towards the quality b y which Haydn s life work w as to ’

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e ffect a C opernican revolution in musical form .
Thou gh all the important chamber music before Haydn was

designed on the continuo hypothesis it would be a mistake to sup ,
pose that Hay dn started Without experience of what could be done

b y instruments unsupported b y key board harmony Such e xpe ri .
en ce was familiar to him in the music o f the streets Serenading

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was a favourite pastime enjoyed as much b y listeners as b y players

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O n e of Hay dn s boyish prac tical j okes consisted in arranging for

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several serenade parties to perform different music in earshot of

HAYDN S CHAMBER ’
M U SI C
each other to the annoyance not only Of a respectable neighbour
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hood but o f an adjoining poli c e station Serenade music consisted

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naturally o f dan c e tunes marches and lyric ariosos By the time of

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M ozart it had deve l oped into works longer if lighter than sym , ,
phonies the typical se re n ade be c oming in fact a cheerful six

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movement symphony w ith two slow movements alternating with

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t w o minuets I f the combination o f instruments w as solo rather

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than orc hestral the composition would be c alled a divertimento ;

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and the remaining name fo r su c h works cassation is a c orruption ,

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of Gassaden whi c h means musi c o f the Gassen or back streets -

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And just as Hans Sachs w as accused by Beckmesser ( o r by more

h istorical persons ) of writing Gass enhau er so Haydn whose first , ,
quartets became rapid l y and widely popular w as frowned upon by ,
this and that preserver o f the offi cial dignit y o f music who cou ld
predict no good from such vu l gar beginnings ; nor w as Haydn ever
spared the c harge o f rowdiness even in his ripest works .
For the purposes of a catalogue it may be important to dis

t in gu is h betwee n quartets divertimenti and symphonies ; but fo r
, ,
aesthetic purposes th e distinct ion emerges onl y gradually as the

works improve each in their o w n direction Haydn s first twelve
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quartets are moving c autious ly from the style o f the Gassaden to

that o f the future symphoni c sonata forms The movement towards -
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a genu ine quartet style c an be tra ced only with referen c e t o what
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w as prese nt t o Haydn s audito ry imagination at the time O f street

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music o n e thing is c ertain that it never sounds wel l The sound

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may be roman ti c al l y suggestive the occasion gratifying t o the ,
listener and the performan ce perfe ct ; but suggestiveness is al most

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all that is l eft o f the a ctual body o f sound the finer nuan c es o f per ,
fo rm an ce are lost and the rest is a ll moons hi ne The development

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Of Haydn s auditory imagination wi ll depend upon the u se he makes

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o f the experien c e o f hearing writing and p l aying musi c u n su p, ,
ported by the c ontinuo within four wal l s and a c ei l ing And fo r

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pioneer work a fastidious tas te in performance is both an Obstacle

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t o enterprise and a necessi t y t o progress O n the whole it is more .
o f a ne c essity than an Obstacle .
Haydn himsel f knew the te c hnique o f several different in s t ru

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ments but w as he c onfesses no c onjurer on any o f them C om
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posers playing is proverbially bad ; sin ce not only is the c omposer

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unlike l y t o devote his time to acquiring the technique o f a c onjurer ,
but he is o f all persons the most capable of imagining desirable

qualities without needing t o supp ly them himself O nly when he .
HAYDN S CHAMBER MUSIC ’
7
takes up the conductor s baton do conditions naturally awak en in
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him a present sense of what a performance should be I t is accord .
in gly S ignificant that Haydn s achievement in his first twelve or

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even his first eighteen quartets is no fruit of his experience under

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the stimulating conditions as conductor of P rin c e Est e rhazy s ’
private orchestra but is rather a demonstration of his eminent

,
fitness for that post four or perhaps nine years before it was Offered
him It is signifi cant that there is no sign of the need for a con
.
t in u o in the general c onception of these earlie st quar ets Here

t .
and there one fi nds Haydn insensitive to the baldness o f a p ro gre s

sion which long habit of reliance on the continuo had completely
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submerged below the composer s consciousness ; and thus even as ,
late as 1 7 69 in a quartet otherwise astonishingly mature ( op 9

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no . Haydn not only leaves a blank space for a cadenza at the

end of a slow movement b u t represents its conventional ,
chord
by a bare fourth .
EX l
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Adag io can tab ile
E ven in his old age Haydn s pen is liable to small habitual slips
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which like all such lapses should reveal to the psychologist how
, ,
far the mind has travelled instead of suggesting dismal broodings

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on squalid origins It will save space to deal with these lapses here
. .
The fact that Haydn s fifth quartet was actually a sy mphony raises
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the questio n whether throughout opp 1 and 2 his cello part was .
not supported or even ( as many years later in M o zart s ripest

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divertimenti for strings and horns ) repla c ed by a double bass ,

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Aesthetically the question is more open than it might appear to a

fastidious taste in mature Chamber music L ong after Haydn s and .
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MUSIC
M ozart s qu artets had
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the s tandard of style fo r all educated
s et
musicians O nslow having found the double bass an unexpecte dly

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good substitute for a missing cello proceeded to write several very ,
decent quintets for strings with double bass -

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The double bass is unthi nkable in Haydn s quartets from op 9

-
’
, .
onwards ; and yet he is never quite sure of his o c tave when without
-
using the tenor clef he writes hi s c ello above the viola Even after
,
’
.
M oz art s artisti c debt to Haydn appears repaid with c ompound

’
interest there is an astonishing mis c alculation throughout six bars

,
o f the development of one of Haydn s greatest firs t movements that

’
of the Quartet in E flat op 7 1 no 3 (bars 20— 6 from the double bar)

, .
, . -
.
EX 2.
I S t VIO l l n
an d s o o n fo r
a no t he r fo u r b a rs
The p assage is n o t like other ac cidents of the kind to be remedied

, ,
by putting the c el lo part an o ctave l ower ( as with an incident in

’
o n e o f the last S ix quartets op 7 6 n o 4 where the u s e o f the

, .
, .
,
treble clef at it s proper pit ch may have c aused c o nfl is io n ) for ,
Haydn is evidently thinking o f the tone o f the A string And in a .
later p assage o f the same movement the viola and c el l o are found ’
c rossing each other with exquisite adroitness the lowest note at ,
eac h moment being the real bass ( Ex .
Where Haydn mis cal culates in these mature works the error ,
reall y lies in the viola part Thus in Ex 2 the o n e po ssible and per
.
, .
,
fe ct lysatisfa ctory c orre ction c onsists in substituting a rest fo r the first

quaver in eac h bar o f the viola part There is a more spe c ial signifi .
cance o f su c h oversights in Haydn s vio l a parts ; but fo r the present

’
it is important to realize that they originated in the habit of thinking

of the cell o as supported by a doub l e bass
’
-
.
Io HAYDN S CHAMBER MUSIC
’
o ctaves with the c e ll o The fact that this bold and bleak doubled
’
.
t w o part harmony is c ommon in the first eighteen quartets and rare

-
in the later o n e s m u s t n o t be allowed t o hide the more important

fa cts that it startl ed his c ontemporaries and that it is an effe ct as
genuinel y imagined in o p 1 as in the wonderful canoni c H exen
.
M enuett in o p 7 6 no 2 .
, . .
H is imagination h as promptly grasped the vital di fferen c e between

octaves produ c ed by a me c hani c al c oupler and o ctaves played by
two living p l ayers o n separate instruments M oreover it h as grasped .
,
'
the more del ic ate but equally vital differen c e between o ctaves in
the orchestra and o ctaves in the string quartet I n spite o f a ll am
‘
b igu it ie s Haydn s earliest e fforts are distin ctly more e ffe ctive as
’
,
the string quartets they purport t o be than as the semi orc hestral
,
-
works with whi c h publishers continued to confuse them as late

as 1 7 8 4 .
Haydn s cham ber musi c may now be profitably surveyed in

’
approximate chronological order from the first quartet o p no I , . .

,
to the unfinished quartet o p 1 03 his l ast c omposition As to the

, .
, .
H A Y D N S C H A M B ER M U S I C
’
11
C hronology of the quartets the order of opus numbers given in ,
the familiar Payne s M iniature S cores is fairly a c cu rate ; though

1 ’
’
Haydn s opus numbers were in an unholy muddle in the editions
of his lifetime The whole extant collection will thus consist of the
.
following sets six quartets in each opus : opp 1 2 3 9 1 7 2 0 3 3 ;

, .
, , , , , ,
a s ingle quartet op 4 2 ; six in op 5 0 ; three each in opp 5 4 5 5 ;

, . . .
,
s ix in op 64 ; three each in opp 7 1 7 4 ; six in op 7 6 ; two each in

. .
, .
o p 77 ; and the unfinished last quartet op 1 03 The quartet

.
, . .
arrangement of that curious work The S even La s t Words ( a series ,
of orchestral adagios composed for a Good Friday service in the

C athedral of C adi z and afterwards expanded into a choral work)
, ,
shows no technical detail beyond the capacity of a copyist though ,
it was strange to say admitted into the collection of quartets as

, ,
op 5 1 b y Haydn himself This collection of seventy six quartets

. .
-
equal in bulk to quite a large proportion of the most experienced

quartet party s classical and modern repertory is probably nearly
-
’
complete Quite complete it certainly is not but it contains no

.
,
2
spurious works At the time of writing the great critical edition of

.
,
Haydn s complete works ( Breitkopf 8: H artel ) has not y et sorted out

’
the chamber music and a survey of what is commonly known must ,
therefore su ffi ce But in Hay dn s lifetime Breitkopf 8c H zirt el used ’ ‘
to publish an annual catalogue of works in stock both manuscript ,
and printed and b y good luck the Reid L ibrary in the U niversity
,
of E dinburgh possesses this catalogue from the year 1 7 62 to 1 7 8 4 .
Here are found sporadic evidences of what was attracting attention

among lovers of orchestral and Chamber music and solos from ,
Haydn s o p 1 ( which first appears in 1 7 65 ) to some Variations

’
.
da Louis c an Be tthoo en ( sic) ag e de dix ans in the single part dated

’
, ,
—
1 782 3 4
— The Haydn entries include all the quartets from 0p 1
. .
to op 3 3 besi de s four unpublished works one of which is v ouched

.
, ,
’
for by Haydn s mention of it in a catalogue drawn up by himself .
M ost of the quartets in opp 1 and 2 are fi rst announced as diverti .
menti ; two of these op 2 no 3 ( E flat) and 0p 2 no 5 appear , .

, . .
, .
,
as sextets with two horns Throughout the catalogue B ( for basso ) .

,
1 N o w kn o w n Eu le n b u rg M in iat u re S c o re s , t h e L e i z ig firm o f Eu le n
as t h e
’
p
p
b urg h avin g u rc has e d t h e e dit io n ro m A H Payn e , t h e o u n de r, in t h e lat e f . . f
n in e t e e n t h c e n t u ry . p
T h e y are n o w u b lish e d b y W Paxt o n 8: C o L t d D e an S t , . . .
L o n do n , W 1 . .
3
At t h e dat e w he n th is art ic le w as w ritt e n , M iss M ario n S co tt s c rit ic al e dit io n
’
o f H aydn s ac t u al fi rs t q u art e t ( e arlie r t h an t h at u su ally kn o w n as 0p

’
1 , no I ), . .
h ad n o t app e are d T o ve y m ak e s a re e re n c e t o t h is h is t o ric al do cum e n t in

. f
Essays in M u sical A na lysis, vo l vi, p 1 3 5 . . .
12 HAYDN ’
S CHAMBER MUSIC
’
stands for double bass or continuo as well as for cello which
-
seldom appears in its o wn name The mature set of quartets .

,
op 3 3 also appears under the alternative title of divertimenti ;

.
,
and the quartets are outnumbered by the s cherzandi cassations , ,
or notturni for all manner of semi orchestral and solo Combinations -

.
The symphony o p 1 no 5 does not appear among the first

, .
, .
,
quartet entries but is incorporated later According to Po hl the

,
.
,
sextet versions of the quartets 0p 2 nos 3 and 5 are original , .

, .
, ,
and Haydn afterwards redu c ed them to quartets Pohl fu rther .
tells us that in the D major quartet o p 3 no 5 the viola and second , .

, .
,
violin represent the original horns in the trio of the Seco nd minuet .
This awakens attention to several horn passages traceable in op 2 .

,
‘
no 3 ; es pecially the s o c all ed variation 1 in the se cond minuet
.
-
’
,
where again it is the viola that chiefly represents the horn .
&c .
The old Breitkopf catal ogue bristles with evidences of Haydn s ’
early and g rowing popu l arity E arl y works like the quartet sextet .
,
-
divertimento o p 2 no 3 continue t o appear when the mature styles

, .
, .
,
of Haydn and M ozart were already in favour in spite of contro ,
ve rsy There is no means o f distinguishi ng the genuine chamber

.
‘
musi c from the or ch es tral o r from that in whi ch basso implies ,
’
the continuo hypothesis Pohl sums up the situation by remarking .
‘
that the term symphony w as freel y app l ied t o c ompositions for ’
any number o f instruments exceeding three M any of the diverti .
menti and scherzandi may fo r all we can tell be as valuable as the , ,
quartets in o p 3 3 and may have be c ome negl e cted because of the

.
,
extreme difficulty o f Haydn s horn writing o r the obsolescence o f ’

-
certain instruments Trios fo r two violins (o r other soprano in st ru

.
‘
ments ) with basso may be suspected o f being a survival o f the
’
continuo hypothesis ; and into his piano trios Haydn poured a

stream o f his finest music— early middle and late— without once , ,
justifying the u s e o f the cello o r scrup l ing t o make the piano double
’
the violi n part during whole sections But trios fo r violi n viola .
, ,
and c ello are a serious matter ; and in 1 77 2 the c atalogue announ ces
’
HAYDN S CHAMBER ’
MUSIC 13
t he six quartets of op 1 7 and a set o f six genuine strin g trios b y

.
,
Haydn If these trios can be su p posed to be of anything like the

.
c alibre of his quartets in opp 9 and 1 7 the set would be an achieve .

,
ment even more imp ortant than these quartets Haydn is how .
,
ever known to have written trios at the earliest period ; and the
,
the mes here quoted do not ( as such quotations once i n a while

may do) happen to indicate w hether the works are early or not .
A divertimento in A seems to be a string quintet ( 2 violas ) ;

though it has been denied that Joseph Haydn wrote any quintets ,
the one in C ascribed to him as op 88 being b y M ichael Haydn

, .
, .
The appearance of a set of six unknown quartets b y Giorgio

Hayden op xviii in Paris is thrilling but the name Giorgio
, .
, , ,
( unknown in Haydn s family ) is a w arning against ’

disappointment .
The persistent spelling of the surname with an E is probably right

for the first ti me in the catalogue ; in which case the author of these
quartets will be George Hayden organist of S t M ary M agdalen , .
,
‘
B ermondsey and composer of the two part song As I saw fair
,
-
, .
C lara walk alone Other confusi ons are suggested by the statement
’
.
‘
that certain of Haydn s duets for two violins laufen im M S u nter ’
.
dem Nam en K ammel The critical edition of Haydn s works now

’
.
’
in progress has already disentangled Haydn s symphonies from the ’
divertiment i and from spurious works with the result that 1 04 ,
symphonies are known to be genuine ; thirty eight known to be -
s purious ; and thirty six are doubtful The c hamber music is pro
-
.
bably in no better case Haydn and M oz art Were popular enough .
for erroneous attributions to be profitable I n one direction ; and it ,
may be doubted whether the error w ould be so readily ackno w

‘
ledged if Kam m e l s w orks were to laufen im M S unter dem
’
.
Nam en Hay den

’
.
N o doubt l at er volumes of the catalogue w ould give fl irt h e r

matter for thought ; but it seems likely that after the appearance ,
of op 3 3 Haydn s published works were settling dow n into more

.
,
’
or less the conditio n in which they are known Evidently the quar .
tets have survived in a far more complete and orderly corpus than
the rest of Hay dn s works ; and this fact is itself a proof of the early
’
an d permanent ascendancy which they attained over the minds of
musicians .
In the five movement divertimenti which constitute opp I and

-
.
2 of Hay dn s quartets the first movements and fin ales seem hardly

’
,
more developed than what may aptly be termed the melodic range
of form such as is found in a good si z ed allemande or gigue in a -
M U SI C
’
Bach suite But the development of Haydn s sonata style is a
.
matter neither of length nor of diversity of theme ; and its dramatic

tendency asserted itself in his earliest works .
On comparing the first movement of Haydn s op 1 no 1 with

’
.
.
, ,
a typi cal Ba ch gigu e the first observation will probably be that

, ,
whereas Bac h s texture is polyphonic Haydn s is not and the

’
,
’
,
‘
second observation ( if the observer ceases to observe and begins
’
to quote books ) will be that Bach has o nly one theme whereas
‘
Haydn has a definite second subject This term second subje ct .
’
is the most misleading in the whole of musi c al term inology ; the

German term S eitensatz is correct enough for S atz may mean ,
clause sentence paragraph or a whole musical movement ; but the

, , ,
‘ ‘
wret ched word subject is always taken to mean theme with ’ ’
,
results equally c onfusing both to criti cism and musical edu c ation .
If the practi c e of Haydn M ozart and Beethoven be taken as a , ,
guide ( and who shal l be preferred t o them P) the discoverab l e rules ,
of sonata form are definite as to distribution o f keys and utterly ,
indefinite as t o the number and distribution o f themes in these keys .
The matter m ay be tested by c omparing the first movement o f

Haydn s op 1 no 1 with the gigue of Ba ch s C major cel lo Suite
’
.
, .
,
’ ’
,
whi ch being una c companied cannot be polyphoni c and whi ch

, , ,
happens to have a very distin ct second subject if by that term is ,
meant a second theme That feature is by no means rare in Ba ch ; .
dan c e movements with four themes might be cited from his par 1 -
titas Whatever progress Haydn s first movement shows is not on

.
’
text book lines As t o themes it h as either none o r as many as it

-
.
, ,
h as t w o bar phrases omitting repetitions ; the second part c ontains

-
n o more development than the se c ond part of Bach s gigue ; and

’
though the substan ce that w as in the do m inant at the end o f the

first part is faithfully re capitu l ated in the tonic at the end of the
second part the formal effect is less enjoyable than i n Ba ch s gigue
,
’
in proportion t o the in s ign ific an c e o f the material Artistically .
Ba c h s gigue is obvious l y o f the highest order whi l e Haydn s pre

’
,
’
sent effort is negl igible Yet within the first four bars Haydn shows
.
that his work is o f a new epo c h ant icipated in Bach s time only by ,
’
the harpsi chord musi c o f that elvish freak Domeni c o S carlatti ,

.
Bach s C major gigue in spite o f it s c ontrasted second theme and

’
its enfor c ed l a c k o f po l yphony is o f uniform texture I t s limits are ,

.
those o f an ideali zed dan c e tune whi ch actual ly does nothing whi c h ,
would throw a troupe o f dan cers out of step W ithin such limits .
’
Bach s art depends o n the di stin cti o n o f his melodic invention .
HAYDN ’
S CHAMBER MUSIC 5
But to Hay dn it is permissible to use the merest fanfare for his
first theme because his essential idea is to alternate the fanfare with
,
a figure equally commonplace but of contrasted texture throwing ,
the four instruments at once into dialogue p after the f opening , , .
And he is not going to keep u p this alternation as a pattern through

out the movement As soon as it has made its point other changes
.
,
of texture appear ; and the phrases apart from their texture soon , ,
S ho w an irregularity which in these earliest w orks appears like an

expression of class prejudice against the impe rt urbable aristocratic
sy mmetry Of older music .
Before Haydn there is nothing like this irregularity nor in any ,
of his contemporaries The only approach to it was a single recipe

.
made fashionable all over Europe by composers of the N eapolitan

school It consisted in making a four bar or two bar phrase repeat
.
- -
itself or its latter half and then as it w ere tie a knot b y making
, , ,
a fi rmer cadence of the last echo A careful note must be made of

.
this N eapolitan rhythmic formula which will be illustrated b y ,
Ex 1 3 It is a cliché for producing irregular rhythm without

. .
accepting the responsibility of making the music genuinely drama

tic ; and its presence in anything of Haydn s is a mark of early ’
date Otherwise in these first quartets Haydn alone in a crow d

.
, , , ,
cares not what awkw ardness or abruptness he admits in his fi rst

movements and fin ale s if only he can prevent the music from
,
settling down to the comfortable ambling gait with which t he best

chamber music of the rising gener ation was rocking the listener to
S leep The comic opening of the fi nale of op I no 1 is already
. .
, .
w orlds away fro m su c h decorum

f
.
Its six bar opening w ould already sound irregular even if it play ed
-
out the sixth bar instead of stopping in the middle An d there is .
no intention of making this opening a pattern for the rest The .
hearer s sense of d esign must be satisfied with its return in the

’
recapitulatory part of the movement with all or most of the other ,
bits of coloured glass in Hay dn s kaleidoscope ; the only pattern

’
16 H AYDN S CHAMBER ’
MUSIC
and the only c ongruity lies in the whole In virtue of this it is still .
felt that the dramatic st yle h as not exceeded the limits of melodic
form ; the listener h as merely enjoyed a certain bu l k of lyric melody
distributed in witty dialogue and stated more in terms of fiddles and
.
The slow movement of op 1 n o 1 h as four bars of solemn sus .

, .
tain e d harmo ni e s by way of pre l ude w hi c h are expanded into six ,
bars as a postlude This is all that gives distin ction to a poo r and
.
pompous sp e cimen o f a N eapolitan aria in whi ch the first violin is

a tragedy queen singing an appeal to generat ions of ancestral
C aesars and accompanying with superb gestures her famous dis
,
play o f Trej fsicher h e it in leaping from deep c ontralto notes to high

soprano and ba ck The other instruments devoutly a c company in
.
,
humble throbb ing Chords whi c h are allowed to be heard in solemn

approving caden c e when her tragi c majesty has paused for breath .
From this type o f slow movement Haydn advan c es in three dirc o

tions of whi ch only two are distinct l y seen in the first twelve quar
,
tets First then he can improve the type of melody in whi ch c ase
.
, , ,
he will underline its form by drawing a double bar with repeat -
marks after its main close in the dominant s o that his slow move ,
ment become s formally identifiable with a first movement This is .
t h e case with o p 1 n o s 2 4 and 6 ; and with 0p 2 n o s 1 3 4

.
, .
, , .
, .
, , ,
and 5 Sec ondly he can improve the ac c ompaniment ; and in this

.
,
respect no tw o o f these early slow movements are exa ctly alike .
But though this arioso t ype o f adagio may be c ome a duet as in ,
0p .1 no 3 (,
whi c h begins
. with the slow movement ) and op 1 , .
,
no 4 . and though all manner o f c olour s chemes may be used in

,
-
the a cc ompan iment e g pizzicato as a ba ckground t o the muted

, . .
first vio l in as in o p 1 n o 6 and in the famous serenade in o p 3

, .
, .
, .
,
n o 5 ; yet none o f these devi c es wi ll c arry him a step forward in the

.
direction o f the true quartet st yle ; fo r they are merely decorative ,
and far from contributing t o dramati c motion fix the pattern

, ,
and metre throughout the whole movement in which they are
C hronology is better in disproof than in constructive argument ,
otherwise it m ight be tempting t o draw a priori c onclusions from

the fact that Haydn s earl y work c oin cides with the full influen c e of
’
Glu ck s reform o f opera But strange to s ay the peculiar dramatic

’
.
, ,
force o f Haydn s mature st yl e owed nothing to Glu ck and w as

’
, ,
indeed hopel essly paral ysed when he wrote fo r the stage F o r

, .
’
Haydn s dr amatic movement is the tersest thing in the fine arts ; it
18 HAYDN S ’
CH A M BER M U SI C
~
Otherwise , no doubt passages like that hereafter quoted from op 2

, .
,
no 4 would have been less ex c eptional

. .
I t is natural that by far the ripest things in these quartets should

’
be the minuet s They already show Haydn s boundless capacity for
.
inv enting tunes and for makin g the most irregu l ar rhyt hms con
.
vin c in g by sheer efiro nt e ry While the minuets of opp I and 2 are . .
distinctly what the naive listener wou l d call tunes and never more ,
tuneful than Where the rhyt hm is irregular the tenden cy of the ,
trios is to build themse lves up into regu lar stru ctures by means of
sequences The trios of Haydn s l ater works tell a very different
.
’
ta l e But it would be rash to assert o f many of his earliest minuet

.
tunes that they c ould not have been written with zest at any later
period o f his art .
What h as been said o f o p I no I will cover the remaining .

, .
ground of o pp I and 2 Two quartets begin with slow movements ;

. .
op I . no 3 in D ( beginning with an arioso du c t ) and op 2 n o 6

, .
, , .
, .
,
in B flat ( beginning with an air and variations ) These ac cordingly .
have a presto middle movement of the same s ize as a minuet and ,
trio instead of another slow movement I n later works Haydn

, .
finds no difficulty in making his third movement slow when he has

opened with an andante c o n variazioni .
Though the quartets o f op 2 show no general advance on op I . .

,
they c ontain significant features The second minuet of op 2 no 3 . .

, .
( E flat ) is mysterious ina s mu c h as it s trio is fo l lowed by three sec ?
tions call ed variations But variations these sections are certainly

.
n o t fo r they fol l ow the lines neither of the minuet nor o f the trio
,
.
They do n o t even follow one another s lines Perh aps Haydn h as ’

.
simp l y strung a ro w o f act ual dances together and the publisher h as ,
tried t o exp l ain them by call ing them variations The fact that they .
and the trio happen unlike the minuet t o be in regular four bar
, ,
-
rhythm would fit with their being pra ctica l dan c e musi c A s ight of .
the original divertimento version with its t w o horns might explain

much The s l ow movement o f 0p 2 n o 4 ( F mino r) is Haydn s
. .
, .
’
first sustained effort in a minor key and it a c hieves a tragic note ,
which would have enhan c ed and pro l onged the rep utation of any
o f Haydn s c ontemporaries But the most significant thing in this
’
.
quartet is the development o f it s first movement where perhaps , ,
fo r the first time in musical history ( except fo r some Arabian N ight -
incidents in Domenico S c arlatti ) the true dramatic notion of ,
sonata development is real iz ed A short quotation c an show the .
first dramati c stroke but the c onsequen c es are fo l lowed up in a

,
HAYDN S
’
CH A M BER MUSIC 19
series of better and better strok es for another twenty four bars -
right into the heart of the recapitulation .
In op 2 no 5 there is another incident of historical importance

.
, .
, ,
the interrupted cadence into B flat where the b e are r w ould expect
D major in the slow movement ( bars 1 7
,
Regard these b ars with reverence ; they are the source of all the
‘
purple p atches in M ozart s Haydn s and B eethoven 8 second
’
,
’
,
’
’
subjects of all Beethoven s wonderful themes that pack two pro
’
,
fou n dly co ntrasted keys into one clause and of all S chubert s
’
,
enormous digressions in this part of a movement H ow such modula .
tions bulked in the imagination of Hay dn s best contemporaries ’
may be realized b y looking at the change from B fl at to G flat in

Dittersdorf s Quartet in E fl at a work not unkno w n to modern
’
,
quartet players and easily accessible w ith five others of its s et in

, , ,
Payne s M iniatu re S cores ( Ex In the recapitulation Dittersdorf

’
.
shows further insight b y making the foreign key C major instead of

C fl at ; and his quartets show in other positive merits that it was not
20 HAYDN S CHAMBER MUSIC ’
by acc ide n t t hat he became a successful composer of c omi c operas .
B ut nowhere is he like Haydn in the capa city predic ated of genius ,

‘
by Keats to walk the empyrean and n o t be intoxi cated
,
’
.
In op 2 no 6 it is surprising to find Haydn s technique in

.
, .
,
’
ornamental melodi c variations already s o ripe Trivial as the prob .
lem seems and poor as is some o f Haydn s and much o f M ozart ’s

,
’
later work in this fashionable eighteenth century form it is needful -
t o look carefully at c ontemporary examples before o n e c an realize

the bound l ess opportunities of going pointless l y wrong where Haydn
and M ozart know o f nothing but what is inevitably right And the .
very c omposers w h o have gone farthest in the basing o f variations ‘
o n deeper rhythmi c and harmonic fa ctors have shown an u n e x
h au s t e d interest in the S implest melodi c embroidery Beethoven s

’
.
purely melodi c variations in the slow movement and choral finale

of the N inth Symphony are t o him as important as the deepest
mysteries o f the Diabel li Variations ; and Brahms s views o n this ’
matter were equally sho c king t o the Superior Person .
I f Pohl demands a post dating of five years fo r study preparatory -
to Haydn s op I it is strange that he shou l d n o t demand another

’
.
,
five years to ac c ount fo r the great progress made between o p 2 .
and o p 3 ; a progress whi c h makes it impossible t o put the first

.
eighteen quartets into o n e group The differen c e is ob vious t o .
practi c al musi cians and the general publi c ; fo r with o p 3 Haydn .

,
enters into the publi c repertory o f modern quartet p l ayers Pohl “

-
.
cites the c ase o f a famous quartet party that used t o substitute the -
delightful Du de ls ack minuet o f o p 3 n o 3 fo r the minuet o f o n e .

, .
of the finest later quartets ; and the whole o f o p 3 n o 5 with it s .

, .
,
well known and irresistible serenade ( a title app l ied t o it s andante)

-
has been chosen by the Bus ch Quartet fo r a gramophone record .
The Du delsack minuet the serenade and it s twin brother the , ,
andante o f o p 3 n o I are examples o f luxury s coring c o n t rib u t

.
, .
,
-
ing with all their charm n o more than the art o f Bocc herini to the
, ,
'
development o f quartet style and dramati c sonata activity They -

.
HAYDN S CHAMBER ’
MUSIC 21
are not out of plac e in the works as wholes for everything that ,
enlarges the range of contrast between the middle and outer move
ments is a contribution to sonata style And in the four normal .
,
cases the outer movements of op 3 are fi rmly established on

, .
Haydn s early sy mphonic scale Haydn no longer finds it necessary

’
.
,
though he may st ill find it amusing to use irregular rhythms in ,
order to enforce dramatic movement ; and so op 3 no I ( E major) .

, .
,
can afford t o b e gin by trotting along in four bar phrases without

‘
i‘
fear that the motion may degenerate int o so m n o lent c arriage
exercise Before the double bar the crescendo in sy ncopated
.
-
’
crotchets and dotted quavers will have roused the hearer s mental
muscles quite satisfactorily without spoiling the placid character,
of the whole With the minuet it may be noted that the trio is not
.
a sequential structure but a spe c ially tuneful contrast enhanced b y

, ,
its being in the same key The andantino graz i oso I s not inferior to
.
its twin brother the famous serenade in op 3 no 5 In fact w e

, .
, . .
are emerging from the region s of progressive musical history into

those of permanent beauty though we are not y et under its full ,
‘
S way The fi nale is a freak ; Haydn marks it presto ; begins with
.
’
twelve introductory bars of minims and crotchets then proceeds to ,
give a binary dance tune 1 6 3 2 bars writing the repeats

,
in full ,
in order to change the scoring which does not become lively till ,
the repetition of the last sixteen bars Then the fi nale concludes .
with its twelve introductory bars As for any sense of pace Hay dn .
,
might just as well have used bars of double length with quavers and
semiquavers and called it andante This is the first an d perhaps .
the last o c casion when his sense of tempo fails him .
O p 3 no 2 ( C maj or) begins with an excellent little set of

.
, .
,
variations on a theme which it is extremely unlikely that C lara

Wieck knew when she invented the similar tune on which Schu
mann wrote his Impromptus op 5 With the ensuing minuet it , . .
is certain that beauty has dawned ; it pervades the sound as w ell

as the sense ; and the beauty of sound is not achieved b y anything
-
like luxury scoring The finale (there are only three movements)
-
.
is another freak a genuine presto this time but sprawling in long

, , ,
loose phrases which unfold themselves in a sy mphonic sonata form -
without repeat marks When this is fi nished in 2 2 8 bars (twice the

.
length of Haydn s largest earlier fin ale s ) there is a sort of trio con

’
,
sisting of a decidedly sentimental binary tune mainly in crotchets , ,
eighteen bars plus thirty four with repeats After w hich the listener
-
, .
is asked to hear the former 2 28 bars da c apo ! P erhaps the

22 HAYDN S CHAMBER MUSIC
’
movement ( and hence the rest of the quartet) might be presentab l e

if the da capo were started from its recapitulation at bar 1 3 5 .
Op 3 no 3 ( G major) is remarkable chiefly for the Du dels ack

.
, .
minuet In its largo Haydn fully replaced the lyric arioso manner
.
by a genuine symphoni c sonata style This largo would pass -

.
muster with less s uspicion than the Dudelsack minuet in a much

,
’
later quartet though it would not be its most attractive feature

,
.
The finale is al so an advanced S pecimen of sonata form .
Of all Haydn s accessible works op 3 no 4 is the most unac

’
.
, .
,
countable I t consists o f two movements which not only fail to

.
make a whole but whi ch manife stly c annot belong to the same
,
work Both are sprawling long limbed sonata form movements

.
,
- -
with s ome half a dozen agreeable themes an d a perfun ctory and ,
primitive pas sage of goose step on the dominant to serve for de -
ve 10p m e n t O n e movement is in B flat ; the other a shorter move

.
,
ment with a recurring S low introduction is in E flat It is a mystery , .
how anybody could suppose that they belonged together .
Op 3 n o 5 ( F major) h as been proved to be a work of art

.
, .
,
acceptab l e to the general public The first movement carries the .
hearer along in full tide and as to development nothing could be , ,
more c onvin cing than the imbroglio Haydn produces from an epi
sodic figure whi ch he then drops fo r some fifteen bars in order ,
that it may then clinch matters by leading back to the recapitula

tion Then c omes the famous serenade The minuet and the finale
. .
( called scherzando ) show no falling o ff .
The qui ck movements o f o p 3 n o 6 (A major) are equall y .

, .
suc c essful ; but the slow movement relapses heavily and at great
length into the o ld arioso style with elaborations and dramati c ,
pauses in the accompaniment which contribute histori c al interest

'
without a c hieving perman ent artistic power Haydn w as loth to .
part company with the arioso slow movement ; whi ch indeed has
continued t o be rediscovered by great composers from M ozart to ,
Dvo fak whenever luxu ry scoring and homogeneous textures are

,
-
admissible .
Then c omes a great gap This interval between opp 3 and 9 .

, .
,
is approximatel y filled by the first forty symphonies and Pohl ,
kn ows h o w many cassations divertimenti sonatas ; trios for two , ,
violins and b ass ( i e continuo) and for two flutes and bass ; pieces
. .
for P rin c e Est e rh az y s queer kind of gamba the baryton ; and

’
,
operatic and vocal works galore Of the divertimenti the writer .

,
has seen the autograph o f o n e in the possession o f [the late] M r .

HAYDN ’
S C HAMBER MUSI C 23
.
E dward Spey er a trio for horn violin and cello It consists of

, , ,
’
.
three tiny movements of w hich one is a s e t of variations containing

,
horn passages which make Ba c h s most appalling flights appear

-
’
almost easy There are othe r evidences that the principal horn
.
play ers at Es t erhaz had a te c hnique that w as demorali z ing to the

composer s artistic economy Among the divertimenti advertise d
’
.
in that old Breitkopf 8: Hartel catalogue I suspect and P ohl con , ,
fi rms me that one of those for tw o oboes two horns three bassoons
, , , ,
an d serpent contains one of the greatest mel o dies in t he awo rld the -
theme entitled Corale S t A ntoni on which Brahms wrote his .

,
orchestral variations If a contrafa gotto be used for the third bas

.
so on an d serpent the instruments given in the catalogue correspond

,
to the scoring of most of that theme .
’
On e of Haydn s works for wind instruments is accessible in a
modern score the little O ctet in F published b y C F Kahnt
,
“
. .
,
L eip z ig In his old age H aydn expressed regret that he must soon
‘
die just as he had found out how to write for wind instruments
, .
S light as this octet is it shows that by the time Hay dn w rote it he

,
could die in peace if the handling of wind instruments was his

,
only anxiety While the definitive edition of Hay dn s complete

.
’
works remains in its present merely initial stage no s ys

t e m at ic discussion of his less known chamber music is possible ; -
and it will save interruption at a less opportune point if his treat

ment of wind instruments is dealt with here This octet shows the .
profound influence of M o z art s fi nest wind band serenades with ’

-
the addition of H aydn s independent thought M o z art s te c hnique

’
.
’
is shown first in the deliberate choice of c hord formulas and other -
severely schematic ty pes of theme which may serve to concentrate

’
the listener s attention on the tone colours for their own sake ; -
secondly in the sy mpathetic treatment of the Clarinets ; thirdly in

, ,
the absence of the flute which as M o z art reali z ed stands to the, , ,
rest of the band as water colour to oil paint ; and lastly in the per -
fe e t and normal balance of the chords a matter in w hich Hay dn in ,
all his musi c often attains perfection but seldom achieves it by ,
normality ( Even here the bassoon occasionally show s Hay dn s in

.
’
ve t e rat e confusion between bass and double bass ) His independent -

.
thought is S hown in several features notably the di fficult but not ,
reckless G minor horn solo in the third variation of the slow move
ment ; the fourth variation with the melody as bass for the tw o ,
bassoons in unison ; an d the effective w ay in which near the end ,
of the finale the fi rst oboe is screwed up to its top F a detail

, ,
MUSIC
Haydn may have learnt from M ozart s masterly little Quartet fo r ’
oboe and strings ( K The maturity o f this tiny octet shows

.
,
by c omparison with Haydn s t re at m e n t o f wind instruments else ’
where that in saying that he had onl y just learnt in o ld age h o w

,
to write fo r them there w as n o more afle c t afi o n in his modest y than

bo as tfu l nes s in h is cl aim It wou l d be interesting to obtain sight
.
o f the early works fo r wind instruments ment ioned in o ld cata
logn es ; e g trios fo r cl arinet vio l in and bassoon : fo r Haydn s treat

. .
, ,
’
ment o f the clarinet in the or chestra is primitive until those crown

ing works The Creation and The S eas ons The oboe and bassoon .
‘
Hay dn always understood The Great B assoon Joke is the ’
'
smallest though the most obvious item in his exhaustive know

, ,
ledge o f the capa cities poeti c more than comi c o f that important
, ,
and long su ffering bass o f the wood wind The flute represents o ne
- -
.
of the most curious prob l ems in Haydn s aestheti c system I t is ’

.
very important in his mature or c hestral works ; and at all periods

h e w as ready t o write fo r it in c hamber musi c Three o f the thirty .
o n e piano trios n o w in print ( E dition Peters N o s 2 9 in F ; 3 0 , .

, ,
in D ; an d 3 1 in G) are with flute an d c annot be ear ly works they

,
—
,
would fall into line soon after the quartets o f o p 3 3 The writer . .
does n o t find them and did n o t expe ct t o find them in the o ld

, ,
Breitkopf c atalogue o f works in sto ck up t o 1 7 8 2 Then there is a .
musical l y very great sonata with piano in G whi ch with the addi , ,
tion o f a m i nuet as large and powerful as a mid Beethoven s cherzo -
w as afterwards rewritten as o n e o f the last and greatest o f the

string quartets Hay dn seems in sympathy with the soul o f the
.
flute o r with its U ndine l ike aspirations towards a soul and he

,
-
appre ciates it s Apri l rain trans l u c en cy But he never seems t o

-
.
realize that its l ower o ctave whi ch w as ex ce llent under the c ondi
,
tions o f the c ontin uo period is powerl ess under those o f hi s o w n ,
art ; and in an or c hestral tutti o r the final to ni c and dominant - -
s crimmage o f a sonata he will s e t the flute t o p u fl it s lo w notes away

'
in a futil e nominal fortissimo c al cu l ated rather t o damage the dig

n ity o f the performer than t o attra c t the ear o f t h e listener .
A more important moral is pointed by Haydn s treatment o f the ’
horn During his long tenure o f o fli ce at Es t e rhaz he took full ad

.
vantage o f the presen c e o f horn players w h o must have had the -
most enormous te c hnique ever a c hieved o n that a c ousti c ally inter

es ting but most hazardous instrument But sharp disil lusionment .
evidently awaited hi m when he left the shelter o f Es t e rhaz and

c ame t o deal with European orch e stras at large He promptly .
6 HAYDN S CHAMBER MUSI C ’ ‘
quartets of 0p 9 written in the same year as the fortieth symphony

.
, ,
belong t o the presentable Haydn repertory Haydn him self t e .
quested the publisher Art aria to put them forward as the first
, ,
quartets and to ignore all his earlier ones Beauty whi c h was
, .
,
dawning in op 3 s hin es in full daylight here They are not yet

.
,
.
among the in fin it ies of art where c omparisons are meaningless ; but

they are beyond the regions of histori c al patronage W hat is right .
fo r one work is irrelevant and therefore wron g fo r another and ,
there is seldom anything wrong in the particular work in hand .
The te c hnique is n o t that of later works E normous progress re .
mained fo r Haydn yet to accomplish if by progress is meant a ,
process o f enl arging the ran ge of ideas in successive works of art .
‘
But if progress towards perfection is meant we are chasing rain ’
,
bows and the centre of the rainbow is perfe ction and is here : here
,
as the quality o f the artist s mind not as the actual finished e xe c u

’
,
tion o f his designs ; here as in Shakespeare and Handel not as in ,
M ilton and Bac h We S hall find inequalities such as the bad lapse
r ,
already quoted ( in E x I ) And the styl e o f o p 9 is perhaps better

. . .
suited to an audien c e o f connoisseurs than to the general public ;

though the writer well remembers the impression made by the
‘
D minor Quartet 0p 9 n o 4 at the Pops in 1 8 8 7 at a time
, .
, .
,
’
,
when Wagnerians tolerated Haydn and M ozart mainly from c harity

towards the feelings of children and dotards .
I n four o f these quartets the first movement is in a tempo of

peculiar S i gnifi c an c e a moderato o r allegro moderato distinctly
,
slow fo r c ounting four in a bar and c onsequently with plenty of ,
room fo r trip l et semiquavers o r even fo r demisemiquavers This ‘
indi c ates an ornate style and is Bo c c h e rini s favourite tempo But

,
’
.
it also permits o f a thoughtfu l style and Haydn knows ho w to pre ,
vent it from ambling monotonously I t is n o imperfection in the .
style that the part o f the first violin is full o f bril l iant features which
the other instruments c annot share The other instruments are .
perfe ctly happy in their pla c e and there is n o t a dull or Usel e ss note
, .
I n the presenc e o f su c h art it seems as unmannerly to point out

lapses like Ex I o r places W here the c ello h as forgotten that it is
.
,
’
not a double b ass as t o call attention to a c ough o r a sneeze His

-
,
.
tory and progress are forgotten while o n e listens and enjoys .
O f the s ix quartets in o p 9 n o 1 in C major h as a noble first

.
, .
movement very sonorous l y s c ored ; a gra c eful minuet with a sly

abrupt end (the eternal joke of ending with one s initial phrase ) ’
,
and a glum l ittl e trio the se c ond part o f which doe s n o t finish but
, ,
HAYDN ’
S CHAMBER MUSIC 27
leads back to the minuet ; an indolently s weet and simple slow move
ment in sonata form ; and a finale which is reminiscent of earlier
examples in its nervous abruptness B ut the quartet writing .
-
throughout is such as can only be heard with the ears and fed on
b y the imagination Even such a simple seeming melody as the
.
-
theme of the slow movement can express the most intimate secrets
of the violin with its legato rising tenth at the end of the first bar
, .
N o 2 in E fl at less attractive in appearance is well in step with

.
, , ,
its companions ; and the development of the first movement might ~
serve as a locus classicus for its function The m in ué f is one of .
’
Haydn S loveliest melodies and he liked it well enough to write a
,
p rett y little set of piano variations on it ; w hi ch ho w ever are no , ,
such work of art as it makes with its trio ( in the same key) in this
quartet With the S low movement we encounter the only art form
.
-
H ay dn o wes to B ach ( C P The movement ( in C minor) has a

. .
slow recitative like introduction in common time seven bars long ;

-
after which it proceeds in an arioso in 3 /4 time When this has .
come to the close of its fi rst part in the relative major the fi rst part is ,
repeated ; but the repeat is written out in full in order that the ,
ornaments of the melody may be varied The second part which .

,
Hay dn cuts dow n to perfunctoriness is not repeated but a blank , ,
space is left ( over the usual chord ) for a cadenz a before the end .
N ow this idea of writing out a repeat in full ( inste ad of using

repeat marks) in order to vary or add to the ornaments was the
-
, ,
special invention of P hilipp E manuel B ach s later y ears and w as ’

,
hi ghly pri z ed b y him N ot only had he a great and inspiring

.
influence on the yo ung Hay dn ( clearly discernible in H ay dn s piano ’
style) but when Haydn s early piano sonatas appeared Bach sent
, ,
’
,
him a message to say that nobody else had understood him so

completely In the face of such testimony it must seem unreason
.
able to dispute the accepted opinion that C P E Bach is the . . .
founder of the sonata style and the man to w hom Hay dn ow ed the
,
possibility of his own work And y et the very facts before us point
.
to a different conclusion .
Without claiming a knowledge of C P E B ach s complete w orks . . .

’
,
one may be justified in drawing one s ow n inferences from the ’
study of some eighty sonatas besides many rondos and fantasias , ,
ranging from the y ear in w hich S ebastian B ach wrote the B minor
M ass to the y ear in which M o z art produced Don Giovanni After .
perusing these sonatas with a z est that w ould cheerfully burn all
the progressive matter in all the fine arts for the sake of preserving
MUS IC
one example of permanent beauty one is forced to conclude that ,
‘
C P E Bach never shows an inkling of the special idea of de
. . .
ve 10p m e n t in sonata style As an art form apart from the sonata

’
-
.
he invented a spe cial type of rondo utterly unl ike anything in ,
earlier music I n these rondos he digresses wildly and at absurd

.
length bringing h is beautiful main theme ba ck I n the most u n e x

,
p e c t e d keys and expanding it in passionate modulating sequen c es .
It is in these rondos alone that he shows the idea of deve l opment ;

but the only tra c e of their influence upon Haydn is t o be found in
two splen did and obvious l y late piano pie c es Haydn s Fantasia ,
’
"
in C and C apriccio in G I n both of these H aydn e nj o ys all the
.
sense of adventure in C P E Bach s rondos ; but the quality whi c h

. . .
’
he emphatically does n o t o w e t o them is that by whi ch these two

pieces l ive a sense o f cl imax and finality The long passages of
, .
‘
unsupported runs and light arpeggios which are a common feature ,
in Haydn s ripest sonatas and are freely translated into the language
’
of the vio l in in h is quartets may again together with the who l e , ,
range o f his piano styl e be traced t o C P E Bach No t s o however

, . . . .
, ,
the fact that from th e outset ( e g in the quartets of o p 1 7 where, . . .

,
mu tatis mu tandis they first appear) Haydn presents in them a per

,
foot study in the psy chology o f dramati c suspense whereas the ,
immediate effect o f nearly a ll C P E Ba c h s digressions is t o c ause . . .

’
‘
the friendliest c ritic t o ex cl aim This won t do ! ’ ’
No t on l y is the notion o f development absent from C P E . . .
Ba c h s sonatas but this late and highly prized invention of the

’
,
o ercznder te Rep rise

( repeat with alterations ) which Haydn now
' '
adopted is radi c ally hostile t o it C an anything be conceived more

, .
in c ompatible with the dramati c a ctivities o f a true sonata develop -
me n t than that the repetition o f both parts o f a binary movement

should be written o u t in fu ll in order that the ornamen ts should be ,
varied ? This c an imply nothing else than that the who le attention
is fixed o n an uninterrupted flo w o f l yri c melody : whi c h is precisely
C P E Ba ch s intention and whi c h is Haydn s reason fo r c o n
. . .
’
,
’
fi ni ng the devi c e t o s l ow movements .
What then is Haydn s real debt t o C P E Bach ? It is a pity

, ,
’
. . .
‘
that the word rhetori c h as been degraded t o a term o f abuse fo r
’
,
it means an art the perfe ction o f whi c h is as nob l e as the noblest

cause in whi ch it can be used Rhetoric is what Haydn learnt from .
C P E Bac h : a singul arly beautiful and pure rhetori c tender

. . .
, ,
romanti c anything but severe yet never inflated This great and
, ,
.
comprehensive gift is independent o f all reform o r progress The .

HAYDN S CHAMBER MUSI C ’
9
’
example of Bach s chaotically wild rondos and fantasias m ay have
been necessary in order to stimulate H aydn s far more realisti c ’
sense of adventure But of art forms the only thing that Hay dn
.
-
adopted from C P E Bach was this device of the o eranaerte '

'
. . .
Rep ris e Its original motive arose from the fa ct that in any move
.
ment sections marked to be repeated were in fact often varied by

,
the performer on repetition the repeats being indeed supposed to , , ,

‘
be prescribed for that purpose The real aesthetic function of .
repeat lies deeper than this hypothesis ; and the view take n of it b y -
Haydn M o z art and B eethoven is of all points in their art the

, , , ,
most remote from the habits of mod e rn listeners It is evident from .

,
the way in whi c h C P E B ach carries out h is invention that with

. . .
, ,
or without variation the repeats were actually exe cuted wherever

,
they were marked And while unwritten variation is unthinkable

.
with Haydn M ozart and Beethoven the juncture of the repeat is

, , , ,
as late as Beethoven s last quartet ( op I 3 ’

often so subtle that a .
fine point is missed when the repe at is omitted though the length ,
of the section to be repeated is formidable .
N ow h ow does Haydn treat Ba c h s reprise device ? Besides

,
’
restri cting its u s e to lyric slow movements he shows none of the ,
patience whi c h enabled C P E Bach to write out an ornamental . . .
repeat of both parts In the final recapitulatory stage of his move

.
ment the ornaments will combine both versions of the exposition

or will otherwise throw appropriate light on it The reprise move .
ments in Hay dn s quartets are the slow movements of op 9 no 2 ;

’
.
, .
op 9 no 4 ; op 20 no 6 ; and op 3 3 no 3 : with whi c h the

.
, . . , . .
, .
history of this art form closes to be reopened only once many

-
, ,
years later in the most original and exquisite masterpiece of orches

,
t rat io n Haydn ever a c hieved the slow movement of the ninth ,
L ondon S ymp hony in B flat in w hich the repeat of the first part
’
, ,
is written out in order to alter n o t the ornaments but the scoring

, , , .
There is anot her version of this movement in a piano trio in F sharp

minor As Haydn s trios give no s c ope for c hanges of scoring th is
.
’
version has no repeat at all .
The s u rvey of the individual quartets can now be resumed To .
an audien c e of connoisseurs op 9 no 3 ( G major ) should prove a , .

, .
convincing masterpiece The first movement is spirited and sonor .
ous and the minuet epigrammatic and witty On e should make no

,
.
hasty judgement about the slow movement The sight of two blank .
spa ces for cadenzas one at the end of each part is apt to provoke
, ,
a comment on the lines of Dr Johnson s summary of the effect of .

’
HAYDN S CHAMBER MUSIC
’
3 0
‘
mythological machinery in English poetry The attention retires .
’
from the transactions of the virtuoso violinist when the fatal
Chord h as wound hi m up and released the clut c h B ut if the atten .
tion will c onsent to fix itself on the largo of op 9 no 3 from the .

, .
,
outset of a devout p erformance in adequately broad tempo it will ,
fin d itself rewarded by music too great to be destroyed even by

bad cadenzas and quite unharmed by suitable ones The resem
, .
blan c e of the opening with its broken rhythms an d long measured

,
pauses to that o f the largo of Beethoven s Sonata op 7 is probably

,
’
, .
,
accidental but is not superficial Haydn is ornate where Beethoven

,
.
is la c onic ; Haydn s gravity is meditative and grows upon one as

’
the musi c settles into a long sustained flow whereas Beethoven ,
instantly inspires awe and allows his largo only just as much unin
,
t e rru p t e d flo w as will carry the listener across its many abru pt

'
unfathomable depths But if there is any earlier movement in .
Haydn that so comprehensively foreshadows Beethoven s most ’
solemn moods it h as not yet been printed

, .
The finale is as usual lively and witty the wittiest devi c e being
, , ,
a surprising joint a c ross the dividing line at the repeats .
Op 9 n o 4 in D minor is as we have seen a work that is

.
,
.
, , , ,
sometimes heard in public On e effe ct o f making it s a c quaintan c e .
is that M ozart s great D minor Quartet be c omes inseparably asso

’
c iat e d with it s sombre first movement The minuet is one o f .
Haydn s largest and is fu ll o f v ehement passion though it s tempo

’
, ,
is if anything slower than his minuets have hitherto been U p

, , .
t o this point the tempo o f a Haydn minuet is the same as with

Sebastian Ba ch ; a three in the bar at a smart stride too fast fo r - - -
the stately dan c e o f the Don Gi ov anni minuet but making no ,
approa ch t o the o n e in a bar rhythm of a scherzo The trio of

- - -
.
this D minor minuet is a suave melody in the major and is literal ly ,
a trio in the long forgotten sense of being in three part harmony

- -
.
But Haydn h as amused himself and the leader of the quartet by

writing it as a duet fo r the violins the first violin playing in double ,
stops .
The slow movement is on the reprise lines but the alterations in ,
the ornaments are much slighter than those in the accompaniment ,
whi ch is extens ively rewritten C oul d anythi ng better indi cate .
Haydn s tenden cy towards the deeper issues of whatever art form

’
-
he presses into the servi ce of instrumental music ? Yet it is in this

beautifu l movement that the lapse quoted in Ex 1 occu rs . .
The finale is a masterpie c e so con centrated o n the idea o f de

HAYDN ’
S CHAMBER MUSIC 3 1
ve lo p m entthat it w ould be an ideal example to set beside the

largest possible polyphonic gigue It makes a spirited end to a .
w ork unquestionably great as a whole .
Op 9 no 5 ( B fl at) begins w ith an andante theme with varia

.
, .
,
tions ; a form in which as w e have seen Hay dn already knew in , ,
op 2 no 6 all that was as yet to be known It is not until the

.
, . .
middle of his w hole series of quartets that he enlarged the scope of

his variations by inventing a new form on a p air of alternating
themes The minuet is a little faster than previo u s exam ples and
.
,
is as gracefully witty as usual The slow movement is a fi ne serious .

, ,
and mature composition in sonata form with repeats ( not o erdnderte

’
Repris en) and without pauses or cadenzas The fi nale is a presto .
with long limbed slightly sprawling phrase rhythms the successful

-
,
-
,
’
handling of which contributes to the progress of Haydn s technique .
O p 9 no 6 ( A major) begins with a firs t rate presto full of

.
, .
-
picturesque passages and lively ( not luxurious ) scoring The free .
dom of its recapitulation S hows a tendenc y which will eventually

necessitate a discussion of the vas t subject of Hay dn s mature ’
sonata form The minuet is in the old tempo and has a pensive
-
.
,
trio in the minor The S low movement is an arioso with repeats

.
,
and but for a certain breadth and simplicity w ould h ave att ract e d
, , ,
little notice if it had occurred in op 2 It has a blank spa c e for a . .
cadenz a at the end The finale begins as if it were going to be an

.
energetic rondo ( a thing that has not y et appeared in these quartets ) .
After its fi rst phrase one listens with interest to an expanding

,
middle phrase an d a return and to several cumulative afterthoughts , ,
tapering away to an emphatic close This I s repeated from the middle .
phrase onwards But that I s all ! Though inadequate its effect 18

.
,
not as absurd as the description sounds ; but this quartet undeniably

collapses after t w o movements w ell worthy o f the rest of the set in
which H ay dn fi rst knew himself There is only one more such .
collapse in the whole series .
The quartet s of op 1 7 are on a larger scale The fi rst movement

. .
of no I ( E major) is a moderato ( the characteristic tempo of this

.
period ) with a grass green theme that is already the quintessen c e

-
of Haydn The rhetoric is highly strung and the fi rst violin begins
.
,
to display itself more extensively than in op 9 A remarkable . .
feature in the development section is the return of the main theme

in the tonic a little before it seems due w hereupon how ever its , , ,
second bar expands into a fi ne vista of sequences before the theme

is allowed to return again and follow its normal course The .
HAYDN S CHAMBER ’
MUSIC
m inuet is very fine and on a large scale The slow movement in
,
.
,
E minor is in broad sonata form without repeats ; flowing sym

, ,
metrical and pleasantly patheti c O n e inter esting turn of harmony

,
.
,
in the re c apitu lat io n ( b ar is a ctually Wagnerian in principle

‘
.
It Is by n o means o u t o f place though the s t yl e of the movement ,
n o more resemb l es W agner than lemonade resembles wine The .
finale I S the subtlest part o f the work the final results o f a passage ,
in the subdominant near the beginning being a stroke o f genius at

the end The deve l opment se ction begins with n o less than the
.
first eighteen bars o f the movement in the toni c before it strikes

o u t el s ewhither The effe ct wi l l be ex cellent if Haydn s repeat
.
’
marks are disregarded and disastrous if t h e re p e at s are played

, , .
The tempo must be very fast t o bring o u t the coheren c e o f Haydn s ’
l an ky phrasing He is in about the stage o f experience in handl ing

.
‘
form that M ozart rea c hed in his Paris Symphony He wants ’
.
plent y o f e lb o w room
‘
-
.
O p 1 7 n o 2 ( F ) begins with a fine spe c imen o f Haydn s earl y

’
.
, .
ornate rhetori c The short minuet ( distinct l y faster than Bach s

.
’
tempo but n o t hasty) is splendid both in sound and in sense Its

, .
quiet trio in the relative minor does n o t finish but pauses o n its ,
dominant in order that the minuet may re enter more splendid l y -
than ever The slow movement is a p l a cid adagio in sonata form

.
,
bordering o n the arioso style W ith the aid o f o p 2 n o 5 it enab l es . .

, .
,
u s t o cl ear up a point that sometimes m s t ifie s p l ayers viz the

y , .
u s e o f a ll a breve t ime s ignature ( I

: fo r slow movements as here It , .
obvious l y c annot mean t w o in a b ar But Haydn a ctuall y entitled .
‘ "
the s l ow movement o f o p 2 n o 5 largo all a breve ; an d it happens
.
, .
that in both these movements the eye is n o t distra c ted by any

demisemiquaver passages that would make them l ook like other
‘
slow movements Thus the (13 si nature means take your time at
g
.
about half the value yo u wou l d give t o most adagios ’

.
The final e o f o p 1 7 n o 2 is a sprawling all egro di molto The

.
, . .
e ffe ct o f the joint from the end o f the se c ond part t o the beginning
34 HAYDN ’
S CHAMBER MUSIC
did not know when it w as written The slow movement is in the .
reprise form I n S pite o f fine point s its length weighs the quartet
.
,
down On e is glad that C P E Bach s pro c edure did not impel

. . . .
’
Haydn to carry out the reprise of both parts The finale is in a .
blustering temper and h as a theme suggestive of more polyphonic

,
treatment than it actually receives The first violin has many .
rather difli c u lt double stops and other brilliant features After the
-
.
re capitulation there is a fine coda short but dramatic With con

, .
su m mat e p l aying this quartet might make a considerable i mpression

o n connoisseurs .
Ex 13
.
Al leg ro
Op .
5 (
1 7 , no G.major ) h as established
, itself in c on c ert reper
tories The first theme gives an opportunity o f seeing h o w Haydn s
.
’
brother M i chael hand l es it ; fo r he used it in o n e o f his four duets

fo r vio l in and viola t o which M ozart a
, dded two t o c omplete the
c ontra ct fo r s ix which il l ness prevented M i chael from finishing .
M i c hael s four have re c ently been republished and are quite pretty ;
’
but he shows n o more capa city than Boccherini t o vary the pa c e o f

whatever amble h is first theme sets And s o it happens that where
.
he and Joseph hit upon the same theme five bars o f the o n e against ,
eight o f the other wil l show that Joseph is an inveterate comedian

whose first e ight bars are n o multip l e o f t w o but already contain ,
HAYDN S CHAMBER MUSIC ’
35
rhythmic contrasts that will have unpredictable but inevitable con
.
sequences throughout the movement ; whereas M ichael would feel

that the smallest deviation into the unexpected created a situation
beyond the resources of his tact his five bars o wing their irre gu ,
‘
larity to their fashionable N eapolitan quite so cadence ( E x
’
.
Every phrase taken in its context in this thoroughly normal

, ,
’
example of Joseph Haydn s sonata form is a lesson in the highest
art of composition .
nt in u e d p o ly ph o n ic a l l y
P erhaps the locus classicus is to be fou n

d at the end of the develo p
ment .
e ig h t m o re
b a rs
B rilliance is the last word to appl y to so meditative a passage ,
but its function of dramatic suspense is essentially that of the most

brilliant fi reworks in Haydn s pia no m u s ic and it is fair to remind
’
oneself that t hese were suggested by those in the rondos and fan
tasias of C P E Bach But discoveries must not be transferred
. . . .
from those who a c hieve them to those who did not understand the
drift of their own suggestions The slow movement of this quartet .
is a test of the musical historian s sense of proportion It is a scena ’

.
in operatic recitative such as may suggest to one kind of enthusiast

,
a prophe cy of Beethoven s arioso dolente in the S onata op 1 1 0 ;

’
, .
while another kind of enthusiast will trace it back to sonatas w rit

ten by C P E Bach before Sebastian Ba c h had begun the Chris t
. . .
m as O rat orio Which o f the three recitatives will have the most
. ,
wonderful modulations the recitative of 17 40 of 1 7 7 0 or of 1 8 2 2 ?

—
, ,
3 6 HAYDN S CHAMBER ’
MUSIC
The modulations of C P E Bach are beyond all comparison the. . .
’
most remarkable Those in Beethoven s op 1 1 0 are within the
. .
simplest harmonic range of C orelli or Handel but the key of A flat ,
happens to be so situated that the familiar modulation to its flat

submediant ( F b E lq) seems to require a compli cated c hange of
notation .
N ow there is no disputing that C P E Bach s modulations are . . .

’
wonderful flights o f imagination There is high art in them as .

,
there is in The A rab ian Nights ; conscious art as there is in The ,
S having of S hagpa t But to plan a voyage in a se aworthy vessel

.
demands n o t less but more imagination than to describe a journey

by magic carpet This favourite c omposer o f H aydn and Beethoven
.
c an n o more persuade these adventurous S pirits to emulate his

imaginative flights than the legends o f al chemy c an indu c e the m an
o f s c ien c e t o publish his c on c lusions premature l y Haydn and .
Beethoven have the self discipline whi ch produces an art truthful

-
beyond the dreams o f what is c ommonly c alled ideal ism and u n ,
realisti c o nl y in being uni versal W hy is s o unique an in cident as .
the W agnerian progression quoted in E x 1 1 n o t disturbing to .
Haydn s aestheti c system ? Pre cisely be c ause the progression is

’
a ctually W agnerian ; that is t o s ay a typi c ally rationalisti c devi c e ,
by which a c ouple o f passing notes are dwelt upon long enough to

suggest t o the ear that they are a c omplete c hord in some impossibly
remote key after whi c h suggestion they explain themselves away
, .
Thus the in cident is within the range o f that sense o f probability

whi ch governs Haydn s pathos and humour from first t o last ; and
’
h is self dis c ipline is even more strikingly shown in h is n o t founding

-
upon this highly c onvin cing e ffe ct a style whi c h would have been _
(p ace R eger ) irrele v ant t o the key system o f sonata form than in -
his abstention from the hi gher imaginative flights o f his beloved

C P E Bach As t o the re citative movement in op 1 7 no 5 it
. . . . .
, .
,
proves that the sonata style h as little more di ffi culty in digesting
operati c re citative than in digesting the operati c aria .
The movement is thus merely an extreme case o f the arioso

adagio and mu ta tis m u tandis foreshadows the discovery made by
, , , ,
Spohr in 1 8 2 0 that a vio l in c on c erto could be designed o n the lines

,
o f an operati c s c ena O n the other hand there is n o warrant fo r

.
,
conne cting Haydn s instrumental recitatives in any su ch way with

’
Beethoven s even though as wi l l be found in Haydn s o p 2 0 the

’
, ,
’
.
,
operatic impulse c oin cides ( as in Beethoven) with a rea ction to the

other extreme the style and form o f the fugue Beethoven it is true
, .
, ,
H A Y DN ’
S CHAMBER MUSIC 37
retained to the last his early love of C P E Bach ; but his in s t ru . . .
’
m ental recitati ves are no echo of his childhood Haydn s recitative .
in op 1 7 no 5 and the dramati c fantasia ( not in recitative but

.
, .
,
nearly allied thereto) in op 2 0 no 2 are the l ast of their line .

, .
,
because to him they are already becomi ng old fashioned They -

.
belong to a music which has not yet risen bey ond the scope of the
stage : whereas Beethoven can at a sublime crisis recall the ancient
dramatic tropes and gestures as things heard and seen in an ecstasy .
The finale of Haydn s op 1 7 no 5 is l ike the min uet (which

!
’
. .
, , ,
precedes the S low movement) worthy of its position Its device of , .
ending comi c ally with its initial phrase is on the way to becoming
standardized for larger movements in both Haydn and M oz art .
O n e more point of histori c al and aesthetic importance in op 1 7 .

,
no 5 is the brilliant passage o f double stops for the first violin in

.
,
‘
t he S econd subject of the first movement
’
.
Ex 16
.
3
This brings to a crisis a tendency which if carried farther would

have threatened one of the vital criteria of quartet style O nly a kill .
joy criticism could object to it here for no unbiased listener can ,
find the passage less enj oyable to hear than the violinist fi nds it to
master and to play Dangerous shoals await the critic who sails
.
rashly into the channels of these early quartets secure in his tw o ,
criteria that a string quartet must not be orchestral and that it

, ,
‘
must not be a first violin quartet Every individual work of art
-
’
.
exists in its own right and has nothing to fear from any d evelop
,
ments e xc e pt t h o s e within its own form and matter Now these

/ .
two criteria of quartet style involve an evolutionary process ; they

are applicable only in the degree suited to the development attained
b y each indivi dual work .
There is of course a primitive stage below whi c h a quartet style

, ,
cannot exist ; and with Haydn opp 1 and 2 are evidently below the .
line and op 3 is evidently rising above it But the health of his

, . .
work depends on its progress in all directions ; and a developed

quartet style with an undeveloped sonata form would be a mon
’
s t ros ity As to orchestral style Haydn s quartets have already com
.
,
le t e ly parted from it in the first bars of op 9 no 1 if not already

p .
, .
,
in op 3 no 5 This criterion is even then not easy to handle ; for

.
, . .
, ,
MUSIC
each practical way of organizing musical instruments will aim
straightforwardly at producing music and will not deviate t o avoid ,
resemblances to other musical organizations A string ;quartet is to .
b l ame n o t when it sounds like orchestral musi c but when it fails

, ,
‘
in an effort t o do s o It h as a right to succeed in that effort if it

.
can ; and its best condition fo r suc c ess is that it shall remain the
music o f four players Haydn s illusions with double stops in opp .
’
.
9 and 1 7 are carried far enough to enhance instead of destroying our

sense an d his o w n that we are listening to a st rI n g quartet an d not
to organ music cleverly spread over S ixteen fiddle strings As to -
.
the brilliance of the first violin Spohr himself hardly carries it as ,
far as Haydn I n op 1 7 and actually writes more interesting parts

.
,
than Haydn s for the other instruments on the whole But his point
’
.
of view is fatal l y wrong ; his work reveal s a later stage o developf 1 -
ment ; the positive merits of his accessory parts condemn him for
leaving them as they are while his first vio l in h as all the melody ;
and the whole scale o f hi s work purports t o be as large as that of
Beethoven s while his form cautiously follows o n e single pro cedure
’
,
generalized from the inexhaustibly various M ozart Spohr a ctually .
tol d Joa c him that he wished some day t o produce a s e t o f quartets

’
in the true strict form i e with the cadences ending with a trill
— . . .
T hi s in cul c ates as a c riterion o f string quartet style that the first -
vio lin S hal l S it upon the safet y val ve ! Turn from this t o Haydn s -
’
indis c reet fireworks in o p 1 7 and s e e h o w e fli c ie n tly they contri .

,
bute t o Open up the texture Why does he give them to the first .
violin ? Because he is writing music in which the normal place for

melody is o n the t o p Had he been a ce l list like Boccherini he .
’
,
might have been tempted t o give the fireworks t o the c ello M ean ’
.
while whether the viol in ru l e o r n o t music is n o t even in string

, , ,
quartets going t o recon cile it s dramatic growth with the cultivation

,
of quadruple c ounterpoint until Beethoven h as attained his last

phase ( And yet quadruple counterpoint appears in Haydn s next
.
’
opus ! )
Haydn s criteria though evolutionary are already positive and
’
, ,
severe in o p 1 7 That a work o f art belongs to an early stage of

. .
evolution is n o t an excuse fo r it s fai l ing t o satisfy it s o w n implica

tions O p I 7 n o 6 in D major open s with a presto whi ch puts to
. .
, .
, ,
admirable u s e a theme feeb l y treated in variation form ( perhaps

about the same date o r earl ier) in o n e o f Haydn s queer violin ’
sonatas about whic h a word must be said hereafter In thi s quartet

, .
‘
the plunging o f the S econd subje ct into C major where A major ’
HAYDN S CHAMBER MUS I C
’
39
is e xpected is a B eethoven S chubert device executed quite broadly -
.
The minuet contrasts well w it h t his lively hunting scene and S hould
'
be taken at a statelier moderato than is by this time usual in Haydn .
N ow comes a disconcerting surprise The largo is an arioso of the .
most archaic type an d would produce no comment in a quartet

,
from op I In times and places where classical revivals are matters

. .
of fashion rather than of popularity it is i mpossible to say what ,
styles may be thought interesting so long as they are at least partially

unconvincing to the naive listener ; and so p erh aps Haydn s op 1 7 ’
.
,
no 6 might now be revived as it stands without anybody noticing

.
,
that its largo is a relapse into an obsolete style and a dull specimen ,
at that The distinguished quartet party mentioned by P ohl that

.
-
rescued the Dudelsack minuet from op 3 no 3 at the expense of .

, .
,
the minuet of a later quartet committed an outrage not justified by

the rescue for no minuet of Haydn early o r late is without its
, , ,
proper effect in its ow n place But it would be a real charity to .
replace the largo of op 1 7 no 6 b y one of the best of the Slow .

, .
,
movements buried in the archaic quartets Two keys are possible .

,
without violating the limits of Hay dn s range in op 1 7 : the present ’

.
subdominant key of G and A major the dominant In G we could , , .
‘
use P ohl s favourite movement from op I no 6 ( a serenade such
’
.
, .
as the rosiest child could not wish more or the less

attractive largo cantabile alla breve from op 2 no 5 which other .
, .
, ,
wise nearly as archaic as the present largo has the modulation ,
quoted in Ex 9 whi c h would bring it into line with the harmonic

.
,
range of op 1 7 while its archaic language would exactly carry out

.
,
‘
Hay dn s present intention without dullness In A major one might
’
.
enjoy the exquisite andante of op 3 no I a quartet which unlike

,
.
, .
, ,
op 3 no 5 with its famous serenade has failed to live as a whole

.
, .
, , .
If one of thes e experiments b e tried on op I 7 no 6 a first rate .

,
.
,
-
and flawless work will be obtained with a witty fi nale surpassing ,
all Hay dn s earlier fin ale s as an intellectual masterpiece of c o n c e n

’
t rat e d development of a S ingle theme admirable in sound and sense ,

.
The next set of quartets was known to contemporaries by two

titles : die Grossen Quartette and die S onnen Quartette Great they -
.
are and even after op 1 7 a sunrise over the domain of sonata style
, .
,
as well as of quartets in particular Every page of the six quartets .
of op 2 0 is of hist o riw and aesthetic importance ; and though the

.
total results still leave Hay dn with a long road to travel there is ,
perhaps no S ingle or sextuple opus in the history of instrumental

musi c which has achieved so much or achieved it so quietly .
MUSIC
I magine that h as
listened with attention keen and duly rested
o ne ,
and refreshed t o all the quartets from o p I n o I t o this point

, .
, .
,
.
A deep quiet c hu ckle from the c ello at the end o f the fourth bar
,
’
of op 20 n o . I then c omes as a warning that a n e w element is

, .
,
entering into Haydn s q uartet style ; and eight bars have n o t passed ’
before the c e ll o is Singing in its tenor regions n o t as a solo n o r with

’
, ,
any new te chnique but nevertheless with an e ffe ct whi c h instantly,
shows that Haydn s imagination h as n o w awakened t o the tone o f

’
the c el lo as somethi ng more than a mere amenable b ass to the

’
har mony T hi s awakening whi c h freshens the tone c olour o f all

.
,
-
four instruments from n o w onwards leaves Haydn as liab le as ever

’
t o h is habitual quasi c leri c al errors as t o the octave o f his b ass notes

-
.
But perhaps another explanation o f these errors may n o w be found .
The startling example already quoted ( Ex 2 ) from o p 7 1 no 3 . .

, .
,
showed that the fault and its easy c orre ction lay in the viola part ,
and n o t in the c ello And after studying all Haydn s quartets from
’
.
’
op .I to op I o3 t h e surprising fact emerges that his imagination

.
,
~
hardly ever awoke t o the sound o f the viola as it is found in o p 2 0 .
awakening t o the sound o f the c ell o Of c ourse there is n o passage ’

.
in whi ch ex c ept in these slips o f the pen the viola sounds bad ;
, ,
n o r is Haydn ignorant o f it s pe c uliar tone ; it h as a l ready been seen
that in o p 2 n o s 3 and 5 he re c ognizes that it is better suited

.
, .
,
than the violin t o rep l a c e a melody originally c onceived fo r the

horn But he shows n o further interest in it s qual ity ; and there are
.
few passages in his l ater quartets where the sound o f his viola is as
c hara cteristi c as it already is in the little known quartets whi c h -
M ozart at the age o f seventeen w as writing at about the period o f ,
Haydn s o pp 20 and 3 3 Haydn s quartet style then attains

’
. .
’
, ,
maturity without asserting the spe cial c hara cter o f the viola but ,
by n o means without giving it a satisfa ctory pla c e in the s c heme .
Taking the quartets o f o p 20 in order we find in n o I a quiet .

, .
first movement admirable in every respe ct o f it s te chnique with a ,
pe cu l iarly H aydn e s q u e pie c e o f audaci t y in form at the beginning

o f the dev e l opment where the first theme calml y returns in the ,
toni c before three bars have elapsed o f c ourse only t o strike o u t ,
I n v1 o ro u s rea l development immediate l y afterwards The fu l l

g .
effe ct is fe lt o n ly if the previous repeat h as been p l ayed as otherwise

‘ ,
the first false start o f the development wi l l sound merel y like a

prolonged l ead ba ck t o the beginning The next movement fulfils
-
.
,
as a l ways Haydn s wish that somebody would write a new minuet

’
,
and it s thoughtfu l abru ptl y broken o ff trio returns t o the minuet in -

HAYDN S CHAMBER ’
MUSIC
'
4 2
‘
of the second subject an effect whi ch h as been traced from its ’
,
dawn in the slow movement of op 2 no 5 and whi ch is now fairly .

, .
,
on the way to b e c o m I n g standardiz ed I t is treated here exa ctly as .
it would be treated by Beethoven I n this wonderful pie c e of .
quartet writing even the viola besides having a vote ( as it h as had

-
.
from op 9 no I onwards) actually a c hieves a maiden spee c h in

.
, .
, ,
the parliament o f four at bar 6 1 a S ingl e bar in whi ch one feels that
, ,
Haydn s imagination has fo r on c e heard the querulous tone o f the

’
high lying viola as he now hears the c antabile o f the c ello

-
’
.
Yet as will be seen this movement s o ri c h and so uniquely

, , ,
romantic in sound does n o t represent Haydn s final s olution of the

,
’
quartet problem P erfe ct in itself it is not normal ; it is a striking

.
,
success and o n e can imagine h o w under modern commer cial c on

, ,
dit io n s strong pressure might have been brought on the artist to

,
.
devote the rest of his days t o making imitations of it ; just as under ,
good business management Beethoven ought t o have written no ,

‘
thing but Kreutzer sonatas from op 4 7 to o p 1 3 5 and M r ’
. .
,
.
Arnold Benn ett s Priam Farll ought to have painted nothing but
’
policemen Haydn t ea c hes a stern lesson ; this movement is without

.
s in o r blemish ; yet he never s c ored s o gorgeously fo r string quartet
again ! With the S low movement o f o p 20 n o 2 Haydn takes a .

, .
,
lingerin g farewell o f all operati c idioms in a grand fantasia begin

ning with a noble tragi c unison theme whi c h moves in vast
,
sequen c es expanding n o w and then into ruminating and de clama

,
tory pass ages fo r the first violin S hared in due c ourse by the other ,
instruments This plan is nobly c on c eived and exe cuted with

.
,
accurate dramatic sense ; with the result that when eventually a

pause o n the dominant pp is rea c hed o n e is prepared for some , , ,
such event as t h e opening o f a li ve l y o r impassioned finale W hat .
happens instead is a continuation o f the adagio in a stream o f c o n

soling melody in the relative major Familiar in it s N eapolitan .
style the S imple pathos need n o t fear comparison with that o f

,
Glu ck s E lysi an music in Orfeo As t o form Haydn S hows here

’
.
,
that he h as clearly grasped the prin ciples o f c omposition o n a larger

scale than sonata form permits : it is manifestly in c on c eivable that
‘
this cantabile should behave as a se c ond subject or that the first ’
,
theme ever had any intention o f c onfining itself t o the fun ction o f
a first subject I t wou l d take twenty minutes t o work the material
’
.
out in that way and then there would be no sense o f freedom and
,
expansion But Haydn is here able to make his melody ruminate

.
and rhapsodiz e to interpolate several ominous interruptions in the

,
H AYD N ’
S CHAMBER MUSIC 43
former tragic style and fi nally to drift in three solemn steps of ; ,
gigantic sequence down once more to the dominant of C And , .
now in C major the minuet begins in a hesitating syncopated

, , ,
rhyt hm like an awakening gaz e dazzled by the daylight after —

,
which all is sunshine with just the right shadow in the trio Haydn , .
shows in this pair of movements what M o z art showed later in his

C minor Fantasia ( K that if composition within the time .
scale o f the sonata had not absorbed his interest he could easily ,
have produced a m u s ic t hat moved like a mod ern sy mp ho nic poem

'
His art of composition is a general power which creates art forms -
not a routine derived from the practice of a priori schemes .
N ot even in this unique fantasia is his freedom better shown than

in the fin ale s of four quartets : of this one of Op 2 0 nos 5 and 6 , .
, .
,
and op 5 0 no 4 These four fin ale s are fugues and nothing but

.
, . .
,
fugues No w it was not from J S B ach that Hay dn derived his

. . .
ideas of fugue His traditions in this art were Italian and the old
.
,
text books will not help one to understand his fugue forms ; w hile
-
later treatises from C herubini onwards bewilder us b y flying in

, ,
the face of every fact in B ach s works ( including his didactic last ’
opus Die Kuns t der F ug e) without throwing light on any other

,
composer The fact is that the later text books are trying to lay
.
-
down laws of form for an art whose rules defi ne nothing but a tex
ture It w ould be a correct use of language to speak of certain kinds
.
‘
of music being written in fugue as certain kinds of poetry are ’
,
written in blank verse ; and Cheru b in i s rules for compositions ’
written entirely in fugue are true only in so far as they concern

matters of texture Their authority on matters of form may be .
gauged by the fact that though J S Bach s last work Die Kunst . .
’
,
der F ug e is an explicit demonstration of all kinds of fugue in the

,
abstract class ified in a progressive sy stem an d all written on the

,
same subject y et B ach S hows the same S hocking ignorance of the

,
rules here as he showed in fugues written at large No w the my s .
t e ry is where C he rubini found his rules of fugue form C herubini

, .
,
though out of favour at present was near enough to greatness as a ,

’
composer for us to find Beethoven s enormous admiration of him
’
n o t inexplicable in the light of B eethoven s reverence for all that
,
was austerely fi rm of purpose N ow one of the formative events in .

,
C h e ru b in i s career was the occasion w hen he fi rst hear d a Hay dn

’
sy mphony It moved him to tears P erhaps this fact becomes easier

. .
to reconcil e with the sour martinet portray ed even b y friendlier

witnesses than Berlioz when we note that the only classical fugues ,
MUSIC
that fai ntly adumbrate C h e ru b ini s s cheme o f fugue form are these ’
quartet fugues o f Haydn and a few in M ozart s M asses together

,
’
with t w o in some early quartets he wrote possibly al ready under

the influence o f Haydn s o p 2 0 The point in whi c h they agree
.
’
. .
with C h e ru b ini s ru l es is that they tend t o save up the stretto (where

’
subject and answer are t o overl ap in closer an d closer c ombination)

until the end a ctually separating it o ff by a pause o n the dominant
,
.
AS a fixed ru l e this notion is o n the fa c e o f it un classi c al ,

It , .
implies that the devi c es o f a fugue stretto are inherent l y surprising ;

whereas they were matters o f course to any composer to whom
fugue texture w as a normal language A more serious objection to .
su c h a rule is that it excl udes all fugue subjects that are not capable
o f stretto thus extinguishing some ni nety per cent o f Ba c h s fugues
’
.
,
at l arge besides thirty five o f the Fo rty eight and ( as t o treatme nt

,
- -
’
of subject) at least S ix o f the K uns t der F ug e .
But if a fugue is going t o be a rare and c onscious essay in a form

romanti cal ly o r s ol emnly imported from an older world it will tend ,
to in cl ude eve rythi ng that is chara cteristi c o f a l l the most bri ll iant
an cient examp l es taken together and wi l l moreover choose o ld , , ,
subjects marked l y unlike those o f more modern art forms No w a -

.
s choo l o f criticism may o r may n o t like the fugues o f Haydn ,
M ozart and Beethoven ; but whether it likes any fugues o r none it

, ,
cannot dismiss those examples with fa cile man o f the world patron - - -
age as deviations into s cho l asti cism The aestheti c s o f sonata fugues .
are n o more s cholasti c than the aestheti c s o f a p l ay within a play ,
su ch as the M urder o f Go n z ago in H am let Here are dramatic c o n .
dit io n s in whi c h c ommon sense demands the u s e o f an evidently

o ld wor l d l anguage ; and it is n o a cc ident that even Haydn h as in
-
the quartets o f Op 20 a hint o f the emotional and dramati c impu l se

.
,
whi c h be c ame s o vo lc ani c in Beethoven s fugues ’

.
Of Haydn s four quartet fugues t w o represent a sub l imation o f

’
an emotion o f al most tragi c pathos the F minor in o p 2 0 n o 5 ,

.
, .
,
and the F S harp minor in o p 5 4 n o 3 The C major in Op 2 0 .

, . . . .
,
n o 2 is as we have seen the final e o f an extraord inari l y romant ic

.
, , ,
work O nly the A major fugue in o p 2 0 n o 6 c an be s aid t o be

. .
,
.
,
written fo r pure fun All four fugues are d irected t o be played

.
so tto o oce unti l at o r near the end a sudden o rte winds them up
, f ,
in a c oda whi c h more o r less abandons fugal po lyphony s o as t o end

the work in sonata sty l e The counterpoint is o f the high est and
.
smoothest order a fa ct all the more remarkable as Haydn is els e

,
where anything but an a c ademi c writer far less scrupulou s about ,

HAYDN ‘ ’
S CHAMBER MUSIC 45
grammatical purity than Beethoven to say nothing of the im macu ,
‘ ‘
late M o z art Hay dn calls his fugues a qu attro sogge tti — a tre
.
’
sogg etti as the c ase may be according to the number of perma

’
-
nent counters ubjects accompanying his main subject whether one ,
or more of these is announce d S imultaneously with the main sub

je c t or introdu c e d only as accompaniment to its answer C herubini .
wou ld have called all except the main theme countersubjects The .
fugue in op 20 no 2 is a qua ttro sogg etti two of whi c h are an

.
, .
, ,
n o u n c e d together as in the case of the fugu e a ire sogg ett i in op 2 0

, .
,
no 6 That I n op 2 0 no 5 is a due soggetti announced simul

. . .
, .
, ,
t an eo u s ly and both c onsisting of well known ancient formulas

,
-
.
The fugue in op 5 0 in F sharp minor though it has a not negligible

.
,
countersubject is not labelled by Haydn as double It is one of his

, .
most deeply felt utterances and will demand quotation in due ,
course .
En ormous importance lies in these fugues Besides ac hievI n g I n .
themselves the violent reconquest of the ancient kingdom of poly

phony for the string quartet they effectively establish fugue texture ,
from henceforth as a normal resource of sonata style Here and .
hereafter Haydn knows not only how to write a whole fugue for
instruments but how to let a fugue passage break out in a sonata
,
movement and boil over q u I ckly enough to accomplish dramatic

action instead of obstructing it A mere revival of the old polyphony .
would have been as wide of the purpose as the introduction of

Greek choruses even in M iltonic verse into H am let instead of the
, ,
M urder of Go nz ago B ut apart from its value as a means of .

,
development fugue texture is a most important resource as a type

,
of instrumentation O bviously it solves the problem of equality in

.
quartet writing by a drastic return to N ature and puts t he four

-
instruments wh ere four voices were when all harmony was counter
point B ut the very nature of contrapuntal harmony is impartially
.
‘
friendly to all instruments that can sing And all instruments try .
to sing as well as they can except those whose normal functions ,
are thrumming and drumming Henc e when the texture of the .

,
’
m U S I c I S contrapuntal the listener s attention is no longer c o nc e n
,
t rat e d on the instruments in themselves ; within reasonable limits
g ood counterpoint sounds well whatever group of instruments plays

it An endless variety of new tone c olours becomes possible
.
-
S I m p ly because the admissible range is no longer restricted to those
eff ects on whi c h the ear w ould dwell for their own sake The inter .
play between the polyphoni c ally interesting and the acoustically

’
4 6
euphonious puts an end to monotony and to the temptation to

'
develop luxury scoring at the expense of dramatic vigour W e

-
.
must not be misled by the common allegation that the fugue style
lends itself to silly ingenuity ; what is wrong with b ad fugue p as
sages is what is wrong wit h all bad c omposition and bad s c oring .
C ontrapuntal combinations as such are n o t very difficult ; the

materials will either combine or not The only effe ct of ingenuity
.
is to make the combinations smooth o r if smoothness be not

, ,
des ired to give a convin cing meaning to harshness as is Beet hoven s

, ,
’
intention in his rough hewn counterpoint and M ozart s in dis pu

-
,
’
table a c hievement in the introdu ction to his C maj or Quartet ( K .
At first o n e is inclined to s ay that Haydn is never harsh ; but

the exceptions are even more remarkable than in M ozart for they,
Adag io
H A ED N CHAMBER MUSIC
’
S 47
are in passages which are not contrapuntal at all In the peaceful .
slow movement of the F minor Quartet op 2 0 no 5 a ruminating , .

, .
,
passage at the end of the development ( compare the similar inci

dent cited from the fi rst movement of op 1 7 no 5 ) is inscribed b y .
, .
‘
Hay dn p er figuram retardationis ’
.
The writer well remembers Joachim s answ er when in 1 8 8 8 a ’

, ,
‘
bewildered small boy asked him about this passage It means that .
the figures of the violin are alw ays a step behin d th e chords ; it must
be play ed dreamily and tenderly not stiffly and coldly With this , .
passage Haydn completes his resources of harmony .
Op 2 0 no 3 in G minor begins with a fi ery and passionate fi rst

.
, .
, ,
movement with several of Haydn s most spirited themes A cer

,
’
.
‘ ’
tain agitated passage in the S econd subject is expanded in the
recapitulation to a climax with a freedom which anticipates Hay dn s ’
later treatment of sonata form The note is almost tragic and is .

,
well maintained in the minuet with its trio that leads so ro m an t i ,
cally back to the da capo This minuet and the still more impassioned
.
and sombre minuet of the F minor Quartet op 20 no 5 are , .

, .
,
probably the sources of M oz art s inspiration in the most passionate ’
of all hiS m in u et s that in the great G minor Quintet The fi nale

I
, .
of op 20 no 3 is in sonata form but with a polyphony as close as

.
, .
, ,
any fugue With its liveliness and energy its quiet end is nearer
.
to tragedy than to comedy The whole work w ould certainly have .
found a position in concert programmes but for its slow movement ,
which has a breadth not easily distinguished from length b y spoilt

modern audiences ; and Hay dn almost admits this w hen he calls it
‘
poco adagio which S hows that it will not bear dragging The
’
, .
grand possibilities revealed by the largo of op 9 no 3 are not eas y .

, .
,
even for Haydn to follo w up and of the four sonata form S low ,
-
movements in op 20 only that u ndiscovered little violet I n op 20

.
, .
,
no I is terse enough to achieve breadth without length P erhaps

.
, .
this explains how the D major Quartet op 2 0 no 4 has met with , .

, .
,
more public recognition than the other five for not only are its ,
fi rst movement and fi nale I n Hay dn s most comic vein but its only ’
,
melancholy part the slow movement consists of a pathetic theme

, ,
u n poco adagio affettuoso ) with four variations ending w ith an

(
admirable coda and thus avoiding the di fficulties of designing a
,
big adagio in sonata form on the scale of these quartets .
N o 5 in F minor is the most nearly tragic w ork Hay dn ever

.
, ,
wrote ; its first movement being of astonishing depth of thought ,
with quite a big c oda containing a new 1? climax of its own ,

MUSIC
followed by a patheti c collapse The other movements have already .
been des c ribed .
N o 6 in A major is a gra c eful comedy , in whi ch the adagio

.
, _ ,
cantabile in C P E Ba ch s reprise form is the o n ly p art that can

'
’
, . . .
,
be said by severe c riti cism t o drag The negl ect o f thi s quartet c an .
hardl y be due t o any other cause ; and perhaps as with t h e rest o f ,
o p 2 0 we may nowadays expe c t a pub l i c appre c iation o f Haydn

.
,
l ess patronizingly fastidious and more appre ciative o f subtleties than

that which h as di ctated the survival o f the more bri ll iant and comi c
works at the expense o f the more refle ctive .
I t is interesting t o compare the remarkable modul ating opening

‘
o f the se c ond subje c t in the first movement o f o p 2 0 no 6
’
.
, .
,
Alleg ro di m ol to e s cherz a ndo
with that in the first movement of Beethoven s sonata no

’
, op . 2, . I .
Wh atZ H aydn thought o f a young man w h o could have the e ffrontery

‘
t o dedi c ate t o him a work in whi c h a S e c ond subje ct starting in ’
E minor modu l ates t o B flat h as n o t been re c orded ; but he w as,
presumab l y cl ever enough to s e e that Beethoven s modulations are ’
the b y produ cts o f an irresistible steady upward movement o f his

-
-
’
b ass where as Haydn s in o p 2 0 n o 6 are an improvisatorial
, , .
, .
,
5 0 HAYDN ’
S CHAMBER MUSIC
ning his First Symphony in the subdominant must have been of an
uncultured class if they did not know that the c omposers whom they
already revered as classics had gone mu c h farther in; thi s matter .
The slow movement of op 3 3 no I c onceals behind its formal

.
, .
,
‘
opening a wealth of quaint beauty notably its second subject ,
’
( E x .
Anda nte
and contributes perhaps more than the slow movement of op 20 .

,
no 1 to the andante o f M ozart s E flat Quartet The finale is full

.
,
’
.
o f energy and is the only sonata form fina l e in this set

,
-
For in the .
other quartets of o p 3 3 we encounter n o t only the new title of

.
scherzo fo r the otherwise unchanged minuet and trio but the ,
essentially new element o f fin ales in lighter rondo and variation

forms Al l the s ix first movements o f op 3 3 steadily maintain a
. .
high level o f thought ; and o f the slow movements it may be affirmed

that Haydn h as n o w completely solved the problems of al l kinds of
form in a S low tempo The principle of his solution is well seen in
.
‘
the second subje ct o f the slow movement o f op 3 3 no 3 an
’
.
, .
,
adagio in which Haydn manages to make the reprise device com

patible with a sense of sonata activity .
HAY DN S CHAMBER MUSI C ’
’
5 1
The secret (which may also be found in the largo sostenuto of ,
op 3 3 no 2) lies in the composer s realiz ing that a bar of slow

’
.
.
,
music is not a bar of quick music play ed slowly but an altogether ,
bigger thing In music slowness either means bigness or it means

.
,
emptiness An d to express a ction in a slow tempo demands the

.
power of executing a plan in less than a quarter of the number of

notes reasonably required in a quick tempo No r does it make any .
difference if any part of an adagio breaks ou t in demisemiquavers ; ‘
a run can effect no more dramatic action th an the Ch anges of its

underlying harmo nies From o p 3 3 onwards we may be cert ain
. .
that no slow movement of Haydn however unimportant will , ,
stagnate .
In the largo cantabile of op 3 3 no 5 Haydn shows us what can .

, .
,
be done with the old arioso punctuated by an ominous figure : ,
Largo can tabile
For the m I ddle section he deliberately uses a cliché which is found

in Gluck s Orfeo ; while the cadenz a is the fi nest climax of a highly
’
organi z ed composition and all the instruments take part in it The

, .
result is a fi ne movement contrasted on one side with one of ,
Haydn s largest and most humorous fi rst movements and on the

’
,
other with the most comic of the six little scherzi The fi nale
,
.
,
ho wever S hows that the revival of the divertimento style though

, ,
adding important new resources to the string quartet has its ,
dangers Three melodic variations and a runaway coda do not make

.
an ade q u at e fin ale to a quartet with so important a first movement ;

J
and the pre t tI n es s of Hay dn s S iciliana theme is extinguished by ’
comparison with the poetry of that of the fi nale of M o z art s D ’
minor Quartet a comparison it has the misfortune to suggest

, .
Another variation fi nale in op 3 3 no 6 is more fortunate and , .

, .
, ,
introduces us to a form peculiar to Hay dn and already used by him

in piano works Whether or not he w as anticipated b y some other
.
composer is a matter for statisticians ; the solitary specimen the

writer has found in C P E Bach might possibly be later than . . .
Hay dn s fi rst example Any how in the record of permanent works

’
.
,
of art Hay dn is the master w ho created delightful sets of variations

,
o n a pair of themes one in the major and the other in the minor ;
,
MUSIC
and nobody has followed up thi s idea ex c ept Beethoven at the ,
height of his se c ond period with the solitary example of the ,
H aydn es q u e allegretto in C major and minor in his great E flat .
Trio o p 70 no 2 The examples of this form in Haydn s quartets

, .
, . .
’
are the finale of o p 3 3 n o 6 ; the first movement of the Rasir .

, .
messer Quartet o p 5 5 n o 2 ( F minor) ; and the slow movements

, .
, .
o f the quartets o p 5 0 n o 3
( E flat
, ) o p 5 0 no 4 F sharp minor
.
( , ) .
, .
, .
,
and o p 7 1 no 3 ( E flat) Ex c ept in the Rasirmesser Quartet and in

.
, . .
op .
7 1 no
, 3 the fo
.rm is n o t
, seen at it s best in Haydn s string ’
quartet s ; hi s full enjoyment o f it is shown in piano mu sic es pe ,
c ially in the later trios where he pours out some o f his greatest
'
themes using the alternating variation form without scruple for a

,
first movement a middle movement or a finale , , .
The remaining thr ee fin ales in o p 3 3 are rondos ; a form whi ch .

,
‘
with rare exc eptions is wholly di fferent in Haydn from the form ,
standardized by M ozart I n o p 3 3 n o 4 ( B flat) it is a mere dan ce . .

, .
, ,
the main theme alternating with several square cut other tunes -
and fa c etious l y varied whenever it returns The final pizzicato joke .
is good and is introduced with just enough c omposition t o provide

,
a lo cus in quo du lc e desip ere sit The finale o f the otherwise medita .
tive and mellow quartet in E flat o p 3 3 n o 2 is known p ar , .

, .
,
‘
exce lle nce as The Joke I t is a rondo with o n e episode and a ’
.
,
trailing c oda t o do dut y fo r the other episodes ; and the joke consists
‘
in Haydn s winning by gross l y sharp pra cti c e his wager that the
’
.
, ,
ladies wi l l always begin talking before the music is finished His ’

.
ridi culous theme c onsists as t o it s first strain o f four two bar , ,

-
clauses At the end o f the work after a solemn adagio warning the
.
, ,
strain is p l ayed with t w o bar pauses between it s clauses When -

.
the fourth c lause h as been played the musi c is morally over ; and ,
if Haydn chooses t o indi c ate another four bars rest an d repeat the ’
first cl ause again he ought t o lose his wager , .
The rondo o f o p 3 3 n o 3 ( C major) is o n e of Haydn s most

.
, .
,
’
c omi c utteran ces but is ( l ike the first movement o f o p 3 3 n o 5 )

, .
, .
none the less a vital item in the re c ord o f his art and well worthy ,
o f it s p l ace in the onl y quartet in this opus that h as been often
taken up by con c ert p l ayers O n e would l ike t o think that the -

.
de l i cious effe ct o f it s opening o n a s ix four chord w as n o t a c ons o -
q u e n c e o f the usua l oversight about the octave o f the c ello ’

.
All six quartets are important in their first movements I n the .
smallest o f the S ix quartets ( n o 6 in D) the first movement is .

,
important as in the other five but the unpretending arioso Slow ,

HAYDN ’
S CHAMBER MUSIC 53
movement while turning the long messa di o oce of the fi rst violin
,
into an occasion for fine polyphonic organization of the other parts ,
actually leave s a blank space for a cadenz a at the end ; for the last
’
time in Haydn 8 works .
The whole opus gravitates round Joachim s favourite C major ’
Quartet ( no . whi c h remains one of Haydn s profoundest studies ’
in childhood trailing clouds of glory at any and every moment

, .
Its tiny scherzand o with the contrast between its tenderly grave
,
melody on the fourth string and the b ird like duet which does duty
‘
—
for trio ( whence the title Vogel Qu artett) has always been a p o pu ,
lar feature The first movement is at once the quietest and the
,
greatest Hay dn had so far achieved and it sounds most spacious if ,
played without either repeat It is time that musicians and music .
l overs paid attention to the B minor Quartet a not less thoughtful ,
work and equally perfect I n every way N or is there more gain .
than loss in refinement of taste b y neglect of the rest of this opus .
The isolated quartet in D minor op 4 2 occupies a central posi , .

,
tion in Haydn s art P ohl puzzled by its astonishing terseness an d

’
.
, ,
faced with th e undoubted fact that it w as published after op 3 3 .

,
conjectures on no ground whatever but his failure to see anything

,
in it that it was written about the same time as opp I 2 and 3

, .
, ,
.
’
This is even more absurd th an to suppose that Beethoven s F sharp
major S onata op 7 8 might have been written before he left Bonn
, .
,
because it is so S hort Haydn S D minor Quartet op 4 2 is to his

.
’
, .
,
art ve ry much what the F sharp major Sonata I S to Beethoven s ’

.
The slow movement is as Pohl says anspruchslos ; and this u n pre , ,
tention s movement will do as well as any other part of the quartet

to prove that Haydn could not have written it any earlier than the
date of its publication If he had only had the lu ck or cunning to.
call it a cavatina nobody would have failed to see the point of this
,
melody without development without a contrasting second theme ,
or middle section without S ign of dramatic action extending itself

, ,
befor e us till we note fi rst that it is not going to be a mere theme

, ,
for variations ; secondly that it is becoming broader than any ,
melody that we have ever heard worked into larger designs with
other themes ; fi nally that it is rounding itself towards a conclusion
, ,
and is su fficient in itself and justified by S heer contrast for it s ,
position in a work of dramatic action The rest of the quartet ( even .
the tiny four bar rhythmed minuet) is a lesson in composition such

- -
as w ould have puz zled the Hay dn of 1 7 6 5 almost as much as it

puzzled Pohl and for very different reasons In 1 7 65 Haydn c ould
, .
4 HAYDN ’
S CHAMBER MUS IC
not have written eight bars of andante or adagio without more
ornament than su ffi ces for the whole of op 42 Even in opp 9 . . .
,
1 7 and 2 0 the moderato tempo of his first movements is not the

, ,
‘ ’
same thing as the andante ed innocente of op 42 which is a real .
,
andante moving with Such economy of action as to accomplish

without haste all that sonata form can do both architecturally and ,
dramatically Th e moderato tempo in his earlier first movements

.
h as the purpose of crowding as much movement as possible into

comfortably long bars ; the S low tempo in the first movement of
op 4 2 has the purpose of spreading few notes over a large S pace
. .
Finally Haydn here follows up a point already noti ce d in the first

,
movement of op 2 0 no 3 and works up part of his recapitu lation

.
, .
,
to a passionate c limax in no way anticipated by the original state

ment This climax brings to maturity the pecu l iar freedom o f form
'
which is to be a leading feature in Haydn s works from now o n ’
wards I n c on clusion if there were any doubt about the date o f

.
,
op 4 2 n o date within Haydn s lifetime wou l d be t o o late and the

.
,
’
,
actual date o f publication is the earliest whi c h is technically poss ible .
From this point onwards Haydn and M ozart converge ; they

were soon to meet in person an d Haydn s quartets of opp 20 an d ,
’
.
33 were probably among those that had inspired M ozart in his o w n

great s et o f s ix dedicated to Haydn At this point it will be con .
ve nie n t to c onsider h o w Haydn s art forms after influen c ing those

’
-
o f M ozart diverge in S pite o f the obvious returning infl uence of

,
M ozart s style ’
.
U p t o o p 4 2 Haydn s treatment of sonata form though urgently

.
’
dramatic lays a decided stress upon symmetry A normal first

, .
movement ( and up ti l l now the same form is adopted for slow

movements with the rare exception o f themes with variations ) con
,
sists of a group o f material clearly in the main key leading in a well ,
organized transition passage t o another group of material in the

c omplementary key (the dominant in a major movement the ,
mediant major or rarely the dominant minor in a minor move

, ,
ment) T his second group ( s o misleadingly call ed second subj

. e ct ) ’
comes to a definite end and leads back to the repetition of the ,
whole exposition and after repetition forward to a development

, , ,
which travels u nl ike the exposition freely through many keys until
, ,
its course brings it back to the tonic Here the whole material of .
the exposition is recapitulated the se c ond group being n o w in the ,
tonic as well as the first ; and it s end oft en su ffices for the end of
the whole movement This description h as avoided all assertions .
’
55
as to how many themes there are and how they are distributed ; ,
and b y this reticence it contrives to be true of Haydn s procedure ’
so far and of M oz art s and Beethoven s passim But we have now

,
’ ’
.
reached the point where it will no longer be a trustworthy guide to

Haydn s fi rst movements His recapitulations have already begun
’
.
‘ ’
to expand conspicuously : the term second subject as implying a
‘
different theme opposed to a single first subject never w as app li ’
cable to Haydn except i n cases which counted up statistically are , ,
as individual as the cases of many unclassifi e d procedu res ; nothing

‘ ’
could be clearer than the second subjects of op 3 3 nos 3 and 5 ; .
, .
and nothing could be more parenthetic than the only discoverable

new figu res in the corresponding regions of op 3 3 nos 1 2 and 4 .
, .
, , .
B ut as to the recapitulation the very idea utterly breaks do wn

,
already in op 3 3 no 4 ; there is instead a brilliant peroration and

.
, .
,
‘
this is also the case in op 3 3 no 5 in spite of its clear second
.
, .
,
“
’
subject From the earliest works to the latest nothing can be
.
,
firmer than Haydn s distribution of key s ; and nothing can be more

’
dramatic than his later indications of return to his tonic : but bey ond
this all a priori assertion must cease P itiful will be the subterfuges .
of the teacher or student who succeeds in making out that the fi rst
‘
movement of our next quartet op 5 0 no I ( B fl at) has a S econd, .
, .
,
subject and a recapitulation ; nor will orthodoxy be saved by saying

’
this is form in the making before these things were differentiated

,
It is form in the highest state of effi ciency freedom and terseness , , ,
long after every element has been differentiated From op 5 0 o n . .
wards there is no dealing with Haydn s fi rst movements except b y ’
individual analy sis .
His fin ale s remain more often amenable to rule ; a sy mmetrical

recapitulation is a useful thing in fin ale s because the end of a w ork
requires more perspicuity than t he beginning and ( even in sonatas
'
, ,
where the necessity is not that of the logic of concrete events) its
function is to satisfy expectation rather than to raise doubt Though .
an individual analysis of each case is the only means of obtaining

even a roughly correct idea of Hay dn s mature sonata forms it is ’
,
fortun ately possible to sum up his mam resources by the S ingle

general statement that Hay dn invented a brilliant type of coda a
la Beethoven and used fully developed codas instead of recapitula
,
’
tions . From op 3 3 onwards one of his strongest impulses was
.
towards terseness and it was balanced b y an equally strong impulse

,
tow ards expansion O utward sy mmetry was for him an obstacle to

.
the reconciling of these two opposite impulses ; and the reconcilia

MUSIC
tion of such opposites is a fundamental condition of art M ozart .
recon ciled them by w orking o n a larger s c ale where outwar d sym ,
metry w as a ne c essity Hence M ozart lays stress on his r e c apitula

.
tion is usually terse and mono thematic in his developments and

,
‘
-
seldom has a large c oda The freedom of his form vital as Haydn s .
,
’
,
is to be sought in fin e detai l ; and in fact the en tasis of the Parthenon

is not more suitable and a c curate than M ozart s handling of his ’
apparentl y S O symmetrical re capitulations Beethoven writing on a .

,
sc al e initially larger than M ozart s and expanding to a total l y dif ’
fe re n t order and range adopted as a matter o f c ourse the recapitula

,
tion o f M ozart together with the peroration of Haydn And Haydn .
himself in the first movement o f o n e o f his most famous quartets

,
‘
The ark o p 64 n o h as c asually tu c ked a fairly complete
’
( L , .
, .
re c apitulation o f his c omplementary key material into one of his -
’
most brilliant perorations with an effect like neither M ozart s n o r ,
Beethoven s form s With this c on c eption o f the procedure o f the

’
.
three masters we Can tra c e the forms o f Haydn s l ater works with
,
’
o u t difli c u lt y; with t h e c ommonly ac c epted do c trine o f sonata form
the tas k is hopel ess .
Before fo ll owing Haydn t o the end o f the various threads he has

n o w gathered up we must note a detail o f instrumentation whi c h
,
raises general prin cip l es and gives o ccasion t o discuss Haydn s ,

’
other chamber musi c as far as it is in print t o day N ote the c ase of -

.
the adagio c antabile o f o n e o f the greatest quartets o p 64 n o 5 , .

, . .
Ex 23 .
A dag io ,
can ta b ile s osten u to
Here there is unmistakab l e evidence that the piano w as more o f a

hindrance than a he l p t o the formation of Haydn s chamber musi c ’
-
sty l e even when he w as already a veteran I t is o f c ourse pedanti c

, .
, ,
8 HAYDN ’
S CHAMBER MUSIC
b ass e ,though when yo u try th e work with the violin you will se e
that where it is playing an inner part Haydn w ants cello tone to
’
complete it though the piano is already playing the necessary notes

, .
But yo u may play many o f these sonatas without missing anything

‘
at all even though the in dex tell s you that they are avec ac co m
,
a
p g n e m e n t de Viol on Some o f these are known nowadays as piano
’
.
sonatas ; and though the new criti c al edition of Haydn s c omplete

’
works h as n o t as yet ( 1 9 2 8 ) begun to clear up the chamber music ,
it h as already eliminated all but three of the s o called violin sonatas

-
by publishing them as the piano solo sonatas whi ch Haydn intended

them t o be .
The trios are in a different c ase All the thirty one n o w in print
.
-
require the violin ( o r in three cases the flute) to play important

, ,
themes ; and in a ccompanying passages they further require the

’
cello to support the violin though hardly for a dozen notes in the
,
whole collection is it allowed to diverge from the bass of t he piano .
The only movement in real trio writing in the whole thirty one
- -
H A YD N S CHAMBER MUSIC
’
59
w orks is the adagio at the beginning of the two movement w ork in -
A major no xv in B reitkopf 8c Hii rt e l s edition For the rest the

, .
’
.
,
musical contents of these trios are with a few early exceptio n s , ,
glorious ; and the works cover Hay dn s whole career and are far ’
,
richer than the quartets in fine specimens of his smaller forms such ,
as alternating variations sectional ro ndos lyric A B A slow move , ,

- -
ments and above all movements breaking o ff and leading into

, , ,
fin ale s a dramatic event that only twice happens I n the q uartets

, ,
but alway s coincides with Haydn S fi nest imagination i n these ’
smaller works It I S not di fficult to place the trios in approximate

.
chronological order among the quartets The main thing to bear in .
mind is that Haydn takes the view that a quartet is a symphony ,
whereas a piano trio is an accompanied solo C onsequently a slight .
finale such as a merely sectional rondo or an unpretending move

, ,
ment in any position is no evidence of early date The famous , .
Gipsy R ondo for instance belongs to one of the last trios (which
’
, ,
of course figures in no I in current editions ; they alw ay s put the .
ripest w orks st ) and that trio begins with a set of rondo varia
fir —
tions (i e variations with divers episodes instead of a second theme)

. .
,
and has a middle movement in S imple A B A form ; so that this - -
most famous among Hay dn s trios contains no sonata form at all ’

.
It is none the less mature for that N o trio contains four move .
ments ; the presto that follows the S plendid alternating variations in

the G minor trio no 1 7 is itself an expanded variation of the , .
,
second theme S ome of the sonata form fi rst movements are in

.
-
Hay dn s greatest style e g trios nos 3 ( a work to which occasion

’
, . . .
ally cellists have sacri fi ced themselves in public) 6 8 I 3 and 2 3

’
, , , , ,
and so are some of the fin ale s w hether developed rondos or sonata ,
moveme nts ; e g in trios nos 3 , 5 . 17. and 2 3 All the .

, ,
.
double variati on and rondo variation movements are great ; and

-
some of the smaller fin ales are intensely poetic ; e g the gentle con . .
s o lat o r allegro ma dolce which after a deepl y pathetic f m e n

y ra g , ,
tary andante intermezz o brings the great D major trio no 6 to an , , .

,
abrupt end ; and perhaps most of all the melancholy tempo di

‘
m e n u e tt o o f the quite late trio in F sharp minor O n e of the earliest .
trios in G minor in the style of op 9 or earlier is as beautiful as

, , .
,
any Two other early works ( no 1 2 in C and no 27 in F ) sprawl

. . .
with a gawkiness compared with which that queer couple of frag

'
ments known as the quartets op 3 no 4 is graceful and terse .

, .
,
.
Trio no 2 7 however is the more presentable of the two The

.
, , .
flute trios nos 2 9 3 0 and 3 1 are easy going early middle H ay dn

, .
, , ,
-
,
-
.
MUSIC
Trio 1 8 in E flat minor is o n e o f Haydn s last c ompositions and
, ,
,
’
consists of the most patheti c o f all sets o f rondo variations followed ,
by a subtle and pensive finale in the major all egro ben moderato , .
M any other trios claim attention ; but we must now deal with the
'
remaining quartets .
O p 5 0 consists o f S ix quartets ( B flat C E flat F S harp minor

.
, , , ,
-
F and D) The F S harp minor Quartet is a great work I t shows

, . .
fo r the first time Haydn s definite renun ciation of tragi c ends to

’
sonata movements and his n o w typi c al asso ciation o f the minor

-
mode with a passionate somewhat b l ustering temper ending with

, ,
a recapitulation (in these circumstan ces regu l ar) in the tonic major ,
‘
s o that everything turns o u t wel l As he said o f himself Anybody
.
,
’
can s e e that I m a good natured fellow I t is a pity that he did not
-
’
.
think fit t o provide the variations o f h is andante with at least a few

bars of coda ; the contrast between the t w o themes is grand but the ,
H A Y D N S C H A M B E R MU S I C
’
61
Im
p res sI o nleft b y t he unexpanded end of the whole is perfunctory .
In striking contrast to the happye n d of the fi rst movement the ,
fi nal fugue quietest and deepest of all the few instrumental fugues
,
S ince Bach strikes a note so tragic that Beethoven s C S harp minor

,
’
Quartet is the fi rst thing that one can connect with it ( E x .
Op 5 0 no 5 F major in exquisite childlike happiness from begin

.
, .
, ,
ning to end is one of t he most perfect and subtly proportioned of

,
’ ’
all Haydn s works Its poco adagio is known as L e Réo e . .
O p 5 0 no 6 ( D major) begins as if in t h e m
.
, .id dle o fia sentence ,
and is broadly designed It is known as Der F rosch from the frog .

,
like effect of the theme of its finale which plays across open strings ,
and their unisons O p 5 4 c ontains three of the most brilliant . .
q uartets Brilliance is the note of the opening of no 1 ( G major)

. .
,
which has for slow movement a wonderful quiet allegretto in

sonata form with profound modulations N o 2 ( C ) a great favourite . .
,
with Joachim has the biggest and most symphonic first movement
,
so far The astonishing adagio consists of a sepulchral melody with

.
a wild fl orid counterpoint for the first violin all per figuram re
, ,
tarda tionis as we saw in op 2 0 no 5 ( E x

, It leads into the .
,
. .
minuet which has a very remarkable trio The fi nale is a freak

, .
,
already cited for its scoring It is a lyric adagio with an in t ro du c .

,
tion and one S hort presto episode No 3 ( E) is one of Hay dn s . .

’
greatest works and should be better known E qually great is the

, .
fi rst of the three quartets of op 5 5 ; in A major with an adagio in .

,
rondo form ( a very di ffi cult thing to handle with H aydn es q u e

breadth) a remarkable use of the extreme heights of the violin in
,
the trio of the minuet again exploited in op 64 no 6 and a , .

, .
,
finale which b egin S like a rondo and runs away in an excellent ‘
( uno fficial ) dou b le fugue .
Op 5 5 no ! 2 is the Rasirmesser Q u artet so called because

?
‘
.
, , ,
Haydn s host overheard him exclaimi ng under th e torture of

’
,
‘
shaving I d give my best quartet for a new raz or The wish
,
’ ’
.
w as ful filled an d the vo w redeemed with this F minor Quartet

, .
In it s o p ening double variations Haydn wallows in t he sentiment

evoked b y the heavenly contrast between its passionate minor and
consolatory major theme A proved personal friend of Haydn s .
’
whole family of a thousand sonata movements might venture to

ask Haydn s permission at the second (i e last) variation of the
’
,
. .
ma jor them e to omit the unvaried fi rst statement of its fi rst eight
,
’
bars and begin it immediately with the fresh tone of the cello
,
.
This would lose nothing and would save the movement from ,
MUSIC
dragging The rest of the quartet is among Haydn s most intellec
.
’
tual works and its neglect is due to the fa ct that besides being
, ,
subtle it is by no means easy Le t no musician call it ineffective if

,
.
he would escape the shame of the fox I n that aflair of the grapes ’
.
N ow that we are sure of Haydn 8 methods and mastery op 5 5 ’
, .
,
no 3 need not detain u s ; nor need op 64 no 1 But the other five

. .
, . .
of op 64 are of the highes t importan c e The thoughtful B minor

. .
,
no 2 with its replica of the D major ambiguity of op 3 3 no I

.
, .
, .
,
and it s humorous ethereal end in B major is a great work unduly ,
neglected N ot so the remaining four ( B flat G D and E flat)

.
, , , ,
whi c h are among the most constantly played of Haydn s works ’

,
n o s 5 and 6 being spe c ially popular

. The common new feature in .
these four quartets is the appearance of lyric Slow movements in

‘
t he form of a broad melody a minor middle section and an orn a , ,
mental da capo This form had lready appeared in the great E

a
.
major Quartet o p 5 4 no 3 but I n a more ornate and less idylli c

, .
, .
,
‘
style Op 64 no 5 called The L ark from the entry of the first
. .
, .
,
’
,
violin warbling I n the heights after a staccato opening theme b y ,
the other instruments i s famous for its little perpetuum mobile ,
fin ale O p 64 as a group h as some resemblance to op 3 3 O n the

. . . .
basis of longer experience it gloriously develops the lighter S ide of ,

’
Haydn s art forms -
.
The remaining complete quartets ( opp 7 1 74 7 6 .
and 7 2 are all o n the largest symphonic sc ale and so doubtless ,
would the wonderful fragment op 1 03 have been if Haydn had , .

,
had the strength t o write a first movement and finale for it Of the .
Ell 26 Anda nte

-
co n mo to
’
63
three neglected masterpieces in op 7 1 ( B fl at D E fl at) the third .

, , ,
is the greatest a n d most perfect Two passages have already been .
quoted in connexion with the viola below cello problem ( Exx 2 - -

’
.
and another quotation from the exquisite rondo variation S low -
movement will S how a new tone colour (E x -

.
The D major Quartet ( no 2 ) is the only quartet with a S low in .
t ro du ct io n ; a fact curi ously in contrast with the custom Hay dn had

long since come to establish I n his sy mphonies The fi nale of that .
neglected quartet has one of the loveliest themes of hiS sp ecial later
kittenish ty pe .
Op 74 begins with a glorious w ork in C major taken up with

.
,
enthusiasm b y Joachim in his last y ears For the fi rst time w e .
encounter a feature b y which a work of Haydn s may be surely ’
recogniz ed as a work of his latest period The trio of the minuet .
is in A a key only remote ly connected (through its tonic minor)

,
with C the key of the movement The choice of these key s for sec
,
.
tions not continuously linked up in a fl owing structure ( e g in trios . .
of minuets and as keys for middle movements) is Haydn s co n t rib u ’
tion to the scheme of tonality which Beethoven Schubert Brahms , , ,
and (mutatis mutandis for the conditions of the music drama)

Wagner w ere to develop into so mighty a resource Hay dn s insight .
’
is S hown in his abstention from explanatory or miraculous modula

tions where these key relations are concerned His beloved C P E
-
. . . .
B ach was alway s treating remo te modulations as things to declaim

upon ; H ay dn puts the contrasted keys in plain juxtaposition ; for
which he would assuredly get no marks in our M us Bac modula . .
tion questions An d so his key contrasts shine out like the colours
.
of a Sunset Y ou will fi nd them I n most of the later trios ( Breitkopf

.
nos .
5 8 9 1 1, and though
, of
, course
, their absence w ill
not prove an earlier date .
Op 7 4 no 2 F major is another neglected masterpiece N o 3

.
, .
, , . .
,
in G minor on the other hand ( called Rittquartett from the prancing

,
rhythm that pervades its fi rst movement) is a great favourite with , ,
its blustering tragic fi rst movement and fi nale both ending happily ,
‘
like the good natured fellow I am and its s pecially solemn largo
-
’
,
in the remote key of E major .
The six quartets in opp 7 1 and 74 have with op 7 6 no 1 the com

.
, .
, .
,
mon feature of beginning with some introductory gesture or phrase .
In op 7 6 nos 1 and 3 Hay dn presents a fe ature imitated only

.
, .
,
by M endelssohn in his I t alian S ym pho ny and Brahms in his First ’
Violin S onata B major Trio and F major Sy mphony Although

, , .
64 HAYDN S CHAMBER MUS IC ’
each o f these works is in a major key the finale is in the minor The , .
reverse relation is o f c ourse n o t un c ommon As usual Haydn s

, , .
,
’
t w o blustering fin ale s end happi l y in the major ; b u t n o t without

‘
some do wnright sol emn thoughts in their devel opment The intel .
lectu al depths and the freedom o f form in the last twenty quartets
.
are among the inexhaustib l e experiences o f art ; and Brahms s friends ’
need never have been surprised t o find him absorbed in the study of
a Haydn quartet O nly on ce towards the end does the work seem
.
, ,
a l ittl e t o o easy ; t he gra cefu l ingenuities of o p 7 6 n o 6 ( E flat) .

, .
,
rol l away l ike the pro cess o f pee l ing an onion ; the fantasia which ,
is the s l ow movement seems more arbitrary than free ; and actually ,
the most beautiful part o f the quartet is the trio of the minuet ,
whi ch c onsists wholly o f the scale o f E flat in iambic rhyt hm ,
des c ending and as c ending with c ounterpoints as multitudinous and

heavenly as the angels o n Ja c ob s ladder ’
.
But the res t o f o p 7 6 is beyond des cription N o 2 in D minor

. . . .
, ,
t h a powerful first m ovement unique in it s concentration on its

firs t t h e m e o f four notes h as the most imaginative minuet (t he
'
H exen M enue tt) before S c hubert N o 3 in C major nearly as

-
. .
, ,
great is famous fo r its variations o n Haydn s Austrian Hymn

,
’
.
These whi ch simp l y pass the unadorned melody from o n e in s tru

,
ment t o the other are n o t as great as their tune but can be made
, ,
t o sound very spiritual N o 4 in B flat is known as The Sunrise , . .

, ,
’
from it s f em arkab le sustained opening O n e o f the most glorious .
o f Haydn s tunes is that o f the anomalous first movement o f op 7 6

’
.
,
n o 5 which is fo ll owed by the great largo in F sharp major whi c h

.
,
h as given this quartet its titl e in the c atal ogues Beside these melo .
dies we m ay p l a c e the theme o f the andante o f the l ast complete

,
quartet Op 7 7 n o 2 (the whol e quartet is perhaps Haydn s

, .
, .
’
greatest instrumental composition with t w o o f the last symphonies ,
t o bra cket with it ) ; and final ly the deeply touching andante theme , ,
o f h is l ast c omposition the fragment o p 1 03 With this Haydn , , . .
bids u s farewell n o t in terms o f the quotation from h is part song

,
-
Der Greis whi c h he issued as a vis it in g c ard c omplaining o f age

,
' -
and weakn ess but rather in terms o f the end o f that song which
, ,
‘
says Thanks t o Heaven a harmonious song w as the c ourse o f
, ,
my Power and etern al youth remained in these last and

gentl est strains that the venerable creator o f the sonata style allowed
his pen t o re c ord That power we c an feel ; in that eternal youth
.
we can rejoice ; and we may be satisfied to seek o u t what Haydn h as

done fo r u s without more than a mystic notion o f ho w he did it .
66 CHRISTOPHER
“
W ILLIBALD GL UCK
the most dangerous o f all composers ; the most industrious and u n
s c rupulous in writing himself down ; but when he chose exact ly , ,
‘
what Beethoven c alled him the master of all masters and capable
’
, ,
as no one else o f producing the greatest e ff ects with the simplest
means Less than o n e l t w e n t iet h o f Handel s work is known to the

’
.
’
pub l ic an d most o f what is known is buried in a debris o f moderni

,
z at io n whi c h the M usikg elehrte o f the present day removes often to
c reate worse c onfusion by failure t o in clude c ommon sense and

general musi cianship as elements o f s chol arship .
Berlioz is another n o n musi cian s musi cian His French prose

-
’
. .
is far l ess amateurish than his musi c though few men of letters ,
except W E Henley have taken notice of it But his musi c is saved

. . .
from it s o w n amateurishness and from amateurish produ ction and

,
interferen ce by the fact that he is a pioneer o f the modern or chestra

, .
Inextri c ably mixed with his curious ineptitudes there is an astound ,
ing intuitive grasp o f certain prin ciples n o t only o f orchestration , ,
but o f c omposition o n a very l arge s cale He is a master of vast .
exordiums and perorations and also o f S ky vault heights and infer

,
-
nal depths N either in time n o r in harmonic spa ce h as he any

.
material fo r middle regions ; but t h e very hollows reverberate im

re s s ive ly and he is even less amenab l e t o c orre ct ion than Glu c k
p , .
At the opposite extreme we have C hopin with vision strictly ,
confined t o the pianoforte but with perceptions in form and b ar

,
mony s o deep as t o transcend equally the c omprehension of the

admirers and the detract ors o f his fame as a writer o f salon music .
His music again is t o some extent protected from m is re p res e nt a

, ,
tion by the fa ct that it is difli c u lt enough fo r those who murder it

t o fee l c ons c ious o f their barbarity .
The most fortunate o f n o n musi cian s composers is Wagner -

’
.
Amateur produ ctions o f h is works are obviousl y impracticable and ,
the mastery o f h is mature style is beyond the cavil o f any musician.
w h o knows enough t o have the s l ightest fear o f giving himself away .
A defe ctive te chnique is a grave disadvantage t o the n o n musi -
c ian s great c omposer To the interes ting o r charming historical

’
.
figure it does n o t matter No musi cian with a sense o f humour

.
nowadays wishes t o c orre ct Domenico S carlatti Biilo w had a sense .
o f humour and did nevertheless corre ct S c arlatti ; but BiI lo w s ’

’
, , ,
habits o f tidying up were an anachronism even in his own eccent ric

p ersona l ity W ith
. c omposers o f the c alibre o f G l u c k o r Ber l io z a
bad technique is a great bar t o their intelligibility It aggravates .
the controversies whi ch must in any case arise between the musician
C H R I ST O PHER WILLIBALD GLUCK 67
and the non m u s I CI an The musician s criti cisms are not e asil y pre
-
.
’
sented in a better light than that of pedantic objections irrelevant to

’
the pioneer s or reformer s vast and noble aims ; and the non
’
musician merely loses his temper at such cavils helplessly but , ,
with popular sy mpathy on his side What the general reader is .
seldom told about the controversies is that for the most part the
m usician has the advantage of talking not onl y about music but ,
about this musi c in particular : whereas even, w ord th at the non y
musical enthusiast h as to say can be said and has beensaid of any

-
, ,
number of other composers kno wn only by name to readers of books

on musi c al history P erformances of the works under discussion
.
will not always help matters The techni c al defe cts of the composer
.
do in fact require some intervention on the part of the conductor

, ,
or editor ; and the minimum intervention is the thin end of a wedge

which u sually leads as we have already noted to the disp ersal of
, ,
the composer s style through the idioms of two and a half c enturies
’
.
Then we have the purists and the modernizers at each other ham
mer an d tongs with amateur incompetence evenly divided between
,
them both in fact and in imputation

, .
Gluck is perhaps the most interesting of all composers who are

in this predicament The literature about him is enormous and for
.
,
the most part very readable He is in touch with interesting people

.
throughout his career including the Fren c h encyclopeais tes By far '
’
.
,
the most readable essay that c ould be written about Gluck would
c onsist mainly of extracts from the correspondence private and ,
j ournalistic that raged around him t hroughout his life I confess

, .
myself quite incompetent for such a task ; but any temptation I

might have for adding to the volumes of Gluck literature from this
point of view would be annihilated by one simple re flection : it does
F
not matter a b ras s farthing what contemporary musical name y ou
'
substitute for Gluck in the whole of such literature as far as the ,
m u s I c I S concerned It w ould not be true to say that there w as no

.
trace of a musical judgement in the whole of that literature but it ,
is quite fair to say that it contains few statements however many ,
there be that seem shrewd and dis c riminating in form that you can ,
trust to retain a discoverable meaning when confronted with the

m u SIc .
An eminent critic has re c ently quoted with approval a remark of

that in order to appre ciate a sy mphony of H aydn y ou should
F etis ,
listen to symphonies by S t am itz and Van hal so as to measure the ,
immense progress that H ay dn s work represents It has been ’

.
8 CHRISTOPHER W ILLIBALD GLUCK
suggested that we should foll o w this advice in pub li c concerts Bu t .
I am afraid that the result wou l d convey nothing except to musi ,
cian s w h o could have attained it with much less time and trouble
by a glance at the works o f S t am itz and Vanh al in a good musical

library ; and that the effe ct o f a pub li c performance would only be
to s e t going the usual outburst of enthusiasm from people who have
n o sense o f c omposition w h o re c ognize styles merely b y tags if at
, ,
al l and who think that anything contemporary with Haydn and

,
M ozart must be worth reviving s o long as it is n o t by either of those

masters W here such enthu siasms are genuine the enthusiasts are
.
probably quite right about the qualities they s e e in their hobbies .
Their o n e mistake is that thes e are the only qualities they c an see
in all art and life That is why we may at any moment find ourselves
.
attacked by new Picc inn is ts at the expense of Glu ck Their app re .
c iat io n o f musi c quite possibly will not even go far enough to do
justi c e t o Piccin ni w h o w as himse lf an out and out Glu ckis t I have

,
‘
- -
.
often envied the c onnoi sseurship o f a philatelist but nobody wants ,
to know w hat it feels like to have a mind that h as never contemplated

a larger field than that o f a postage stamp The brutal truth is that
-
.
the great masters and the I nteresting Histori c al Figures di ffer in

the fa ct that the great masters c an c ompose and the I H E S c annot . . . .
Th e general pub l ic has if it is given a chance some feeling for

, ,
composition though it is e asily t aken in by patchwork But most of

, .
the discussions that rage around t he c omposers of what has more ,
by it s misfortune than its fault bec ome literary musi c are discus
, ,
sions that have nothing t o do with musi c al c omposition at all ; and

fo r the purpose o f su c h dis cussions the c ompiler of shreds patches , ,
and cli chés is quite as useful a topi c as a real c omposer .
I f the reader w h o h as borne with me s o far will bear with me a

c onsiderab l e way farther I hope t o arrive in this essay at some
,
es t imate o f Glu ck as a c o m poser But a large dump o f literary

.
debris remains t o be cleared away before we can get an u n o b

stru cted view o f his musi c
w
.
The worst o f musical history 13 that hen the history 13 interest

ing the musi c is often disappointing without it and when the musi c ,
is great it often h as n o describable history But there are a few .
c omposers whose work h as made history and also be c ome immortal

o n it s o w n merits . I n su c h c ases we do not need the history to
exp l ain the musi c ; o n the c ontrary we read the history I n the light
,
o f the permanent v alue o f the musi c and produ c e an O ffi c ial legend
,
that I s mu ch t o o good t o be true Su ch I s the legend o f Palestrina

.
C H R IS T O P H E R WILLIBALD GL UCK 69
as a reformer of C hurch music ; and such is the legend of Gluck as

a reformer of opera P alestrina did reform C hur c h music and
.
,
Gluck did reform opera ; but neither the corruptions nor the re
forms were quite the obvi ous affairs which legend has made of
them In order to measure Gluck s achievement it is necessary to
.
’
understand not merely the outward forms of opera in his day but ,
the whole nature of the change that was revolutionizing music both ,
instrumental and vocal independently of t he t h e at re

, c
.
—
' fl
Gluck was born in 1 7 1 4 and was producing Op e ras I I i L ondon in

1 7 4 5 five years before the death of Bach and fourteen before the
,
death of Handel Y et we rightly think of Gluck as belong ing to a

.
later period than the age of Bach and Handel Ou r chief m ist akeiis .
in thinking that the age of Bach and Handel regarded those com
pose rs as its representatives Aestheti c ally our estimate of that age
.
,
is a fairly just verdict of history If all t he music of other composers

.
contemporary with Bach and Handel were annihilated we S hould ,
miss the equivalent of museums full of china ware and S hould still -
have the musical equivalent of all the great sculpture and arc hit e c
ture of a Golden Age But to the music lovers of 1 74 0 the annihila
.
-
tion of Bach and Handel would have m eant the disappearance of

’
B ononcini s successful rival and of an obscure scholar locally famous
in L eip zig The rhy mester would still have sung
.
°
Stran ge that su ch diffe rence the re sho ul d b e

Twixt Twe e dle dum an d Twe e dle de e
’
.
For there were doz ens of Tweedledums waiting to contend with

.
B ononcini When we associate the first half of the eighteenth cen

.
tury with t he music of Bach and Handel we naturally think that ,
the period is one of classical polyphony ; but it is no way to be

compared with the Golden Age of the sixteenth c entury The ’ ’
contemporaries of P alestrina certainly thought that they w ere wit

n e s s in g the culmination of pure pol y phony ; and we agree with
them The polyphony of Bach and Handel is the art of a musical

.
renascence ; its principles are not those of the pure vocal art of the
sixteenth century but are profoundly and organically modified b y
,
an equally classical sense of the properties of instruments in them
selves and in their effect upon voices This renascence art not only .
culminates in B ach and Handel but reaches in those masters the

,
only matu rity which interests us To their c ontemporaries this

.
,
renascence w as old fashioned L atin could still be quoted in P arlia

-
.
me nt and fugues could still be written in oratorios ; but in the

,
7 0 CHRISTOPHER WILLIBALD GLUCK
drawing room L atin was hardl y more out of place than fugues I t
-
.
w as stil l possible t o adumbrate fugues after the fas hi on o f a parlia

mentary quotation ; and if the subject w as lively and rep eated itself
with an echoin g tag a c o m p o ser like Van h al coul d even in a later
, ,
generation write fugues that were amusing enough to be considered

,
elegant But the pages o f Burney S how again and again that he had
.
witnessed in hi s youth the produ ction o f Handel s later works e n ’

,
joyed the personal a c quaintan ce of Gluck and Philipp E manu el

Ba ch watc hed with disapproval the pro digious career of the young
,
M ozart and brought his H is tory of M usic t o a c onclusion in 1 7 89

, ,
al l without the s l ightest idea that Handel s immortality lay in his ’
choruses that c ontemporary polyphony w as anything but pedantry

, ,
and that any more important revolution had taken pla ce in music
‘
beyond the new ways o f taking appoggiaturas and notes o f taste ’
.
I n his c ontempt o f polyphony Burney voi ced the best opinion of

his day Handel himself before he final l y deserted the glories of
.
,
‘
Italian opera fo r the less fashionable good works o f oratorio had ’
,
made the texture o f h is later operas more and more like that o f th e
works o f h is ill ustrious c ontemporary Hasse whose wife Faustina , , ,
he su cceeded in getting t o sing in the same opera with a rival

prima donna Cu z z o n i A c ontemporary writer o f sonatas Al berti
, .
, ,
w h o d ied in 1 7 44 ought t o r a nk as o n e o f the greatest composers in

,
musi cal history if the highest art were n o t t o con ceal but to avoid
,
‘
art He invented the Al berti bass ; o r if he did not invent it at
.
’
, ,
al l events made it his o w n and l ike the famous grimy writer of a , ,
testimonial t o a famous soap having used it in his first works used , ,
n o other fo r the rest o f h is l ife Hass e s favourite texture c onsisted ’

.
o f c hords repeated in quavers a devi c e whi c h saves even more ,
labour than the Al berti bass I t is n o t t o be c onfused with the .
tremolo whi ch l imited t o measured semiquavers Handel uses

, , ,
ofte n enough but never without imagination N either it nor any

, .
, _
S imilar apparently worthless formul a is a resource t o be despise d ,
by dramati c reformers But we S hal l never understand Glu ck s early

.
’
environment until we realize that su c h resources were already in

.
ful l u s e and that the age o f Ba c h and Handel w as an age in whi c h

,
those masters stood ( except fo r oc c asional freaks of art el sewhere)

'
alone in all t he qual ities that we admire in Handel and in every ,
aspe ct o f Ba ch s art The age w as o n e in whi ch t o a c ontemporary

’
.
, ,
the renas cen c e o f pol yphony had long S pent its force T o a mi nd .
less c omp l a c ent than Burn e y s it w as an age o f decaden c e ; for ther e

’
w as little chan c e fo r the ordinary observer t o gue s s that in a future

CHRISTOPHER WILLIBALD GL UCK 7 1
century Johann S ebastian Bach would be discovered as a supreme

master and that Handel himself would join the ranks of the im
,
mortals o n the strength of works written after he had twice be c ome

bankrupt as a producer of operas The present day worshippers of .
-
t he later phases of Russian ballet are not more hostile to Brahms

than the musical fashions of 1 74 5 were to B ach .
In this period of Alberti basses and vocal acrobatics Gluck began ,
to make his mark in Italy as a fairl y su cc es efu l writer of Italian

opera We shall do his early works no injustice by inferring their
.
character from collateral and subsequent events They succeeded .
well enough in Italy to cause Gluck to be invited to L ondon t o

compose for the Haymarket in 1 74 5 Here he made little impres .
sion ; the works were severely trounced by the critics ; and Handel
‘
pronoun c ed on Glu c k his famous judgement that he knows no
more counterpoint than my cook In this early visit to E ngland ’
.
Gluck made a better im pre s s I o n by his performances on the

‘
musical glas s es fo r which he wrote a concerto The instrument
’
, .
w as not the nerve racking system of bowls revolving on a S pindle

-
and played by moistened fin ge r tips for which M ozart wrote some -
thirty y ears afterwards It was a more primitive affair struck with

.
some kind of soft hammer ; and the vogue of Glu c k s performance ’
on it is in all probability commemorated in the phrase Shakespeare

’
and the musical glasses Indeed unless the phrase can be dis
.
,
covered to be used before 1 74 5 no other origin for it seems possible

, .
We are told that Glu c k s first impulse towards reform of opera

’
rose from the failure of a pasticcio which in accordance with a ,
common sense custom of the day had been made out of the most
-
applauded numbers of his other operas L e t us take that legend at .
its face valu e and note what it means In the first place it implies
: .
that pasti c ci os did not often fail ; in the second place the cause of
this failure was as cribed to the fact that the music fitted the words
in the original operas but did not fit those in the pasticcio N ow .
this is remarkable for it implies that Glu c k s music h ad become

,
’
essenti ally dramatic long before he h ad any idea of refo rrm n g opera
'
P robably if we could get at the music and texts both of the originals
an d the pasticcio we should fi nd that the facts were not quite so
,
simple ; that for example when Handel made a pastic c io his

‘
, , ,
’
librettist made a better job of the text than Gluck s librettist ; or
that Handel s arias are too effective to be ruined by literary causes
’
to which nobody paid any attention whereas the success of Gluck s ,

’
early music was at best a trembling in the balan c e Still the legend .
,
is signifi c ant ; and we must not too hastily assume the unimportance
of Glu ck s early music Handel himsel f was not more rel uct ant
’
.
than Glu ck t o write a ne w pie c e when an o ld o n e could serve ; and

the greatest o f Glu ck s works live as unscrupulous l y as Handel s
’
.
’
by taking in n o t only ea ch other s washing but the washing of ’

,
operas whi c h the historians tell u s rel apsed into the bad old style
which Glu ck s o drasti c ally reformed I n short it is quite possible .
,
that the c hief merit o f the works whi c h Glu ck produ c ed in L ondon
in 1 7 4 5 w as a new kind o f dramati c fitness and that when this ,
disappeared in the adaptation t o a new text the other merits proved

insu fficient .
I f this new kind of dramatic fitness w as anything l ike an adu m b ra

tion o f Glu ck s mature style we need inquire no farther as to the
’
,
nature o f it s importanc e But we must n o t suppose it to have been

.
the only kind o f dramati c fitness that existed N owadays great if .

,
sporadi c efforts are made t o revive Handel s operas ; and the p ro p a ’
g a n d is t s in su c h fe viv als always Claim that H andel is a genuinely
dramatic c omposer I n the performan ces less is spent on spectacle

.
and costume while more attention is paid t o stage management and -
gesture than w as perhaps usual in Handel s time ; and the arias ’
especial ly those with mu ch c oloratura are cut down sometimes c on , ,
s ide rab ly be l ow the limits o f musi c al c oherence Enough beautiful .
musi c remains t o entertain the listener ; and as Handel is a co n su m

mate rhetori cian whose musi c is c onne cted with the words in a not
who l ly a c cidental fashion the result is remarkably like an opera
, .
But before we a c quies ce in the enthusiastic opinion that Handelian

opera should have made G l u ck s reforms unne cessary we S hould ’
,
do well t o real ize that this resu l t h as been Obtained by cutting out
the e l ements o n whi c h Hande l chiefly rel ied ; and that if su ch a
produ ction o f h is operas had been o ffered him he would have flung ,
h is wig at the produ c ers and good Princess C aro l ine would have
,
‘
had t o s ay Hush ! hush ! Handel is angry
,
’
.
H o w mu c h counterpoint did Handel s cook know ? This is a

’
fundamental point in the c ase fo r reform of opera Handel s cook .

’
w as M r W a lz a singer with an ex c el lent bass voi c e o n whom

.
, ,
Handel rel ied fo r small roles in his operas I t is quite possible that .
M r W alz c ould have written a to l erable thorough bass t o an air of

.
-
his o w n c ompos ition C larissa Harl owe is supposed t o have had

.
this mu c h a cc omp l ishment and Ri chardson even c ontrive d with

,
the aid o f a cleri cal friend to give the musi c of a song s he wrote ,
figured bass and al l I n a polite age the horror o f pedantry is itself

.
74. CHR I S TO P HER W I L L I BALD G LU CK
from this la ck The drastic and thoroug h way is B e ethoven s
.
’
.
Finding polyphony as necess ary to his music as air to his lungs ,
Beethoven forced himself to be c ome a contrapuntist in S pite of all

obsta cles The natural contrapuntal styles of Bach Handel Haydn
.
, , ,
and M ozart were beyond his rea ch To him they were like ideal .
instruments ; and he had to u se the imperfect ins trument of his

own style The only differen c e between it an d other impe rfect
.
instruments su ch as the pianoforte and the instruments of t he

,
orchestra is that its imperfection is not that of a material object

, .
N evertheless Beethoven tran scends it exactly as gre at ‘artists tran

,
scend the imperfections of material instruments ; the di ffi culties are

deliberately turned into qualities O r we may c ompare the style .
with a language rather than with a material inst rument For no .
two artists u s e quite the same language ; and genius may forc e an
exquisite precision o u t o f an un c outh language thereby expressing ,
subtl eties beyond the reac h o f smoother tongues .
Glu ck h as another way o u t o f the di fficulties of his imperfect

tec hnique I t is an infallible way only under favourable circum
.
stan c es ; in other circumstan c es it is not available at all It amounts .
simply to this ; get your librettis t t o devise the simplest possible

dramati c situations o f sublime emotion and become inspired by ,
t hem yourself I n su c h situatio n s a smal l te c hni c al apparatus in the

.
hands o f an inspired c omposer may a chieve the same result that .
wou l d have been achi eved by a larger technical apparatus in the

hands o f a mas ter w h o prunes away s u p e rflu it ie s Handel is a .
master with a l arge te c hni c al apparatus whi c h he hardly ever puts

into operation W hen he is inspired there is no ready means of
.
distinguishing his te chn ique from that o f hi s laziest work It is his .
rhetori c not his c ounterpoint that yo u must study in order t o see

, ,
where the mastery lie s ; an d then yo u wi l l find that in essentials it

,
is very like Glu c k s Su ch a m asterpie c e as Stanford s favourite

’ ’
.
‘
illustration t he air Total e clipse in Handel s S amson is not a
,
’ ’
thing in whi c h a note c ou l d con ceivab ly be altered ; and if Glu ck

had be en given the task o f expressing the situation of the blind and
captive Samson he would have been glad enough t o a c hieve an air
,
on exactly Handel s lines To the inspired c omposer su ch problems

’
.
solve th emselves A good s c hool o f melodi c rhetori c c omprises al l

.
that is needed fo r their te chniqu e .
U nfortunately dramas c annot be constru cted entirely on a se

,
quenc o o f beautiful emotions without a rational sequen c e of events

to c onnect them T w o o f Glu ck s greatest operas Orfeo and
.
’
,
C HRI STO P HER W I L L I BALD GL UCK 75
A lces te , were designed by their ent husiastic librettist Calz ab igi to

realiz e as nearly as possible this agreeable consummation No .
account of Gluck s operati c reforms is honest unless it faces the

’
fact that in the two works in which this reform was accomplished
Gluck and his librettist simplified the dramatic problem almost out
’
of existence But here the word almost is the key to the situation
. .
There is drama both in Orfeo and in A lces te ; and it demands an

inveterately dramatic music But in Orfeo there I s pract i c ally no
.
business and I n Alceste the need for a certain amount of dramatic

’
,
business has wrecked the original Italian third act and caused such
’
ch anges and interferences in the later Paris version that the supreme
action of Alce st e s return from the underworld is badly patched up
’
b y another hand In his last w orks Gluck handles more c ompli

.
c at e d libretti ; and we recogni z e more clearl y in them where the
composer finds no i nspiration and the craftsman falls back upon

doctrinaire man nerisms .
’
B efore dealing with Gluck s greater works in detail let us con ,
’
tinu s to investigate the legend Accepting Handel s judgement that.
Glu ck had never learnt counterpoint let us ask what he had learnt ,
.
His master S ammartini ( or San M artini) was an excellent contra

p untist But
. his vogue w as that of a writer of O peras and concertos
and chamber music Haydn w as s aid to have come under his in flu

.
en c e but was b y no means gratified b y that report which he in dig

, ,
"
n an t ly denied say ing that Sammartini was a dauber
,
L e t us thank .
Hay dn for this admirable w ord which so exactly describes the ,
essent i al quality of musical scene painting from the point of view -
of a master of genu in e chamber music From Sammartini the non .
contrapuntal Gluck could learn to daub and to use with a sense of ,
dramatic fitness the various form s of tremolo including such as he ,
could afterwards invent for himself or pick up in the theatre

orchestras of P aris Besides picking up these useful and splashy
.
accomplishments a pupil of S ammartini w as in the position of an

,
’
apprenti c e in a painter s atelier ; he was allowed to complete the less
important parts of his mas ter s works We hear much of the ’
.
plagiarisms of Handel and of other masters of the eighteenth cen

tury ; but it would be interesting to know whether an eighteenth
century composer was allowed during the lifetime of his master to
’
claim his share in the works that went under the older master s
name M any charges of plagiarism were brought against Gluck in
.
later y ears sometimes interesting sometimes merely comic ; an d

, , ,
as has already been mentioned all Gluck s works lived by taking in ,

’
7 6 .
CHRI STOPHER W ILLIBALD GLUCK
each other s was hi ng But it might be worth while to discover what
’
.
early ari as o f Gluck s pass under the name of Sammartini No t only

’
.
the splashy theatri c al texture but also the larger aspect s of Glu c k s
,
’
musical form o w e much to Sammartini The sonata styl e of Haydn .
and M ozart is inveterately dramati c to an extent o f whic h its t e ,
u t e d pioneer Philipp E manuel Bach had n o con c eption But it is

p .
not thr ough the sonata forms that Glu ck arrived at his dramatic
style The instrumental form s o f Sammartini are like th e textures
.
,
associated with them degenerated from the style o f the concerto

,
grosso In the greatest examples of the genuine s tyle such as

.
,
Bach s Third Brandenburg C on c erto we S hall find large stret ches

’
,
in homophonic vibration b y way o f relief o r even as a means of

, ,
bringing more highl y organized textures to a climax Glu ck s over .

’
tures to A lces te and Iphigenie en A u lide are as intimately connected

with the operas as any Wagner Vorspiel ; and their orc hestration is
wonderfu lly satisfactory t o modern c ars and w as quite acc eptable to
M ozart But su c h resemblan c e as they have t o the sonata style is
.
rath er de c eptive : their material and contrasts are c on c eived far

more o n the lines o f the c on c erto grosso Strange t o s ay the .
,
classi cal symphony itself w as an offshoot from operati c overtures in

thi s style and did n o t immediately coal es ce into the genuine sonata
forms P hilipp E mmanuel Bac h w as a lyri c rhetori cian whose style
.
grew steadily more aloof from dramatic action ; yet the fi rst move
ments o f his symphoni es are n o t in line with his sonatas but with ,
Gluck s overtures’
.
But these are matters o f musi c al form whi c h belong to a later

stage o f the present dis cussion I t is futile t o dis cuss the problem of
.
Opera as if it were primari l y musi c al At least four fift hs of the .

-
prob l em is c entred in the l ibretto An opera may be a con cert on .
the stage ; and thi s w as if onl y fo r finan cial reasons its main pur
, ,
pose and the main c ause o f it s vogue before G l u ck The perfor .
m an c e s o f great S ingers were ruinous l y expensive and it w as well ,

’
t o provide some four hours entertainment fo r the cost Expensive .
dresses and expensive s c enery entertained the eye and s o re l ieved ,
what would otherw ise have been a strain o n the attention o f the
ear An Opera with a simple plot would n o t employ enough S ingers
.
,
n o r could it give it s few characters enough material fo r the required

‘
thirty o dd arias with whi ch t o fi ll out the four hours entertain

-
’
ment W hen Handel dea l s with the subje ct o f Alceste the titl e of
.
,
the opera is Admeto and the story h as a counterplot What the .
c ounterplot is I frankly o w n I have forgotten if I ever knew ; and

, ,
C H R I S TO P H E R W ILLIBALD GL UCK 77
those who know it kno w something that Handel s audiences never ’
thought about To the best of my recollect ion all the plots of

“
Handel s operas are c omplicated S even characters are almost obli

’
.
g at o ry I n normal circumstances In S pecial circumstances special .

,
measures are needed Thus when Handel induced the rival prima .
donnas Cu z z o n i and Faustina to sing in the same opera it was ,
necessary to design two imperial roles one that of the tragedy ,
queen the other that of the bride or bride el ec t of the conquering

,
-
Alexander The two queens fi rst entered together singing in thirds

. .
In writing the score it is necessary to write one part under the ,
other Handel was careful to put the higher notes on the lower stave
.
at the outset In their second duet the queens exchanged relative

.
positions both on the stave and in pitch and probably a more

, ,
minute statistical examination than I have the patience to undertake

would S how that neither of them had a S ingle quaver 8 cause for ’
j eal o usy Handel s diplomacy w as for several nights quite success

.
’
ful and the two prima donnas bristled with beautiful modesty
,
.
U nfortunately the public began to take sides If it is almost certain .
that S hakespeare and the musical glasses dates from Gluck s visit ’ ’
‘
to E ngland we may perhaps conjecture that the phrase this beats
,
cock fight in g dates from the rivalry of Cu zz o n i and Faustina At

-
’
.
all events the phrase became appropriate enough when the public
’
had decided to S poil Handel s game .
Apart from its comic aspect the game is interesting for this
reas on that it c oncerned the librettist quite as much as the com
,
’
poser The revivers of Handel s operas tell us with enthusiasm that
.
he was a bold innovator The Cu z z o n i Faustina hen fight was one .

- -
of his innovation s T h e opera Teseo embodies two other innova .
tions inasmuch as it is in five acts instead of the customary three

, ,
and its arias are allotted to the characters in pairs The dramatic .
value of these daring innovations is not Obvious and they must ,
have been accomplished b y the librettist before a note of the music

w as written We can base a better c ase for Handel as a dramatic
.
composer on the masterpieces of rhetoric which are perhaps as

freque nt in the operas as in the oratorios But the op eratic master .
pieces are for the most part happier out of their Context than in it .
P erhaps the great scene of madness at the end of the second act of
Orlando has something to gain from the drama that leads up to it ;
and there is much in the rest of Orlando th at w o u ld have interested .
Gluck who w as only prevented b y Pic cin n i from treating the same
,
subj ect But even here Handel would not have been able to wri te
,
7 8 CHRISTOPHER W ILLIBALD GLUCK
'
a scena of unprec edented range if his librettist had not laid o u t the
text accordingly .
The problem of the libretto must be solved as to its general

prin ciples before t he composer c an even begin to t heoriz e about
operatic reform o r operati c ideals We may negl ect the theories of .
the fa ct proof egotist who would like to write the musi c first and
-
get a libretto fitted to it afterwards Hardly less negligible is the .
view o f the profess ional ha ck writer fo r music and of the kin d of -
composer fo r whom he caters The ideal musi c drama will not be .

-
b ased o n a lo w estimate o f the subtleties and reso ur c es of musi c ,
and will c ontrive t o move at the pa ce of the musi c without sacri ficing
literary qualities Weber in the course o f nine revisions of the
.
,
hopel ess ly tangled libretto o f his greatest work Euryanthe exclaimed , ,

‘
Yo u don t suppose a m usi cian allows a libretto to be put into his
’
‘
hand like an app l e ! But he also said Give me al l the strange
’
,
rhythms and i nversions yo u can think of ; nothing stimulates the

c ompos er s invention more The c omposer of operas cannot help
’ ’
.
sometimes wishing that he c ould take an extant stage play more or

less as it stands and se t it to musi c with the minimum of alteration
, .
Sin ce Wagner a chieved c omplete continuity in a musi c that moves

at the same pa ce as the drama this ideal is no longer remote ,
.
O scar Wilde s S alome Hofmann sthal s E le ktra and M aeterlinck s

’ ’ ’
, ,
Pelle as e t M e lis ande had made their mark as plays before they
’ '
became Operas ; but it is n o t t o o mu c h t o s ay that the c onsummate

art o f S trau s s s and Debussy s timing ensures that they are better
’ ’
acted as operas than they have ever been as plays I f the c omposer s .
’
tra di tions and musi c al apparatus are simpler than Wagner s and the ’
drama older more adjustment is needed ; and Boito had to go to

,
great lengths in S imp l ifying Shakespeare before the Ot ello and

F als tafi o f Verdi c ou l d c ome into being On e o f the most remark
'
able fa cts in Glu c k s a chievement is that after e fle ct in g on c e fo r all

’
the reform o f opera in t w o works with libretti purposel y designed

with extreme simpli city he w as able to c ontinue by setting the ,
classical dramas o f Fren c h literature in fairly recognizable S hapes .
If we negle ct the views o f the ha ck writer o f verse for musi c we -
lose nothing val uable either in music o r literature B ut it is u n fo r .
t u n at e that s o many o f the great e st poets have happened to be
unmusi cal Goethe though he on ce tried t o conduct an amateur

.
,
c horal so ciety had n o gift fo r music and kn ew better than to trust

,
his o w n judgement about it U nfortunately he preferred a musical .
adviser w h o would n o t venture t o argue with him An d the spe c .

CHRI STO PHER W I LL I BALD GL UCK 79
tacle of G oethe led in musical matters b y Z elter is like a vision of
M essrs S haw ,C hesterton and Belloc trying to keep up with science
.
,
by studying Jules Verne Stanford threw himself at Tennyson s

.
’
feet in generous youthful ad oration and probably saved that poet

,
from one or tw o blunders in musical matters Browning talks .
cryptically and suggestively about music but it was almost a feature

,
of his style to call everything b y the w rong name if he possibly could .
In S hakespear e almost the only passage that u ses musical termino

-
lo gy without something wrong Or hopelessly Ob s cu re iS th e gamut

'
of Hortensio in The Taming of the S hrew O nly in M ilton and .
Bridges can the student of E nglish literature find positive state

ments about music that the musi cian can follow up in the certain
hope that the meaning is worth finding out It would ill become a
.
musician to compare musical culture with so vast a field as that of

letters B ut it may s afely be said that no musician has ever ventured
.
to remain so ignorant of the national literature and of all that has ,
been made international by translation as most persons of literary

,
cu lture are content to remain ignorant of music .
This w as not so in E ngland in the days of the Tudors nor at the ,
period of the Restoration N or was it so in Italy during the seven

.
t e e n t h and eighteenth centuries while opera was taking shape The .
hu mblest writer of w ords for composers could not consider himself

a hack worker when one of the leading poets of his age and country
-
devoted the whole of a long life and a personality of princely bearing

to writing words exclusively for music Such w as the lifew ork of
.
M etastas io If you want a fair estimate of M etastasio s ’
art you must turn to the historians of literature w ho are somewhat ,
puzzled to describe a poetry so exclusively designed for a kin d of

'
music that is no longer studied even b y musicians From musical .
historians M etastasio gets nothing but abuse B rilliant debating .
points are made out of such a fact as that he expire d in a canz ona ’
,
extemporizi ng in neat verse on the occasion of receiving extreme

’
unction It is not clear why this should be more ridiculous than the
.
fact that Bach on his death bed dictat ed a figure d Chorale in fugue
!
by contrary motion The main diff erence in the two cases is that
.
M etastasio wrote poetry which w as set to music b y composers

who se works have perished with them w hereas Bach has w ritten
,
music that endures There is also a spiritual difference between

.
M etastasio and Bach which makes it seem trivial to bully poor

M etastasio with a gibe But two facts remain : fi rst that M etas
.
t as iO s poetry is still read for its own sake b y students of Italian

’
80 C H RI ST O P HER W I L LI BA LD GLU CK
literature and secondly that M etastasio was continually vexed at
,
the way in which his operas were set to musi c What he a chieved .
in his dramas was a very rational musical scheme ac c ording to ,
which ea ch situation w as arrived at by a natural and smooth pro

gress of dialogue an d action in order to be marked at every emo
,
t io n al c risis or poss ible point o f repose by a tableau during which

the emotion could be expressed in an aria s e t to a few lines of preg
nant poetry so designed that the words wou l d bear repetition with
good rhetori c al effect in a musical S cheme There is no essential .
difference between thi s and ordinary drama ; indeed it reduces the

conflict between musi c and action t o the constant element of c on
flict between lyric poetry and action in all drama The M etastasio .
formula w as doomed from the outset n o t be cause it was irrational , ,
but be c ause it w as t o o easy Hasse w h o wrote operas literally by

.
,
the hundred could n o t remember whether he had set some of

,
M etastasio s dram as three times o r on ly twi c e The essential

’
.
tragedy o f M etastasio s long c areer is that his operas were never

’
on c e s et by a great musi cian until M ozart himself desperately ,

.
driven under the pressure o f more important works hurriedly

'
,
executed a commission fo r the wedding festivities o f the Austrian

E mperor and s e t L a Clemen z a ai Tito in a style suitable to the
'
o cc as ion The play h as been said to be o n e o f M etastasio s best

.
’
.
‘
T o the modern Phi l istine it s moral seems t o be Why c annot a ~
hard working Roman E mperor have three wives ? And the new
-
’
E mpress graciously c hara cterized M ozart s music as u na porcheria ’
tedesca But there is nothing in the stru cture o f the play t o prevent
.
M ozart from making a fine thing o f it if he c ould have fel t a little

more sympathy fo r the intrigues o f persons with a reversionary
interest in Titus s dilemmas Otherwise there is n o dis c overable
’
.
reason why the M etastasio p l ays should n o t have been s et by great

c omposers The poet s onl y faults are those o f an inveterate im p ro
.
’
viser ; and fo r the musi cian these are n o t faults at all Perhaps o n e .
o f the most momentous disappointments in musi c al history w as
that o f the chil d M ozart when at the age o f twelve he w as not

,
allowed t o have a libretto by M etastasio fo r the opera he w as to

produ c e at M i l an An al l ian c e between M etastasio and that amaz
.
ing c hi l d m ight have grown into a greater partnership than that of

G l uck and C alz ab igi I f only M etastasio instead o f Vare s co had
.
written I domen eo !
Raniero C alz ab igi w as an enthusiastic poet whose ideas on
operati c reform were highly congenial t o Glu ck I t is quite l ikely .
82 CHRISTOPHER WI LLIBALD GLUCK
“
towards her She falls dead and he is in despair again Amor

.
, .
returns and stating that the gods are satisfied after all revives
, ,
Eurydice and the scene changes to his temple where his triumph
, ,
and the happiness o f O rpheus and Eurydice are celebrated with

ballet and chorus .
Already the fi rst pioneers of opera in 1 600 had found that in a

musical setting the pathos o f the O rpheus legen d becomes int o le r
‘
able u nl ess a happy ending is provided M usic concentrates its .
emotion al effe cts s o powerfu l ly that either a c onsiderable intellect ual

apparatus o r a melodram ati c call ousness is neces sary to make a
tragi c end tolerable Thus when later I talian opera became tragic
.
it be c ame eminentl y b l ood and thunder The story of I l Trovatore

- -
.
is gruesome ; but a c ritic h as n o t ineptly observed that nobody ever

risked sitting down in the trunk hose o f the gipsy s foster so n And
-
’
-
.
,
by the time libretti had become s o tragi c music had learnt to pro ,
vide c ommon d an c e rhythms fo r the most so l emn o ccasions But

-
.
there is something very difie re n t from c onventionality in the refusal

o f earlier musicians t o face tragi c issues in musi c Their art recap .
t u re d the emotional values o f c hildhood ; and t o the normal ch i l d a

story that ends sa dly is an outrage That c riti cism is al together too
.
easy whi ch c ondemns the recapture o f the child s instin c ts N obody ’

.
need trouble t o justify the me chanism by whi c h happy endings

are se cured unless o n these grounds that the Cruder the device
, ,
the more honest is what S c ots law wou l d c all the co n fess ion and
avoidan c e Al ike in primitive unreformed and reformed opera
.
, , ,
the composer w as deal ing with a musi ca l apparatus that c ontained

few el ements whi c h appeal primari l y t o the intell e ct Beauty of .
musi c al design beauty o f harmony and tone immediate emotional

, ,
expression these things may be directed by genius to result s in

,
which the inte ll ect may find inexhaustible enjoyment But they .
are n o t primarily addressed t o the fa cult y o f c onscious reason .
A fugu e i n stantl y draws attention t o the interplay o f its voices : a

sonata presuppos e s that yo u will recognize it s themes when they
recur : a drama with an e l aborate p l ot demands your attention to
the course o f events All su ch apparatuses may be used to heighten
.
the total power o f emotion but they invariably redu c e it s imme diate
,
shock There is evidentl y nothing t o reduce the shock of emotion

.
in Gluck s Orfeo ; and it s effe ct is in credib l y moving Indeed its

’
.
,
most famous (though n o t reall y it s greatest) a chievement in pathos ’
is the aria C he faro senza E uridi c e w hi c h comes after E urydice s

’ ’
,
annoying behaviour and might have been expected to alienate t h e

,
CHRISTOPHER WILLIBALD GLUCK 83
sy mpat hy o f any listener w ho had not given a holiday to the faculty

of reason .
Ignore Euripides when you approach Gluck s A lces te V errall ’

.
has shown that the Brownings were too literal minded for the -
ironies of Euripides satiri c drama ; but if Verrall is ten times as

’
subtle as Balau st io n that interpreter is twenty times subtler than

,
C alz ab igi The whole opera has precisely this and no more con
.
n e x10n W I t h the Greek drama : that it conc ern s a ki ng at the point
of death whose life can be purchased by the willing sacrifice of

,
some other life and is so purchased b y that of his wife who is

, ,
fi nally brought b ack from death by superhuman means Every .
vestige of a problem is removed from the treatment of this story .
The devotion of the people to their king and their grief at his
impending death are the dominant notes of the fi rst act ; and the
diffi culty of finding a willing sacrifice is not stressed Admetus is .
horri fi ed at the idea that anyone should be sacrificed for him and ,
the chief t ragI c moment is that in which his wife confesses to him
that s h e is the sacrifi c e Thus C alz ab igi secures two acts full of
.
intense emotion without any occasion for doubt or analysis of

motives In the third act he encountered problems of dramatic
‘ ’
business and here he failed conspicuously When the opera was
,
.
remodelled for the P arisian stage the third act ruined its effect .
‘ ’
Gluck exclaimed Alceste est tombée to which Rousseau replied , ,
‘
O u i mais elle est tombé e du c iel
’
,
The rest of the opera was so .
impressive that the rescue of its third act was thought worth the
trouble A new part was created for Hercules who had not ap
.
,
re d in C alz ab igi s libretto at all

’
Thus instead of C alz ab igi s
’
p e a .
,
Apollo ex m achina it is now Hercules who as in the Greek story

, , ,
plu nges i nto ;the underworld and rescues Alceste U nfo rtunately .
not only the whole ro le of Hercules but the supreme crisis Of his ,
conquest of the underworld were composed w hile Gluck was away ,
in Vienna b y a certain Go ssec w hom musical historians mention

,
with a respect by no means justified b y the ridiculous effect of his

stiff lit tle phrases and jejune harmonies in the midst of Gluck s ’
greatest music Gluck seems to w rite badly e nough when he is not

.
inspired ; but his feeblest stuff would put Go sse c to S hame And .
the four leaves c ontaining Gluck s ow n handling of the climax are

’
lost ! The original Italian version cannot help us here ; for through
out the opera Glu c k s reconstructions are so extensive that in re
’ “
adapting the P aris version to Italian words not one line of C al z a ,
b igi s te xt c an remain And on the whole the Paris version is

’
.
, ,
84 CHRISTOPHER WILLIBALD GLUCK
incomparably finer to an extent which c an be measured already at
‘
the rise of the curtain where the overture leads to a mighty out c ry
,
of the populace instead o f dying away almost formally as in the
Yet there is
much to be said for taking the I talian rather than
‘
the French version o f A lces te as th e basis of modern performan ces

of the work There is no reason why the manifest improvements of
.
detail in the Fren c h version should n o t be grafted o n the original

Italian form in su c h a manner as t o leave the third act u n e n cu m
bered by any foreign matter whatever The Fren c h alterations have .
to some extent affe cted the plot ; and no doubt if we cou ld re c over
, ,
the missing pas sage in Glu ck s Fren ch third a ct it would prove to

’
be finer than anything in the I talian version But Go s s ec s Her cules .

’
and his music fo r the combat between Hercules and the I nfernal
Deities simply will n o t do W hen o n e is n o t in the a ct o f enjoying
.
Gluck s music o n e re c olle cts him as an unlearned c omposer whose

’
crudeness needs some indu l gen c e ; but if we want t o s e e h o w il l usory

such aft er impressions can be we have only t o c ontemplate the
-
harmonies and rhythms whi c h Go s s e c thinks impressive enough fo r

the I n fernal Deities in the a ct o f yielding t o Her cules I forbear t o .
give a musical example but the reader should be warned that most
,
o f the printed vo c al s c ores give Go ss e c s rubbish without the

’
slightest hint that it is n o t by Glu ck Apart from internal eviden c e

.
it may be easily distinguished by the fa ct that it all be l ongs to the

role o f Her cules and that it s c horal portion is in C maj or .
The I talian Alces te c ontains several beautiful numbers that are

n o t in the Fren c h version ; and the Fren c h version contains besides ,
an enormous amount o f ball et several new ari as whi c h Show the

,
growing complexity and subtlety o f Glu ck s rhetoric In the I tal ian ’

.
‘
A lc es te the air N o n vi turbate h as be c ome al most unre c ognizab l e
'
‘
in its Fren c h form Ah ! Divin ite s impla c ables though a cl ose
' ’
,
examination sh o ws the Fren c h version t o be a bar fo r b ar variation - -
o f the I talian But meanwhile the I talian version h as become known

.
as an Andantino in E flat fo r pianoforte by M ozart be c ause he ,
copied it o n pianoforte staves fo r some u n kn own purpose possibly ,
as theme fo r a s e t o f variations Su ch a work would have made an

.
agreeably s erious c ompanion t o the ex c ellent c omi c variations o n

Glu ck s Uns er dum me Pob el m ein t The influence o f Glu ck o n
’ '
M ozart is deeper than we are ready t o suppose ; and in I dom eneo

the ora cle scene and the bal let music pay tribute t o Glu ck that
amounts t o something like expli cit quotation Throughout M ozart s .
’
C H RI S T O P H E R W I L L I B A L D G L U C K 85
works there are certain pathetic turns of phrase that are more
probably to be derived from Glu ck than from any less important
maker of the musical language of the eighteenth centu ry Here is a .
‘
C o n flat io n of one of the Gluck M oz art idioms M o z art often uses
’
-
.
the chromatic version ( b ) which is not in Glu ck s vocabulary ; but ’
M oz art by no means neglects the severer form (a) .
Ex 1 .
A ndan te
At this point it be c omes interesting to inquire w hy I domeneo is

the only work in which M ozart shows the dramatic influence of
Gluck in any obvious w ay It is an insu fficient answer that M ozart s
.
’
lines of progress lay in comic opera where Gluck s contribution ’
was insignifi cant : we want to know why the musical power shown
in the tragic grandeur of I dom eneo did not improve upon this open
ing developing the manifestly congenial dramatic aspect of it and
, ,
automatically extruding with growing taste the anti dramatic ele -
ments of coloratura singing and redundant symmetry which spoilt

I dom eneo In his later works there are no limits to the dramatic
.
sensibility M ozart shows whe n he chooses ; and there are plenty of

points in I domeneo itself that are considerably more dramatic in
M o z art s hand than the librettist Vare s co had any reason to expec t
’
.
But the fi rst thing that is obvious about M oz art is that he is very
fond of music He could never have approved of G luck s avow al
.
’
in the dedicatory letter of A lces te that the composer s aim should ’
‘
be to restrict musi c to its proper function of rendering service to
poetry and dramatic situations as colour and Chiaroscuro serve the
’ ’
purpose of a well composed picture ; and Gluck s own achievement
-
‘
was not to restrict but to enlarge music to its proper function ’
.
It never became self evident to M oz art that any musical resource

-
was necessarily undramatic His whole development alike in in st ru

.
,
mental and stage music might be traced in terms of his growing

,
insight into the dramatic meaning of any and every musical re

source In the last resort he would probably have come to consider
.
an undramatic libretto as unmusical though his life w as not nearl y,
long enough for him to outgrow a re adin e s S to irrigate Saharas with

his flow of musical inspiration Even as it was M ozart became a
.
,
dramatic reformer of opera over a much wider area than Gluck

86 CHRISTOPHER W ILLIBALD GLUCK
could c ommand But to Gluck belongs the supreme credit not only
.
of displaying genuinely dramati c musi c on the stage but of c reating ,
such music at all W e Onl y weaken the resources o f language by

.
applying the epithet dramati c to al l f orms o f rhetori c W e may .
agree with M a c aulay that some dialogues in Paradis e Lost would

make excellent drama and we may remind ourselves that D emos
,
‘
t h e n es said that the three essentials of rhetoric are action a c tion , ,
an d a ction ; but we s hall g e t an inadequate meaning from the word

’
dramati c as app l ied t o musi c unless we restrict it to actions less

stati c than those o f the orator and changes of S ituation capable of
,
interrupting the flo w o f M ilton s finest dialogue ’

.
N ow we have seen that in Orfeo and A lc este C alz ab igi had

simplified the dramatic problem o f Opera almost out of existence ,
And there is mu ch t o be said fo r the view that the critical atmo

sphere of P aris enlarged G l u ck s sense o f the theatre and set him
’
free from what m ight have become cramping in C alz ab igi s do c ’
trine But this brin gs u s t o another distinction that might form the
.
subject o f a usefu l ess ay whi c h t o t he best o f my belief h as not yet

been written I s the sense o f the theatre c o extensive wit h the sense
.
-
of drama ? The h istory o f opera in Fran c e S hows that it is mani

fes tly nothing o f the kind Every time a foreign composer has
.
brought dramati c music into Fran ce he h as encountered c riticism

whi ch whether it exasperat e s o r pleases hi m profoundly affects
, ,
his style fo r the rest o f his life Few tenden c ies in musi c al history
.
have been s o conspicuous and s o unmistakable as the Vitalizing

e ffect o f Fren ch criti cism upon writers o f opera And yet who are .
,
the great cl assi c s o f French opera ? L ulli an I talian ; Rameau ; ,
Glu ck an Austrian ; and M eyerbeer a German Jew the Barnum

, , ,
of Opera ; and aloof and austere but a teacher o f several famous if

,
recalcitrant pupils the I talian C herubini influen c ed agai n st his

, ,
masterful will by both Glu ck and Beethoven With the pupils of .
that mu ch abused martinet the history o f French opera becomes

more obviously the hi story o f Fren ch compo s ers and also passes ,
into a very much lighter phase But the curious thing about the
.
classical hi story whether it be French o r foreign is that with few

, ,
exceptions its masterpie c es have n o t been parti cul arly dramati c an d ,
have indeed fo r the most part fallen into a respectful negl ect for
, , ,
‘
that very reason The sense o f the theatre which they S how is a
.
’
sense of entries exits and groupings

, , .
‘
Before Gluck came to Paris his two great reformed works ’
,
Orfeo and A lces te contained a few ballets t o make appropriate

,
l
CHRISTOPHER WILLIBALD GLUCK 87
resting place s in th e very simple action of these works He found

-
.
that performance was out of the question in Paris unless there was
’
at least an hour s bulk of ballet music distributed over each opera .
To this we owe large masses of instrumental music in whi c h Gluck

rises to incomparably greater heights than in his few and u n im p o r
tant symphonic efforts apart from the stage ; and it is to this that
w e owe a century later that Wagner grafted on to the crudeness of
, ,
his Tannhauser a good half hour s bulk of music in his ripest and ’
'
most brilliant orchestral style But it is q u it e clear that in neither

.
case is su c h music a contribution to the reform of opera It almost .
seems as if the arbiters of taste whose di ctates w ere followed by the

composers of French opera regarded dramatic action as a thing
subversive of the art of the theatre P erhaps this is why Orfeo .
w as re c eived in Paris with almost universal approval while A lces te ,
( having more action in it ) at first failed The fe w who complained .
of the insu ffi ciency of action in Orfeo admitted in the same breath

that the music carried the spectator over that defect .
Glu c k did not fi nd it necessary to reconstruct Orfeo to anything

like the extent that the P arisian stage required for Alces te The two .
works present widely different problems for modern performance .
An entirely new opera would have cost Gluck little more labour
than his revision of A lces te Y et we may perform the original Italian
.
version with the certainty that we are dealing with Glu c k s own ’
fi rst inspiration in every detail and without mu c h difli cu lty in ,
grafting upon it those features of the second A lces te which are real
improvements I f on the other hand we base our performance on
. .
, ,
the French A lces te we must fi nd some scholarly substitute for

,
Go ss e c s stu ff With Orfeo the case is different Where the Fren c h

’
. .
version differs from the original Italian in musi c al conte nt and

declamation it is S O incomparably fi ner that no sensitive judgement
,
could abandon it The Italian version has recently been published

.
in vocal score and presumably adopted as the basis of performance ,
but none of its unfamiliar details will bear comparison with the
sublime sty le of what may be conveniently called the authoriz ed
version This criticism is no mere result of custom The eff ect of
. .
a return to the Italian version is by no means that of a re turn to

something more severe In one of the greatest passages of all the entry
.
,
of O rpheus into the Elysian fi elds the Italian orchestration is actually

,
more elaborate than the French and a glance is enough to S how ,
that Gluck has here removed s u p e rflu ities All the new French .
details represent quite obviously a deepening and purifying of

88 CHRISTOPHER WILLIBALD GLUCK
Glu ck s style Yet as a whole the authentic Fren ch version in the
’
.
,
.
, ,
form given in the monumental Pe lle t an Dam c ke edition is in t o le r -
ab l e al most from beginning to end inasmuch as the whole part of ,
O rpheus w as transposed by Glu c k from an alto to a high tenor

voice ; with the result among minor disadvantages t hat the whole
, ,
scen e of O rpheus s c ontest with the Furies has be c ome entirely

’
decentralized in key and the magnifi c ent original plan of its

,
modulations obliterated The famous tenor L e Gros in whose .

, ,
interest these dreadful changes were made must have had an u n ,
pleasantly high voi ce and he could S ing the great Elysian re citative
,
at it s origina l pitch That movement therefore remains u n t ran s

.
posed ; but the shri l l tenor is quite subversive o f the deep c al m that
Gluck originally intended fo r this most wonderful of accompanied
re citatives .
We may t ake it then that every adequate modern performan c e o f

, ,
Orfeo will c onsist o f the Fren c h s c oring grafted on to the I talian

plan o f keys and voi c e N either by thi s means n o r by returning to
.
the pure I talian version S hal l we re c over exa ctly what Glu ck in
tended ; and this is just as well S cholarship itself is n o t obliged to .
insist on the restoration o f c onditions that ought never t o have

existed W e may sing the c antatas o f Ba ch nowadays without fo l
.
lowing the pre cedents o f the Tho masschule under Ba ch himself

by giving the c hoir a wel l deserved flogging afterwards I n graver -
.
I o o d we may hope that W estern Ci vi l ization wil l never again allow

n
the voice o f the cas tra to t o be heard L e t u s sti ck t o our modern .
innovation o f giving the part o f O rfeo t o a woman with a c ontralto

voi c e and let u s have the benefit o f Glu ck s most inspired final
,
’
tou c hes o n the undamaged fabri c o f his first and freshest essay in
musi c drama I t is ridi culous t o suppose that the gl orious voi c es
-
.
and nob l e persons o f Amal ia Joa c him and Giulia Ravo gli produ c ed
a less natural an d cl assical representation o f Glu ck s Orpheus than ’
the eunu chs o f the eighteenth century .
Glu c k had n o t settled in Paris long before the Fren c h re c ognized

in him a glorious opportunity fo r the development o f musi c al party
politics Paris had n o t yet forgotten the great war between the
.
Bu ffo n is t e s and the An tib u ffo n is t e s But that w as a mere matter o f .
fine art though it established the triumph o f c omi c opera as re p re

,
sented by Pe rgo le s e s L a S er va Padrona The arrival o f Glu ck

’
.
gave o cc asion fo r something mu ch more exciting a c ontest o f per ,
s o n alit ie s The Fren c h operati c stage w as already showing hospi

.
tality to another foreigner Picc in ni and here w as a glorious , ,

sluggish circulation and no remarkable features of composi
tion C oherence is not enough ; the c omposer who wishes to fill
.
hours with one piece instead of thirty must S how power and ‘
momentum Yet Pic c inn i s Roland quite justifies the Pic c in nist e s
.
’
for existing Al l mus ic great and small would soon come to an end
.
, ,
if it were the invariable fate of musicians as good as Piccinn i to
He w as a considerable master of melody and had other attra ctive

features in his style His instrumentation is defective in its te ch
.
nique and sugary in its merits The sugary qualities no doubt

,
.
helped his vogue The defe c ts are different from those of Gluck
.
,
but it is hard t o s ay that they are more serious ; and in any case
there is no eviden c e that even the most learned musicians of Paris
at the time were better judges o f instrumentation AS h as been sai d .
above Glu ck s escape from techni c al diflic u ltie s depends upon in

,
’
S piration ; and the S hort and suffi cient des cription o f the di fferen c e
between Glu ck and Pic c in ni is the ol d c riti c al evasion that Glu ck
is inspired and Pic c in ni is n o t Fortunate l y c riti c ism need n o t S O
.
,
c omp l etel y abdi c ate as t o l eave the matter here Inspiration is not .
a chim aera b om binans in vacu o and even the most dramatic musi c
,
o f the most drasti c reformer o f Opera does n o t attempt it s task
without being m usical I n the last resort the greatness of Glu ck

.
reveals itself c on clusively as the greatness o f a c omposer I f this .

.
were n o t So the whole busin e ss o f reforming opera might as well

,
have been left t o C alz ab igi and the j ourn alists N ow it s o h appens .
that c omposition is an aspect o f music whi ch is never dealt with in

musical literature In thi s matter the te c hni c al treatises are even
.
more t o seek than the journal ists ; fo r they o n e and all take the , ,
fatal l ine o f substituting general izations from complete works of

art fo r the methods by whi c h works o f art are really produ ced by
m asters .
The art o f c omposition in music is essentially the same as the art

o f c omposition in prose and poetry and the worst poss ible way to
,
learn it is by setting up a large art form as if it were a s c enario and

-
trying to fill it o u t A c omposer should learn all forms o f musi c al

.
textu re as he would learn a language and he S hould then find out ,
by experi en c e what ea ch kind of texture is good fo r A composer .
as res pe c tab l e as Picc in n i can trust hi s musi c to pro c eed at a c om
fo rt ab le amble without breaking down I f he is more le arne d t han

'
Picc in n i h is musi c al textures wi ll be ri c her and more interesting ;

but if he is a genius h is music will n o t amble uniformly but will ,
CHRISTOPHER WILLIBALD GLUCK 9 1
S how a momentum that carries eve rything before it whether the ,
intellectual and material apparatus be as primitive as Gluck s or as ’
’
complex and luxurious as Wagner s The external art forms are the .
-
results of the various powers of movement whi c h the composer of

genius sets to work C ertain kinds of music can fill a given time
.
with certain ranges of contrast and ce rtain mu sical evolutions For .
the composer of opera the times to be filled up and the ranges and
evolutions to be accomplished within them depe nd upon the libretto
'
,
and if he is not his own librettist some of the merits of his art forms -
manifestly belong to the poet To Calz ab igi and to the collabora .

,
’
tors who adapted Quinault and Racine to Gluck s purposes we ,
must give credit for a leading feature in Gluck s operati c schemes ’
— the building u
p of a long-
scene to a fine architectural design b y
means of a recurring chorus or recurring movements such as the ,
funeral choruses an d the echo songs which constitute the main bulk
of the fi rst act of Orfeo and the choruses of the grief stricken
,
-
populace in the first act of A lces te B ut the merit of the librettist .
w ould have availed little if the composer had not transcended it .
When the producer wishes to treat the composer with the con
tempt due to all who approach the stage otherwise than by the
orthodox progress from call boy to actor manager his fi rst proco - -
dure is to find any two passages which repeat the same phrase or
arrive at the same chord and then to cut out eve rything which
,
’
occurs between them in accordance with the axiom that any ou t

, ,
however nonsensical is better than any music or any argument

, ,
ho wever necessary There are w orks where this axiom is of some

.
practical use but with Gluck it is conspicuously untrue I should

, .
be surprised to learn that the most P hilistine of producers ever even

thought of cutting down the three statements of O rph eu s s lam e n t ’
'
to the echoes , with the three recitatives that alternate with them
!
There are cases where Gluck has used in a later work a shortened
form of an earlier piece of music I believe that the longer form .
will invariably prove to be the better Dramatic cogency seldom .
enters i nto the question because as we have seen Gluck s reform

, , ,
’
of opera owes most of its cogency to its having got rid of almost all
action except an emotional tension which has more to gain than to
lose b y spreading itself over a long time For the purposes of .
’
G luck s reforms music did not require to be speeded up and com
pressed It did indeed demand release from the imperturbable
’
.
, ,
amble of the da capo aria and the da capo itself w as a repetition

,
which achieved a fool proof sy mmetry b y a stroke of the pen and

-
9 2
“
CHRISTOPHER WILLIBALD GLUCK

prolonged every p ause in the action by some five minutes without
contributing any architectural quality to a scene as a whole The .
mere getting rid of thi s convention is in itself a speeding u p ; but -
the total effect o f Glu ck s methods is not a c ompression but an

’
,
expansion o f musi c I n modern performances we are n o t obliged

, .
to agree with the eighteenth century Parisian in demanding a whole

-
hour o f ballet musi c n o r would Glu ck have provided s o mu ch

,
ballet to suit his own taste ; but the las t things that you need to cut
out from Glu ck are his repetitions and expansion s I t is precisely .
in these that his power o f c limax is a musi c al resource epoch

making in its o w n day and true fo r all time M usic had to learn to .
expand with the kind o f expansion that does n o t arise from the
working o u t o f a polyphonic argument Gluck s power in that .
’
matter is o n e o f the reas ons why hi s music is not easy to illustrate

by S hor t quotations This difficu l ty is a c onstant sourc e of m is
.
understanding in books on musi cal history and the only possible ,
safeguard against it would be t o compel every musical historian to

produ c e a volume o f who l e c ompositions illustrating his points I n .
.
every art there wi l l always be literally hundreds o f artists w ho can

s ay a good thing here and there fo r o n e w h o c an produ c e a who l e
,
work o f art that h as more momentum than that o f a safe amble .
L e t us s e e whether it is possible to indi c ate Gluck s power of

’
composition by illustrations that without ruinous expense may , ,
S how the S c ale o n whi c h he c an work Fortunately there is an .

,
example in Iphig enie en A u lide whi ch can be summarized in a few

musical staves ; it consists almost wholly o f elements in c onceivable
.
t o Ba c h and Handel and is o n a time s c ale which would not be felt

,
-
t o be in adequate in Wagner s mature style (E x Agamemnon is

’
.
protesting that the gods c annot expe ct him t o obey the command
to sa c rifi c e his daughter He h as twi ce sung in the plain abrupt
.
‘
rhythm o f the words : Je n o b é irai point a cet ordre inhumain
’ ’
.
This takes five bars punctuated by pauses Then he breaks into a .
‘
cantabile : Je n t e n ds retentir dans m o n sein le cri plaintif de la
’
nature ; elle parl e 51 m o n c re u r e t s a voix e st plus sure que les

,
ora cles du destin T hi s takes twenty seven bars with n o repeti

’
.
-
tion o f words except que le s oracles du destin Here is the ground ’

.
plan Of t h ewhole procedure The appoggiatura o f the oboe is only

.
approximatel y a crotchet being written as a gra ce note whi ch may

,
-
be treated with some freedom here preferab l y o n the s l ow side

,
'
.
N othing l ike thi s had ever been written before and it is one of ,
the things that cannot be surpassed by anyt hi ng lat er The tempo .

94
J
C HR I S T O PH ER WILLIBALD GLUCK
four times as slowly In terms of an earlier static musi c le cri
.
,
‘
plaintif de la nature would have been present throughout the whole

aria in the form o f a more o r less florid ob oe solo if the c omposer ,
’
happened to be using Gluck s group of instruments A later com
~
‘
poser might have lo calized le cri putting it onc e just b efore the ’
,
utteran ce of the words or Oftener a cc ording as he chose t o repeat

, ,
the words The classi c al pro c edure for musi c al illus tration is to
.
put the illustration first and let the words explain it afterwar ds -
.
This is proof against disappointment for if the illustration does ,
n o t seem apt t o the listener he will not associate it with the words
at al l where as if the words are put forward first the composer

,
challenges criti cism At the outset Gluck obeys this rule : the audi
.
ence and Agamemnon himsel f hear the cry of the oboe before it is
‘
identified with le c ri p l aintif de la nature ; but it does n o t remain ’
a lo c al illustration though the words are n o t repeated ; n o r on the

, ,
other hand does it exp l ain itself away as a de c orative s c heme I t

, .
rises at l ong but equal intervals fo r n o less than nine steps to whic h ,
it adds four more declining over the dominant and establishing it

‘
after which Agamemnon resumes hi s short protest : Je n o b é irai ’
point a c et ordre inhumain and ends abruptly ’

.
The a cc ompaniment t o le cri plaintif c onsists o f repeated ’
quavers in the midd l e o f t h e harmony and o f pizzi cato basses ,
once in t w o bars alternating with the c ry o f the oboe and giving

rise t o faint sustained notes o f a bassoon T o the eye of a reader .
a ccustomed t o enjoy polyphoni c s c ores there is nothing to dist in g

u is h the appearan c e o f this page from that o f absolute rubbish ; bu t
with an experien c ed c ar the s c ore reader will re cogniz e that the -
qual ity o f tone in the whole vast expanse is Wagnerian in depth

and perfe ction and the composition wi ll overawe anybody who can
,
fee l the differen c e between l iving form and pat chwork The re .
‘
p e at e d quavers throb with a human emotion w hic h n o t even ou r
modern experien c e o f the vibrato o f the cinema organ c an defile ;

though as G l u ck shows u s all modes o f instrumental vibration in
,
their original ful l health the cinema organ translates them into the
,
n o w more fami l iar terms o f every disease from whi c h instrument s
and voices can suffer The p i zzicato notes o f the basses with their
.
,
faint pro lOn gat io n I n the sighs o f the bassoon have the exa ct emo ,
t io n al value o f sobs .
The whole passage is nevertheless marked by the highest quali

ties o f Greek art and is eminentl y what 13 c ommonl y but m is ,
leading l y call ed reserved The term is mis l eading be c ause it

, .
C H R I S TO P H ER W I L L I B A L D GL U C K 95
i mplies that something is withheld This is not the case : nothing .
is withheld but nothing is in excess The simplicity is G reek and

, .
,
so is the subtlety The four last steps about the dominant of C

.
minor are the consummation of architectural and emotional per

fe ct io n Their chief point is musical and it would be far fetched
.
,
-
to find rhetoric or irony in the fact that the last clause of the words
is repeated S o far as the voice part is concerned it is a more
.
,
remarkable achievement that in the whole passage t he w o rds have ‘
’
not been repeated before It is no part of Gluck s aesthetic .
system that repetitions of words should be avoided nor did ,
the poets of the eighteenth century , whether they wrote specially

for music or not expect that their words could be sung without
,
repetitions .
For my other illustration I select the substance of one of Ber

lio z s letters The whole of this letter consists of a quotation not
’
.
quite c o extensive with mine and comm ented upon solely by four
-
notes of exclamation To that admirable c omment I will add that .
this melody shows as my phrase numerals indicate one symptom ,

-
of Gluck s power of movement and composition in the irregularity

’
and overlapping of its rhythm The quotation is from Iphigenie en .
Tauride Act II N o 1 7 ( Ex 3 overleaf)

, , . . .
This quotation seems to lose interest as it continues though the ,
intention to express emotion by high notes and minor c hords is

manifest But t hi s is just where short and S ketchy quotations of
.
dramatic music become misleading The very features which here .
look weak are t h e signs of a constant in crease of power ; and even

the magnifi cent fi rst phrase gives little warning of the cumulative
effect of the whole composition Gluck is not only never stiff ; the .
amblers manage to get through their works without manifest signs

of rheumatism ; but Gluck s movement his momentum whether ’
, ,
in slow or quick tempo is always powerful The ac c ompaniment , .
‘
of this wonderful air is a little more elaborate than that of le cri
pl aintif de la nature and q u it e diffe re n t in e ffect though it has in
’
,
fi
common the throbbing quaver movement and the deep pizz icato
-
-
basses with what one might call harmonics for a couple of horns
,
several octaves higher The movement is kept up for no less than .
1 1 2 bars broken by two pau s es only in the last line but three ; the
,
singer is Iphigenie joined towards the end b y her fellow priestesses

,
-
‘
’
of Tauris N ote that as in the previous quotation and in C he

.
,
faro and the echo songs in the first act of Orfeo Gluck s highest
’
,
’
pathos is expressed in the major mode He u s es the minor mode .

C HRISTOPHER W ILLIBALD GL U CK
9 8 C HRISTOPHER WILLIBALD GL UCK
down nor at his dullest or most doctrinaire does his rhythm become
,
stodgy I have already remarked upon the ineptitude of Go ss ec s

.
’
intervention in A lceste I t is l ike hearing a small s choo l boy inter

.
‘
rupt with his c onstrue a recital by Gilbert M urray These are .
indeed Circumstan c es in whi ch a man saying Ah ! wou l d speak !
’
correctly .
Thanks l argely to Berlioz Glu ck enjoys a popular fame as one

,
of the pioneers o f o rchestration It is a remarkable fact in the style

.
of a c omposer w h o real l y w as not a contrapuntist that G luck s ’
accompan iments basses and inner parts are never tiresome an d

, , ,
are almost always beautiful and thrilling in colour Su c h qualities .
they maintain in spite of an often exasperating liability to gram

m at ic al mistakes These however are often difficult to correct
.
, ,
without removing somethi ng essential t o the style A curious case .
is the grammati c al blunder of giving a c horus of female voi ces the

upper fourths o f a series o f chords of the S ixth leaving the bass to ,
the orchestra as in the famous Hymn of the Priestesses in Iphigenie

en Tau ride C haste fil le de L at o n e
,
C riti cs will never agree ’
.
whether this is a mere error o r whether Gevaert is right in think

,
ing it a trait o f genius sho w ing a s cholarly sense o f austere primi

,
tive Greek musi c Both views contain some truth Gluck never
. .
had a scho l arly sen se o f any kind an d his genius w as as triumphant ,
as the British C onstitution o r the L ight Brigade in blunderi n g

'
from pre c edent t o pre c edent Parry whose general admiration for
.
,
Glu ck wou l d almost satisfy Berl ioz deplores most o f Glu ck s ,

’
c horuses and explains them by saying that in that department he

,
w as brought up in a bad s c hool The bad s c hool w as c ertainly not .
that o f G l u ck s I talian apprenti ceship where the Choral traditions

’
,
were excell ent ; but there is n o denying that the c horal traditions of
the Fren ch theatre constituted a thoroughly bad influence Yet on .
the whol e the truth seems t o be o n the s ide o f the patrioti c Fren ch ,
to whom G l uck s choruses are the n e plus u ltra o f e ffi ciency and
’
point They ought n o doubt t o be very bad but they happen to

.
,
be fo r the most part as tonishingly good And before the Furies in .
Orfeo and Iphig en ie en Tau ride c riti c ism becomes S ilent reverence .
I have purposel y selected detai l s from G l u ck that have n o t been

made famous in l iterature The more famous a chievements of .
Glu ck s dramatic rhetoric are neither greater than nor i nferior to

’
my illustrations They are very mu ch finer than the literary de s c rip

.
tion of them manages t o in dicate because they wou l d all re m ain ,
great music if the things they i l lustrated were removed without

CHRISTOPHER WILLIBALD GL UCK 99
trace They would of course su ffer from the substitution of things
.
, ,
they were manifestly not meant to illustrate ; but it is no fair test

’
of music to distrac t the listener s attention Hence no doubt the .
, ,
’ ‘
failure of Gluck s early pasticcio B ut when O restes says le calme .
’
rentre dans mon omur and the violas belie him with their syn c o
pated monotone :
{f
i
the tragi c irony is terrible But the prose writer who can describe
.
this rhetori c al point m I ght possibly have c onceived it himself

without being a greater musician than Rousseau .
M y own experience of such interesting details in musical history

leads me t o have the profoundest distrust of all such descriptions
'
when they are attached to the w orks of an unknown or neglected

c omposer This particular passage is a conspicuous item in the
.
’
architecture of one of Gluck s grandest achievements ; and it
depends like all of them on the elementary fact that though he
, , ,
could talk about music in a very interesting way he composed ,
infi nitely better than he talked His instrumentation primitive .

,
though it looks contains so many strokes of genius that it supplies

,
’
almost a majority of the quotations in Berlioz s treatise on that art .
But here again its isolated points i m pressive though they may be ,
in themselves have a far deeper meaning and effect as manifesta

,
tions of his general powe r of composition His tone colours owe .

-
quite as much of their value to how long they last and at what
moment they change as to any intrinsic quality that can impress
’
the mind at o nce Gluck summ arized his own principles in the
n
.
famous letter which dedicates the Italian A lces te to the Duke of

Tuscany He touches upon the abuses of the old O pera especially
.
,
the da c apo aria which often concludes the da capo where the words
do no t make sense and whi c h holds up the action in order to give
,
the singer time to extemporize four different ways of orn amenting

the same phrase & c & c But the most important part of his letter
, .
, .
is a sentence which has attracted less attention than the rest He .
says that the combinations of instruments S hould be controlled b y

the passion of the S ituation .
This is so far as I am aware the only statement about in st ru

, ,
mentation made in the eighteenth century whi ch shows a conscious

ness that that art had undergone a total revolution from the aesthetic
I OO C HRISTO PHER WILLIBALD GLUCK
systems of Bach and Handel It means two things : first that the .
,
s c heme o f o rc h e st ratio n w as no longer a decorative pattern uniform ,
and un c hangeable fo r eac h movement ; secondly though in practical ,
u se no visible change w as made it implies the abolition of the con ,
t in u o the system by which the domestic servi c e of filling out the

,
harmony in the ba ckground was entrusted to a gentleman at the

harpsi chord o r pianoforte whi le the instruments of the orchestra
,
proper were free to make their own patterns O n e o f the many .

'
interesting tenden cies in modern musi c is that of groups of musi

c ian s who sometimes in di fferent countries and independently of
,
ea ch other aspire t o return to Ba c h and to write musical textures in

,
whi ch every note h as the ne c essity of a main o r c oequal part in a

polyphoni c design Some o f the modern aspirants to this co n su m
.
mation undoubtedly fail to realiz e that Ba ch himself would have

been extremel y dis c ontented with the tubby thi nness of those
modern performanc es o f hi s works that are given by uns cholarly
purists w h o make n o attempt t o produ c e his c ontinuo and who do ,
n o t real ize that the harpsi c hord itself produced by means of o c tave
registers often twi c e and sometimes three times as many notes as

, ,
those written C ontinuo music and harpsi chord musi c with its
.
,
fa culty o f me chani c al doub l ings made up a very aristo c rati c art , ,
but had essenti ally the advantages if n o t the disadvantages o f a , ,
civi l izatio n that rel ies upon s l avery The stupendous revolution
-
that w as a cc omplished by the art o f Haydn and M ozart is n o t as ,
some o f o u r n e o cl assics are in clined t o think a de c adence and

-
extravagan c e but perhaps the severest and strongest economy th at

,
musi c h as yet a chieved I t means that the or chestra and the inner
.
parts o f al l written musi c perform their o w n domesti c service and

are c ontent t o u se humble formulas ( suggestive if yo u will of , ,
scrubbing b rushes and pails o f water) at any moment without loss

-
— but o n the contrary with much gain— to their dignit Glu c k is

y .
far more than a pioneer o f opera He is a pioneer and a great one .

, ,
in the whole o f that noble musi c al revolution Haydn and M ozart .
seem t o have a c hieved their task in c omplete independence o f

Glu ck but it is probable that the enormous impression made by
,
Glu ck upon dramati c musi c c ontributed more than anybody at

the time w as aware o f t o the capacity o f the publi c to appre ciate
Haydn s and M ozart s purely instrumental art
’ ’
.
The works o f Glu ck whi c h c oncern the present discussion are

I Orfeo whi c h exists ideally and practi c ally in the grafting o f
.
,
the improvements o f the Paris version (without the dislocations )

carried in a large cage down the Haymarket for a rehearsal of Han
de l s Rina ldo I t is not surprising that the critics accused Gluck of
’
.
giving the enchantress the task of a monotonous an d tiresome cater

wauling ; and Gluck s replies to his c riti c s anticipated the best
’
.
vitriol of W agner s prose Though it s subject is best suited neither

’
.
to Glu ck nor to modern taste A rmida remains a work whi ch with

, ,
pious and tact ful production is very impressive Glu ck s full

, .
’
power is shown in the scene where Armida summons the Spirit of

Hate t o extirpate from her heart her l ove of Rinaldo b u t her courage ,
fails her and s h e dismisses the wrathful spirit with her purpose
unacc omplished .
After A rmide Gluck finished another large w o rk Echo et Nar

, ,
~
cisse .The title is enough to show that here Gluck is c rampe d

with the limits of prettiness ; and this c ramping is fatal to him .
U nder stress of emotion he can be recklessly pretty ; or rather the ,
beauty o f his path etic melodies h as an exquisite tenderness which

seems to be the inspiring sour c e o f every pretty thing that has sin c e
been a chi eved by lyric c omposers at the height of their powers But .
Glu ck confined to prettiness is a sad and dried u p creature and I -
, ,
w h o have a sinful ap p e t it e fo r prettiness have never been able to

o
,
take a large dose of Echo et N arcisse .
Gluck died before he had finished another work Les Danaides , ,
which w as finished fo r him by Salieri if I recol l ect rightly H ere

, .
,
again we may doubt whether the subject could have inspired him
, .
The five great works in cluding A rmido are manifestly majestic

, ,
in their sc ope ; and once we be c ome absorbed in them all in e q u ali

, ,
ties and faults o f style be c ome swept away in the essenti al grandeur ,
’
nobility and adequacy of the composer s powers
, .
F RAN Z S C H U B E R T 1
—
( 97
1 7 1 8 2 8 )
F RAN Z S CHU BERT the youngest of five survivors of the fourteen

,
children of a parish schoolmaster was born at Vienna on 3 1 January,
1 7 9 7 and died there on 1 9 N ovember

,
It is not plausible to
write optimistically of a life thus cut short before its struggles with
poverty have achieved more than moments of present success and
remote hopes of future security And musical biographies are .
specially intrac table material for writers and readers who wish to
take a view of life which is neither dismal nor patronizing The .
musician is usually quite as sociable as most artists ; but his art is

more of a my stery to the world at large even where it is most ,
praised than any other art ; and the biographer finds singularly
,
little help from the musician s contact with other interesting people
’
.
’
In the vast scheme of G oethe s general culture music had as high ,
a place as a man with no ear for anything but verse could be

expected to give it ; but the one famous meeting between B e ethoven
’
and Goethe reveals nothing except that Goethe disliked Beethoven s
manners nearly as much as L ord C hesterfield disliked Johnson s ’
,
and that Beethoven more than suspected Goethe of being a snob .
B eethoven is easily the most interesting personality in purely musi

cal biography ; nor perhaps need he be denied that supremacy even
if we regard Wagn er as a mere musician S chubert B eethoven s .
,
’
junior b y seventeen years was a S hy man and almost every an e c

, ,
dote that is told of him shows him in some pathetic position of

failure to make his way .
L e t me t é ll a new one
.
There is a curious English mu sical
.
dictionary published in 1 8 2 7 which may sometimes be found in

, ,
the fourpenny box outside a second hand bookshop ; and in this -
dictionary Beethoven is given one of the largest articles and treated

as unquestionably the greatest composer of the day (though on the
evidence only of his less dangerous works ) S u c h was B eethoven s .
’
fam e in the y ear of his death S chubert died in the next y ear
.
,
.
There are five S chuberts in this dictionary but Franz Schubert is ,
not among them When I showed this dictionary to Joachim he

.
remarked that I t was a pity that there was not a Franz Schubert in
it ; because as a matter of fact there was another Franz Schubert
1
F ro m The H eritag e of M usic , vo l . i (O xf o rd U n ive rs ity Pre ss ) , 1 9 27 .
1 03
04 FRANZ SCHUBERT
early in the nineteenth century whose pub lisher once wrote to him
,
en closing a song that had just been issued by another firm as being ,
by Franz S c hubert which if true constituted a breac h of agree

, , ,
ment whi c h the publis her w as the less ready to credit sin c e the song
‘
w as n o t only marked as O pus 1 but entirely l a c ked the smoothness
,
of Herr S c hubert s a cc omplished and esteemed pe n Herr S chu

’
.
bert replied with some sti ffness that he w as gl ad his pub l isher did
n o t feel ready to impute to him the authorship o f thi s wret c hed
‘
produ ction The M achwerk in question was S c hube rt s Erlkb nig
.
’ ’ ’
From su ch portents it is easy to infer a tragi c picture o f neglected

and hopeless genius But these are a ccidents thrown into undue
.
,
prominen c e by the c rowning a ccident of early death from typhus

fever in poor cir cumstan c es M odern sanitation to say nothing of
.
,
modern medi cine h as made typhus fever a rare cause of death

, .
But we are unduly optimisti c if we imagine that a musical genius

of Schubert s cali b re h as a better chance of succ ess before thirty one
’
-
at t he present day When we are invited to S how indignation at the

.
barbarity o f an age whi c h made S chubert c onsent to part with a .
dozen o f his finest songs at a kro ne apie ce and with his great E flat ,
Trio fo r about seventeen shi ll ings and S ixpen c e we may as well ,
begin by asking the C arnegie Trustees what their experien ce shows

them as t o the modern c omposer s opportunities fo r getting h is ’
works pub l ished at al l S chubert s earl y death during a struggle

.
’
with pove rty is t o o s ad fo r u s t o waste o u r emotion o n details wh ich

indi cate if they indi c ate anything that he lived at a period of
, ,
ex c eptional opportunities fo r young and Obscure men of musical

genius I n literary biography a brave standard o f tragic and moral
.
values w as established at all events fo r E nglish readers by th e

, ,
giant w h o in his o w n person brought fo rth the exodus o f literature

from Grub Street and gave the death blow t o the system o f patron -
age M usi ca l biography did n o t begin t o attra ct the attention of

.
otherwise cultured people until the dogmas o f the E ccentricity of

Geni us and the Virtues o f the Deserving Poor had brought into our
moral curren cy a new kind o f patronage equally remote from good ,
breeding and good s cience .
Biography is n o t t o the purpose of the present essay ; and in any

case a musi cian s work is more than that o f most artists far more
’
, ,
important than the events o f his life Al l the more ne cessary then .
, ,
is it t o dismiss from our minds c ertain prepossessions whi c h origi

n at e d at a time when music n o t being taken seriously by the edu
,
cat e d E nglishman w as alternately revered as a religious mystery and

,
1 06 F R A N Z S C H U B E RT
now and again the C ountess ’
I t is the more necessary to take
.
warning against indulging in too miserable a view of S c hubert s ’
struggle with poverty since Grove himself is stung by the tragedy

,
’
of the end into an outburst of anger at Schubert s friends The
“
'
anger is not ungenerou s and nobody will wish to minimize the

,
tragedy But is it clear that with his astonishing power of produ c

.
tion the c o m monest care would have ensured him a good l iving ’
even in those days when a publisher c ould a ctually be found fo r a

setting of the Erlkb nig with an ac c ompaniment whi c h the finest
’
pianists of t o day cannot master without either long pra ctice or

-
some way o f evading its difli cu lt ie s ? The worst o f this angry view of
Schubert s outward cir cu mstan c es is that it pro c eeds from and
’
fosters an unwarrantable optimism as to the conditions of modern

musi c al life There will never be many S c huberts even among
.
,
men of genius ; but in all the arts there have been before and S ince , ,
and there are n o w and will be in future many worse tragedies , .
The con clusion then remains that there is n o t the slightest reason
, ,
to hope that n o w or in future a genius o f S chubert s calibre will

, ,
’
have any better chan ce Of recognition before the age of thirty one -
.
Even in U topia there will be room fo r a ccidents .
In approachi ng S chubert s work something h as been gained ’
when we have dis carded notions that c onfuse pathos with mise ry
and mis chan c e with culpable negle ct But more serious difficulties
o
.
await u s in the c riteria o f form and style by whi c h his work has
been judged Here again it would be as misleading a paradox to
.
, ,
assert that S chubert w as a perfect mas ter Of musi c al form as to

assert that his c areer w as prosperous ; b u t we have also here to deal
with the current errors far more radi c al and definite than the vague
false proportions o f a biograp hi c treatment true as t o fact the res ult ,
of patient resear ch and mistaken onl y in the inexperien c ed emo

,
t io n al tone o f a more c o m fortable phase o f life and cu l ture .
C ertain c riteria o f musi c al form have been fixed with an illu sory
de cision by the extraordinary number and perfe ction o f a series of
instrumental c ompositions by three great masters whose lives over
lapped each other and whose matu re works Were all produ ced
,
within the eighty years beginning at the middle o f the eighteenth

century No great misunderstanding need have arisen from thus
.
basing o u r laws o f musical form on the works o f the Haydn

M ozart Beethoven triumvirate ( as we base the laws of Greek
-
tragedy o n what we know o f Aes chylus Sopho cl es and E uripides) , ,

“
,
if it were n o t for the fact that purely musical phenomena are diffi
FRANZ S CHUB ERT 7
cult to describe in any but technical words The description of a .
developed musical form is even with the aid of technical terms a

, ,
bulky statement which fills the mind to repletion without giving

much real in formation When we say that the ground plan of most
.
-
cathedrals is cruciform nobody imagines that the statement is either

,
abstruse or indicative of a large number of conventional rules and

restraints on the architect s liberty Add to it the mention of a
’
.
’
spire dome or towers and specify the ais les 5 nd st illye u will have
, , , ,
nothing which anybody supposes to be profoundly technical Even .
the orientation of the building raises no question greatly beyond the

intelligence of a child who knows his right hand from his left B ut .
.
these architectural facts already amount to notions fully as defi nite

as all that m usical text books have ever inculcated as to sonata
-
form If elementary architectural concepts were definabl e only in

.
mathematical terms we might over estimate their art ific iality as

,
-
grossly as we at present over estimate the rigidity of the art forms

- -
of classical music But in reality the sense of key relat ionship in

.
-
music is on the same level of thought as the elementary t o p o graphi

cal sense that enables u s to enjoy the sy mmetries of architecture .
The method and S COp e change from age to age ; an ancient Greek
would be even more sho c ked than an eighteenth centu ry E nglish -
‘
man o f classical taste at the barbarities of Gothi c architecture ;
’
and P alestrina would on first acquaintance find the harmonic

, ,
banality and coarseness of M ozart and of all classical instrumental

music so shocking that he would hardly notice that Beethoven ,
S c hubert or eve n Wagner could aggravate or modify the anarchy

, .
Such is the normal fi rst impression of the art of a later period as

seen from the point of view of an earlier p eriod It is thus no .
‘ ’
question here ; of immutable laws of art but it is a question of
permanent categories If t he se c ate go ries are describable only in
’
such untranslated technical terms as counterpoint and tonality and ,
if such vernacular words as harmony rhythm and form develop , ,
technical meanings which are at once narrow and ill defin e d who -
shall set limits to the possibilities of plausible nonsense in mu sical

history and education ?
S chubert s masters at the Convict or court chapel choir school
’
,
- -
have been severely blamed for neglecting his education and all o w
ing him to compose without restraint O n e of these masters left On
.
record the honest remark that when he tried to teach S chubert

anything he found the boy knew it already It is evid e ntly dan
, .
g ero n s to leave such remarks lying about where the directors of

1 08 FRANZ S CHUBERT
later institutes of musi cal education c an get at them But we are .
n o t justified in inferring that the master really taught S c hubert
nothing And there is abundant eviden c e that the c hi l d taught him

.
self with remarkab l e concentration if not with severity O n e of , .
the most trying tasks ever imposed o n a young musi cian is that sti l l
recommended by some very high authorities which consists of ,
composing an instrumental movement that fol lows phrase by ,
p hrase the proportions and modu l ations o f a selected classi cal

,
model I t might be obje cted t o this exer cise that it is unlikely to

.
reveal the inner ne cessity o f the original form of a pu rely in st ru

mental pie c e ; but this objection wou l d lose forc e if the exercise
were ever applied t o vocal and espe cially to dramatic musi c with
, , ,
its c ogent outward necessities No w the earliest song of Schubert .
that we possess is H ag ar s K lag e an enormous rigmarole with at

’
le ast twel ve movements and innumerable changes o f key ; evidently

( one would guess ) a typi c al example o f c hildish di ffuseness I t turns .
o u t however t o be a ccurately mode l led modulations and all o n a

, , , ,
setting o f the same poem by Z u m st e e g a c omposer o f some his ,
t o ric al importance as a pioneer in the art o f setting dramatic narra

tive fo r voi c e with pianoforte a c companiment The same is the .
c ase with several other songs ; and M an dyc z e w ski h as printed three
o f Z u m st e e
g s original’
settin gs in his c omplete edition o f S c hubert s ’
S ongs s o that we c an s e e h o w this c hild o f thirteen w as spending

,
hi s time Z u m s t e e g by the way w as n o fool Y et even within the

.
, , .
limits o f H agar s K lag e S chubert makes decisive progress begin

’
,
ning by following his mode l close l y until about the middle of the
work At this point Z u m st e e g s energy begins t o flag and the
.
’
c hi l d s energy begins t o rise S chubert s de cl amation improves and

’
.
’
,
before he h as finished h is long task he h as a chieved a sense of

climax and a rounding o ff whi c h Z u m s t e e g hardly seems to have
-
imagined possible Song writing whether o n a large o r a small

.
-
scal e w as sti ll in it s infan cy A few masterpie c es appear s p o radi

, .
c al ly among the experiments themselves few and heterogeneous o f , ,
Haydn M ozart and Beethoven The real development o f the art

, , .
forms o f song w as worked o u t by the chi l d S chubert with the same

fierc e c oncentration as that with whi c h the child M ozart laid the
foundations o f hi s sonata forms .
‘
Within four years from this first attempt to play the sedulous
’
ap e ,S chubert had written three stout volumes o f songs of all
s hapes and siz es besides a still larger qu antity of instrumental
,
musi c A professional copyist might wonder h o w the bulk w as

.
IO F RANZ SCHUBERT
a thing seen by the spectator to that of the daz ed and frightened
’
child in the rider s arms To some critics this may seem a small
.
point ; but it is de cisive not of the superiority o f one version over

,
the other but of the completeness of S chubert s view Against it

,
’
.
‘
all cavil at the prettiness of the E rl king s melodies is as futile as
’
-
’
a cavil against the prettiness of the E rl king s words Schubert at -

’
.
seventeen is a mature master of the ironies o f tragedy and o f

nature He is also a better realist than L oewe The change in the
. .
point of view at the E rl king s spee ches is a matter of fact ; nobody

-
’
but the c hild heard them and only the father or the na rrator could
,
have recognized that they had no more substance than can be

musi c ally represented by L o e w e s c hord o f G major This does not
’
.
dispose o f L o e w e s a chievement as a work o f genius on lines in

’
adequately re c ogn iz ed until re cent times ; but it shows the futility

of attacking a great c omposer like S chubert o n the a priori ass u m p
tion that the de clamation and i l lustration o f words is at varian c e
with the claims o f purel y musi c al form W hen we have go t rid o f .
this assumption we shal l be in a better position to s e e the true

origins o f the classi cal forms o f music and in cidentally to fo l low , , ,
the methods by whi ch S chubert provided himself with a musi c al

education .
Gr etchen am S pinnrade is a far more astonishing a c hievement for

a boy o f s eventeen than Erlkonig I f fo r the sake o f argument we
’
.
, ,
summon up the naive impertinen c e t o as k where this s hy c hoir boy -
absorbed incessantly in writing and only just out of school c ould ,
have obtained the experience n o t of Faust but o f the victim o f

, ,
Faust and M ephistophe l es the answer is n o t easily gu e ssed ; for

,
F aus t though publ ished had n o t yet been presented on the s t age
, , .
But plenty o f good drama w as cultivated in Viennese theatres and ,
we need n o t suppose that S chubert avoided it He kept then h is .
eye o n the object in thi s c ase the spinning wheel And he knew
,
-
.
,
as Par ry h as admirably pointed o u t in The A rt of M n sic n o t only ,

‘
that the climax comes at the words U nd a ch ! sein Kuss ! but that
'
with that climax the spinning is interrupted and resumed o n ly ,
with difficulty W ith these points settled all that remains to be

.
,
postulated is the possession o f a noble and total ly unsophisti c ated

,
style together with some individual power o f modulation to se cure

,
variety in simp l i city throughout a song whi ch is t o o dramati c to be

set to repetitions o f a singl e strophic melody The style S chubert .
already had ; the individual power o f modu l ation shows itsel f at

the third line of the poem Before Sch u bert on ly Beethoven would
.
,
F RANZ SCHUBERT
have thought of moving from D minor to C major and straight back
again without treating C as the dominant of F This modulation is .
here entirely Schubert s own for the influence of Beethoven on ’

,
Schubert had not at this time produced in him any direct result
beyond a decided opinion that Beethoven was responsible for the
bizarrerie of most contemporary music Beethoven and S chubert
’
.
were in fact developing the resources of key relationship on iden

, ,
-
tical principles ; but this fact is not one that e vér appe ars in the guis e -
of any external points of their styles Schubert s idolatry at this .

’
time was devoted to M ozart ; and in the art forms of song there -
was even less room for M ozart s style than for Beethoven s With ’ ’
.
the forms of opera and of instrumental music the position w as very

different ; and now that we have illustrated Schubert s amaz ing
,
’
early maturity in the pioneer work of the song with pianoforte

accompaniment it is time to direct our attention to his w ork in
,
other and older art forms -

.
If one half of the six hundred odd songs of S chubert s whole -

’
life s work are to be regarded as waste products then S chubert as

’
, ,
a song writer must rank as an economical and concentrated artist

-
, .
To estimate the wastage as high as one half is the limit of severity .
’
B y this I do not mean to imply that three hundred of Schubert s
songs are masterpie c es In all such matters the fruitful criterion is
.
not perfection but intrinsic significan c e ; and certainly at least three

hundred of Schubert s songs have intr insic significance M ost of
’
.
the waste products have on the other hand historic significance as , , ,
we have seen in the case of H agar s K lage What then is the posi ’
.
, ,
tion of the equally vast bulk of S chubert s juveni le work in larger ’
and older forms ?

Here if anywhere we may suspect as S chubert s contemporaries
, , ,
’
already comp lained, that S chubert would have been the better for a
firmer guiding hand But it is no easy matter to name anybody
.
who could have done better for S c hubert than his adoring and b e
wildered masters at the Convic t It is a great mistake to suppose .
that an y master living in 1 8 1 0 could tea c h a young composer of

instrumental music the genuine art forms of Hay dn and M oz art -
.
There was Beethoven who was enormously expanding and appar

,
ently revolutionizing those forms ; there was M ozart s best pupil ’
Hummel who was inflating certain safe and imitable procedures of

,
M o z art s b y means of a pianoforte technique far too brilliant for

’
anything those procedures had in purpose ; and there was Spohr ,
who was doing much the same thing far better than Hummel b y .
1 12 FRANZ SCHUBERT
means of a really beautiful violin technique as yet unspoilt by his
cloying later mannerisms These were to all appearance the great
.
, ,
m asters in such forms ; and they are in fact almost the only names, ,
prominent enough fo r modern criti cism to s c off at The great .
C herubini w as totally outside the classical tradition of instrumental

musi c ; Cl ementi had al ready retired to L ondon in 1 8 1 0 and was ,
probab l y remembered in Vienna mainly by the hard brillian c e of

‘
h is te c hnique in the days of his tournament with M ozart in 1 7 8 1
’
.
O n what l ines were the art forms of instrumental music taught in

-
S chubert s boyhood ? I have never seen this questio n asked and

’
,
do n o t expect t o s e e it answered All I know is that to this day it

.
would be invidious t o specify the few text books on these forms -
that do n o t consist mainly o f platitudes deviating only into such ‘
misstatements as must make the book demoral izing to any o b se r

vant c hi l d w h o tries t o learn from it In Schubert s day there was.
’
certainl y n o more a re c eived method o f tea ching the art forms o f -
M ozart than there is t o day a received method o f teaching those of

-
Wagner and Richard Strauss The only item o f musical edu c ation
.
‘
whi ch Beethoven s tea cher Alb re c ht s b e rge r c all ed c omposition
’
, ,
’
‘
w as what is n o w c alled counterpoint ; it w as n o t as yet in the
’
sho cking tangle o f arbitrary and unenlightened rule o f thumb to - -
which it degenerated during the later nineteenth c entury ; but it

w as already dangerous l y remote from it s origina l living sixteenth ;
c entury practi c e n o less than from the art language o f instrumental

,
-
musi c Sir George Grove is very angry with o n e of S c hubert s

.
’
older friends fo r en c ouraging h is larger efforts when he had better

have taught him some counterpoint L ater o n Grove very rightly ’
.
,
draws attention t o the magnifi cen c e o f S c hubert s basses That ’

.
settles the question : a c omposer whose basses are magnifi c ent is a

great c ontrapuntist even if ( l ike W agner) he never published a
,
fugue in his l ife No r is the c ase weakened by S chubert s produ cing

.
’
some obvious ly unsuc cessful fugues t owards the end of his short
c areer ; and sti ll less is it weakened by the fact o f the awakening
whi c h the reading o f the works o f Hande l effected in him and the ,
resu l ting determination t o go through a course of c ounterpoint

with Se c hter a proje ct frustrated by S chubert s own untimely
,
’
death The grammatica l exer cise nowadays called c ounterpoint

.
contributes nothing beyond bri ck making towards the architecture

-
o f a fugue ; and the text book rules o f fugue as an art form are
- -
usual l y based o n a s cheme best known in the form drawn up by

,
C herubini in his text bo ok whi ch c ompletel y ignores both Handel

-
,
1 1
4
. FRANZ SCHUBERT
the period that shows the faintest resemblan c e to the pecul iar fra
grant piety of Schubert s masses There is nothing remotely like it
’
.
in the church musi c o f either M ozart or Haydn The triumphant .
performan c e o f thi s i mportant choral and orchestral work by the

choir o f Schubert s s chool w as an experien c e such as very few
’
modern conservatoire students can obtain at the age of seventeen .
A year afterwar ds S chubert wrote a more effe ctive Dona No bis in ’
the form o f a vigorous final fugue In the same way E nglish D octors .
of M usic have been known t o spoil a poeti c ally c onceived oratorio

or c antata by a final fugue in order t o satisfy the examiners I n
, .
the criti c al edition o f S chubert s complete works this second Dona

’
Nob is is right l y relegated to the appendix .
W e must return to S chubert s masses l ater Some readers may be

’
.
surprised t o hear that the next topic that c on c erns u s with Schubert
at seventeen is hi s operas H is first Des Teufels Lus tschloss is his
.
, ,
t o ric ally more i mportant than appearan c es m ight indi c ate The .
libretto seems hopelessly si lly but it stands under the name of ,
K otzebue w h o w as a writer o f quite cl e ver c omedies whi c h Jane

,
Austen wou l d have enjoyed ; and its idea is traceab l e back to The
C as tle of O tran to mu c h as parts o f N orthang er A b b ey are traceable
,
t o The Mysteries of Udo lpho K otzebue however h as here failed to

.
, ,
show any o f his sense o f humour and S chubert never attempted ,

‘
burl esque ; his slightly later imitations o f Rossini (the overtures in
I talian st yle ) developing into sin c ere flattery rather than c ari c ature
’
.
But the interesting thing about the mus ic o f Des Teufels Lustschloss ,
apart from o n e o r t w o su c cessful pa ssages is that the young S c hu ,
bert took the trouble t o revise it and t o go to Salieri fo r lessons in

I talian operati c style and method Herein he followed the example .
o f Beethoven w h o had gone t o S al ieri fo r the same purpose some

,
twenty years earlier and w h o whi l e grumbling that Haydn had

, ,
taught him nothing took pride and pleasure in c alling himself

,
Salieri s pupi l N o view o f either Beethoven s o r S chube rt s de

’
.
’ ’
ve 10p m e n t c an be trustworthy whi c h fails t o a c count fo r the zest
with whi ch these mighty men o f genius put themsel ves into Salieri s ’
hands Salieri had the misfortune t o have shown jealousy o f M ozart ;

.
and it seems c ertain that at a time when a word from him to the
E mperor m ight have improved M ozart s position Sal ieri n o t only ’
,
missed the opportunity but intrigued against him Be this as it .
may his retribution w as appalling M ozart died young an d in

, .
straitened cir cumstances and gossip said that Sal ieri had poisoned
,
him This w as a wild slander ; but even within living memory

.
FRANZ SCHUBERT 5
Rims ky Kors akov wrote an opera M oz art and S alieri which I do
'
, ,
not know except in very charming quotations but which only the
'
vainest of hopes could expect to deal with anything so dramatically

ineffective as a refutation o f the slander O n Salieri himself the . .
slander must have weighed cruelly ; for when he was dying he sent
‘
for M o s c h e le s in order to s ay these words I did not poison
—
M oz art S o even the friendship of Beethov en and S chubert both

.
’
,
of whom must have heard and c o n t e m ptu oii sly ignored this in
’
human gossip did not avail to bring peace to the old man s mind
, .
N ow what was it that S alieri could teach these great composers ?

,
Here the Si gnifi cant point in S alieri s history is that when Gluck ’
at the end of his life found himself unable to carry out his last ,
.
project an opera entitled L es Danaid es he handed the task over to

,
'
,
Salieri This proves that he could trust S alieri to set dr amatic

.
situations as well as words And the reader may verify this without .
taking the trouble to investigate Salieri s own work further than b y ’
playing the theme of one of the best of Beethoven s early sets of ’
‘
variations those upon L a stessa la s t es s iss im a from S alieri s
, ,
’
,
’
F alstafi Any o pera on the subject of Falstaff must take l t s plot from
.
The M erry Wives of Windsor ; for no coherent story can be made

from the genuine Falstaff of t he two parts of K ing H enry the F ourth ,
though it may be possible to transfer his best speeches to the per

fu n ct o ry dupe of the merry Wives as we may learn from Boito and ,
V erdi N ow the fi rst situation in The M erry Wives of Windsor 1s

.
,
the meeting of M rs Ford and M rs P age after they have rece ived
. .
‘
identical love letters from Falstaff L a stessa la s t es s is sim a
-
.
,
’
‘
here you see them comparing notes ( the same the very same ! in ,
Salieri s theme as recorded in simple pianoforte terms by Beethoven

’
.
Y ou can see th em pointing from one letter to the other in sym m et ri

cal phrases ; and in the disruption of symmetry with the truncated
se c ond part of the tune you can identify the burst of laughter the ,
quick scolding phrase in which vengeance is vowed and the deri ,
sive triumphant gesture with which the letters are flourished in the
air Y ou can see also that though S alieri shows no profound
.
’
musical invention in this trivial affair he is no formalist To Beet , .
hoven and S chubert it was unimportant that S alieri w as je al ous of

the brilliance of M o z art and warned his pupils against the poetry
of Goethe In these high matters they could take care of them
.
selves ; Salieri was neither a preoccupied man of genius nor a

pedant but a clever and highly cultured Italian musi cian with the
,
will an d the power to give practical and interesting information

-
.
1 16 FRANZ SCHUBERT
The fruit of Salieri s teaching is clearly shown in Schubert s
’ ’
early operas The outward c ourse of events is that the operatic

.
stage had a fas cination fo r S chubert whi c h grew in proportion to ,
the disappointments it brought o n him As his talent fo r work on

“
a large s c ale matured s o did his grasp of dramati c movement in

,
-
theatre musi c weaken and the only operas whi c h it h as re c ently

-
been found possible t o rescue from the wre ckage o f his fourteen
efforts in this art form are the one a ct Der Vieryahrig e Pos ten
' '
- -
written soon after the M ass in F and Die Verschw o ren en written , ,
in 1 8 2 0 and showing h o w he applied his riper m u sic al style to the

'
te chnique o f Salieri W e must return to the operas and their grave

.
defe cts later ; at present o u r concern is to note that while Schubert s ’
whole development and the mightiest influen c es o f his time drew

him steadily and fatal ly away from the solution o f the problem of
dramati c movement in stage musi c he had nevertheless as a mere-
b o y eagerly and su cc essfu ll y learnt from Salieri an admirable light

theatri c al style ; a thing totally different from the style o f his songs .
He could n o t s e t an a ction t o musi c ; but he c ou l d s e t a dialogue .
His o w n c ontemporaries said o f him that he could s e t an advertise

ment to music ; and the statement h as a higher truth than the
impli c ation that words did n o t matter to hi m I t means that he had .
exhaustively mastered the inwardness o f musi c al symbolism ; and

Salieri w as t he l ast tea cher o f the great I talian tradition that had
steadily viewed musi c from that c entre ever sin ce the time of
Palestrina and earl ier Pseudo classicism opposing itself to helpless
.
-
experiment and a priori theory oc cupied the whol e field o f musi c al ,
edu c ation as soon as tea chers formed the futile ambition to teach
‘
c omposition in larger an d more abstract senses than that of
’
musi c al rhetori c .
S chubert s boyhood then culminated in two o f his most power

’
, ,
ful songs a uniquel y charming piece o f church musi c and an

, ,
almost equal l y prett y o n e a ct Opera (Der Vierj ahrig e Posten) In his

'
-
.
early instrumental musi c there is nothing s o important though the ,
quantity is n o t less enormous The earl iest pie c es in cluding the .

,
earliest string quartets are fantasies o f su c h ubiquitous rambling

,
that the catalogue maker cannot spe cify their keys Some o f them
-
.
may possibly be regarded as Z u m st e e g bal lads without words ; but

why should we a l low the young S c hubert n o child s play at all ? ’
-
M usi c paper w as always as ne c essary to him as food and c oals ; the

Co nvict afforded very insu ffi c ient supplies of all three The mastery .
he s o earl y attained in vo c al musi c already st u lt ifie s all aspe rsions

1 18 FRANZ SCHUBERT
movement in F and the finale I n all three cases the first half of
, .
the movement is th e boldly drawn expo sition of a design o n the

grandest s c ale while the rest with the ex ception o f a well managed
, ,
-
mo di cum o f devel opment in the first movement is a mere exact ,
recapit ul ation o f this exposition starting in su c h a key as t o end in

the toni c I n the first movement and in the final e S chubert adds
. ,
insult t o the c rudity o f this proc edure by giving the usual direction
that the exposition shall be repeated !
No w the sonata forms whi ch are here in question d epend
, , ,
largely o n the balan c e and distin ction between three typical organic
members ; an exposition a development and a re capitulation Of
, , .
thes e the most del icate is the re capitulation o n which the sym
, ,
metry of the whole depends I n works like the F orellen quintett

.
-
Schubert w as exhausted by the effort o f his grand expositions and

fell ba ck with rel ief upon a mere c opyist s task by way o f re capitula ’
tion This w as wrong ; but the a priori theorist is n o t l ess wrong

.
w h o regards extensive re c apit ul ation as a weakness in the c lassi c al

s chemes There is n o surer tou c hstone o f S chubert s as o f M ozart s
.
’
,
’
,
Beethoven s and Brahms s tr eatment o f form than the precise way

’
,
’
,
in whi ch their re capitu l ations differ from their expositions ; and

where S chubert is at the height o f his power this di fferenc e is of
classical a ccuracy and subtl ety Te c hnic alities may be avoided b y
.
means o f the fo ll owing generalization W henever a c omposer with .
a true sense o f form c on c eives anyt hing in the nature o f exposition

he inevitably con c eives therewith some notion o f its poss ib l e effect
in retu rning after other matters o r in the c ourse o f recapitu lation .
The question o f its return o r recapitulation whether finally an ,
s w ere d positiv e l y o r negative l y is inherent in the original idea, .
I n the simplest typi c al c ase we may imagine the c omposer thi nking ,
‘
H o w splendid this will sound when it sails in again at another
pit ch and at home in the to n i c ! This simple notion may become ’
t o o fam i liar fo r the compo s er t o notice it but it will guide him even ,
in the extreme case where an exact re capitu l ation is all that is

required This case actually oc curs in genuine works and is there
.
,
as mu c h the result o f subtle balan c e as in the cases o f utmost
variation W hether in exa ct repetition or in free variation the true

.
,
c on ception o f thi s musical sym met ry is thus essentially dramatic ,
and h as nothi ng in c ommon either with such effrontery as the fold

u p forms o f S c hubert s F or ellen e tt o r with arbitrary short cuts
’
qu in t -
and divergen c es attempted fo r the sake o f variety with n o clear

,
‘
FRANZ SCHUBERT 9
conviction that if the later statements are right the original state
ments were not wrong or superfluous N ow when S chubert is at .
the height of h is power in large forms we may know it b y the

returns to his main themes Two great movements notorious for .
their redundancies and diffuseness are the first movement of the

S tring Quartet in G major and the first movement of the Piano
forte S onata in B flat S c hubert s last compositio nin this form In
,
’
.
both of them the whole interest converges upon the ret u rn to what is
‘
called the firs t subje ct involving the return to the main key after
’
,
the wanderings of a long and dramatic development The method .
of that return is entirely different in the two cases ; both passages

may rank with the most sublime inspirations of Beethoven In the .
G major Quartet the return has an overpowering pathos whi c h is ,
the more surprising sin c e the tone of the whole movement though ,
at the a c me of roman c e and picturesqueness is by no means tragic , .
‘
Yet this passage is the most inevitable as well as the most u n ex ’
p e c t e d part of the whole design The original fi rst subject beg an .
with a soft major chord which swelled out and exploded in an

energetic phrase in the minor key The next phrase repeated this .
event on the dominant In the return which is long expected the

.
, ,
soft tonic chord is minor and the energetic phrase is calm and in ,
the major key The subsequent theme is not less wonderfully trans
.
ferred in another way In the B flat Sonata the return is more

.
subtle The whole movement as in the c ase of the G maj or Quar

.
,
tet runs a course not unusual in S c hubert s large designs ; opening

,
’
with a sublime theme of the utmost c almness and breadth ; desce nd

ing by means of a good though abrupt dramati c stroke from the
, , ,
sublime to the picturesque and then drifting from the picturesque

—
,
through p rettiness to a garrulous frivolity But then comes medita .
tion The fiivo lo u s theme itself begins to gather energy in the

.
‘
course of the development It originates a dramatic passage which .
begins picturesquely and rises from the pi cturesque to the sublime .
When the calm has become ethereal a distant thunder is heard .
That thunder had been twice heard during the opening of the
movement At present the key ( D minor) is not far from the tonic
. .
The main theme appears softly at a high pitch harmoni z ed in this ,
neighbouring key The distant thunder rolls again and the har
.
,
mony glide s in t o the tonic The theme now appears still higher
~
.
, ,
in the tonic An ordinary artist would use this as the real return
.
and think himself c lever But S c hubert s distant thunder rolls yet
.
’
again and the harmony relapses into D min or The toni c will have
, .
1 20 FRANZ SC HUBERT
no real weight at such a juncture until it h as been adequately pre
pared by it s dominant The theme is resumed in D minor ; the
.
harmony takes the necessary dire ction and expe ctan cy is n o w ,
aroused and kept du lye xc it e d fo r a return to the first subje ct in

,
fu l l A cc ordingly this return is o n e in whi ch transformations would

.
be o u t o f plac e ; and s o S c hubert s re c apitulation of his first subje ct

’
is unvaried until the pe culiarities o f his transition themes c ompel

the modu l ations t o take a new c ourse .
At the risk o f entering into further te chni c al ities we must now ,
c onsider S chubert s deal ings with what the idiotic term inology of
’
‘
sonata form c al ls the se c ond subje ct The grounds fo r this term ’
.
appear t o be that there are n o ru l es whatever to determine how

many themes a sonata exposition shal l c ontain n o r how it s themes ,
shal l be distributed ; but that whatever is c ontained in o r about the

toni c key from the outset t o the first de cisive c hange o f key shall
, ,
be called the first subje ct and that whatever is c ontained from that
,
de cisive c hange o f key to the end o f the exposition shall be called

the se c ond subje ct The material that e ffects the de cisive c hange of
.
key wi l l ob vious l y be c al led the transition But as fo r what and .
where the different themes are Haydn may run a whole exposition
,
o n o n e theme M ozart may reserve o n e o f hi s best themes fo r the

,
devel opment and Beethoven may have o n e and a hal f themes in

,
- - -
his first subje ct a ve ry definite new theme fo r h is transition five

, ,
and a half themes in h is se c ond subje ct and sti l l a new o n e in the

- -
course o f his devel opment And in all three composers yo u will

.
have n o reason t o expe ct any t w o works t o be al ike ; and all three

c omposers may adopt ea ch other s pro cedures ’
.
The real fixed points in the matter are : that there is at the outset
a mass o f materia l clearly establishing the toni c key ; that there then
fol lows a de cisive transition t o another key ; and that in that other
key another mass o f material c omp l etes the exposition I n any c ase .
,
the expos ition asse rts it s keys in order t o maintain them .
S chubert s first subje cts are general l y o f magnificent breadth

’
and the length o f his big movements is n o t a ctuall y greater than

their openings imply I f Beethoven had t o s e t t o work from any
.
o n e o f S c hubert s finest openings t w o things are c ertain : that he

’
would have produ c ed quite as long a movement and that it s ,
m aterials wou l d have been v ery di fferently distributed espe c i ally as ,
regards the c ontinuation o f the se c ond subject U p t o that point .
al l is well with S chubert (the present summary is no occasion to

spe cify the ex c eption that might be cited) H is transition is usu ally .
1 22 FRANZ SCHUBERT
tion which is supposed to lead to the bottoml ess pit of L iszt s
,
’
symphoni c poems But these nefarious works are in point of fact

.
, ,
fanati c al efforts to evo lve a new kind of music out of transforma

tions o f a singl e musi cal germ And the first and greatest of sym .
pho ni c poems o n L iszt s prin ciples happens to b e S chubert s ’ ’
Wanderer Phan tasie a masterpie c e o f independent form whi c h the

-
Lisz tianer were desperately anxious t o explain away .
The real cl assi cal pro c edure with the c ontinuation o f a big
se c ond subje ct the proc edure of M ozart and Beethoven is to pro
, ,
du c e a series o f new sentences all c onspi cuous l y shorter than the ,
main themes b ut n o t less sharply c ontrasted in length and shape

among themselves I f the key o f the second subje ct is not remote
.
,
o n e o f these themes will probably have a strong admixtur e of a
remote key within its o w n single phrase This instantly serves all .
the purpose o f S chubert s widest digressions I have here some ’

.
‘ ‘
times c alled these items themes and sometimes senten c es I t ’
,
’
.
does n o t matt er a pin whether they are new themes o r old ; what
matters is that they have th e manner o f exposition and not o f
deve l opment They are epigrams n o t dis cussions That is why
.
, .
they make paragraphs that will bear re capitu l ation in the later
s tages o f the movement whil e S chubert s expositions will n o t,
’
though there is n o other means o f dealing with them Schubert .
himse l f a c hieves the right kind o f paragraph t o perfe ction in the

unique c as e o f the U nfi n ished Symphony ; the very case whi c h is ’
most often quoted against him as illustrating his besetting sin of

‘
vain repetitions be cause it s admirab l y terse and rhythm ically
’
,
uneven phrases persistentl y re cur t o the same theme But Haydn .

,
M ozart and Beethoven wou l d have re c ognized that Sc hubert had

,
in t hi s c as e gras ped the se c ret o f their o w n te c hnique .
S o far then we al ready s e e that it is n o me c hani c al matter to sift

, ,
‘ ‘
right and wrong from S c hubert s instrumental forms even
’ ’ ’
with the earlier great masters t o guide u s But when we find ( as .

,
fo r in stan c e in the first movement o f the great C major Symphony)

,
that some o f the most obviously wrong digressions contain the pro
foundest most beautiful and most inevitable passages then it is
, , ,
time t o suspe ct that S c hubert l ike other great cl assi cs is pressing , ,
h is way towards new forms I n any c ase where a work of art or .

, ,
a human being h as ubiquitous great quantities toget her with a

,
manifest la ck o f unity there may be great diffi culty ( and perhaps

, , ,
small profit) in determini ng whi ch o f it s c onfli cting personalities is

the more real I f the progre ss is ( as we have seen in the Sonata in
.
FRANZ SCHUBERT 1 23
B flat) from the sublime to the garrulous we shall naturally appeal ,
fro m Schubert garrulous to Schubert sublime ; but in the C major

S ymphony the whole tone is sublime and nowhere more s o than ,
’
in the grotesque finale which fell on a blind spot in B ulow s sense of
values It is impossible in a summary non technical statement to
.
-
demonstrate what were the new forms towards which S c hubert

was tending ; and the mechanical triviality of the ac c epted do ctrines
of sonata form makes even a detailed techni cal demonstration more
difficult than work on an unexplored subject I must therefore beg
!
.
p e rm 1s s 1o n to leave this matter with the dogmatic statement that

the fruition of Schubert s new instrumental forms is to be found in
’
Brahms especially in the group of works culminating in the Piano

,
forte Quintet op 3 4 Whoever has once begun to notice the pro

, . .
found influence of S chubert on these undisputed masterpie c es and ,
especially on this quintet t he ripest and w eightiest of the group

, ,
will be surprised at the blindness which following the lead of ,
H an s lic k ascribes Brahms s forms mainly to the dire ct influence of

’
,
the last quartets of Beethoven O f course th e influence of the later

.
,
works of B eethoven is just as clearly there as the influen c e of S chu

mann is definitely not there S c humann s interest in Brahms would
.
’
have been but tepid if w hat S chumann saw in him had not been the
very powers he felt to be la cking in his own work These powers .
are characteristic of the instrumental art forms of Haydn M ozart -
, ,
and Beethoven ; and they determine the fitness of a certain range of

musical thought to be cast 1n sonata forms and conversely the , , ,
‘
fitness of sonata forms to deal with that range or to adapt them ,
selves to a more extended range of musical thought Schumann .
s o on felt a lack of these special powers and being a very clever , ,
man created _fo r his larger works a kind of mosaic style in whi c h
, ,
he imitates s onata forms only in so far as mosaics imitate pi ctures .
He thus creates a province for himself and must be understood on ,
his own terms But Schubert s larger works belong to the main
.
’
stream of musical history ; their weaknesses are relaxations of their

p o w ers ,an d
_
Schubert has no devices ( unless we count the ab s u r di
ties o f the F orellen quin tett) for turning them into an artificial
-
method with a point of its own Hence it is as easy for a later .
master in the main stream of musical thought to absorb and develop

the essentials of S chubert s ideas as it is for a poet similarly situated
’
to absorb the essentials of S hakespeare s Neither Shakespeare nor ’

.
S chubert will ever be understood by any critic or artist who regards

their weaknesses and inequalities as proof that they are artists of
‘
less than the highest rank Even if a great artist can be written
.
down by himsel f o n e work o f art cannot be written down by

’
,
another ; and even if the artist produ c es n o single work without

flaws yet the highest qualities attained in important parts o f a great
,
work are as indestru ctible by weaknesses el sewhere as if the weak

nesses were the ac cidents o f physi c al ruin I s e e n o reason t o con.
c lu de that Shakespeare had at the age o f thirty o n e attained either -
a greater mastery o r a wider range than S c hubert U p t o that point .
it seems clear t o me that Shakespeare S chubert and K eats are , ,
artists n o t u nl ike in achievement and c alibre .
Other e l ements in S c hubert s sonata forms are in much the same

’
condition as his expositions ; a c ondition in which weakness in the

a ctual c ontext is oft en indistinguishable from new power in some
future art The part o f a sonata movement known spe ciall y as the
.
development is o f c ourse already at an almost hope l ess dis advan

, ,
tage in S chubert be c ause his exposition wi ll have al ready digressed

into devel opments o f it s o w n But nothing c ou l d be wider o f the
.
mark than the orthodox statement that S chubert is weak in this

part o f h is form His best developments are in themselves m agni fi
.
cent ; but he h as in some four o r five cases c ommitted an indis

c retion whi ch is a chara cteris ti c all y youthful resu l t o f the impres
sion made upon him by the firs t movement o f Beethoven s E roi ca ’ ’
Symphony the deve l opment o f whi ch produ c es a bri ll iant cumula

,
t ive effe ct in it s earlier stages by reprodu cing it s first topi c in

another key aft e r an energetic di fferent line o f argument h as been
worked o u t This pro cedure Beethoven handles s o tersel y as to
.
give a fe e l ing o f enormous breadth t o a development e l sewhere

c rowded with other matters ; but when S chubert de cides t o resume
h is first topi c in t hi s manner he h as n o room fo r mu c h beyond a
,
p l ain transposed reprodu ction o f the t w o pages o f argument it h as

a l rea dy c ost him After thus repeating his argument he general ly
.
h as in store some stroke o f genius by whi c h it s end shal l bring about

a beautifu l return t o the tonic ; and the most primitive o f S chubert s ’
developments is more hi ghl y organized than that o f the first move

ment o f S c humann s Qu intet in whi ch S c hubert s simp l est p l an
’
,
’
is very su cc es s fu ll y c arried o u t in terms n o t s o mu c h o f a mosaic

as o f a D ut c h ti l e firep l a c e
-
I n this c ase it is s o clear that t o doubt
.
S c humann s su cc ess is mere l y t o question the whol e postu l ate o f

’
his qu intet that we have here an interesting proof h o w mu c h safer

,
it is t o yiel d t o temptation when working o n an obvious l y artificial

basis than when working o n hi gh l y organic lines The most notor .
6 FRANZ S CHUBERT
accessible I t is the first movement of an unfinished pianoforte
.
sonata in C not in cluded in the usual collections of his pianofort e

,
works Perhaps it is the most subtle thi ng he ever wrote To

. .
des c ribe it would involve a full acc ount o f Schubert s whole range ’
of harmoni c ideas whi c h are here sounded to their utmost depths

,
.
And these depths are n o t su c h that later artisti c developments can

make them seem shallow Schubert s harmoni c range is the same
.
’
'
as Beethoven s but his great modulations would sound as bold in

’
,
a Wagner opera as in a Beethoven symphony .
W e have n o w seen in what ways the weaknesses o f Schubert s ’
expositions and developments are intimately involved l n tenden cies

towards new kinds o f form ; and it remains to c o nsider his re c apit u
lat io n s and c odas W hen Schubert s instrumental works are at t he ii
’ '
best h is handling o f the recapitulation (that is to s ay of what fol ,
lows after h is development h as returned to the toni c) is of the

highest order o f mastery where the original material permits He .
shows an a cumen n ot les s than Beethoven s in working out inevi ’
table but unexpe cted results from the fa ct that his se c ond subject ’
o r hi s transition t o it) did not begin in the key in whi c h it was

(
destined t o settle T o des c ribe these resu l ts wou l d be t o o te c hnical
.
a pro c edure ; but the reader may go far to c onvin c e himself of their
importan c e by taking the c ases of the U nfinished Symphony and ’
the C maj o r Symphony and c omparing what a ctually happens in the

re c apitu l ation with what would have been the c ourse o f modula
‘
tions with a p l ain transposition o f the se c ond subje ct into su c h a ’
key as would l ead t o the toni c automati c ally The externals o f these .
t w o c ases are ob vious enough ; behind them lies an art unknown to

text books o n musi c al form but as vital and subtl e as the en tasis
-
o f a Greek temp l e whereby eve ry apparent l y straight line has it s

,
curve and every c ol umn it s imperc eptible narrowing towards the

c entre There is nothing surprising in the fa ct that with S chubert
.
su ch art may be found in works notorious fo r obvious faults of

stru cture .
Sinc e the indis c retions o f S chubert s expositions though they ’
may spoi l the effe ct o f his developments do n o t prevent hi m from ,
almost always developing magnifi c entl y and sometimes faultlessly , ,
we may s ay that up t o the end o f t he re c ap it u lat io n S chubert s ’
energy stands the strain o f his most impra cti cable designs Further .
it sel dom goes and the c odas o f his first movements with the so l i
, ,
tary ex ception o f that in the C major Symphony are all in the ,
manner o f an expiring flame often supremely beautiful sometimes

, ,
FRANZ S CHUBERT 1 27
abruptly dram atic but never revealing new energies like the great
,
codas of B eethoven In the codas of fin ale s Schubert s energy is

.
’
capab le of expansion for the enormous sprawling forms of the

,
typical S chubert fin ale s are the outcome of a sheer irresponsibility

that has involved him in little or no strain though he often shows ,
invention of the highest order in their main themes Here again .

, ,
there are two exceptional masterpieces of form 1n both of whi c h ,
the grotesque is the veil of the sublime : the fin ale s of the S tring
Quintet and the C major S ymphony .
But the mention of S chubert s fin ales opens up the whole ques

’
tion of his range of style In the present dis cu s s m n I have been

.
’
compelled to make frequent use of the word sublime not by way ,
of mere reaction against the current impression that Schubert is a

composer of secondary importance in his larger works but by way
‘
of accurate defi nition The only qualification the term needs is that
.
in S chubert it is still asso ciated with the picturesque and the u n

’
expected ; it is in fact as sublime as any artist s earlier works can be
, , .
No one calls the clear night sky picturesque ; and when Beethoven
-
was inspired by it to write the slow movement of his E minor

Quartet he w as older than S chubert lived to be It is however
, .
, ,
one thing to write under the direct inspiration of the night sky -
and another thing to set a des c ription of it to musi c ; and there is a

w onderful song for tenor sol o with male v o ice chorus and piano
forte in whi c h the pianoforte part representing the innumerable
, ,
multitude of stars achieves the sublime by Schubert s c hara cteristic

,
’
pi cturesqu eness In the voice parts S c hubert is of course already

‘
.
, ,
an older and more experienced artist ; more experienced in fact , ,
than B eethoven ; and so in this way as in many others from E rl ,
kb nig onward s: the spa c ing of the words and the turns of melody
’
are as severe and indistinguishable from familiar forms or formulas

as the lines of a G reek temple .
N ow it is in this matter of the sublime use of formulas that we

,
c an trace gradations in Schubert s sty le

’
When he begins a b ig .
instrum ental piece with a formal gesture ( as in the big A major

S onata and the F orellen quin tett) his intention and a chieve ment are
-
usually grandiose ; and this applies to most of his argumentative

sequences and processes of development He can seldo m rise above .
the grandiose when either his musical forms or his verbal subjects
give him a sense of responsibility On o fficial occasions he is rusti c
.
,
if not awkward ; an d though the beautiful features of his last two

M ass es (in A fl at and E flat) outweigh the clumsiness of their
o ffi cially necessary fugues it is perhaps only in the I ncarnatus of
,
the A flat M ass that his churc h musi c r eveals the d e pths o f the
S chubert vein o f imagination I n a Kyrie or a Ben edictus there is a
.
vein o f beauty which rises far above but whi c h is n o t incompatible ,
with a vein o f rather t o o c omfortable piety prevalent in the religious

,
poetry o f the period ; and we have an ex cellent opportunity for

measuring the d ifferen c e between the wrong and the right stimulus
t o the imagination o f a rusti c tone poet by c omparing S c hubert s
’
-
grandiose song Die A llm acht a fin e opportunity fo r singers with

, ,
.
it s origin as t o modu l ations and genera l as p irat io n s , in the aria

,
'
‘
known in E ngl ish as I n native worth in Haydn s Creation Here ’ ’
.
it is Haydn another rusti c c omposer w h o quietly rea ches the sub

, ,
lime in des c ribing man made in God s image ; while S c hube rt ; ’
deal ing with verses that begin with the Almighty speaking through
thunderstorms and end with the heart o f man a c hieves Haydn s ,
’
finest modu l ation twi c e in a plainl y repeated passage instead of

‘
on c e as a d ivinely unexpected variation .
It is tempting but dangerous t o draw inferences unsupported

, , ,
by musi c al fa cts from the statisti cs o f S chubert s song texts Every

,
’
-
.
great musi cian even if he be as volub l e as W agner o n matters of

,
genera l cu lture is qui cker t o seize upon a fine musi c al possibility

,
in a poem than t o perc eive that the words whi ch gave it t o him will
n o t bear s c rutiny F o r n o fal se sentiment c an de c eive ex c ept by
.
cl aiming t o be a true sentiment I t is therefore unprofitable t o draw .
inferen c es as t o S chubert s limitations from the merits o f the poems

’
he s et t o musi c His friend M ayrhofer w h o w as said t o toss hi m

.
,
song after song a c ross a tab l e t o be s e t as fast as the next poem

c ou l d be written w as n o Goethe n o r does he c ompare with the
, ,
unpretentious W il hel m M ull er ; yet most o f the M ayrhofer songs

rank with the Goethe and Wi l hel m M ul l er songs among the greatest
o f S chubert s o r an y musi c ian s a c hievements in lyri c musi c
’ ’
At .
his o w n bes t M ayrhofer wi ll do but h is Vio la eine Blu m enb allade , ,
wou l d have had n o more chan c e o f c oming within Je ffrey s noti c e ’
‘
than M ac au l ay s Tears o f Sens ibi l ity had that parody ( whi ch
’ ’
,
w as p l ausib l e enough t o worry h is father into horrid doubts ) been

intended s e riously Yet Vio la inspired Schubert at the height o f his
.
power t o o n e o f the last o f h is very long songs a masterpie ce of ,
form using every suggestion o f the words t o purposes o f an imagi

,
nation as true as W ordsworth s ’

.
M ul le r the poet o f S chubert s tw o great song cy cl es we are l n

,
’
-
some danger o f underrating ; he deserves at all events fu ll c redit

13 0 FRANZ SCHUBERT
cu lty The E nglish reader who wishes to capture the inspiration of
.
S c hubert s overpowering pathos in Trockne Blumen or Des Baches

’
Wieg enlied (the lul l aby o f the brook for the young mi ller who has
drowned hi mself) will find the nearest analogy to it in Herrick s ’
M ad M aid s S ong There is no room fo r chara cter drawing no

’
-
.
,
philosophy no pantheism ; but purel y the pres entation of a sorrow

,
such as unhinges the reason o f a young m i ller or a c ountry lass ,
in term s o f the c ommon sights and sounds ar ound the sufferer

which ass ume a primitive animisti c re l ation to the so rrow .
These tw o song cy cl es Die s chone M iille rin and Die Winterreise

'
, ,
must be taken as tw o singl e works T o regard them as fort y four .

-
sing l e songs wi ll onl y lead u s to the end l ess shallows of a c riti cism
o ccupied with questions o f whi c h is the prettiest the most impor ,
tant o r the most distinguished The prettiness and perfe ction of

,
.
any single member does no doubt s eem su fficient to itself like, , ,
L oder s setting o f an E nglish version of Wohin ? : but the cumula

’
tive effe c t o f the whole cy cl e is overwhel m ingl y greater than the

su m o f it s parts Ev en taken by itself Trockn e Blu men h as a pathos
’
.
,
that makes u s grudge S c hubert forgiveness fo r subseq uently writ ing

o n it a s e t o f variat ions whi c h w as a bad t h ing t o do ; and writing
,
them fo r flute whi c h w as worse ; and making some o f them brilliant

, ,
whi c h w as b l asphemous But in its context Trockne Blumen is a

.
song whi ch many a singer h as found difli c u lt to learn be cause its

pathos destroys al l c ontrol o f the voi ce .
The final song Des Baches Wieg en lie d is n o t less diffi cult an d
, , ,
it s supreme art l ies in its being merely strop hi c with melody and ,
a cc ompaniment unaltered thr oughout all its st anz as The c riticism .
o f vo c al musi c wi l l never attain what should be regarded as it s
ordinary profess ional c ompeten c e until it recogni zes that the merely
strophi c song with a singl e mel ody fo r all stanzas is no mere labour
saving device but as Brahms always maintained t he highes t ac
, , ,
c o m plis h m e n t o f the song composer s invention compared to ’

-
whi ch the de cl amatory song is c hild s play Schubert himself has ’

.
produ ced t o o many m asterpie c es o f decl amatory song such as Der ,
Wanderer Der Doppelgang er and Der Toa und das M adchen not to '
' '
, , ,
stu l tify any theory of song writing that does not accept Wagner -
and Hugo Wolf as masters of the theory of musi cal de clamation ;

but a criticism that regards that theory as c on stituting the whole ,
or even the highest art o f vocal music is fundamentally incapable

,
of understanding verse I f Su l livan had not been a co n summate

.
craftsman we should have had o u r de cl amatory theorists pointing

,
FRANZ SCHUBERT 13 1
out that Gilbert s metrical novelties w ere a priori incapable of any

’
treatment more lyrical than that of Das Rheingo ld Very different .
is the theory of the masters of lyric melody whose view of declama ,
tion was not confined to prose Weber writes to his librettist .
M ind you give me plenty of trouble with unexpected rhythms and

’
strange inversions ; nothin g so stimulates the composer s invention
and drives him out of the common grooves; S c hubert had from
m "
childhood practised the musi c al handling o f hll kin ds o f sentence

' '
' ’
so that unlike Weber he presents us with results in which it is im

, ,
possible to guess the difficulties In his six hundred songs there is.
,
no doubt as Brahms said something to be learnt from each one ;

, ,
’
but it will not always be easy to learn it unless you have Brahms s
knowledge to begin with O f course there is no more infallibility
.
,
with Schubert than there is with Shakespeare ; Erlkonig and

'
Gre tchen am S pinnrade stand alone in four volumes of early work ;

Die F o relle after two strophes perfectly realizing in melody and
,
accompaniment the pi cture and mood of the darting trout in the

clear stream shows none of S chubert s later skill when in the last
,
’
stanz a the music makes a perfun ctory effort to follow the narrative ;
,
and even in the later years there are songs not alway s despised by ,
singers from which Brahms himself could have learnt little but the
,
fact that S c hubert was always keeping his pen 1n pra ctice whether ,
or not he had anything in his head at the moment The most .
summary criti cal sifting of this material would require a volume ,
with an in t ro du et o ry essay on principles of musical word setting -
that have never been formulated in text books -

.
O n e technical prin c iple not diffi cult to understand su ffi c es to

, ,
‘
dispose of any a priori objections to what has been c alled the lazy ’
method of t he strophic song with the same tune to all stanzas The .
obje ction rests on an ignorant belief in the bar stroke as a genuine -
and rigid musical unit together with the idea that no other basis
,
of accent counts C omposers with poor rhythmic invention produce

.
melodies in accordance with these limitations ; and they are rightly

afraid of deviating from them since they c annot do so with c o n vic
,
tion But great masters like Schubert play with all possible o c ca
.
sions of musical a c cent as great poets play with verse accent ; and
the various occasions of ac c ent c oincide only in order to mark
s pecial points The first notes of the first song in Win terreise sho w
.
the method at once The first note is o ff the beat (an ana c rusis) ; but
.
is higher than the second The beat comes on the second whi c h is
.
,
an expressive discord The height of the fi rst note provides enough

.
13 0 FRANZ SCHUBERT
c ulty The E nglish reader who wishes to capture the inspiration of
.
S c hubert s overpowering pathos in Trockne Blumen or Des Baches

’
Wieg enlied (the l ullaby o f the brook for the young miller who has
drowned himself) will find the nearest an alogy to it in Herrick s ’
‘
M ad M aid s S ong There is no room fo r character drawing no

’
-
.
,
phil osophy n o pantheism ; but purely the presentation of a sorrow

,
su ch as unhinges the reason of a young miller or a c ountry lass ,
in terms o f the c ommon sights and sounds around the sufferer

which assume a primitive animisti c rel ation t o the sorrow .
These t w o song cy cl es Die s chone M iillerin and Die Winterreise

’
, ,
must be taken as two singl e works To regard them as fort y four .

-
singl e songs wi ll onl y lead u s to the endl e ss shallows of a c riti cism

o ccupied with questions o f which is the prettiest the most impor
'
&
,
tant o r the most distinguished The prettiness and perfection of

,
.
any single member does no doubt s eem sufficient to itself like , , ,
L oder s setting o f an E nglish version of Wohin ? : but the cumu l a

’
tive effe ct o f the whole cy cle is overwhelmingly greater than the

s u m of it s parts Even taken by itsel f Tro ckn e Blu men h as a pathos
.
,
that makes u s grudge S c hubert forgiveness fo r subseq uently writing

o n it a s e t o f variations whi c h w as a bad t hing to do ; and writing
,
them fo r flute w h i ch w as worse ; and making some o f them bril l iant

, ,
whi c h w as b l asphemous But in it s context Trockne Blume n is a

.
song whi ch many a singer h as found diffi c ult to learn because its
pathos destroys al l c ontrol o f the voice .
The final song Des Baches Wieg en lie d is not less di fficu l t and
, , ,
it s supreme art l ies in it s being merel y strophic with melody and ,
a cc ompaniment unal tered throughout all its stanz as The criticism .
o f vo c a l musi c wi ll nev er attain what should be regarded as its
ordinary professional c ompeten c e until it re c ogniz es that the merely

strophi c song with a singl e mel ody for al l stanzas is no mere labour
saving devi c e but as Brahms always maintained t h e h igh e s t ac
, , ,
c o m plis h m e n t o f the song composer s invention compared to ’

-
whi ch the de clam atory song is child s p lay Schubert himself has ’
.
produ ced too many masterpiec es o f de cl amatory song such as Der ,
Wanderer Der Doppelgdnger and Der Tod und das M adchen not to
'
, , ,
stultify any theory of song writing that does not accept Wagner -
and Hugo Wolf as masters of the theory of musi cal de clamation ;

but a criticism that regards that theory as constituting the whole ,
or even the highest art of vocal musi c is fundamental l y in capable

,
of understanding verse If Su l livan had not been a consummate

.
craftsman we should have had o u r declamatory theorists pointing

,
13 2 FRANZ S C HUBERT
a c cent to fit any prosodic inversion without interrupting by dec la
m at o ry pedantries t h e dogged mar c h of the jilted lover as he leaves
the town of his joy an d sorrow But the note is not so high as to
.
make an accent where t h e iambic feet of the verse are normal Then .
the sensitive dis c ord on the first of the bar asserts itself .
Schubert is n o t less masterly in the handling of paragraphs as

wholes He never over punctuates as is the inveterate tendency of
.
-
,
‘
the c ons cientiously de cl amatory composers Dass s ie hier gewe .
sen
’
a series o f statements that the air the flowers & c prove that
, , , .
,
the bel oved has been there is set by S chubert strophically to a

, , ,
musi c al paragraph beginning outside the key and corresponding in

every point o f musi c al analysis to the grammati c structure of th e
poem s o that it is as impossible to lose the thread of its series of
,
dependent clauses as to misunderstand its sentiment In the first .
o f the S chw aneng esang ( a publisher s title fo r a selection of Schu

’
bert s latest songs ) Lie b es b otschaft (Rauschendes Bachlein) the

’ '
, ,
Bachlein c ontinues its movement while the thought of the beloved

'
hanging her head in a pensive mood is expressed at a tempo twi c e

as slow as that o f the rest o f the setting In short S chubert the song .
,
writer is as great a master o f movement (whi c h is form) as M ozart or

Beethoven All his structural devices seem so absurdly simple when
.
,
pointed o u t that only the cumulative e ffe ct o f their number variety

, , ,
and e fli c ie ncy will s u flic e t o undo the injuries that o u r understanding

o f S c hub e rt s art h as suffered from over emp h as is o n his in c apa c ity
’
-
t o theorize in words and from a cademi c ignoran c e o f the nature of

,
musi cal art forms o n a large scale V ogl the singer who in Schu
-
.
, ,
bert s o w n lifetime recognized and produ c ed his songs spoke of

’
, ,
‘
his insight into poetry as cl airvoyant ; and that praise was useful
’
in it s day At present we cannot t o o strongly emphasize the fact

.
that clairvoyan c e o r common sense S chubert s m astery in hi s

, ,
’
songs incl udes an immens e te c hni que cons ciously developed and
pol ished from c hildhood in over s ix hundred extant examples many ,
o f them severa l times rewritten H is inability to explain himself

.
in verbal o r anal yti c theory is the i n ability o f a master to explain an

art t o people w h o thinking they know all about it do not in fact
, , , ,
know that it exists From Salieri S chubert learnt Italian de clama

.
tion and operati c gesture with a thoroughness whi ch musi cally , ,
stood him in good stead s o l ong as his dramati c ambitions and his
un criti c al good nature t o poetaster friends did n o t betray him into
wasting pre cious time and fine musi c o n hopeless blood and thun - -
der like Fierrabras and A lfonso and Estrella Z u m st e e g the pioneer .

,
FRANZ SCHUBERT 13 3
of long ballads he outpaced as w e have seen in the very act of
, , ,
making a musical paraphrase as a self taught boyish exercise The -

.
sporadic non operatic ly rics of M ozart and B eethoven can hardly

-
account for any measurable fraction of S chubert s range of song ’
forms ; y ou might as w ell try to account for Shakespeare b y his

parentage It is easier to trace S chubert s emotional power to con
.
’
temporary influences than so to trace his te chnique To b much has .

n
been made of his adverse criticisms of Weber and B eethoven ; these

are the honest fi rst impressions of a fearless young artist shy only ,
in the actual presence of persons formidable by position or attain

ment M any an artist has spoken resentfully of things that have
.
profoundly infl uenced his work even before he learnt to enjoy them .
B eethoven for his part on his death bed recognized S chubert as a

, ,
-
kindred spirit ; and he had no love of things incompatible with the

sublime When all the pretty and picturesque things and even all
.
,
the dramatic things in S chubert s songs have had their due ; even
,
’
after Der Doppelgdnger whi c h many consider the greatest of his

,
’
songs has been revered for its awful transcendence of Heine s grim
,
pathos ; still the full measure of S chubert is revealed when u n o p ,
pressed by ceremonies and o ffi cial responsibilities he j oins Beet ,
hoven and Wordsworth in nature worship The classical interests

-
.
of Goethe and Schiller contribute largely to this strain and S chu ,
bert is magni ficently himself when dealing with Greek subjects ,

‘
and with cosmic emotion as in M ay rhofer s Auflosung ( a glorious
’ ’ ‘
opportunity for a big soprano voice unaccountably neglected) or

, , ,
in a less remote vein the great long Waldesnacht

, .
It is in this mighty framework that the sorrows of the M iller and

the banished Winter T rave lle r b e c o m e universal ; and the calm of
‘
Du bis t die Rah is as my stic as the glory of Beatrice s eyes which

’
drew Dante from heaven to higher heaven .

T O N A L I T Y I N S C H U B E RT 1
TO NAL ITY o r the harmoni c perspe ctive o f musi c is a subje ct whic h

, ,
most writers avoid I t is n o t a thing whi c h c an be dis cussed in

.
n o n musical terms ; and in c all ing it a perspe ctive I have exhausted

-
my sto ck o f su ch metaphors as c an bring it within the c ogn izan c e of

persons o f general culture F o r we all know that in E ngl and a
.
person o f general cu l ture is a person w h o knows nothing about

music and c an not abide musi c al jargon .
The readers of this essay however may be supposed to add , ,
musi c al cu l ture t o their general culture And their impatience of .
musi c al jargon wi l l be aroused onl y by the sort o f terminology that

substitutes professional routine fo r firs t hand artisti c expe rien c e -
.
They may even bear with a little c odifi c ation o f elementary prin
c ip le s ,
if thereby we c an better observe s o wonderful an artisti c .
resour c e as S chubert s tonal ity ’

.
I t is high time that the fa cts o f cl assi c al tonality were properly

tabu l ated W e c annot go into the ultimate foundations here but
.
,
wi ll begin as with granted fa cts by enumerating the key c entres

, ,
-
from a major tonic ; p re m is s in g that in the cl assi cal harmony whi ch

c o m p ris e s H an de l s and S c hubert s aestheti c s the key o f a pie c e is
'
’ ’
l ike the point o f view o r the vanishing point o f a pi cture M ark

, .
‘
Twain on c e defended a bad l y drawn study by saying that the
tower w as drawn from below but the man o n the t o p of it w as
drawn from the roof : and in the same way many unorthodox har
moni c progressions are c onfli cts o f key perspe ctive -
.
Here then are the key c entres o f a major to ni c taken as C

, ,
-
major T o make the s cheme app l i c ab l e t o all major keys we have

.
only t o name the degrees o f the s ca l e These fun ctional names .
exp l ain themselves and are easy t o remember The onl y ones re .
qu iring c omment are the subdominant and the submed iant The .
supertonic is the note o r chord above the toni c : but the s u b

, ,
dominant shou l d be thought o f n o t as the note below the dominant ,
but as an anti dominant having the opposite effe ct t o the dominant

-
an d l ying a fifth be l ow the toni c as the dominant l ies a fifth above .
The meaning o f the term submediant then be c omes clear : it is a

third betwe e n to ni c and subdominant as the med iant is a third ,
between tonic and dominant N o w represent these degrees by .
M us ic ( S c hu b e rt N um b e r)
1
F ro m and L e t ters ,
vo l . ix, no .
4 , O ct o b e r 1 928 .
13 4
13 6 TONALITY 1 N S CHUBERT
I n apology fo r this apparently elementary exposition and for ,
more words o n the same plane I must plead that it is s o far as I , ,
know new I am n o t a great r e ader o f text b o oks and I know that

, .
-
they have enormously improved sin c e 1 8 90 ; but the horrid little

questions in modulation which still turn up in musical examinations
wou l d seem t o indi cate that the teaching o f tonal ity hovers betwee n
pious m al observation and perky progressiveness in much the same
-
way as it did forty years ago I t is quite impossible t o take either .
the simpler o r the more adv an c ed factors in Schubert s tonality for ’
granted in this arti cle o r n o tw o readers will form the same idea of
,
my meaning S o please bear with me while I continue t o exp lain

.
everything as we pro c eed .
‘
I n referring t o a darker minor key I am n o t describing s u b j ec
’
tive fan c ies K eys in themselves are major o r minor and their
.
,
other di fferen c es vary a cc ording t o the te c hni ques o f instruments

and n o t at al l o n v oi c es ex c ept in pit ch That is to s ay there is no .
,
di fferen c e between a song in C and the same song transposed to

'
F sharp ex cept that in F sharp it w il l suit a totally di fferent voice

, ,
and the c o l our o f its a cc ompaniment wi l l be mu c h lighter if the

transposition is upwards and probab l y impossibly darker if it is
downwards ( When Hens chel sang Das Wandern he put the v oi ce
.
part a maj or 3 rd down and the pianoforte part a minor 6t h up ) .
But there is n o reason why o n e pie c e in C should n o t have exactly

the same c haract er as an other in F sharp N otions about the .
chara cters o f keys in themselves are entirely subj ective and no ,
agreement about them is t o be expected though doubtles s their ,
psy chological statisti cs might be as interes ting as those o f number

forms But I doubt this : there happens t o be another basis for
’
.
th e se ideas o f key c o l our whi c h rather kno cks the bottom out of
-
their psy chologi c al interest .
What is n o t subje ctive at al l is the effect o f o n e key as approac hed

from another And as nobody can know the nam e s o f keys without
.
knowin g their distan c e from C there is a strong probabil ity that ,
subje ctive ide as o f key charact er wil l be a tangl e o f asso ciations

-
with C maj or o verlaid by recollections o f the first pie c e t hat made

an impres s ion and w as remembered by its key I n my o w n c ase .
,
fo r instan c e E flat minor whi c h is diffi c ult t o c onnect with C has

, , ,
the c h ara cter o f Ba c h s E flat minor Prelude overlaid by the sense

’
o f it s extreme remoteness from C and the darkne s s o f a modu l ation
from C t o it O n the other hand E flat major whic h is a warm

.
, ,
dark key in rel ation t o C h as fo r me overwhel mingl y the character

,
T O N A L I T Y I N S C H U B ER T 13 7
of the E roica S ymphony An d it is quite certain that no composer
’
.
with an y pretensions to mastery ever allowed merely subjective

ide as of key to get in his way When B eethoven arranged his little .
E major S onata op 1 4 no 1 as a string quartet he transposed it

, .
, .
, ,
to F without any scruples as to change of character Y et he had .
‘
picturesque ideas about keys B minor was black and A fl at .
’
, ,
very unlike his numerous gentle movem ents in t hat key was ,
barbarous
No w let us consider the functions of the k ey relations exhibited -
in E x 1 First comes the dominant As that c hord is penultimate

. . .
in every normal full close it follows that the natural way to estab ,
lish a new key is to get on to its dominant chord and stay there
long enough to rouse the expectation of a close i nto the new tonic .
Hence the dominant chord is the c entre of a ctivity and forw ard
movement in tonality M oreover if we alight on any maj or triad
.
,
and harp on it there will arise a strong suspicion that it is a domi

,
nant c hord and not a tonic O n e of the most important distinctions .
in all music though I have not encountered it in books is that

, ,
between on the dominant and in the dominant Biilo w understood .
it thoroughly ; but many later and plausible w riters are hopelessly

at fault about it M ozart plays upon the distinction with a power
.
and brilliance that has never since been equalled ; for a wider
range of key is like a faster rate of travel and lets you see less of ,
the country .
The s u b do m l n ant or anti dominant used as a penultimate chord

,
-
in the solemn ecclesiastical plagal cadence is opposite to the domi ,
nant in fun ction and effect M ake your fi rst extended m odulation .
to the subdominant and you deprive your movement of all forward

,
energy and indicate at on c e that your intention is lyrical and repose

ful The cheeky and voluminous fi nale of Schubert s early F orellen
.
’
qu in te t t contradicts this ; but it is evidence onl y of its own e f

f rontery .
It is not to the present purpose t o describe those phenomena of

tonality whi ch are common to Schubert and all classi c al composers ;
so I will say no more at present as to his treatment of the dominant
and subdo m inant but will proceed to illustrate other key relations
,
-
.
The reader must however beware of receiving fro m the sum of my

, ,
illustrations the idea that they represent the prevalent tonal colour
of Schubert If that were so they would be mannerisms not mar
.
,
vels They do not even represent the greatest marvels but only
.
,
such points as I have room to illustrate w ithin any reasonable length .
When we start from a major tonic and take the dominant and ,
13 8 T ONAL ITY IN SCHUBERT
subdominant as read the other three related keys are minor and are
, ,
n o t markedly different from ea c h other when used on a smal l s c a l e .
The supertoni c is easily reached ; M ozart slides in and out of it as

in the stride of a regular melody ,
Ex 3 .
and it is a favourite gambit in later openings su ch as t he Allegro ,
o f Beethoven s First Symphony and more melodiously and grandly

’
, , ,
hi s C major Quintet and most grand l y of all in Schubert s C

’
, , ,
major Quintet ?
N ow arises the question : W hen is a modulation not a modula

‘ ‘
tion ? C learly key and chord are relative terms Y ou cannot
’ ’
.
assert a key without giving its dominant chord ; and in the second
bar o f Ex 3 the G sharp does give the leading note and represents
.
the dominant chord o f A minor But the passage c ould have done .
without this ; and only the chromati c ally gl iding D sharp in the
melody which no sane person wi l l take for a modulation to E
, ,
forc es upon u s the underl ining o f A minor as a key instead of as a

plain supertoni c chord But fo r this underlining the previous .
chromatic D sharp must have borne some independent weight ,
whereas it n o w means s carce l y more than the merely chromatic

A sharp Here then are the possibilities fo r many subtle master
.
, ,
strokes in the draughtsmanship o f harmony .
L e t u s s e e h o w S c hubert takes advantage o f them Ex 4 is an . .
outl ine o f the trio o f the S c herzo o f the great C major S ymphony .
The key is A major whi c h we will take as a thing in itself ign o r

, ,
ing its rel ation t o the s cherzo whi c h is in C The harmony moves , .
slowl y taking s ixteen o f these short bars t o c over the three c ardinal
,
chords o f the key I n the next twenty b ars the chord of the sub
.
mediant al most be c omes a key but the diminished 7 t h in bar 2 5 ,
impinges o n t o the dominant and shows that we have not yet ,
moved But in bar 2 9 another diminished 7 t h o n the same bass

.
,
and with a d ifferen c e o f intonation t o o deli cate fo r the pianoforte

to show turns o u t t o be quite a different c hord and takes us into
,
the key o f the mediant I s this key going to be estab l ished ? N ot

.
yet ; bars 3 7 4 0 os ci l late between the original toni c c hord and this
— '
1
I n the fin ale of h is las t s o n ata h e m ak e s his t h e m e p e rs is t e n t ly s tar t in t h e
su p e rt o nic , as Be e t h o ve n did in t h e fin ale o f his Q
u art e t , o p 1 3 0 . .
1 40 TONALITY I N SCHUBERT
Re p
e at 73 °
78
Ba rs 1 21 re s co re d
-
Bars 20 116
-
‘
TONALITY I N SCHUBERT
ately b ack to the do minant of A and s o to a repetition of the fi rst
phrase of sixteen bars Its counter statement now underlines the
.
-
chord of the submediant by using it as a step towards t he s u b do m i

nant This would not itself amount t o more than local colour bu t
.
for the fact that bars 1 2 1 8 still in the stride of the melody sud
—
, ,
de nly rise a semitone into the key of the fl at supertonic a relation ,
which like that of C major above is outside the s chem e covered

, ,
b y Ex 1 It takes another eight bars to restore t he tonic The

. . .
chromatic bass of bars 1 2 9 3 3 contains the only quick moving

— -
harmonies in the whore gorgeous colour scheme of this trio which -
ends quietly with a recapitulation in the tonic of bars 3 7 4 8 Y es

—
, , .
,
that is what it sounds like but the harmonies are turned round the
, ,
tonic chord being where the other chord was O n a small scale .
’
this is typical of Schubert s mature recapitulations ; he knows
exactly how far the true balance is to be obtained b y plain re c apitu
lation and how far the harmonies must be recast .
For reasons that will appear later the supertonic is not a key that ,
mak es a good contrast for a section Its converse the flat 7t h from .
,
a minor tonic is rather vague even in local modulations ; it suggests

,
'
that it is not a real key but only the dominant of the more familiar
‘ ’
so called
-
relative major If the composer succeeds in contradict
.
ing this construction the effect on a small scale suggests the D orian
, ,
mode of the sixte enth century and on a larger scale it exactly fits
,
‘
Gretchen s ich fin de sie nimmer und nimmermehr
’
N othing is ’
.
’
more astonishi ng in all Schubert s development than his achieving ,
quietly and simply at the age of seventeen exactly the right modula
, ,
tion at the beginning of Gretchen am Spinnrade The four and a half .
bars in C may till the last moment turn out to be a dominant of E

, , ,
but the harmony swings back inexorably an d dryly to D minor .
Ex 5 '
P i an o
F major does not appear till Gretchen is thi nking of S ein hoher
Gang sein edle Gestalt , in the calm before the crisis The other
,
’ ’
.
modulations in this marvellous and perfect composition carry us

beyond the range of E x and it will be convenient first to explain
.
h o w that range is extended o n c lassical lines .
First we must n o t c ease to give a definite meaning to the term

,
key relation There are n o forbidden modu l ations ; but there are
-
.
modu l ations whi c h c annot be made to mean the same thing as a

key relation however mu c h we may advan c e in our understanding
-
of that almost theo l ogi c al dogma the unity o f the c hromatic scale
,
’
.
The advance o f mathe m atics beyond simple arithmetic c an find a

u s e fo r the square root o f a minus quantity but it is not going to ,
give a meaning t o the unimpea chably grammatical statement that

‘
the s oul is either b l ue o r n o t blue ; and a modulation from C to
’
F sharp is as e asy as fall ing o u t o f bed but however c orre ct in

s , ,
grammar it is n o t going t o estab l ish a key relation

,
-
.
E lsewhere in S chubert these c hanges from major to minor are

frequent but never fa cile always beautiful and sometimes ( as in
, , ,
Trockne Blu m en and the end o f the theme o f Der To d u nd das M ad

’
chen as treated in the D minor Quartet o f almost unbearab l e path o s

, ) .
O n e would hardly imagine the same pathos cou l d be attained in a

movement whi c h is in a major key from the ou tset ; but the return to
the main th eme o f the first movement o f the G major Quartet is one
o f the most movi ng passages in all musi c The main theme at first
.
arises from sust ained major c hords whi c h break o u t into energet ic
minor figu res .
and so obtain bVI if; iv and bI I I It will be seen that the dominant
, ,
.
minor and subdominant minor are reached in both ways They are .
,
in fact hardly felt as remoter relations at all and their use on an

, ,
almost ordinary footing i s as old as Ba c h and Handel The c fle ct

i“ .
m of the other modulations i s highly coloured those i n the forward ,
direction ( I II and V I ) being ve ry bright while their converses ,
(bVI and 1 )
7 111 are c orresponding l y dark .
The secondary relations o f a m inor tonic are with the exception ,
of the major dominant and major subdominant als o m in o r and , .

,
I p
this deprives them of much of the contrast that their

would otherwise give The whole s e t is of
.
,
indi c ates the distance o f a major interval from

and fiiii in the forward direction with V and I V ,
and bvi and biii in the converse direction .
But the possibi lities are n o t yet exh austed Both modes may be .
changed and this wi ll give t w o more distant keys biii and bvi from
, ,
a major tonic and flVI and $ 111 from a minor to n i c

,
.
Here is the whol e series s o far re ckoned from C and giving the,
intermediate steps :
e m ot e ke y-
re l at io n s
l i I V v I i iv I IV iv 1 iii lll
i l il v i i b ll l [viii i b vl b vi b l l l b iii
No w the relation of su ch pairs keys i s evident only when they of
are either brought into immediate c ontact o r put into such promi
nent positions i n a design that the memo ry holds them together .
TO NALITY IN SCHUBERT 1 45
N ot only do the great masters of tonalit y not expect us to recogni z e ,
without collateral eviden c e keys that return after intervening modu

,
lat io n s ,but they rely upon our not doing so For example the .
,
modulation to C from A major in the middle of Ex 4 is the right .
thing in the right place ; but our clever young ( or old enough to
know better) contrapuntists who Go do w skify the classi c s by com
1
bining everything with everything else could easily make it disas

trous by introdu c ing the theme of the scherzo i n the b ass for it is ,
n o t a return to the tonic of the s c herz o but a beautiful dark purple
in the A major trio I remember an excellent treatise of the seventies

.
that laid down the rule M odulation should not be made twice to
,
the same key in the course of a movement The book was laudably ’
.
observant of the real classics ; but this rule showed how admirably
the classics es c aped being found out in this matter for the rule is ,
w holly impossible to obey on a large s c ale .
P robably the most fundamental rule for operations in large scale -
tonality is that key relation is a function of form It is no use

-
.
c iting passages from the c ourse of a wandering development to

prove that a composer regards a key as related to his tonic : the
function o f development is contrast not tonic relation The choice , .
o f a key fo r the slow movement of a sonata or for the trio of a ,

‘
scherzo o r fo r the se c ond group ( miscalled second subj ect ) of a
,
’
first movement implies key relation ; but episodes and purple

,
-
pat c hes in these divisions must be referred to the key of the divi
sion not to that o f the whole
,
.
I f it be asked h o w besides this choice of definite fun ction the

, ,
great c omposers express the fa ct that remote keys are related the ,
answer is exa ctly as in Example 8 O r else by plain juxtaposition

,
without the intermediate steps O r even by breaking down the .
tonic chord into a single note and then building that note up into
-
another c hord ; though this is a pro c ess that lends itself to m yst ific a
tion as well as schemati c clearness But I wish we might be allowed .
‘ ’
to u s e the term natural for modulations which show the nature
of the c ase .
Plain juxtaposition may be hardly thought worthy of inclusion

among these natural modulations but it is in many ways the most ,
‘
important o f all P hilipp E manuel Ba c h and Dvo i ak ( slow move
.
ment of N ew World Symphony) are afraid of it and mu st inter

‘ ’
p o lat e explanatory c hords N ot so Haydn Beethoven . S chubert , , ,
1
N e v e rt h e le s s ,
I ge t u p an d s n o rt w h en an yb o dy e ls e s ays a w o rd ag ain s t t h at
great pl ya er .
1 46 TONALITY 1N SCHUBERT
and Brahms W hen Beethoven wants to put the slow movement of
.
his C minor C oncerto in the relation i to 1 $III he simply begins on

the dazz ling new tonic chord ; and when S c hubert ( following the
example of Beethoven s o p 1 06 which h as the relation I to bvi)
’
.
,
puts the slow movement o f his last Son ata ( B flat) into th e relation
I t o biii ( C sharp minor D flat minor in a c onvenient notation) he ,
does likewise The who l e point is that the new key comes as a
.
sho ck but n o t as an inexp licable o n e

,
.
Here are t w o modulations literal l y o n the s cheme o f E x 8 .
Ex 9
. Na tu ra l m o du l at io n f ro m l t o bvl ( A b ra/cred )
Ex 10 Di re c t
. i m pa c t b e tw e e n i a nd b v i W i th e n h arm o n ic re tu rn ( Eb
M odulations that enter the new key through its dominant chord!
are often hardly less immediate in their effect ; and it is hard l y
1 48 TONALITY IN SCHUBERT
that h as misled the toni c s o l fa is t s but h as misled nobody e l se
- - -
, .
No t A minor but C mi n or is the minor mode o f C

,
.
No w the chara cter o f the minor mode arises from the art ific iality
o f the minor triad I t wou l d c arry u s t o o far t o go into this ; and I
.
will beg the reader w h o wishes t o dispute it kindly t o bear with

this doubtless imperfe ct statement and to admit that the who l e ,
history o f classi c al mus ic shows that from the s ixteent h century -
tierce de Picardie t o the present day the minor tonic triad c an be

rep l a ced by the major with the effe ct o f onl y adding t o the final ity
o f the toni c sense The major mode is the more resonant : the minor
.
is over c ast and struggl ing with dissonant elements C onsequently .
a c hange from minor t o major in any dire ction is an in crease o f

comfort and a c hange t o tonic major is normally a change t o
, , ,
'
happiness O f c ourse other fa ctors may intervene ; Brahms s

.
,
’
kittenish Die S chw es tern gets along p l ayfu lly in the minor unti l the
twins fall in love w ith the same m an and then the major mode ,
shows it s higher p l angen cy ( I think th at is the proper word t o day) -

.
Also happiness t o o eas i l y w o n is v e ry n e ar t o tragi c irony

,
.
N o w o n e o f the eas iest and l ighte s t forms o f pathos in musi c is

the starting in a minor key an d before any a ction h as happen e d , ,
c hanging t o it s toni c major This o f c ourse forestall s an y further

.
, ,
dramati c u s e o f the c hange unless the work is o n s o large a s c ale

that it c an afford t o begin with an al mo st c omp l ete lyri c statement .
And S chubert s large instrumental forms are notorious l y prone t o

’
spend in lyri c e cstasy the time required ex hypo thesi fo r dramati c

a ction Rossin i whose mu s i c is never in a hurry and l east o f all
.
, ,
when Figaro is exhibiting h is patter singing had al ready made this -
change his chi e f means o f pathos ; and S chubert w h o w as thoroughly ,
seasoned by the Rossini fever whi ch devastated musi c al Vienna in

the twenties took this over with many other I tal ian expressions
, .
The beautifu l mel ody with whi c h the A minor Quartet begins owes
nothing t o I tal y unti l the moment when it qu ietly goes into A major .
Some fifty years later this gift from I tal y returned t o it s nat ive
c ountry when Verdi wrote the beginning o f h is Requiem .
This flat supertoni c produ c es four key rel ations between keys a -
semitone apart From a major toni c there is the flat supertoni c and
.
both modes o f the sharp 7 t h t o whi c h the toni c is flat supertoni c .
There is al so the indire ct re lation o f the m inor flat supertoni c a ,
key that wou l d never c onvey an impress ion o f rel ation unl ess in
immediate juxtapos ition and with s c hematic ally demonstrative har
m ony But this as we s h al l s e e re al ly o ccurs From a minor toni c
.
, , .
TONALITY I N SCHUBERT 1 49
there is the direct fl at supertonic but no direct converse relations , ,
since the N eapolitan chord is always major But there are three .
i n direct N eapolitan relations Vi z the minor flat supertoni c and the, .

,
sharp 7t h in both m ajor and minor modes .
This account like all verbal explanations of tonality is dry work ;

, ,
but the treatment of the facts by hoven and Schubert ,
is not .
Ex 13
. Ne a p o lit a n R e l at i o n s
1 Fro m
. a o r t o n ic
m aj
Di re c t
yin r tr y
Va -
1 bll i b ll bi i l flvii
Haydn s last P ianoforte S onata in E flat has its slow movement
’
, ,
in E t] E h bI I This Haydn carefully abstains from explain

.
ing ; unlike Philipp E manuel Bach who when he put an E fl at , ,
m ovement into a D major symphony annihilated the effect b y ,
dramatic bridge passages in recitative Beethoven after using the

-
.
,
flat supertonic very impressively at the beginning of the S ona ta

App assio na ta the E minor Quartet and the F minor Quartet wrote
‘
, , ,
one o f his very greatest works the C sharp minor Quartet within , ,
the range ( but for two small purple pat c hes ) between the flat super
toni c and the other dire ctly related key s putting the flat supertonic ,
fi rst and last .
EL M
»
Mi no r Ne a po l it a n c h o rd ,
arte t in D m ino r
Schubert w as greatly excited by Beethoven s C sharp minor ’
Quartet ; but having written Gretchen am S pinnrade at seventeen

, ,
he needed no prompting and the end of the first movement ,
o f the D minor Qua r tet turns the N eapolitan chord into the
m inor ( Ex 1 4 p .
,
.
The C major String Quintet is o n e o f the greatest o f all essays in

ton ality and espe ciall y in the N eapo l itan rel ations The whol e
, .
scheme is as fo ll ows : and the reader whose patien c e is exhausted

"
by these statisti cs may get the benefit o f them together with some
aesthetic experien c e by p l aying very s l owl y the tonic chords o f , ,
the key centres mentioned fo r whi c h purpose I s et them out in

-
E x 1 5 As it is n o longer t o the point t o suppress the dominant

. .
chord when that is present at the moment o f impact I put it and

'
other connexion l inks as c rot c hets and quavers and represent the ,
initial toni c as a dotted minim I t wi l l be noti c ed that in the first

.
movement the re mote key with whi ch the se c ond group o f themes
begins l asts o nl y during o n e theme and then yie l ds pla ce to the ,
orthodox dominant This is always the c ase where Schubert s first

.
’
modu l ation in a sonata form movement is uno rthodox The first

-
.
‘
movement of the U nfi n ished Symphony is the only examp l e ’
where S chubert s second gro up is n o t in the s o called relative

’
-
major as the movement is in a minor key ; and he makes no
exc eption t o the rule that in a major first movement the second
group however wide a cast it may first make eventually settles in
, ,
the orthodox dominant ! . “
fi
t
a
w
’
ifi
y fi
r
‘ fi
v
Ex l 5
. Cardina l key re latio ns in th e l s t th re e m o ve m e nts of S h c ub e rt s
’
St ir ng Q
uinte t
E n h a rm o n ic m o du l atio n s
And here is the very end o f the slow movement showi ng the ,
relation I ii as exactly as in E x 1 4 besides summing up the whol e .

,
movement in four bars :

152 TONALITY IN SCHUBERT
I f the s c heme here given in c ludes su c h a wide range key o f \
,
why does it ex clude any keys at all ? T o begin with why does it ,
refuse t o c hange the mode o f the supertoni c and the flat 7 t h ?

‘
O bviously any theo ry that tries t o forbid these modulations
’
,
c onde mns itself Th e onl y permissib l e question about them is :

.
what do they mean ? And when we ask that question we get a ,
sensible answer T o begin with take E x 5 We noti c ed that this

.
, . .
key o f the flat 7 t h persisted in sounding like the dominant o f bI I I ,
and that Gretchen s despair is vivid l y expressed by the failure to

’
lead t o any su ch key That is the po int : yo u may go t o a key but

.
,
y o u may find it impos s ib l e t o pro v e that

yo u have rea c hed it The .
normal way t o establ ish a key is t o kno ck at it s dominant door : and

the best way t o make sure that it is the front door that yo u are ‘
kno cking at is t o get at it through it s o w n l e ading note C o n s e

,
.
quentl y if your toni c is C major yo u m ay s ay

, ,
Ex 18 .
till yo u are b l a ck in the fa c e ; but n o t even a mi l itary bandmaster

wi l l believe that yo u are in D m ajor and n o t mere l y kno cking at the
door o f G I f your toni c had been minor then E x 1 8 would n o t
.
, .
be c ome D m inor but wou l d either remain exa ctly as it is o r as

, , ,
an utmost c on c es s ion put a flat t o E in the se c ond bar , .
W hat is true o f o n e key relation is tru e o f it s c onverse ; and if -
nobody wi l l believe that I I is a rea l key when approa c hed from I ,
then a modu l ation from I t o bVI I will c ast some doubt o n the
reality o f I when we return t o it Besides ever sin c e Beethoven s .
,
’
‘
Wa l d stein Sonata and his earl ier G major o p 3 1 n o I bVI I
’
, .
, .
,
h as be c ome a stal king horse fo r the subdom in ant W hen the se c ond
-
.
key o r both k e y s are minor t h e amb igu ity n o l on ger exists fo r

, , , ,
dominant c hord c an o nl y be major But b y this time n o fee l ing o f .
rel ation is left fo r there have been n o cir cumstan ces that c an
,
natu rally give rise t o it S o poor Gret chen s despair wanders .

’
,
after E x 5 through the dominant into the desolate region o f E

.
,
minor (ii) die ganze Welt is t mi r ve rgallt Then c e s h e does retra ce

'
her harmonic steps ba ck t o the dominant and from there rises a

semitone t o harmonies o n the dominant o f bvi Again the acc o m .
a ni m e n t swings ba c k and s h e returns t o the toni c and the burden

p
‘
M eine Ru h is t hin She re capitu l ates the modu l ation o f Ex 5
’ ’
. .
and it s sequel but does n o t go further than the dominant ; and then
,
TONALITY I N SCHUBERT 1
53
‘
comes the wonderful repose i n the long delayed bI I I at Sein
-
’
hoher Gang .
. I f the c omposer starting from a major toni c can persuade the

, ,
listener that I I is a key and not a mere dominant the effe ct is one ,
of strange exaltation ; unless of c ourse the c omposer is a mere

, ,
stringer of borrowed tunes whose key contrasts mean nothing

-
.
That is why this is either the most vulgar of modulations or the

T
mo st sublime A miracle was worked in this

. Beethoven
at the long delayed return of the main theme in the first movement
-
‘
o f the E roica Symphony S c hubert in the slow movement of the
’
.
Quintet produ c es a mysterious brightness by going from E to F 1];

I
( ) I and refusing to explain it away as the dominant of V .
h p
A n d t e n c e i n t h e o p o s i te
d ire c t i o n th ro u g hbV I I as
Do m in an t o f b i l l
54 T O N A L I T Y I N S CH U B E R T
What of the key distances a tritone 4t h or imperfect 5 th apart
-
the only ones n o w l eft exc ept enharmon ic synonyms o f the others ?
,
Here again the real question h as nothing t o do with the U nity

,
o f the C hromatic Scal e or the Blueness of the Soul o r the Wicked
ness of Hide bound Academ icism but s imply wi th the problem o f

-
estab l ishing the se c ond key as having a toni c relation to the first .
And this cannot be done with I and flIV major o r minor direct or , ,
c onverse Whichever is tonic the other will be a domin ant and no t

.
,
a key ; and as a dominant it will turn the first key into a flat
, ,
supertoni c I n short E x 1 9 (p 1 5 3 ) means a N ea p olitan close

.
, . .
into B major o r minor

, ,
Ex 20.
and c annot be made t o mean anything else M oreover the se c ond .

,
chord is very close i n pit ch ( in fa ct identi c al o n the pianoforte) to ,
it s diametri c al opposite bV The t w o c ould overl ap ( with perfe ct

, .
c omfort o n the pianofo rte and with merel y momentary discomfort

in just intonation ) and carry the progression right round the b ar
moni c world in three c hords .
Harmoni c spa c e is curved l ike the surfa c e o f the earth and this ,
tritone is it s date l ine W e must n o t ascribe this curvature t o any

-
.
form o f tempered s c al e E x 2 0 represents the parti cular c ase o f

. .
the whole curvature known as the circle o f 5 t h s ( C G D A E , , , , ,
B F sharp
,
G flat D flat A flat E flat B flat F C ) whi ch
, , , , , , ,
temperaments equal o r unequ al make join by distributing the ir

, ,
defe ctive intonations t o the best o f their ab il ity ; but the actual
curvature o f harmonic spa c e is lo c al and depends o n musi c al forms ,
as the c urvature o f E instein s time spa c e depends o n the presence

’
-
o f gravitating matter E d itori al time spa c e and the o c casion c ompel

.
-
me t o hurl this dogmati c ally at the reader I wi l l o nl y point o u t .
that there are several other enharmoni c circles between the short
c ircuit o f Ex 2 1 and the who l e circle o f 5 t h s ; and wi l l again remind
.
the reader that n o master o f tonal ity expe cts a key t o be re c ognized
156 TONALITY IN SCHUBERT
times supposed that Ba c h s range o f modu l ation h as never been
’
surpassed and that it w as in c on c eivable until Das Wohltemp erirtes

,
K lavier made it possib l e by means o f equal temperament The o n e .
supposition is pious and the other mere l y nonsensi c al Yo u c annot .
‘
e nl arge the range o f modulation that Ba ch c overed in Et e xsp e ct o
re s u rre c t io n e m m o rt u o ru m the C hromati c Fantas ia and the
’
, ,
‘
O rgan Fantas ia in G minor n o r Hande l s range in Thy rebuke
’
,
hath broken his heart But when Ba ch and Hande l go beyond

’
.
Ex 1 they intend and a c hieve mira cl es ; whi l e S c hubert and Beet

.
hoven w h o also work mira cles c an c over the whol e range with
, ,
patently normal fa cts W hat o u r grammarians have c omp l etely

.
failed t o show as far as I c an s e e is just what the purpose o f

, ,
modulations can be O n e thing is quite evident that it is n o u s e

.
,
quoting harmoni c fact s without referring t o the time s c al e in whi c h -
they are manifested F o r want o f su c h measurements o u r study o f

.
modulation be c omes as style destroying as exercises designed t o -
introdu c e all the known figures o f spee c h into a singl e paragraph .
fi F o r th is re ason I
g ive n o further ana l ysis t o the fol l owing three
illustrations o f S c hubert s harmonic mira c les : ’
EX 23
. B e g i n i ng o f I nc a r n a t u s of Ma s s in A fl at
TONALITY I N SCHUBERT 15
7
Ex 25
. Fro m Trio of th e Mi nue t f
in Un in is he d S o n at a ( To nic Gil m i ) .
M B Bar 6
. is a so hat th e
t ke y re turn e d
c o m p re s s i o n o f: t o is Ab , n o t Gli
But I have only tou c hed the fringe o f the s ubject and I prefer ,
to end with an illustration that shows how all these resources

depend o n the time scale -
.
The first feature in large for ms that Schubert handled with

supreme mast ery was the retur n of a main theme This requires a .
highly developed sense of the degrees in whi c h a key may be estab

lis h e d For instan c e if a composer after having modulated in zig
.
, ,
zags over the c ir cle of 5 t h s drops into h is toni c and his main
,
theme as if this event were merely resuming an interrupted conver

sation ; well either this is a good joke or it is not I t h as to be
, .
very good if it will do at all Haydn M ozart and Beethoven may

.
, ,
be trusted with it ; but you wi l l not find it in early works and ,
S c hubert did n o t live to produ c e late ones N ow as has been said .

,
before the normal way to establish a key new or old is to harp

, , ,
o n it s dominant I n the modulation to the first new key that of

.
,
the se c ond group in a sonata movement the reaching of this point ,

‘
and the proportioning of this dominant preparation is a very ’
1
5 8 TONALITY IN SCHUBERT
di ffi cult piece of draughtsmanship M ozart mastered it grandly ;
.
but B eethoven in his most characteristic early works often preferred

to do something cleverer and make a c ast round some other key
,
.
N o t until o p 2 9 did his Beethovenish power add the sub l ime pro
.
portions and simp l i city o f M ozart s dominant preparation to his

’
own new resour c e s S chubert whose adoles c ent works are stiffl y
. ,
imitative o f M ozart never attempted in his maturest works to

,
tackle M oz art s way o f moving t o his se c ond group ex c ept in the

’
,
first t w o movements o f the A minor Quartet ; and the slow move

ment seems rather shy and tired by t h e effort Elsewhe re S c hu
.
bert s first transition is a more o r l e ss violent coup de thé dtre moving

’
,
( except in the U nfinished Symphony

’
) in some direction other tha n
th e eventual destiny o f the section .This makes it the more s ign ifi
M U S I CAL F O RM AN D MATTE R 1
NOT moral c ourage but stark insensibility is what the plain musi
, ,
e ian needs if he is t o address without trepidation the audien c e o f
a l e ctureship in whic h he is prec eded by four o f the greatest l iving

phi l osophers gi ving o f their best Stark insensib il ity though u s e
.
,
fu l does n o t imp l y a tal ent fo r aesthetic s ; and I bra ce myself up

,
against my trep idation by asserting in the most c onfi dent tones o f

auto suggestion th at it is as well th at n o t t o o late in the history o f
-
the Phi l ip M auri c e Deneke L e cture a c raftsman shou l d s e t the ,
examp l e o f dis c oursing from the c raftsman s point o f view before ’
the great phil osophers have permanently estab l ished in this le cture
ship a tradition o f phi l osophi c heights and depths in whi ch we mere
artists c an only bombinate va cuous l y .
O f all arts mus ic wou l d seem a p rio ri t o be the most fruitful fie l d

o f study fo r aestheti c philosophy ; and I s e e o ld friends here w h o
may remember that it w as o n e o f my nai ve undergraduate ambi

tions t o make a c ontribution t o aestheti c ph il osophy by a systemati c
review o f mus ic Forty ye ars o n I c ome t o yo u with empty hands
.
, .
Su c h p hilo s o p hic ru dim e n t s as I might h ave deve l oped died o f

~
examinati on in the year 1 8 9 8 and I have s in c e stud ied nothing but

,
mu s ic And s o with appall in g e ffront e ry I r e gurgitate here c ertain

.
, ,
p l atitud e s whi ch w ith n o pretensions t o original ity I w as a l ready

, ,
maint aining in the ye ar o f the Diamond Jub ilee M y ex cuse is that .
thes e p l atitudes however ob vious t o other p e op l e are stil l negl e cted

, ,
by mu s icians and th at th e ir n e gl e ct al ways l e ads t o c onfusion

, .
M y firs t axiom is th at t h e m ain di ffe re n c e between Scien c e and

art is th at the re is n o su c h th ing as A rt with a cap ital A There is .
su ch a thing as S cien c e with a c apit al S ; and the duty o f every man

o f s c i e n c e is t o c ontribute a ll h is di s c overi e s t o the en dl e ss task o f
bui l ding up the ed ifi c e s o entitl ed Phi l osoph e rs may argue the

.
mere man o f s cien c e o u t o f a ll h Op e o f proving that the universe ,
in any imp l icit s e nse o f the term exists ; yet the universe is what
,
he is investig ating and he ultimatel y bel ieves in no lesser unity

, .
He d iffers from the artist in that he l imits h is fiel d o f investigation

mainl y by abstra ction and does this on ly fo r the temporary purpose
,
o f c ontro ll ing h is ob s e rvations and experiments When these have .
1
T h e Phi lip M au ric e D e n ek e L e c t u re de live re d 4
,
J un e 1 9 3 4, at L ady M arg are t
H all, O fo rdx .
MUSICAL FO RM AND M A TT ER 1 61
led him to some fruitful generaliz ation it is his duty to let the rest ,
of the universe in upon them ; and w here the rest of the universe
does not agree with him he regards his work as incomplete It .
alway s will be incomplete and nothing will make him more uneasy
,
than too artistic a completeness in it Hence p hilosophers and men .

,
of science will generally repudiate the notion that the C osmos

resembles a work of art N evertheless you will fi nd it hard to con
.
,
vince a musician that a work of art is not a micro co srrf:

’
B ut the duty of the artist is not to contribute to an edifice entitled

Art with a capital A There is no such edifi ce There are individual
. .
w orks of art and it is the business of each individual work to be

,
a whole The history of eve ry art shows that at all periods there is
.
a tendency very obvious at the present day of artists and s c hools

, ,
of art to erect some small quasi s c ie n t ific abstraction as the basis

-
of a new artistic heaven and earth The theories of such abstrae .
tions ought no t to detain a trained philosopher or man of science

for ten minutes They do little harm to art as long as they impel
.
the artist to get on with his work and do not inhibit the eff orts of
artists who can work on a broader basis .
The question on which music should thro w a specially clear light

is that of the nature of an artistic whole The re c o rds o f c lassical .
~
music en c ourage the View whi c h I was delighted to find strongly

,
held by Robert Bridges that a perfect work of art is by no means a

,
humanly impossible achievement Human beings select the whole .
material and conditions of each art problem an d they can arrange -
that human imperfe ctions remain outside I believe that the art of .
music contains a very large number of perfect examples We cannot .
even begin to select these until we have a clear understanding of

what constitut e s the whole or wholeness of a work of art ; and w e
, ,
shall soon find that wholeness is incompatible with pedantry The .
hypothesis that the composer w ho achieves wholeness is right will

prove enormously more fruitful than the hypothesis that he is
humanly certain to b e wrong The most perfect works and styles
.
are often fi ercely attacked by critics on grounds which vary acco rd

ing to the taste of the times A common form of criticism very
.
,
much in vogue at present consists in discovering the fundamental

,
hypothesis of a w hole art form or style and attacking it as a fatal

-
defect This would be a n o t unpromising sign of powers of in de p e n

.
dent observation in an undergraduate w ho does not intend to

master the art in question When it is put forw ard as a contribution
.
to responsible criticism and aesthetic philosophy it is a nuisance .
M
1 62 MUS I CAL FORM AND MATTER
On the other hand we cannot be satisfied with views so broad and
,
vague as to induce in u s a reverence for t he fundamental hypotheses

of rubbish .
How can we discover and estimate the fundamental hypotheses

of a work of art ? They are not as C ardinal N ewman suggested in
,
a famous passage like the rules of a game to be learnt beforehand

, , ,
but they are self explanatory res u lts of the contents of the work
-
.
W e S hall invariably fail to ascertain them if we fall into a confusion

between what a work of art is and the way in whi ch it is or can be , ,
produ c ed Such confusions are dangers inseparable from some of

.
the dis cip l ines most necessary to artists and c ritics The historian .
cannot s e e the absolute values of a masterpiece while he is pre

o ccupied with its position in the progress of that pseudo s c ie n tific -
abstraction Art with a capital A The teacher fails to realiz e that

, .
his criterion of a good model fo r students is merely his experience

‘
of what students can imitate ; and the critic magnificently aloof ,
from such base professional c oncerns finds it easy enough to say ,
that te c hnique is only a means to an end but seldom troubles to

'
find o u t whether a te c hni c al term may n o t be the shortest definition

of an artistic end M eanwhile the artist is liable to co nfusions from
.
the opposite point o f view ; h e is naively ready to expect from the

aesthetic philosophers some guidan c e as to the practice of his art ;
and disappointment may make him despise aesthetic theory But .
the theo ry o f art as understood b y aesthetic philosophers and ordi

,
nary mortals is concerned with results and not with processes We

, .
may doubt whether any artist ever has produced or ever could ,
produce a work o f art by means o f a c orrect aestheti c theory Take

, .
,
fo r examp l e the dogma I have just put forward— that each work of
,
art is an individual whole C an the artist a c hieve such wholeness

.
by aiming at it ?
On this point the great composers have made spoiled children
o f u s musicians M usic h as no temptation t o be anything but an
.
art pure and S imple ; and many works of its great m asters are
amazingly perfect in c onception and usually perfectl y preserved .
M ost other a rtists regard perfection as rare and will learn reverently ,
from works n o t perfect as wholes not perfectly preserved and not

, ,
purely artisti c in purpose M usicians have much to learn from that

.
great and voluminous s culptor who so habitually left his works

lamentably in c omp l ete ; from that profound classical author whose
hidden meaning is s o mu ch more important than that which appears
on the surfac e ; and from the archite ct o f what Sir M ax Beerbohm
1 64 M U S I CA L FO RM AND MA TTER
digest material that can exist in a more or less raw state outside .
As Bradley puts it the antithesis lies n o t between the subje c t and

,
.
it s poetic treatment but between the subject and the whole poem
, .
The subje ct inside the poem is no longer the same as the subject
outside .
N either the humble lover nor the master of pure musical form
need entertain any toleran c e for th eories that deny the suprema cy “
of absolute music But all history and experien c e go to prove that

.
the absoluteness o f music is a result ; that this resu lt remains inde

pendent o f Cir cumstan ce s that may happen t o make musi c illustra
tive ; and moreover that it is a result very imperfectly attaine d if
, , ,
at al l attainable by methods that have n o t early familiarized the

,
musi cian with the musi c al treatment o f words I t is no mere .
acc ident that three o f the four greatest masters Of absolute music ,
Ba ch M ozart and Brahm s spent more than half their time in

, , ,
‘
setting words t o musi c and that the fourth Beethoven took enor
, , ,
mous p ains in the l at er part Of h is c areer t o re c over the art whi ch

he had almost negle cted S ince he wrote exer cises in I talian musi c al
de clamation fo r Salieri O n the other hand the loudest propagand
.
,
is t s o f progr amme musi c su c h as Berlioz are Often almost angrily

’
-
, ,
inattentive t o what they c all the subjects o f their works The titles .
‘ ‘
o f Berlioz s King L ear Overture and Harold Symphony are
’ ’ ’
mere instances o f S hameless mendacity ; and if these c ompositions

have Obscurities as absolute musi c the titles do nothing to illuminate
them A quartet o f Beethoven is obviously absolute musi c and all
.
,
attempts t o i l lustrate it by Beethoven s biography o r the Fren c h ’
Revo l ution are merely sentimental ex c uses fo r inattention O n the .
other hand the Pastoral Symphony is just as absolute music ; and

,
’
the superior person who thinks it the worse fo r the fa ct that Beet
hoven n o t onl y enjoyed thunderstorms and cu ckoos and night in
g a l e,
S but mad e them re c ognizable in t hi s‘
musi c is just as liable to ,
the charge o f petulantly ruminating o n se c ond hand theories o f art -
as t h e Opposite type o f listener is liable t o the c harge o f e xt e m o ri

fi
p
zing sentimental romances instead of listening t o the musi c .
Another obsta cl e t o dis c overing the fundamental hypotheses of

works o f art is that spe cial form o f c onfusion between methods and
res u l ts whi ch is inherent in the technique o f the art The line .
between the techni c al and the aesthetic is by n o mean s easy to

draw and is Often even by musi cians themselves drawn far t o o
, , ,
high so as t o exclude as merely te chni c alities many things whi c h

,
are o f purely aestheti c importance The greates t mu s icians whether .

,
M U S I C A L F O R M A N D M A T TE R 1 65
composers or performers have often not cared to draw the line at

,
all They prefer modestly to regard everything as technique ; an d

.
the play er who devotes his life to the interpretation of such com
posers as B eethoven will be tempted to commit himself to the
dangerous argument that more technique is needed for this purpose
than for the most diflicu lt fi reworks that have ever been written to
S how the S kill of the player Four volumes comprising almost half
.
,
f
of Bach s complete works for clavier were pu b lis h e d fiy him under
’
,
the modest title of C lavierubung and in the use of such a title he

'
was following the custom of his time The fact is that every t e c h n i .
cal problem connected with a work of art has its aesthetic result .
The process miscalled by Horace the concealment of art is the

sublimation of technique into aesthetic results There are for .
,
instance two aspe cts of the art of instrumentation ; fi rst the art of
, ,
produ cing euphony and secondly the art of writing for each in
, ,
strument in su c h a way that the play er enjoy s his task These two .
arts are inseparable and the art which show s knowledge of the
,
instrumental technique is not less aesthetic than that which selects

an d blends the tones The composer ought to know more about it
.
than the listener and S O he can single out those beauties of sound
,
which are more directly traceable to knowledge of the play er s ’
problems B ut I do not fi nd in my own experience that this special

.
k nowledge attracts mu c h of my attention when I am listening either

to new music or to old .
The case is n ot greatly different from those branches of musical

technique that are learnt as disciplines in order to acquire certain
general abilities Such discipline is of the nature Of drill and nor
.
,
mally ceases when the general mastery which is its object ha s been
attained ; yet S ome of its technical terms remain the best and
-
shortest descriptions of aestheti c facts I was o nce severely rebuked .
by a friend when I pointed out a specially beautiful example of “
‘
double counterpoint in the twelfth in an orchestral work M y ’
.
friend dryly said that there was no beau ty in such a merely scholastic
device M y memory cannot testify whether I was too polite or
“
.
,
merely lacking in the presence of mind to point out to him that ,
there unquestionably was great beauty in this piece of double

counterpoint in the twelfth and that it could have been attained b y
,
no other device My friend s prejudice against technical pedantries

.
’
undoubtedly made him conscientiously blind to a real aesthetic

value in this case N o doubt he felt like Tenny son who catching
.
,
S ight of the word anapaest in a criticism saw that the writer was’
,
1 66 MUS ICAL FORM AND MATTER
a fool and a brute But perhaps Ten nys on was not quite fair And
’
. .
my friend would probably have been insulted if I had treated him

as a child in these matters by pointing out the passage as one in
,
whi c h a beautiful combination of themes was made to produce a

beautifully new s e t Of harmonies by means of transpo sing the upper
o n e a twelfth lower and keeping the other in it s place He would .
probably have snorted Thanks I know double counterpoint in the

,
twelfth when I s e e it ; but at least he would not have missed the

’
beauty o f the p assage .
O f course t here are p l enty o f vitally necessary technicalities that

will never emerge into the kind of importance that can b e discussed
aesthetically If an aesthetic philosopher is going to an al yse the
.
emotional values o f a Greek tragedy we do n o t want him to inflict ,
upon u s a number o f statistics about the use o f the no m inative and

the ac cusative But if we S hould find out that his ignoran c e o f these
.
is such that he c annot tell w h o ki l led whom we had better not put ,
much confidence in h is judgement o f the emotional v alues Of the

tragedy Even Ali c e w as able t o see without Hump t y Dumpty s
.
,
’
aid that in the ballad o f jab berwocky somebody killed something

, ,
and n o t vi c e versa .
I co n fess that until quite recently I have b e en mu c h perturbed

by the impossib il it y Of producing a non professional definition of -
o n e o f t h e most important categories in music — the category of

tonalit y The musical treatises are in a tangle o f abstruse confusion
.
over it ; and the Old fashioned doctrines S how such mal observation
- -
o f the classi cs that hardly any but bad composers can al ways be
trusted t o handle key relations in ways which were accepted in my

-
young days as orthodox It is essential t o my argument that no

.
aesthetic aspe ct Of a pie ce o f musi c S hould be beyond the reach of

an experienced l istener without the intervention o f so me merely
professional tec hni c al information The finest master play and the
.
-
most artisti c constru ction in games and problems will n o t bring the
rules o f chess within the cate gory Of sel f explanatory fundamental -
hypotheses o f works o f art No w al l attempts to define tonality in

~
terms more self explan atory than a game to the n o n musi cian seem
- -
doo med t o fai lure The best I can do is t o assert that it h as much
‘
the same p l ace in the cl assics o f musi c that perspective has in the
—
classics of art ; with t his dangerous difference that whereas per ,
s p ec t ive is an optical s c ience which exists whether painters choose
to recogniz e it or n o t tonality is wholly the work o f musicians and

, , ,
in the classics from the time o f Alessandro Scarlatti to that of our

1 68 MUSI CAL FORM AND MATTER
of my o w n experience as a c omposer The obje ctions to my doing .
s o are n o t more obvious than the answers to them I n the first .
place it is desirable that o n e should talk about things one really

,
know s In the second p l a c e the experien c e of a c omposer has no

.
,
thing to do with the merits or demeri t s of his work N o doubt .
mine is a bad c ase ; fo r I compose in a c lassi cal language which ,
nowadays is o n e o f those things whi c h simply are n o t done C o m .
posers o f the future and criti cs o f the present often tell me in the
strongest terms what they think o f su c h c ondu ct Good manners .
forbid me t o express my c andid Opinion o f them Le t u s first clear .
the ground by tw o Cl assical instan c es o f the value of a c reative

art is t s o w n experien c e as a t h in g independent o f the value of his
’
work fo r others .
Perhaps the most crushing o f many c rushing thi ngs that Brahms
is re c orded t o have said w as the question he asked in tones of
friendly soli citude when a c omposer ( let u s hope a young o n e )
showed him a voluminous and laborious work Brahms turned the .
leaves Of the s c ore with S immering patien c e and then asked Tell , ,
me do yo u find it fun writing all this ? Histo ry at least that

,
’
,
important artistic bran ch o f it whi c h deals in ane c dote proverbially ,
refrains from relating what happened after the point Of the ane c dote
is rea c he d But it is materia l t o o u r inqui ry t o c onsider the possible
.
answers t o Brahms s question I f the c omposer had the spirit to

’
.
‘
answer Yes it is Brahms w h o would have been crushed— unless
’
,
he real ly thought the c omposer worth helping I n t hat case the .
next question wou l d be DO yo u find that writing all this helps you
t o unders tand musi c better ?
’
O r as a powerful and saintly O riental
,
‘
asked Floren c e N ightingale DO yo u find yourself improving ?
,
’
By whi ch he meant be l ieving more in Go d The possible answers ’

.
t o su c h questions ramify in many dire c tions some o f them p ro fit ,
able others hopel ess Glu ck c ou l d s ay nothing that wou l d e n

, .
c ourage Handel t o try t o tea c h hi m c ounterpoint ; and M iss

N ightingal e s aw that it w as hopel ess t o teach sanitation to the
O riental saint .
L e t u s turn t o another locus classicus — o n e o f Arnold Bennett s

’
smaller works entitled A Gr eat M an This little novel I regard as

, .
a fundamentally important c ontribution t o the theory o f artistic

creation The Great M an is an amiable youth with a weak digestion
.
w h o whi l e re c overing from a belated atta c k o f meas l es writes a

, ,
sentimental nove l ette whi c h proves a best seller Arnold Bennett s .

’
a cc ount o f M r Henry S hakespeare Knight s phases of inspiration

.
’
M U S I C A L F O R M A N D M A TT E R ‘
1 69
coin c ides remarkably with Wagner s account in letters to M athilde ’ '
We se n do n ck of the terrible force with which the inspiration of

,
Tris tan und I so lde gripped him ; and it demonstrates that arti s tic
inspiration is independent of the value of the w ork Henry S hake .
speare Knight s inspiration could obviously no more have survived

’
even a moderate dose of self criticism and experience of life than

-
his digestion could tolerate his m is c hie vou S $ o u s in is ov erdo se of z
m arrons g laces He manages his affairs much better than Wagner

'
.
,
and has man y interesting adventures ; but if these be experience , ,
then experience runs Off him like water O ff a duck s back We are ’
.
not told whether his publisher was ever haunted by the nightmare
that M r Henry Shakespeare Knight s growing experience might S O
.
’
educate him as to deprive the author of his main source of income

and the publisher of a still larger margin of profit S uch fears were .
fortunately groundless ; and while S hakespeare K night ( who soon

,
gained confidence and dropped the Henry) could certainly have

answered Brahms that he wrote entirely for fun the further ques ,
tion as to whether it helped him to understand literature better

would leave him blankly wondering what more there was in litera
tu re to under stand The fundamental hypothesis of S hakespeare
.
Kni ght s art is that millions of readers will themselves bring pre
’
c is e ly the Shakespeare K nightly mind to the contemplation of

-
Sh akespeare K night s works And this complex condition is S O far

’
.
from self explanatory that it can be realiz ed only in an ephemeral

-
and local ph ase o f an extremely artifi cial civiliz ation which in a

‘
,
few years will have so changed that to recover the S hakespeare

Kn ightly postu lates will become a task bey ond the most M iltonic
powers of scholarship .
N ow the truth must be faced that Arnold B ennett has here given
,
an account of artistic inspiration which is valid for all convincing

art whether it c onvinces the readers of S hakespeare K night merely
,
of what they already bring to him or the interpreters of works like ,
Tris tan and the last quartets of Beethoven who can only grow into ,
the experience of these works day by day to the end of their lives .
N or does it make any difference whether the artist works or de ,
s c ribes himself as working easily like M oz art Anthony Trollope

, , , ,
and the ready writer of business letters or is working like Joseph ,
C onrad in agonized strain at the limit of his endurance C onrad s .

’
case is met b y Ferdinand s dictum ’
T he re b e some sports are pain ful an d their labour ,
De l ight in the m s e ts Off .

1 70 MUSICAL FORM AND MATTER
The most agoni zed expressions ever found on a human countenance
are recorded in photographs of athletes at the moment of breasting
‘ ‘
the tape W hat else but contest does the word agony mean ?
.
’ ’
The agonists find it fun ; and our argument has nothing to lose from
substituting for all deeper doctrines Of artistic inspiration the simple
assumption that inspiration consists in being at the to p of one s ’
form whether mental o r athletic O n e thing is certain : that your

,
.
agonist must be in trai n ing E ven Sh akespeare K night inherited

.
his talent from a father who had endless pra cti c e in writing letters
to the paper which were always readable enough to print though ,
their main exercise for author and reader w as complete mental

relaxation .
P rotected by these great examples o f inspiration or O f mental ,
athl etic form I now des c end to an a c count of my own experiences

,
in writing an oper a In S pite o f a fairly large and long experien c e

.
as an absolute musi c ian I w as c onvin c ed not only o f the absolute

,
musical values Of the great cl assi cs o f opera in cluding W agner but , ,
of the necessity o f attaining all musi c al values through every detail

and every aspect o f the libretto Y et the literary v alue o f the
.
libretto does n o t matter as long as c ertain qualities are present

, .
The c omposer w h o c an rise t o the height o f M iltoni c or Biblical

argument wi ll miss n o subtlety in the meaning Of the greatest
poetry ; b ut his inspiration may easily outrun his literary c riti cism ,
S O that he may express a true sentiment in setting the words of a
poetaster w h o h as expressed only a false o n e Fortunately my poet .

,
friend who wrote my libretto if s o fine a poem deserves to be calle d

,
by s o humble a name w as able t o bring t o his poetry at least as

,
formidable a c riti cal apparatus as I c ould bring to my music M ore .
over he had the first qual ity o f an opera librettist th at of being

,
—
b u llyable by the c omposer a quality in whi c h Wagner who w as

—
,
his o w n librettist w as n o w and then la c king

, .
W hen the libretto w as approximately ready to be s e t to music ,
I tried my first experiment and with nothing in my head pro c eeded

, ,
to extemporize upon paper a sket ch o f the musi c o f the first s c ene .
Had I embarked upon a piece o f absolute musi c with s o little fore

thought t he result would n o t have been plausible enough to write
down But I n o w made the appalling discovery that this irres p o n
.
sible draft read surprisingly well It simply does not matter what sort
.
o f thic kness o f musi c al butter o u spread over your libretto so long

y ,
as you do not interfere with the pace o f the action The irre m e di .
ably false step would now have been t o go on happily S preading over
1 72 MUS ICAL FORM AN D MATTER
of s ym metry and other absolute mu sical resources but not
'
b ilit ie s ,
c on centrating upon them The res u lt again took me by surprise

. .
The de clamation being already approximately right not only fitted

, ,
itself with little diffi cult y into the larger formal schemes but c on ,
s tan t l
y gave rise to other formal possibilities The corresponden c e .
between passages and recapitu l ations was from the outset more
exa ct than when I had thought o f the re c apitulation as the basis of
my work and every deviation from exa ctitude exp l ained itself as a
,
rhetorical en han cement There w as n o t the slightest reason for

.
resting content with anything that did n o t satisfy me as music On .
thes e conditions it w as quite po ssib l e to work at the top of one s

,
’
athletic form ; o r as the popular but more boastful expression has

,
it t o work with inspiration

, .
I n a voluminous composition there is natural l y an immense

amount Of laborious work such as the s c oring o f tu ttis which
, ,
common sense forbids the c omposer t o ta ckl e whil e the flow of the
c omposition needs his attention The state o f inspiration c an never
.
t h e less be maintained throughout these more me c hani c al tasks

if they are undertaken while waiting fo r light o n other problems ,
o r deferred unti l the rest o f the work h as been digested The .
process o f tu tti s c oring like that o f making a fair c opy wi ll then

-
, ,
be as refres hi ng as we may hope that c hewing the cud is to the

recumbent c o w .
I could c ertai n l y ans wer in the aflirm at ive Brahms s question ’
whether I found a ll this fun As t o whether it has helped me to

.
understand musi c I should consider the labour already amply

,
worth while o n a ccount o f the way in whi ch it reveal ed to me the

paramount greatness o f W agner as a musi cal c omposer an aspect ,
in whi c h W agner h as se l dom if ever been regarded even by devout

, , ,
W agnerians But besides this it awakened me t o the fa ct that

.
, ,
purely inst rumental musi c is n o t l ess but enormous l y mo re drama , ,
tic than any musi c fo r whi c h S ituations c an be found o n the stage .
Sir Henry Hadow h as remarked that Beethoven s Fide lio is dramati c ’
in the sense that his D minor Sonata is dramati c This is i l luminat .
ing but I find mysel f c ompelled respe ctfu lly t o join issue if and
,
when it is held t o imply that F ide lio is o n that a c count less dramatic
than an opera S hould be M ozart could n o t have made the musi c of
.
F idelio more dramati c o r more operatic But he wou l d have made .
the poo r librettist feel like his own villain Piz arro held at bay by
L eonora s pisto l If it were possible to put upon the stage anything
’
.
s o dramati c as the first movement of Beethoven s D minor Sonata

’
,
MUS ICAL FORM AN D MATTER
t he result would make not only every existing opera but every ,
existing drama seem cold It would not be great drama for its
, .
,
temperature would be simply insupportable O nce I was haunted .
by a c ertain crescendo leading to a climax an d I could not remem ,
ber where this crescendo and climax came I t was not in Tris tan .
'
and it was nowhere else in Wagner but it was of W agnerian ,
intensity and was in too rich a languag e t o f c o m e fro m the later

, .
works of V erdi which were the only other possible sources of su ffi

,
cient emotional force S uddenly it dawned upon me that it w as

.
’
the passage leading to the quiet coda of one of B rahms s most
statuesque and O ly mpic movements the first movement of the ,
A maj or P ianofo rte Quartet a piece which it would be utterly

,
impertinent to connect with any non m usical ideas Ero m this it -

.
was an easy step to the discovery that in the fight between Do n

Giovanni and the C ommendatore M ozart uses with complete ade ,
q u ac
y formulas and musical gestures which are far too c old to find
a pla ce in the develo pment of any symphony he wrote at a later
age than seventeen .
Doubtless there are some people to whom the use of musm for
i llustrating other things is as abhorrent as the worship of the golden
calf was to the law giver of Israel ; but if you wish to break all the
-
commandments of aesthetic philosophy at once you will infer that ,
because stage music is of a lighter texture than purely instrumental

music therefore opera is a lower order of art It is indeed an art
,
.
in which a musi c can succeed that would have no chan c e of ac hie v

ing distinction as absolute music but it is no more essentially lower
,
than the string quartet than drama is essentially lower than other
,
forms of poetry .
Another i mportant result of my expe n m e n t in opera writing w as -
that without causing any change in my methods of musical analysis

, ,
the whole facade of classical instru mental art forms reduced itself -
to a mere screen work of co ordinates across which the real lines o f

-
classic al c omposition display themselves with no more in t erru pt l o n

than the forms of a map suffer from parallels of latitude and longi
tude When we come to the relation between matter and form in
.
absolute musi c you can hardly expe ct a pupil of E dward C aird to

,
avoid the conclusion that these are different aspects of the same
thing But those who best know the teaching of E dward C aird will
.
know that however frequent this conclusion he would not allow

, ,
his pupils to u s e it as a cliche unsupported by solid and special work

’
The present argume nt has still some way to travel before it can deal
1 74 . MUS ICAL F ORM AN D MATTER
t ru t h q y with music from which we can rule out all external sub
j ce t matter
-
.
Every work of art from the most absolute of music to the most
,
pantomimic of operas selects its material in much the same way as

,
the amoeba sele cts it s food ; by simply c oming into c onta ct with it
and extending itself around it The amoeba has I understand also .
, ,
some c apacity mechani c al or chemical (why n o t say artistic P) for

, ,
attracting suitable food before c ommitting itself to indis c riminate

contacts Without going into inelegant detail let u s fran kly use th e
.
,
word diges tion as a technical term fo r the way in which the work
’
of art treats its material If the amoeba or the work of art has .
, ,
begun to put itself outside an indigestible obje ct it can so long as , ,
the object does not destroy it first rearrange its contractions so as ,
to put the object outside again I n works o f art thi s may be done .
,
by the listener o r spe ctator fo r it always takes at least two people to ,
produ c e a work o f art the artist and the person who is to enjoy
—
the c ompleted work W e need n o t dis cuss the rules o f equity

. .
between these t w o Here again Professor Andrew Bradley has

.
cleared all su c h barbed wire entangl ements from o u r field by plac ing
-
the existence o f a poem o r work o f art in the s u m total o f the reci -
s experien c e o f it s o that in short a poem exists in i

’
p ie n t , nnu m e r , ,
able degrees W e know then that a pie c e o f music exists in

’
.
, ,
i n numerable degrees ; and we kn ow that in the experien c e of

W agner t o s ay nothing o f l e sser men its powers o f digestion enable
, ,
it to absorb almost all the other arts Rude criti cs may accu s e .
W agn er o f biting o ff more than he c an chew ; and the listener s ’
digestion may be weaker than the c omposer s But there is often ’

.
n o harm in absorbing material without altering it by digestion For .
some purposes the presen c e o f undigested material su c h as the ,
c ontents o f an ostri c h s o r even a hen s gizzard may be an important

’ ’
aid t o digestion The hen swall ows tiny stones whi c h enable its
.
gizzard t o grind it s food Some works o f art have ve ry powerful .
gizzards Do not ask me to locate these organs But fo r example

. .
, ,
the Divina Commedia provides in the 3 2 n d C anto o f the Pu rg atorio , ,
one o f the toughest gizzards to be found in any work o f art .
W e m ay b egin o u r illustrations o f artistic digestion a little lower

'
than the biological l eve l C rystal liz ation h as n o t yet been found to be
.
in itse l f a vital pro c ess but it presents a phenomenon highly charac

,
t e rist ic of early forms o f art I f yo u drop a piece o f string into a. .
saturated solution o f c ertain chemicals c rystals will immediately ,
p recipitate themselves upon the string and will add their own ,
7 6 MUSI CAL FORM AND M ATT ER
D ominant ( which has several meanings quite di ff erent from the
mo dern dominant) the M ediant and the Participant ; and whi ch
, ,
of them display the perhaps still more august C onc ede d M odula
tions whose existence is proved by their u se by the Great M asters ,
perhaps in the very masterpie c e under discussio n As o n e who has .
taken some trouble t o follow these high matters I feel entitl ed to ,
tell those o f you w h o have n o t that yo u need take no such trouble .
They have c ontributed mu ch t o my understanding o f the prover

bial menda city o f statisti c s something perhaps t o the higher te ch
,
ni que o f institutional blu ff but nothing t o my und erstanding of

,
Palestrina n o r t o my ability t o read his s cores with reasonable c o n fi

,
dence that my pleasure in the imagination o f their sound is we l l

grounded .
A c orrect description o f a masterpiece o f the Golden Age wou l d

again have to deal in the first place with the words W hen s c eptical .
researc h has whittled away al l that it can from the p ious legend of
Palestrina s c ommission from the C oun ci l o f Trent the fa ct remains
’
,
that the e c clesiastical authorities did demand that settings o f the ‘
M ass shou l d be o f reasonable length and shou l d make the liturgi c al

words and n o other words audible ; and that Palestrina was ab l e
, ,
t o satisfy these demands by m asses c omposed in a style whi c h he

had already been bringing t o perfect ion throughout his life The .
proper anal ysis o f a motet wou l d begin by identifying the themes

with the words ; and by the time it reached the statisti c s o f Regu l ar
and C onceded M odulations it wou l d have analysed n o t only the
musi c but the prose by mu c h the same methods as those o f R L . .
Stevenson s o r Vernon L ee s dis cussio n s o n the u se o f words

’ ’
.
W ith a few more il l ustrations we shal l be able t o reach n o t the ,
l evel ( o n whi c h this argument h as really been moving al l the time) ,
but the sel f evident and un contradictable c ondition o f absolute

-
musi c O n e o f the greatest masters o f abso l ute mus ic whom I have

.
ever known Ju l ius Roentgen introdu c ed me t o a gl orious Psalm

, ,
by Swee l in ck Or sus serviteu rs da S eig neur W e both o f u s knew it

, , .
by heart before we noti c ed that it w as a figu re d c h o rale o n the

‘ ‘
tune known as the O ld Hundredth I ts figures are almost u n ’
.
’
re c ognizab l e as those o f the tune n o t be cause o f anything abstru s e

,
in their transformation but o n the c ontrary be c ause Sweelin ck s

, , ,
’
treatment h as given the words their natural quantities whereas the ,
plain tune strained them c onsiderably The art o f transforming .
musical themes is omnipresent in music that does n o t c o n s cie n

t io u s ly object t o it I t constitutes most o f the art o f W agnerian
.
M US I CAL FORM AND M ATTER 1 77
leitmotive ; and sad nonsense is often preached about it b y theorists

and teachers who imagine it to be the basis of logical development
in mus1c S ome thematic transformations are good such as those
.
,
of the first theme in Brahms s Pianoforte Quintet and of the motive ’

,
of world power as variously conceived by the inno c ent Rhine

-
daughters the malignant N ibelung and Wotan in his Walhalla ;

, ,
others are mechanical and clumsy as when Wagner tries to s o phist i ,
cate the tune of t he b o y Siegfried s horn ifit o a gro w n u p heroic ’

-
theme Apart from the art of paragraph building such thematic

.
,
connexions can give us no guarantee that the music has any more
logi c than a series of puns .
Here is the text of that Sweelin c k Psalm which I will take the ,
liberty of singing to its proper tune of the Old Hundredth ’
O r su s s e rvite urs du S e ign eur

’
, ,
o ur e n s o n h o n n eur
Qu i n u ic t e t j
De dan s sa mais o n le s e rve z ,
L oue z l e t s o n No m es le ve z
’
-
.
N ow as I have already said Roentgen and I enj oy ed Sweelinck s

, ,
’
setting as a piece of absolute music long before we discovered its

structure as a setting of the Old Hundredth That d1s c o ve ry 1n ’
.
creased our admiration only by a mild amusement : first that Swee

linck himself and his contemporaries su c h as M i c hael Praetorius , ,
might have been mere organ grinders as far as their habit of com -
position O u these lines could guarantee an inspired result ; and

‘
secondly that if Sweelinck had set the O ld Hundredth in any ’
language but Fren c h he would have produced a totally different set

of derived figures Here is the whole origin of his fi gures N otice
. .
that no translation will produce the figures arising out o f the last -
line ; unless you c an find a language whi c h will give the elision at
Lo uez l et son N am and so obtain a third note for lo uez le ( Sing a
’
- -
.
,
note to each syllable ) .
Or sns
serviteurs
da S eigneur (a l so au gm e n t e d in the bass )

Q ui nuic i e t jour
en so n honneur
Dedans sa m aison le
serves
le servez
L ou ez le (als o augme n te d th ro u gh ou t
-
the mass of harm ony , so as to
rin g l ike all t h e be lls in Flande rs)
e t son Nom eslevez .

1 78 MUSICAL FO R M A N D M ATTER
Let us return to that incontrovertible di ctum that form and
matter are di fferent aspects o f the same thing I ll ustrations of this .
are ridiculously obvious The artist and the public often have con
.
verse ideas as t o what is form and what is matter T o the portrait .
painter the sitter is perhaps in a regrettabl e number of cases the

‘
, ,
given form ; and what matters t o the artist is hi s art Of painting To .
the Philistine relations o f the sitter all high artisti c interests are ,
mere form What matters is the likene ss I f the result is an im m o r

. .
tal work posterity wi ll fin d that its form and matter will be different
,
aspects o f the same t hi ng .
Would it be possib l e t o find in music a c ase where form and

matter were interchangeable note fo r note ? There are strict canonic
forms whi c h approa ch this c ondition ve ry closely I n these one o r .
more voi c es foll ow a leader note fo r note either at the unison or , ,
with some rigid c ondition o f difference I f the leader itself should .
be a preordained melody and if as is unlike l y we c ould prove it

, , ,
t o have made itself without any liturgi c al o r se cular n o n musical -
origin we shou l d then have an abso l ute identity between matter

,
and form U nfort unate l y o r fortunatel y though it is possible fo r

.
, ,
quite e l aborate c anons t o be very beaut ifu l the stri ct canonic forms ,
are pe cu l iarly liable t o be for c ed o n musi c from outside And if .
there is anything whi c h music c ertainl y c an not digest it is the ,
imposition o f a priori abstract musical forms from outside I have .
already des c ribed h o w the experien c e o f writing an Opera removed

from my mi nd all tra c e o f the i l lusion that the forms o f masterpieces ,
su c h as the sonatas o f great c omposers exist a p rio ri Thus we may , .
fo r ever c ast into limbo e ve rything that we mean when we conde

‘
s c end t o u s e the word a cademi c as a term o f vulgar abuse An d’
.
let u s first o f al l c ast into l imbo that dreadfu l exer cise whi c h some
o f the greatest tea c hers o f c omposition hav e in qu ixoti c loyalty to ,
their o w n m asters ordained fo r their pupi l s ; the exer cise o f making

, ,
o n themes o f one s o w n a paraphrase o f some parti c u l ar cl assi c in

’
, ,
the pe rverse hope that the finer adjustments o f a masterpie c e c an

be learned from what are ex hyp o thesi the ma l adjustments o f one s ’
miserab l e parody N o t su ch were the exer cises o f the great c o m

.
posers Beethoven solved a genuine problem if as is alleged he

.
, ,
scored M ozart s G minor Symphony from a four hand arrange

’
-
ment ; and o n e o f the great moments in musi ca l history is t hat in '
w hi ch S chubert at the age o f thirteen writing his first song H ag ar s , ,

’
K lag e and starting with the intention o f humb l y paraphr asing

, ,
Z u m s t e e g s de clamation o f that interm inable poem dis c overed

’
, ,
1 80 MUSI C AL FO R M A N D M A TTER
the figured chorale h as been known to composers ever sin c e the
medieval des c anters evolved the rudiments of c ounterpoint round
tunes whose notes were stret ched to the limits of human breath .
But it is so far from being a theoreti c al absurdity that in the c ase ,

’
o f the by no means raw material of L uther s own tune it is the ,
a ctual fact that the musical rhetori c existed first and l ast and p rac
ti cal ly all the time E ven the choice o f the Phrygian mode itself
'
.
—
a matter o f c onsiderab l e harmoni c organiz ation w as entirely appro

—
p ria t e t o the Psalmist s c ry from the deep The’

S w eelin c k Psalm .
‘
is looser in form ; fo r in it n o o n e voi c e h as the canto fermo
’
s eria tim But it is in some ways an even stronger c ase of interchange

.
abil ity between form and matter ; fo r Roentgen and I two musi cians , ,
whose training and outlook produ c ed a strong re calcitran c e t o t h e

idea o f outside interferen c e w ith form had enjoyed its absolute ,
musi c al rhetori c without suspe cting that it had any pre established -
form Both fo r s weel in ck and fo r Ba ch the rhetori c takes it s origin

.
in the emotions o f t he Psal mist and the metres o f the German o r

Fren ch v e rs ifie r But fo r Bach s organ musi c this step outside the
.
’
-
realms o f mus ic is as negl igible as the step imp l ied in Beethoven s ’
title t o a movement whi c h rightly figures as the loftiest summit o f

abso l ute musi c in a del ightful book (A M usica l Pilg rim s Progress ’
,
by J D M Rorke) the H ei lig er Dankg esang eines Genesen en an die

. . .
,
Go ttheit in der lydis chen Ton art W e do n o t want t o know o r to

,
.
think o f the detai l s o f Beethoven s il l ness when we listen t o the A ’
minor Quartet The Sa cred Song o f Tha nks tells o f thanksgiving

.
,
n o t o f il l ness and the se ction entitled N eu e K raft fiihlen d expresses

,
the feel ing o f new found strength as the c ontrast n o t o f health aft er
-
si ckn ess but o f a ctivity after c ontemplation I n form the Dank .
g esa n g is a figured c horale o f w hi c h the tune and interludes

,
are
entirel y Beethoven s o w n ’
.
The figu re d choral e is the simplest and most nearly me c hani c al .
o f art forms but time t o s ay nothing o f your patien c e fai l s fo r more

-
, , ,
illustrations o f indisputab l y absolute musi c ; and after al l it is , ,
hardly reasonable t o expe ct an absolute musi cian t o des c ribe in

words and without the aid o f at least a pianoforte a musi c whi c h is
, ,
n o t only ex hypo thesi inexpres sible in words but is as M endelssohn ,
on c e explained in a remarkably close pie ce o f reasoning most definite ,
where words are most at the mercy o f the personal equation .
I n an arti cl e m the Beethov en C enten ary N umber o f M usic and

L e tters m 1 9 2 7 I compared the most c onv entional o f Beethoven s
1 ’
1
Re pi
r n te d in thi s vo lum e , p . 27 1 .
MUSICAL FO RM AND MATTER 181
sonatas that in B flat op 2 2 with what is popularly supposed to

, , .
,
‘
be the most formless of all his works the Quartet in C sharp
’
,
minor op 1 3 1 ; and I had no difii c u lty in showing that the im p ro

, .
vis at o rial C sharp minor Quartet has at least as much predestination
as the conventional B flat Sonata and that the S onata has for its , ,
own simpler need s quite as much free will as the Quartet And it
,
-
.
is doubtful whether 1n the whole course of some two hundred essays

in the analysis of purely instrumental music I have eve r made plain
to myself and the reader or interesting to either of us the question
, ,
whether apart from a few unavoidable techni c al terms I am dealing

, _ ,
with form or with matter M ost readers will probably think I am .
talking of nothing but form But how many plays or stories could .
you describe clearly i f y ou conscientiously omitted the plot ? S O I

ll conclude with reference to two pieces of music which continue
to give rise to endless disputes as to their musical integrity .
Beethoven is recorded to have said in a moment of depression

that his choral finale to the N inth Symphony was a mistake and ,
that he wished he had written ( or perhaps wished eventually to

write) an instrumental finale At one time the finale of the A minor .
Qu artet was intended for the N inth Symphony but this was before ,
'
either the choral finale or the A minor Quartet was beginning to

take shape It would certainly never have served the purpose I
. .
am a fervent upholder of the choral finale which is a perfect set of ,
variations presenting to me no more difficulties of musical form

than any Bach fugue ; and wisdom after the a ctual event together ,
with utter lack of prophetic insight into what did not take place ,
makes it impossible for me to con c eive any other fi nale Still apart .
,
from the view that the choral finale is a failure we have to reckon ,
with the les s destructive View promulgated by Wagner that Beet

-
, ,
hoven here felt animperative need to break into words Sir Walter .
Parratt was inclined to believe this ; but I shall never forget his
vivid description of an incident which shows that the Bacchic
frenzy of that c horal finale is far beyond the power of anything less
'
than music He saw a man haranguing a c rowd and becoming more

.
and more passionate until it seemed as if no human frame could

stand such a stress Suddenly the man broke into a dance very
.
,
rhythmic and not ungraceful and danced his passion away in ,
perfe ct silence .
No w let us take a piece of c horal music that ends by breaking

'
away from words ; the much discussed case of Brahms s S chick -

’
sa ls lied. The text of this Song of Destiny is a poem by H Olde rlin

1 82 MUSICAL FO RM AN D MATTER
in whi ch the first part describes the remote and calm bliss of
Elysian spirits ; while the rest whi ch Brahms develops on a larger
,
scale complains of the blind fugitive lot of mankind doomed at

, ,
l ast to fal l into the u nknown Hereupon Brahms transc ends the
.
whole poem by an or chestral postlude whi c h re capitu l ates in a

brighter key the or chestral prelude t o the E lysian movement Senti .
mental persons are apt t o s e e in this the expression o f an optimistic

contradic tion o f the poet Sterner c riti cs ac cuse Brahms of senti
.
mental ity B oth are finding in the musi c the b l unders they them
.
se l ves have brought t o it They fail t o noti ce that the theme of the
.
prelude and post l ude have n o a ctual connexion with those de s c rib
ing the Elysian spirits M oreover there is n o reason why the effect
.
,
o f the postlude should n o t be akin t o that o f poor Frances c a s N es

’
su n m agg ior do lo re
. These things are ruthless ly bigger than the
emotions we c an bring t o them Sir Frederi ck Pol l o ck points out
.
that D ante h as al ready quite expli citl y trans cended the popular
‘
view o f immortal ity as an existen c e indefinite l y pro l onged under
improved conditions in Greenwi c h time O n this trans c endent
’
.
note then let me end with an appeal t o philosophers better quali

, , ,
fie d than I am t o work o u t the theory that the wholeness o f a work

of art is a type o f i n finity .
1 84 NORMALITY AND FREEDOM IN MUS IC
the wise artist is c areful lest a t o o fa cile u s e o f the improvement
shou l d destroy the character o f the instrument NO instrument has .
been s o comp l ete l y c hanged by me c hani c al improvements as the

horn h as been c hanged Sin c e the time o f Beethoven by the inv ention
o f ventils : n o composer h as so thoroug hl y developed the new
c haracter of the instrument as W agner h as developed the ventil

horn in Tris tan und I so lde : and n o c ritic has spoken more severely
o f the degeneration o f horn te c h nique c aused by the v enti l s than
W agner in his prefa c e t o the s c ore o f that work I mprovements in .
instruments c an remove c auses o f c onfli ct o n o n e gro i1n d only to ,
c reate fresh c onfli ct o n higher ground M r W el ls in o n e of his

. .
most fas cinating U topi as M en L ike Go ds regards the element of

, ,
conflict as a defe ct in o u r territorial art and degrades t o the level of

,
wit the devi c es whi c h overc ome the resistanc e o f material But even .
in a world where eve ry man c an be a gardener every gardener a ,
L uther Burbank an d e very c hemist a c reator o f materials with all

,
c on c eivable desirable qualities ar chite cture wi l l still u s e the forc e

,
o f gravity paradoxi c al l y in the keystone o f the ar c h and the most ,
desirab l e materials wi l l have properties that must be re c on ci l ed

with their equally desirable opposites The normal so l ution o f all
.
c o n fli cts wi ll be mutual servi ce and here alone shall we find perfe ct

,
freedom .
T hi s wi ll s u fli c e fo r a definition o f freedom in art Freedom is .
n o t opposed t o normal it y I t is in every sense o f the term a function

.
o f it and I doubt whether my dis c ourse would su ffer any material

,
‘ ‘
change o f s ense if freedom were substituted fo r normality
’ ’
throughout the remainder o f it .
M y present purpose is t o urge that we should u se this sense o f

the word norm al as o u r main c riterion fo r musi c and fo r all works
’
o f art N othing is more steril iz ing than the c riti c al c onventions

.
whi ch demand origin al ity as a sine qu a n on fo r all art is t s an d regard y
it as the primary c ondition fo r the survi va l o f present day work t o -
a posterity whose judgement n o c riti c c an foresee Posterity Often .
preo ccupies the c riti c almost t o the ex clusion o f al l knowab l e affairs .
The c riti cism o f contemporary art should n o t attempt the im p o s

sible S u c h o f it as rea ches posterity wi ll invariably be re ceived with
.
‘
derision and some o f the deris ion wil l be unfair

, .
From the eighteenth centu ry t o the thi rd quarter o f the nine

t e e n t h century the ac c epted c riterion w as c orre c tness I t lent itself .
t o infin it ie s o f pedantry and its principal irrelevan c ies were exposed

,
and immortal ized by W agner in hi s chara cter o f Be ckmess er Far .

NORMALITY AND FREEDOM IN MUSIC 1 85
be it from m e to hold a brief for poor Beckmesser : it would be

anti social to whitewash a bogyman s o useful fo r the terrorizing of
-
infant critics But his criterion of correctness c an at the worst only

.
irritate It does not sterilize or inhibit the a ctivities of any self

.
respe cting artist It demands some positive knowledge from the

. .
critic and may give the artist some useful information even when
,
the c ritic is mistaken The reason why it breaks down as a c riterion

.
is that like Wagner s Fricka it knows only what 1s us ual and cannot
,
’
even see w hat 18 essentially c orre ct in things that have never hap
pened before As Fricka forbade the mating of Siegmund and
.
Sieglinde it would cut o ff the whole human race by forbidding

,
the marriage of the c hildren of Adam and Eve But e ven Fri cka .
did Wotan the service of proving to him that Siegmund was

merely his long su ffering cat s paw and n o t the free hero whom he
-
’
-
needed .
C orre ctness will not prevent the current c riticism of any period
from manifestly bristling with abnormalities when we look ba ck
on it in the light of later knowledge But critics do n o t always fail .
to recognize the important artists of their day The neglect and .
p overty in which M ozart died so young would have been an affair

of a few lean years if he had survived it I n fact poor S alieri s .
,
’
‘
reputation has been terribly blasted by his remark that M ozart s ’
death was a good thing fo r us other musicians because if he had ,
lived much longer we should all have starved If he had lived ’

.
longer he would have ranked as an elder contemporary of B eet

.
hoven Salieri might have starved but Beethoven would still have
.
,
been abused by critics largely be c ause of his enormous reputation ,
whi c h earned him the freedom of the C ity of Vienna and a funeral
quite as prominent as any burial in Westminster Abbey or St .
Paul s The c riti c s were at fault in judging h is works by c riteria

’
.
whi c h they had tardily learnt from M ozart but this very mistake ,
paid him the c ompliment of comparing his musi c with the greatest
that they fan cied they could understand What makes them con .
t e m pt ib le to us is their failure to see that Be e thoven was more

distinguished than doz ens of other composers now known only to
researchers in early nineteenth c entury pianoforte music But even
-
.
here they were the better for having a notion of correctness ac c ord
ing to the traditions of a good s c hool ; and Beethoven himself would
not have applauded the superior wisdom of a criti cism that despised
those traditions If his c riti c s could have p raised him for his origi
.
n alit
y and for c reating a new language and establishing a new
186 NO R M A L I T Y A N D F R E E D O M I N M U S I C
scientific theory of his art they would still have been apt to think
,
Du ss e k and S t e ib e lt far more original .
The do ctor s c onception of the normal includes everything that

’
“
is valuable in the c rit erion o f c orre ctness and allows or even , ,
demands full s c ope fo r originality I t enables u s to put our c rit i

,
.
c is m o n a basis that saves us from worrying about posterity It

saves u s n o other trouble fo r the doctor himself must adm it that
.
it demands more knowledge than he will ever possess and provides

n o royal road thereto ; but this does not make him a c c ept any l e ss
lofty c riterion I f we trust t o more popular c riteria we are sure to

.
talk a great deal o f nonse nse and to deserve little c re dit for any lu ck
that enables u s t o talk sense The very diffi cu l ties o f using nor
.
m ality as a c riterion are profitable They enable us to learn fro m

.
o u r mistakes and do n o t prevent u s from sometimes doing justice

,
t o permanent artisti c values .
But we must beware o f spurious imitations O f common sense .
O n e o f the most pre c iously vu l gar o f spurio u s normalities is a cer

tain view o f the pianoforte whi c h threatens t o become orthodox
to day A fa cile common sense insists upon the blow o f the hammer
-
.
upon the string as the essential feature o f the pianoforte Such easy .
thinking is far from attaining the normal intelligen ce of a normally

a cute listener w h o enjoys g o od pianofo rte music properly played .
The ear is n o t c on c erned with an X ray view o r an indecent e xpos i

-
tion o f the inside o f the pianoforte It is concerned with sounds

.
which whateve r their i n itial impact die away when t hey are sus
, ,
tain e d There is nothing abnormal o r inartistic in a pianoforte

.
tou c h whi c h redu c es o r eliminates the element o f percussion any ,
more than there is in flu t e playing whi c h is good enough to make

-
the omni present consonant F imperc eptible in the musical note .
Kings l ey p o inted o u t in M ada m H ow and L ady Why that no

amount o f c he mi c al an alysis o f a plum pudding c ould disclose -
the fa ct that the c ook had boiled it in a cloth The normal idea of a .
plum pudding is that Of a person w ho enjoys eating it and digests

-
it without pain The aesthete w ho c oncentrates upon the element

.
of per cussion in the pianoforte might as well think it his duty to

eat boil ed c l oth and thr ow the pudding away .
The pianoforte is an exce ll ent subject fo r illustrating the elements

of conflict in musical art and a chopsti cks pianoforte te c hni que is
,
a characteristi c symptom Of the usual tendency t o anni hi late all

con flicting elements and t o ere ct the main cause of the trouble into
a dictatorship The percussion which is the least musi cal aspect of
.
,
1 88 NORMALITY AND FREEDOM IN MUSIC
melody t o which n o good bass c an be supp l ied fo r the simp l e reason ,
that they afe their o w n bass T hi s is l ike a line drawing whi ch .

-
unaided by any shading c ontrives t o c onvey i ll imitable effe cts of

,
perspe ctive The manner and exe cution may appear as primitive
.
as E dward L ear s p icture o f the C o Operative C au l iflower walking

’
-
towards the Setting Sun h is steps supported by T w o C onfidential

,
C ucumbers : but thi s is a drawing whi c h n o o n e can suppose t o be

more prehistori c than t h e story whi c h it il l ustrates .
The c onditions o f Ba ch s una cc ompanied violin and Violon cel lo

’
musi c make su c h remarkable exer cise in suggestion quite normal .
W e may profitab l y c ompare them with M ax Reger s u n acc o m ’
p an ie d works fo r the violin whi c h though ostensib ,

l y mode l led ,
upon B a ch are fu ll o f pass ages that are mere l y unsupported mel o

,
d ies Reger h as simp l y fai l ed t o grasp the nature Of the prob l em I t

. .
w as quite cl ear t o Ba c h s earl iest biographer F o rke l w h o des c ribes

’
, ,
it as the art Of writing in o n e part s o that it is impossible t o add

another N everthe l e s s in the first hal f o f the nineteenth c entury
.
, ,_
when Ba c h s art w as being redis c overed musi cians o f the c al ibre

’
o f M ende l ssohn and S c humann were s o una cc ustomed t o prolonged
str e t ches o f una cc ompanied melody that they made in c redib l y naive
attempts t o supp l y a cc ompaniments t o these works They were .
qu ite right in r e gard ing l ong stret ches o f unacc ompan ied melody as
ab n o rm al in keyboard an d ensemble musi c W hat they failed t o
‘
real ize w as : firs t that there is nothing abnormal in the wish t o hear
,
a vio l in o r a Vio l on ce ll o w ithout a cc ompan iment ; and se c ondly that ,
in the nature o f the case the se singl e mel odi c lines are more normal
th an the po l yphony whi ch an una cc ompanied vio l in c an be for ced
t o a c h ie v e I n the servic e o f mus ic Ba c h did c oerc e it t o extra
.
ord inary exe rtions in po lyphony : exertions whi c h have re c ently

be e n found t o b e far more normal in rel ation t o the primitive
viol in b o w Of Ba ch than t o the otherw ise more resour cefu l modern
-
b ow .
From this d igres s ion then we have l earnt something about

, ,
me l o dy whic h M ende l ssohn and S chumann have evidently fo r

gotten but whi c h is essential fo r the understanding o f pol yphony
, .
M e l ody iS an alo go u s t o l ine drawing and the modern musician is

'
a ccustomed t o a mel o dy that imp l ies harmony as the modern

draughtsman is a ccustome d t o a l ine drawing that implies p e rs pe c -
tive ; but m e l ody an d l ine drawing may have powers o f their o w n

-
whi c h are independent o f these imp l ications The ancient Egyp .
tians showed great powers o f l ine in figures where both eyes were
NORMALITY AN D FREEDOM IN MUSIC 1 89
visible in profile whi le the body was view ed from the front and the
legs again in profile The scale of a genuine folk song Often coin
.
-
cides with our major mode but also often refuses to conform to ,
our harmonic ideas What it never does is to behave in a way

.
‘
which needs our harmonic explanation Annie L aurie is quite a .
’
pretty tune b ut its first seven notes are obviously the work of a
,
lady or gentleman picking out sweet appoggi aturas on the piano

forte S uch melodic lines are recent products of harmony They
. .
are no such firm basis as the Gregorian tones and folk melodies on -
which polyphony was founded .
O u r whole musical c ulture su ffers as it alreadysu ffered I n B ach s

’
,
time from negle ct of what has been very rightly c alled the Golden
,
Age of musi c a period culminating in Palestrina ( d I 5 94 ) when all

, .
highly organized musi c w as c o n c e l ve d fo r the harmony of unac

companied voi c es N owadays the works of this period are best
.
known to specialists who know too little of other music an d whose ,
View of the period itself is often ex c lusively liturgical The centre .
of Palestrina s art was liturgi c al ; but to be at the centre of the

’
musical universe is not enough if our View is confined to our own

position Still less will it su ffi ce to be at the c ircumference of a
.
small cir cle near the centre Some enthusiasts tell us that the Vir.
i n al and Viol music of the sixteenth c entury is at least as fine as

g
the choral musi c They are not wrong in being enthusiastic about
.
it for its own sake but if they see no more in the choral music
,
than they see in the special obje cts of their enthusiasm we need not
worry them by trying to enlarge their View .
The c horal music of the sixteenth century both sacred and ,
secular represents indeed a golden age of all that is normal to

,
choral harmony M usi c al education itself was then in perfect tune

.
with the free practice o f the art I t began at the right mental age .
with the training of c hoir boys in real musi c The rules O f strict
-
.
counterpoint were the result o f at least two centuries of experience

with a c onstantly growing refinement of perception They were .
‘
not as the late W S Ro ckst ro maintai ned the precepts to which
,
. .
,
the Great M asters gave their loving Obedien c e ; on the contrary ’

,
they were generali z ations by shrewd Observers of the practi c e of

the gre at m ast e rs And it is only in later times that the subje ct of
'
stri ct counterpoint has been wrought b y Clumsy attempts to bring ,
it up to date into a shocking tangle of menda city and spe cial plead
,
:
ing inflicted upon ex cusably scepti c al undergraduates I n the s ix .
t e e n t h century the path of progress was the path of purity And .

1 90 NORMALITY AN D FREEDOM I N MUSIC
there w as no motive for revolution so long as the interests Of the
unac c ompanied chorus were all t hat mattered C an we conceive a .
more normal and more purely musical centre for the aest hetics of
music than the perfection Of the unaccomp anied c horus ?
That perfe ction w as n o t attained by excluding all other influences
o n musi c The spoken word is the norm al purpose Of the human
.
voice and the m asters o f choral music never contemplated the

,
notion o f eliminating the elements of confli ct between speec h and

song On the contrary P alestrina w as ac c laimed an d encouraged
.
,
by the C hur c h as the greatest master in the art of reconci ling highl y
organi zed polyphony with clear declamation This problem was not .
as d iffi c u l t fo r Palestrina as it is fo r modern musi c ians His musical .
rhythms di ffered from ordinary speech rhythms h ardly more than -
the rhythms o f quantitative verse The rhythms of later music .
c orrespond t o those o f vigorous bodily exercise an d conversation ,
is n o t more di ffic ult t o re c on c ile with the c ontrol o f the pa c es of a

horse D ance rhyt h ms and spee c h rhythms are at opposite poles
.
- -
.
o f the musi c al sphere As the unaccompanied chorus stimulates the

.
highest human a ctivities ,
Bl es t Pair o f S ir e ns , Pl e dges o f H e ave n firs t J

’
s o y,
S ph e re b o rn harm o n io us S is t e rs , Vo ice
-
an d Ve rse ,
so the danc e rhythms are best served by less mu s ical means gravi
-
tating towards the drum The naive person w ho tells you that what
.
he l ike s in musi c is rhythm will listen t o the strains o f a military

mar ch with undiminished if n o t in creasing enjoyment as they
, ,
re c ede into the distance until the sound o f the big drum alone
survives But we need n o t accept this solu tion o f his mental con
.
flic ts as normal .
I n musi c al histo ry nothing is more impressive than the catastro

p hi c revolution whi c h seems t o have obliterated the s c hool of
Pal estrina immediatel y after his death T he symptoms o f this revo .

.
lu t io n are c ommonl y des c ribed in text books as consisting in gram -
m at ic al li c en c es su c h as the unprep ared dominant seventh and

,
other harmoni c details which are supposed t o have wre cked the
,
whole o f Palestrina s aestheti c system C omposers and teachers

’
.
w h o are weak enough t o yield t o pressure from journalists have

a ctual ly been persua ded t o imagine that the way t o progress is
always thr ough a revolutiona ry theory o f harmony We might as .
well as c ribe the origins Of great revolutio n s in literature to the

earliest auth or w h o c an be found t o have split the infinitive N o .
1 92 NORMALITY AND FREEDOM IN MUS I C
kinds modern or ches tration But fo r a young man to be in dif
of .
fe re n t t o the rise o f instrumental musi c in the early seventeenth

c entury w as t o be n o artist at all .
And the path o f progress w as n o more as in Palestrina s time ,

’
the path o f purit y I n fa ct there w as n o path I mmense areas o f

.
, .
ground needed cl earing and the task o f laying foun dations had to
,
be a cc omp l ished with very litt l e guidan c e as t o what w as t o be

buil t upon them M ost o f the musi c o f the seventeenth c entury
.
su ffers t o o mu ch from the pri vations o f p ioneer work t o be attra e

tive t o any but historians ; and o u r modern revivals o f it awaken
fashionab l e interest mainl y through the a cc essories o f stage de c ora
tion though we are n o w t o o c onscientious t o bel ieve in the kind o f
,
co ll e ction c alle d Gems o f Antiquity in whi ch the pearls o f C a c ci ni

, ,
and M onteverdi are se rved up in ri c h sal ad dressings o f nineteenth -
c entury harmony The supreme merit o f the early monodists has

.
nothing t o do with their impatien c e with o l der art an impatience ,
whi c h w as a sour c e onl y o f weakness N o r does it l ie in their very .
rare and o cc a s iona l a chi evement o f a well bal an c ed artisti c resu lt -

.
I t l ies in their grasp o f the normal fa c ts c on c erning instruments in

thems e l ves an d in r e l ation t o voi c es C ompared with this their .
,
equa ll y firm grasp o f es s enti al prin c ip l es o f musi c al drama is a

s ide iss ue All the ir prob l ems were far beyond the rea ch o f c o n
-
.
s cious logic and t o produ c e mature works o f art w as as hopeless

,
a task fo r the mono dis ts as t o arri ve at W agner and Brahm s at

on c e ; but the l ogical s e nse o f the I ta l ians whil e it sometimes in ,
hi b it e d them from av a il able s ourc es o f beauty did hel p them t o ,
formu l ate im port ant fundamental prin cip l es .
W he n we c ross the Al ps and study the works o f M onteverdi s ’
c ontemporary B ach s mighty pre de cessor S c hiitz we find o u r

,
’
, ,
se lv es in a mu ch l e s s dis cip l ined worl d S chiltz sometimes pro .
du c es by a mixt ure o f l u ck and insp iration deeper and more per

, ,
fe e t thi ngs than we shall ever find in M onteverdi ; but he al s o falls

into traps whi c h wou l d never have de l uded an I tal ian master F o r .
instan c e he does n o t know that whi l e most instru m ents can support
, ,
voi c es n o voi c e c an suppo rt an instru ment ; that if yo u sing in a

,
bass voi c e a Vio l on cell o will provi de a bas s fo r yo u even if it is

,
p l aying higher notes than yo u are s inging but that yo u may growl ,
your l oudest till doomsday and fail t o supp l y a bass fo r the Vio l on
c ell o Thi s is an el ement ary ill ustration o f o n e o f the normal
.
paradoxes in musi cal te chnique I t is a matter whi ch is settled by

.
experi e nc e and n o t by c onvention S chiltz w as t o o normal an .

NORMALITY AND FREEDOM IN MUSIC 1 93
artist to base theories upon his mistakes and in any case art suc ,
c e e ds not b y theory but by trial with or without error Even , .
M onteverdi experimented fi rst and theorized aft e rwards in self ,
defence .
B ach and Handel were born in 1 68 5 and so grew up 1nto a ,
musical world w hich had already evolved a mature aesthetic system

from the w ork of the seventeenth century pion eers Th e harmonic -
.
language and the principal art forms of eighteenth Century music - -
had already become classical in the work of Alessandro S carlatti ,
w hose son Do m e m c o I s much more familiar to us b y reason of his

fantastic anticipations of a later art Dr Schweitz er has remarked . .
that of all arts music is that in w hich perfection is a sine qu a non ,
and that the predecessors of B ach were foredoomed to comparative

oblivion because their w orks were not mature This view is a .
useful corrective to the prevalent habits of musi c al historians who ,
fi nd inexhaustible interest in the progress and tendencies of seven

t e e n t h ce ntury music but who become tongue tied and p e rfu n c
-
,
-
t o rily pious when they have to deal with B ach and Handel Their .
diffi culty lies in the fact that the historical position Of a work of
art is not a matter Of aesthetic importance S peaking loosely w e .
,
may call any knowledge historical that saves us from m is int erpre
t at io n s or that enables us to distinguish the synthetic products of
,
a syndicate of nineteenth century ballad concert accompanists from

- -
‘ ’
a genuine gem of antiquity ; but the relevant part of this know
ledge is concerned not with history but with the contents of the
, ,
genuine antique Objects A w ork of art normally exists for its own
.
sake and not for its position in history Art forms themselves do
,
.
-
not exist in the abstract however habitual they may have become
,
to those who use them They are the forms which normally arise
.
’
from the artist s proper use of his materials ; and the wise artist will
have no a priori objection to composing on the lines of their general
types Their rules are not trammels but means of securing liberty
.
, .
Their conventions are devices w hic h h ave been found convenient

'
Why waste your powers of invention on rediscovering ordinary

trade methods ? The great artist will not discard conventions until
he finds them inconvenient or unless he invents something better
, .
It is stupid to use a convention in a w ay w hich show s that y ou have

missed its point but it is no cleverer to violate a conventi on because
,
you do not understand it .
When we speak of the age of B ach and H andel w e use an expres ,
sion that would have puzzled their contemporaries ; and when w e

0
1 94 N ORM A L I T Y AND FREEDOM IN MUS I C
study any music o f that age we encounter the flattest contradiction
o f any c riteria o f origina l ity and pro gress I n the first pla c e not .
,
even Bach s most pi ous pupils c ould have hoped that posterity
’
would regard ex c ept with an indu l gent smile their personal c onvi o
tion that he w as more than a s cholas ti c musician of local fame ; and
in the se c ond place nobody suspected even the Opportunist Handel
,
o f being in advan c e o f h is time Bach to the few critics who knew .

,
o f him otherwise than as a bri l liant organist w as a l ways hopelessly ,
o u t o f date W hen he w as nineteen he p l ayed figure d c horales to

.
‘
Reinken a man ninety years o f age w h o ex c laime d : M y son I
, , ,
thought thi s art would die with me but it l ives again in you ; and ,
’
Ba c h s l ast c omposition di ctated o n his death bed was a figured

’
,
-
c horal e The age o f Ba c h and Handel is an age in which those t wo

.
c omposers stood al one Handel s c ontemporary fame rested on

.
’
works whi c h we have forgotten and o n aspects o f his best work ,
whi c h do n o t appeal t o u s .
Burney lived t o welcome the symphonies o f Haydn and wrote ,
his H is tory of M usic after the aestheti c system which c omprehends

the t w o very di fferent worlds o f Ba c h and Handel had in our
modern estimation been complete l y swept away by the dramatic
impulses whi c h inspire d G l u ck and led through M ozart and Hay dn
t o Beethoven Y et Burn ey could give u s a delightful account of
.
days spent with Glu c k in Vienn a and then proceed to w rite the ,
later chapters o f his H is tory of M usic without showing any suspicion

that Handel s Operas were less important than his oratorios or that
’
,
‘
the c hief revolution in recent musi c did n o t consist in new way s
o f tak ing appoggiaturas and notes o f taste N o r with the e xce p
’
.
,
tion o f Glu ck himself were the mas ters w h o followed Bach clearly
,
cons cious o f any revolution I nstrumental polyphony had struggled .
into precarious life by the time o f Ba ch and Hande l ; they were the
o nl y c omposers w h o brought it t o maturity and their co ntem ,
p o rarie s thought them pedanti c fo r doing s o Their music survives .
for u s be cause it is normal in a c ompleteness w hi ch no other music -
o f the time attained .
The customs o f a period have n o power t o establish works o f

art as classi cs Handel s profession w as primarily that o f an Opera
.
’
writer and recent eff orts have done much both by c riticism and by
, ,
performance t o rehabi l itate him in that capa city M oreover the

, .
,
c omparatively perishable part o f those many oratorios which u se

dramatic forms gains a new life when we abrogate the veto of
Handel s Bishop o f L ondon w h o nipped bib l ic al Opera in the bud
’
,
1 96 NORMALITY AND FREEDOM IN MUS IC
importan c e Of de cent burial is V i ctorian Sopho cles has not left .
the matter as a ready made convention Victorian or Helleni c but

-
, ,
h as c onvinced us that it w as a matter of eternal importance to

Antigone T o perform Bach properly we must understand the
. ,
capa city and character o f his instruments and must not read irre le ,
vant elements into his aestheti c system but some c ontemporary ,
elements were irrelevant and need not be reprodu c ed For I nstance

, .
,
the choir need neither receive n o r deserve a flogging .
The musical revolutionaries who followed the age of Bach and

H andel were blandly unconscious o f those masters and aware of ,
themselves as revolutionaries only in the person of Gluck Fashion .
merely cultivated a sentiment al and romantic rhetori c ; b u t what

really happened between the death o f Bach and the death of Beet
hoven w as as Glu ck alone expli citly demonstrated the dramatiza
, ,
tion o f the whole art o f musi c Here again we may profitably .
compare the immense and popular importance o f this with the

trivia l abstruseness o f s o much internecine propaganda of the
present day W hat the later eighteenth and early ninete enth century
.
needed w as neither iconocl asts n o r pioneers but c onscientious ,
artists w h o were rebuked much more often fo r pedantry than for

,
bol dness As a matter of fact both Haydn and M ozart enjoyed a

.
,
conspicuous popularity I t is diffi cult t o compare their popularit y

.
with any phenomenon o f re cent times fo r nowadays mass produc ,
tion h as an incal culable effe ct in disguisin g from the keenest in

ves t igat o r what the publi c really wants ; o r indeed what sections of , ,
humanity can be des c ribed as the pub l ic in any sense I t is normal .
fo r all persons even artists t o react t o their environm ent ; but this
, ,
does n o t mean that great men will a c cept their environment u n

c riti cal ly O n the c ontrary the great man will pay hi s environment
.
,
the c ompliment o f hoping that it will react sanely towards him ,
though he may b e unab l e t o c on c eal his disappointment N obody .
w h o is de c eiv ed by the modern phenomena Of mas s produ ction can -
be in a position t o arbitrate when artists and the publi c get o n each

other s nerves I ventur e to express my personal feeling that an
’
.
extravagant v ogue fo r my pet aversions would disquiet me less

than the present l a ck Of wide populari t y fo r most c ontemporary
musi c But I s e e n o grounds fo r pessimism about the music itself
. .
O u r boldest as we l l as o u r most c onservative musi cian s show a far ‘
firmer grasp o f norm ality than is shown in many o f o u r fashionable

methods o f criti cism .
We h ave not outgrown the habit o f regarding Beethoven as a

NORMALITY AND FREEDOM I N MUSIC 1 97
revolutionary artist and w e cannot deny the fact that his lifetime
,
coincided with many highly unmusical political events radiating

from France and ending in the C ongress of V ienna : a sequence
which to some minds may seem an anticlimax not unlike Beet
‘
hoven s descent from the E roica S y mphony for his fallen idol
’ ’
‘
Bonaparte to his pot boiler the Battle S ymphony in honour of
-
’
Wellington B ut enormously as the power Of h is art inc reased with

.
,
its range his development maintains a perfect continuity with the

,
art of M oz art and Haydn He is Often supposed to have contributed

.
little to the expansion of harmony except a harshness of style im

p u t e d to his lack O f talent for counterpoint But the main fact .
about Beethoven s harmony is t hat its phenomena are manifested

’
on a much larger ti m e scale than any known to earlier music and

-
that neither orthodox nor advanced theories of harmony have yet

attempted to see farther than the next chord but three .
B eethoven s harmonic details show many personal features of

’
style but he is only rarely and experimentally a writer Of lyric

,
music on a small scale ; and it is in the lyric art forms of the roman -
tic Schumann and C hopin that we must look for the kind of har
monic detail that exists mainly for its own sake In spite of the .
constantly increasing pregnancy of Beethoven s style the occasions ’

,
are rare when it suits his purpose to call attention to harmonic

novelties When he does so the result is baffling to theories Of
.
,
harmo ny that are confined to the grammar of single sentences and ,
is sometimes a direct appeal to our pre harmonic instincts The

‘ -
.
my sterious unaccompanied D sharp near the beginning of the

Violin C oncerto is unharmoniz ed and fl agrantly avoids explanation
,
until a later harmoni z ed passage explains it as a perfect ex ample of

sweet reasonableness .
The most dramatic moment in the fi rst movement of the E roica ’
S y mphony is marked by a harmonic collision which theorists are

to this day unable to explain as a chord though some of them are ,
still foolish enough to try Y ou might as well ask an anatomist to

.
‘
explain the blind mouths about which M ilton is so angry in
’
‘
Lycidas .This famous collision in the E roica S y mphony was ’
probably o n e of the earliest ideas whi c h occurred to Beethoven

while he w as planning the first movement though in the nature of ,
the case it does not appear in his very copious sketches until he has
reached the point at which it happens It is then sketched with .
extreme care in repeated eff orts to determine the exact moment of

the collision and to redu c e its acoustic harshness to the faintest
1 98 NORMALITY AND FREEDOM IN MUSIC
‘
sound that c an express the dramati c meaning At the rehearsa l .
Beethoven boxed the ears o f a favourite pupil w h o a ccused the

horn p l ayer Of making a wrong entry ; and indeed the musical
-
, ,
sense o f the naive l istener must be c ome c orrupted by an intolerable

deal o f harmoni c theory before the a c ousti c harshness of the passage
can Offend it The futility Of su c h theory betrays itsel f by the fact
.
that it can take n o acc ount o f Beethoven s pains t o redu c e the dis ’
cord to a thin veil o f sound T o the orthodox harmoni c theorist

.
the l ight tremolo o f Beethoven s finished version is no better than

’
the c hopp ing quavers o f his first sket c h .
Beethoven w as n o t naturally endowed with the enormous contra

punt a l fa cil ity o f M ozart ; but polyphony w as vitally necessary to
him and the rugged style in whi c h he developed it was intensely
,
personal without being either an affe ctation o r a mere makeshift .
The most penetrating thing ever said about M ozart w as the utter
ance n o t o f a musi c ian but o f E dward Fitzgeral d w h o said that
, ,
‘
M ozart is s o beautiful t hat peop l e c annot re c ognize that he is '
powerful Those w h o n o t onl y rea l ize M ozart s power but c an

’
.
’
,
understand his style in detail are stru ck by the fa ct that his smooth
,
ness is adamantine and that if it suits hi s purpos e t o be harsh he

,
c an be as ruthl ess as Beethoven He is then in fact more ruthless .

, , ,
pre c isely be cause he is as logi cal as Dante whereas Beethoven is ,
as untidy as Shakespeare .
W hat is hope l ess ly beyond the range Of harmonic theorists ,
whether orthodox o r revo l utionary is pre cise l y the principle that ,
most widel y extends the S c ope o f harm ony that is the re l ation of
—
,
harmoni c resour ces t o the time s cale o f the whole musi c There is
-
.
n o trad it iona l theory o f cl ass ica l tona l ity that h as c l early distin
i h d the key systems f Beethoven s works wholes from a ch aos’
g u s e o as
in whi c h anything might happen O f c ourse if yo u merely draw .

,
up a list o f key re l ations and lay it down that those whi c h C herubini
-
did n o t happen t o u s e are forbidden regardless Of contexts yo u ,
wi ll soon fin d that Beethoven left n o forbidden regions unexp l ored ,
but yo u need n o t con cl ude from t hi s that outside C h e ru b in i s le git i ’
mate area Beethoven s tonal ity is either chaos o r equivalent to

‘
’
staying at home D omenic o S carl atti c ould visit the remotest tonal
.
regions as a princ e o r a barber in the A rabian Nights c ou l d trave l by

magic carpet Some o f Beethoven s c ontemporaries wou l d claim to
.
’
as cend M ount Everest in a Bath chair .
T o peop l e w h o understand harmony as something wider than

c an be exp l ain e d in the grammar o f three su cc ess ive chords Beet ,
zoo N OR M A L I T Y A N D F R E E D O M I N M U S I C
splendours o f those typical E liz abethan squ ires Theseus and Hip ,
l t a may fade with the torchlight o f their departing process ion

p yo ,
into the twilight o f the re entering fairies -

.
We are told that o f late years the harmoni c vo cabulary of music

h as been in c al c ulably increased I confess to feeling s c epti c al as to
.
the importan c e o f al l changes Of vo cabulary in al l languages I n my .
‘
youth the E nglish vocabulary gravitated round tw o words rotten ,
’
‘
and rippin I am c redib l y informed that these have n o w been
! “
‘ ‘
repla c ed by septi c and wizard The c onsequen ces of such an
’ ’
.
extension o f the E ngl ish lan guage are doubtless incalculable but ,
I question whether they are equ iv alent to anyt hi ng more important

‘
than new ways o f taking appoggiaturas and notes o f taste A ’
.
terrib l e amount o f a prio ri theory is put forward Often by artists ,
themselves as an explanation o f the prin ciples o f their art ; but as

, ,
in the t ime o f M onteverdi much o f this h as been forced upon musi

,
c ian s as a measure o f self defen c e And t o suppose that a correct

-
.
theory o f art is an essential o r ev en a normal c ondition fo r creative

, ,
a ctivity is like supposing that a do ctor must be a qua ck w h o in on l

c ates in his patients a be lief in the magi c power o f the word ninety
nine ’
. The serious Obje ction t o the quasi s cie n t ific theories o n -
whi ch many Of o u r artisti c revolutions nowadays base themselves

is that they are fo r the most part far t o o laborious t o admit of any
normal activity at all .
A re cent example o f a theory harmless t o th ose employed in the

manufa cture is shown in the music o f Debussy w h o w as supposed ,
t o hav e dis c overed a new heaven and a new earth in the whole tone -
s c ale But though he sometimes redu c ed it t o a formula and always

.
,
polished his work meti culously he did n o t begin with it and he , ,
w as Obvious l y outgrowing it before he died O rthodox theorists .
c an expose the fallacy o f the who l e tone s c ale with ridi cu lous ease -
and Sir W alford Davies h as pointed o u t that the s c ale is merely the
proje ction o f a pe culiarly lus cious and classi cally inte l ligible chord
into o n e o ctave I t is n o more dependent o n equal temperament
.
fo r its existen c e than the l ong over famil iar c hord o f the diminished -
seventh whi c h Browning intended when he praised the mild

‘
Galuppi fo r the super W agnerian mira cle o f sixths diminished
-
sigh o n sigh and it is quite eas ily absorbable into the classical
’
.
s c heme o f harmony as a c hord that 1s c apable o f s ix unexpected

e n harmo n i c alternatives as against the four possible meanings of
the diminished seventh Debussy would under no circu mstances
.
have been a prolific writer but his whole tone scale in spite of the
,
-
,
NORMAL ITY AN D FREEDOM I N MUSIC 20 1
volumes of laborious theorizing that have been devoted to it w as ,
no inhibition to him I doubt if there were many talented young

.
musi c ians in the latter half of the nineteenth century who had not
stumbled upon it as an amusing effect in extemporization on the
pianoforte It has been forced upon organ tun ers throughout all
.
-
the centuries since organs became big enough to necessitate the

arranging of th e n pipes in symmetrical oppo sition in order to dis
tribute the wind pressure evenly .
N arrow artifi cial and pedantic as w as the aesthetic system that

, ,
bas e d itself on the whole tone scale it w as while it lasted a stim u

-
, , ,
lus rather than an inhibition to the highly sensitive artist in whose

works it is most prominent But nothing more infuriates an artist
.
w ho devotes himself to such a system than the discovery that it

can be absorbed into the main stream of c lassical thought This .
dis c overy does indeed annihilate all the special theories of the
, ,
sy stem But there are very few special theories of art which do not
.
.
accomplish their best work by being annihilated S ound hygiene is .
extremely irksome to the hypochondriac but freedom returns

'
with normality ; being in fact the N ature which Horace tells us

, ,
y ou may vainly hope to keep out with a pitchfork .

W O RD S AN D MUSIC : SOME O B I TE R D I C TA 1
T HE principles which govern the musi c al setting of words whether ,
prose or poetry are dangerously easy to formulate on an a priori

,
basis of common sense ; and in recent times musi cians have sinned
more deeply than men o f letters in laying down facile generaliz a
tions that n o t only ignore the nature of music but redu c e poetry ,
to prose It is interesting t o se e Parry o n e o f the greatest recent

.
,
masters o f E nglish music del iberately setting forth an unmusical

,
view of poet ic de clamation and being corrected by the author of

,
the o de whi c h he s et fo r the bi c entenary o f Purcell Robert Bridges .
wrote several ess ays o n musi c al de clamation whic h are no less ,
authoritative o n musi c than they are o n prosody ; but whether he

would agree betterwith my heresies than with Parry s is a question ’
whi ch it is n o w t o o late t o settle .
I n the hi story o f musi c the sixteenth century h as been called the

Golden Age ; and the tenden cy o f modern criti cism is t o extend
that period ba ckwards in to the fifteenth c entury s o as to include ,
a wider and wider range o f the noble art that falls short o f the c o n
summate purity o f Palestrina and Vi ctoria M orley s Plaine and .
’
E asie I n trodu c tio n to Prac ticall M usiche ( 1 5 9 7 ) sets forth the theory
and pra cti c e o f the Go l den Age and refers t o Jo h n Dunstable ,
( d. 1 453 ) as if t o a c las si c whose name everyone ought t o kno w ,
though perhaps only as a legend No w Dunstable w as as remote .
from M orley and Pal estrina as Ba c h is from u s I n spite o f the .
intensive labours o f Roman C atholi c c hoirs secular madrigal ,

‘
so c ieties and su c h eminent artist s o f vo cal ensemble as the E ng
,
lish Singers the Go l den Age itself is t o most c on cert goers almost
’
,
-
as legendary as it s name imp l ies As it s product c onsists essentially

.
Of una c companied vo cal musi c there are n o material di ffi culties

,
whatever in the revival o f it s culture W ithout su c h a revival our .
standards Of musical culture are like those o f a Renaissance whi c h

knows n o Greek .
In o n e aspect unaccompanied choral music ought t o be the most

absolute o f al l arts inasmu c h as it needs n o apparatus but the
,
human voice the most perfe ct o f all instruments if it is not c or

,
ru p t e d by imitating c ruder me c h a n isms O n the other hand there .

,
1
F irs t p rin t e d , 193 8 , in S ev en teen th C en tury S tudie s, pr esen ted to S ir H erb e rt
Grierson ( Clare n do n Pres s ) .
04 W O R DS AND MUSIC
abstruse and involved technical terms We cannot alway s be cer.
tain how far such techni calities represent truths and how far they ,
degenerate into evasions subconsciously designed to con c eal the

fa ct that responsibi lity fo r the matter has long ago ceased to exist .
Responsibi l ity c ertainly had c eased t o exist by the time o f Palestrina

( c
. 1 5 52 though there were then many useful c onventions
governing the settin g o f words and many habits some good and
, ,
some bad by whi c h certain wo rds were selected as standard sub

,
fo r musi c al il l ustration I n an elaborate polyphony each voice

je ct s .
,
with o n e generic ex c eption would have far more notes than syl
,
lab les but every singer knew certain rules by whi c h a run of notes
,
wou ld be assigned t o a go od vowel ; and the c omposer collected his

text at the beginning o f ea c h phras e without troubling to range the
syl lables under the notes The generic exception w as the part that
.
sang a can to fermo o r theme round whi c h the whole polyphony

,
w as woven Thi s theme w as Often given in notes o f su c h enormous

.
length that al l rhyth m i c value w as l ost and the singer distributed

,
“
the syl l ables more o r less evenly throughout the whole canto ferm o ,
breaking the long notes into breathab l e ones as he chose .
After everythi ng that modern researc h h as a chi eved in whittling

away the p l ausib l e story o f the part played by Pal estrina and the
C oun cil o f Trent in the reform o f C hurc h musi c the demonstrable ,
fact remains that Palestrina s most famous works are models of

’
musical de clamation and were a cc epted as su c h by the authorities

o f the C hur c h . I t h as been shown statisti c ally that th e M issa Papae
M arcelli stands o u t among Pal estrina s works by the systematic’
plan that the voi c es sha l l begin eve ry clause exactly together before
they diverge and break up in repetitions The listener hears the .
sense Of ea c h phr ase once fo r all in the highest voice so that ,
subsequent repetitions wi ll n o t c o n fuse him .
N o t many ev en o f Pa l estrina s earl iest works show mu ch trace of

’
the abuses in C hurch musi c t o whi ch the C oun cil o f Trent u n

doubtedly obje cted But early in the s ixtee nth century O bre c ht
.
and other Fle m ish masters habitua l ly produced M asses whi c h made
it imposs ible fo r the Offi ciating c e l ebrant t o find hi s pla c e Two .
parts o u t o f s ix might be singing with many repetitions the text

, ,
of the Gloria o r the C redo ; but the tenor might be singing the can to
f er m, o n o t on l y in notes o f unbreathab l e le n gt h but t o words ,
celebrating the mira cles o f Saint M artin while another voi c e would
,
be singing a L atin C hristmas c arol and a third n o t less conspi cuous

,
voice would b e singing in a livel y rhythm a Fren ch song to its

-
WORDS AND MUSIC 5
original and not alway s decorous words There are no such im pro .
i i P M fi
’
p r e t e s in alestrina s asses but his rst

, published volume be gins
with a M issa Ecce S acerdos M agnus throughout which a can to ,
‘
fe r m o is sung to the text : E cce sacerdos magnus qui in die b u s suis
p la c u it D e o e t inventus est justus Before the C ’
ouncil of
. Trent
intervened su c h a feature probably passed as a graceful compli
,
ment to the C ardinal or P ope to whom t he ifo lu m e w as dedicated ,
but the M ass cannot h ave been convenient to the Cel ebrant who
had to time his actions according to its unusual length while the ,
compliment to the great priest was persistently more conspicuous ’
than the liturgi c al text .
It is beyond my purpose to discuss in detail the art of setting

the text of a M ass ; but I may raise certain points of general inter
e st. To a sixteenth century master with a gift for extended compo
-
s it io n the M ass is the occasion for a musi c al art form representing

,
-
the summit of his purely musical aspirations much as the symphony ,
and the string quartet give scope to the highest ambitions of the
’
nineteenth century composer of music for music s sake Whatever
-
.
may be the current conventions in the treatment of certain w ords ,
the M ass trans c ends the details of musical illustration as the sub
je c t s of the M adonna and the C rucifixion transcend the merely
illustrative S cope of the painter But the point that is of immediate
.
interest to us is that in the sixteenth century the proportions of

the liturgical text were favourable to the development of a music
that was most free at the climax of the service and most restricted ,
where there was danger of prolixity and anticlimax .
At a later date the orchestral and harmonic resources O f B ach

an d B eethoven were such that it was impossible to treat topics like
:
the C rucifixion t he Resurrection and the L ife of the world to

°
, ,
come on less than the largest possible musical scale The Gloria
, .
and the C redo thus became the most voluminous and dramatic
parts Of the composition and inevitably tended to dwarf the S anc
,
tus which should be the culminating point of the M ass But in

,
.
P alestrina s art the scope of illustration is merely decorative ; an d

’
the effect of the large bulk of words in the Gloria and C redo is to
make the composer devise a kind of music which deliv ers the words
tersely and with few repetitions O n the other hand the few words.
,
of the Kyrie the Sanctus the Benedictus and the Agnus De i give
, , ,
the sixteenth c entury composer a welcome opportunity to broaden

-
his designs by repeating the words w ith cumulative e ffect Thus .

,
in S pite of what Dr Schweitz er rightly calls the appalling diffi culty

.
2 06 WORDS AND MUSIC
of setting the theological metaphysics of the N icene C reed to music ,
the text of the M ass gave the sixteenth century c omp o ser excellent -
opportunities fo r musi c that could both fit the highly sp ecialized

occ asion and develop it s own abstract musical c onsisten cy M ore .
over there w as plenty o f oppo rtunity fo r we l l defin e d diff eren c es

,
-
between one M ass and another Between the C redo and the Sanc .
t u s o f a M ass there w as sung a setting o f a text appropriate to the

day I f the text possessed a traditional plain chant setting the
.
-
composer might derive the themes o f his motet from that plain
c hant ; and if he wrote a M ass fo r that parti cular day the themes
o f his M ass would develop those of his motet Thus one of .
,
Pale s t rin afs greatest M asses is written fo r the Assumption of the

Virgin and is based on the themes o f hi s great motet A ssumpta est
, ,
M aria the opening o f whi c h is derived from the plain chant o f its
,
-
text Similar l y his M ass fo r Whit Sunday is the M issa dum Com
.
,
-
p le ren t ur whi c h is e xpanded

,
from h is highly dramatic motet
des c ribing the events Of the D ay o f Pente c ost .
L uther w as musi c ian enough t o leave room fo r a hardly less con

sistent musi c al scheme in the servi c es Of his Reformed C hur ch ;
and the researches o f the late Professor C Sanford Terry enable .
u s t o follow the coherent musi c al structure o f the services of the
Thomas kirche in L eipzig during every day o f Ba c h s long tenure ’
as c antor E ngl ish musi c h as had n o su c h luck King Henry VI

“
. .
w as a good musician ; but that royal saint lived only during the
dawn o f polyphony and his musi c is arc haic beyond our compre,
h e n s io n Henry VI I I S musicians hi p w as probably n o t equal to

’
.
his c l assi c al s c hol arship but it w as certainly better than C rammer s

’
, ,
fo r there is n o eviden c e that C ranmer w as musical at all and lie ,
left the Book o f C ommon Prayer in su c h a shape that no coherent

s cheme o f Angl i can C hurc h music is possible .
W hen we call the sixteenth c entury the Golden Age of music ,
we think in the first place o f Palestrina and o f a C hurc h music ,
purified from ar c hai c c orruptions and inno c ent o f the instrumental ,
secular and dramatic elements that fermented throu ghout the musi c
,
o f the seventeenth c entury But the C hur ch c an cl aim n o t more .
than half th e bulk and perhaps n o t more t han half the aestheti c
,
value o f Golden Age musi c The other half c onsists o f madrigal

,
-
.
and simi l ar se cu l ar musi c N o w there is a sense in whi ch perfect . ,
works o f art like in finit ie s c annot be compared with o n e another

, , .
In any c ase what is right fo r o n e is uniquel y right fo r it and

, ,
wrong fo r any other But when we have weighe d the resu lts of a .
, ,
2 08 WORDS AND MUSIC
in music than in words He will find that the way to produce the
.
best musi c is to base it faith fully upon the words to whi c h it is

first composed ; and we are entitled to guess a priori that a composer
who is n o t deeply sensitive t o the words he is setting will not have
much purely musical depth in him But we shall meet with many .
disappointment s if we expe ct cl assi c al composers to retain their

pristine literary sensibility after their music h as taken solid shape .
The o cc asion o f the first appearance of the word madrigal in

‘ ’
the E nglish language is a gl aring illustration o f this We are in

formed that it is n o t found as an E nglish word before Yonge s ’
M usica Trans ahpina Yonge s avowed purpose is to render ’
the musi c Of Italian madrigals availab l e to singers in an E nglish

translation whi ch does n o t c onsider the original sens e o f the words ,
‘
but only the affections o f the note In other words I talian madri ’
.
,
gals are t o be sung t o E ngl ish words that are n o t translations at all ,
but independent poems c omposed with n o respect fo r anything but

the musi c al rhythm We need n o t c onsu l t the originals o f Y onge s
.
’
,
madrigal s t o guess h o w impossible it is that the finer points of the

Ital ian composer shou l d be reprodu c ed .
Similarly the slightest c are l essness in editing an Engl ish madr igal
c an ruin a delightful point self evident t o the singers and not
,
-
beyond the possib il ity o f rea ching listeners who have be c ome .
familiar with the work L isten t o Dr Fel l owes in hi s preface to

. .
his complete series o f E ng l ish madrigals
An y re arran ge m e n t o f
-
l po sitio n o f t he wo rds is in defe n s ib le
t h e o rigin a ,
an d m ay o ft e n in vo l ve t h e des t ru ct io n o f an e ffe ct pu rpo se ly des ign e d by
th e m adrigal co m p o s e rs I n this m att e r t h e ir dram at ic treatm e nt o f th e

.
wo rds w as Oft en ve ry su b tle ; b u t as an illu s t ratio n o f th oughtl es s e diting

‘
w e m ay q u o t e th e p e n u lt im at e b ar o f I fo ll o w 10 t h e fo o tin g ( NO 1 7 o f
’
, , .
M o rl ey s five an d s ix vo ice Can z o n e ts ) in whi ch t h e co m po s er has

’
-
,
‘
des ign e d th at aft e r m any b ars o f b re at hl ess racin g t h e w o rd caught
’
, ,
s hall o ccu r in a diffe re n t vo cal p art o n e ach o f t h e fo u r b e ats o f th e b ar ,
an d b e s u s tain e d un til all t h e vo ices s in g t h e fin al w o rd h e r to ge th e r in

’
t h e fin al b ar Ye t in o n e pu b lis h e d ve rs io n o f t h is Can zo n et th e po in t
.
h as b e e n e n tire ly des tro ye d b y a gratu it o u s an d u n n e ces sary re pe titio n o f

t he w o rds in th e Can tu s part .
A devi c e o f the same kind but Greek in its simplicity and accu
,
racy is shown in W eelkes s Three Virgin Nymphs Thre e voices

,
’
.
represent the virgin nymphs in the plain rhyt hm o f the words with
a triad hi gh enough t o sound bright without bei n g unpleasantly
shri ll The nymphs were wal king al l alone and the voi ces accord
.
’
,
WORDS AND MUSI C 9
in gly w alk u p and down in closely overlapping scales leaving the ,
‘
third voice all alone for a few notes after the others till rude ,
Sylvanus c hanced to meet them Sylvanus is a rude bass voice

’
.
whose themes and rhythms throw the trebles into confusion though ,
‘
all j oin in the tale of how he leap t and s n at c h t at one In the ’ ’ ’
.
outcome the com poser evidently does not wish us to be clear as to

w h o it was w ho said C ome back and b li ss me (r hyming with
’
‘
kiss
Ou r E nglish composers of the early sevente e nth century w ere
by no means provincially minded ; but though our own troubles
ruined our C hurch music we were far enough from the C ontinental
,
centres of musical revolution to continue for the fi rst quarter of

the century in undisturbed development of our madrigal style .
Ou r sense of key had always tended to become more rigid than the
subtleties of P alestrina s harmonic c ompromise with the C hurch
’
modes And we retained from archaic times a robust taste in dis

.
cord more especially in collisions between major and minor thirds

, ,
which are even more shocking to nineteenth century if not to -
modern ears than they had become to P alestrina It will doubtless

, .
pass for correct to say that the modulations of 0 care than w ilt ,
‘
dispatch me are remarkable for the time at whi c h theyw ere writ
O f all faint praises this is the most damnable and futile
’
ten .
, .
These modulations are remarkab le for all time There was no tech .
’
n ic al hindrance to Weelkes s writing them at the beginning of the
seventeenth century An d there was no technical reason why he

.
should not have written utter nonsense What is remarkable is that .
he means by them exactly what Schubert or Brahms would have

meant and is able to express that meaning b y the supreme l uck of
'
genius that h as preserved him from discovering that he has none

of the apparatus of instruments and art forms on which Schubert -
and Brahms rely .
That condition of creative art which we call inspiration and ,
which transcends self conscious re aso n I n g 1s manifest in w hole

-
s c hools and forms of art almost as clearly as in the masterpieces

,
of i ndividual men of ge m u s In the Golden Age it seems as if the

.
madrigalists great and small cannot go wrong Before the seven

, , .
t e e n t h century has accomplished its fi rst quarter its most thoughtful ,
composers seem unable to go right though they theorize with ,
great intelligence But the theoretic propagandists of a new art

.
seldom show a fine intelligence as to the prin c iples of the old art
whi c h they w ould supersede M ilton s praise of Henry L awes show s
.
’
2 10 WORDS AN D MUSIC
that like L awes he thought clearly and obviously about conte m
, ,
‘
p o rary music ; but when he claims that the tunef
, ul and well
measured song Of L awes ’
Firs t taught o u r En glish mus ic h o w t o s pan

Wo rds with j ust no te an d acce n t, n o t to s can
With M idas e ars , com m ittin g s hort an d lo n g ,
’
he reveals that he h as c ompletely forgotten if he ever understood , ,
the prin ciples Of that madrigalian art o f whi c h his own father had
a respectable mastery There is no c onflict betw een notes and
.
a c cents in the madrigalian style ; fo r the musical rhythms have a

freedom which t o begin with eliminates all possibility of conflict
, ,
between a c cent and quantity .
E arly in the seventeenth century Thomas C ampion ( 1 5 67 1 62 0)

—
b l asphemed like M ilton agai n st his o w n charming talent for

, ,
rhy me and became sadly entangled in efforts to reconcile the co n

,
flict between a cc ent and quantity in his theories o f E ng l ish verse .
He w as technical ly an accomplished musician with a pretty gift for ,
melody o n a smal l scale ; and he wrote a compendious treatise on

what purported t o be c ounterpoint though it amounted to little ,
more than a colle ction o f ru l es o f thumb by which tunes c ould be - -
h armoniz ed in the narrow c ircle o f major and minor keys into

which the subtle harmonic c ompromises o f modal counterpoint
“
had declined .
N either M ilton n o r C ampion w as c ons cious that the new musical

developments o f the seventeenth century were in many ways at
least as e ffective in strang l ing musi c al composition as in liberating
‘
it The tuneful and we ll measured song o f Henry L awes antici
.
-
’
pates the tune and measure o f eighteenth century music ; and the -
‘
c omposer s preoc cupation with the scansion o f just note and
’
accent leads him t o over punctuate the words and interrupt the
’
-
flow o f hi s music .
The fact is that the whole basis o f musical rhythm h as by the ,
time Of whi c h I am speaking become muscular in a mu c h grosser ,
sense than any speech rhythm In sixtee nth century music there .
-
is n o conflict between S peech rhythm and musi cal rhythm The .
singers distinguish between arsis and thesis the u p beat and the ,
-
down beat ; and thi s normal distinct ion may sometimes correspond
-
to ac c ent and sometimes t o quantity and may be at al l times easily

, ,
overridden s o l ong as the voices come together at full cl oses T his .
is a very different state o f things from that in whi c h rhythm is as

212 WORDS AND MUSIC
only makes his tune repeat itself symmetrically but repeats the ,
whole song note fo r note to another stanz a Brahms has been .
severely b l amed fo r the fault y declamation o f hi s setting of Wie

‘ ’
bist du meine KOnigin I Du rch sanfte G ute wonnevoll

,
But his ’
.
declamation is remarkably like D o w lan d s N ow here the self ’

.
c onscious literary musicians in cluding both Wagner and Hugo

,
W olf are wrong and the E l iz abethan and Jac obean poet musi cians
, ,
-
are o n the side o f the poets and o f Brahms N O modern musical .
criterion is shal lower than that whi c h reg ards as lazy and primitive
the setting o f different sta nzas Of a poem t o the same melody .
Brahms regarded su c h strop hi c melody as a far higher achievement

than durchcompo nirtes de clamation .
I t 1s n o t Dowland but we w h o a cc entuate falsely when we put

, ,
hard mus cular a c cent s into his triple time but apart from details
, , ,
of s c ansion every poet will also s e t high aestheti c value o n the

,
persisten c e o f a tune that trans c ends the parti cular emotional de

tails o f different stanz as Some o f the most su cc essful al l ian c es
.
between musi c and poe try have been those in w hi c h S c ott and
Burns have written o r c ompleted poems t o pre existing fo l k tunes - -
.
If yo u write modern musi c t o S c ott s jock of H az eldea n yo u will ’

,
‘
find at the ou t set some di ffi cu l ty with the c ross accent o n ladie -
’
‘
in the first line W hy weep ye by the tide ladie ? And yo u will
, ,
’
‘
get into s erious diffi c ulties with the line : And yo u the fairest o ’
them a ’
where your tune c annot avoid an impossible stress o n
the weak antepenu l timate syl lable But the fo l k melody h as an .
-
upward turn that fa cilitates the c ross a cc ent o n l adie and enables -
’
,
Scott t o compose his poetry free l y t o the tune t hroughout Su c h .
masters o f l yri c me l ody as S chubert and Brah ms av ai l themselves

c onstantly o f the fa ct that even with the fu l l mus cular strength o f
modern musi c al rhythms the strong beats Of the bar c onstitute
,
only o n e form o f a cc ent w hi c h may be easi l y countera cted by the

,
length o f a note by its height by it s harmoni c c olour and by inci

, , ,
dents in the a cc ompaniment O n ly a flat footed kind o f melody

.
-
o r dan c e rhythm habitua ll y brings all these elements o n t o the h e at

-
.
The W agnerians c ertai nl y formu l ated a quite inad e quate theory

o f musi c al de c lamation b ased o n a nin eteenth c entury sti ffness o f
,
-
musi c al rhythm and c ogn izant o f n o language ex c ept German

, ,
whi c h is perhaps o f all l anguages the o n e in wh i c h a cc ent is most

rigidly dominant over qu antity The Fren c h language is at the .
other extreme ; and the most impe ccable Fren c h c omposer is n o t

afraid t o bring the first beat o f a bar o n t o an e mue t The I ta l ian .
WORDS AND MUS I C
, 213
language has strong accents but gains enormous musical fl exibility

,
b y the custom of treating any number of successive vowels as if

they w ere a single syllable neither eliding them nor marking the
,
rhythmic point at w hich one Changes into another even as betw een ,
different words .
We have n ever learnt to treat our E nglish vowel syllables thus ; -
nor can such Italian privileges become a prece dent for u s O n the .
other hand it w ould be a pity that the enormous musical po ssibili

,
ties o f our language with its varied texture of Teutonic R omance

, , ,
and classical threads should b e inhibited b y a German theory of

, _
musical and poetic rhythm which is too provincial even for the
classics of German poetry and German music O u r own provin .
c iality is of a di fferent and less patriotic kind And w e have been .
saved from its w orst possibilities b y the fact that Handel did us
the honou r of becoming a naturali z ed E nglishman and setting his
greatest music to E nglish words But apart from Handel w e have .
, ,
learnt most of the classics Of vocal music in translations ; and the

translations have until quite recently been the w ork O f p ersons
, ,
who achieved a highly specialized technique that stri k es a balance

between three evils : ignorance of the original language ignorance ,
of E nglish and ignorance of music These now Obsolescent if not

, .
,
O bsolete translators also mad e a profession of writing specially for

,
music ; and when they added to their responsibilities the profession

O f musical critic woe betide such composers as S tanford and P arry
, ,
who declined th eir services and turned to such unpro fessional per
sons as M ilton and S helley and Bridges .
The chief effect of a long tradition of musical translations w as

that E nglish composers had no reason to suppose that nonsense
was inadmissible in classical vocal music The study of original .
musical classics will S ho w that as a rule music even in the most , , ,
conventional art forms has a basis of common sense in such matters

-
as the repetition of words The B ritish sailor s idea of a hau th em

.
’ ’
is unfortunately true of many unintelligent imitations of the

, ,
classics ; but a first rate composer composing in his own l anguage

-
, ,
will certainly manage to fi nd a S ingle appropriate theme covering

the senten c e Bill fetch me that there an ds pike before the choru s
, ,
’ ’
,
develops the fugue which breaks up the w ords and piles them
into s tretto .
It would be tedious to search out and enumerate cases w here

mistranslation has violated the composer s common sense S ome ’
.
times with biblical texts grievous conflicts of loy alty may arise b e
2 14 WORDS A ND MUSIC
tween the rhyt hms o f o u r Authorized V ersion and those of L uther s ’
B ib l e Thus M endelssohn at the first p erforman c e of E lij

. ah at ,
Birmingham had t o submit t o the destru ction o f a most important

,
point in his overture b e c au s e it would have been considered b l as

‘
p h e m o u s t o alter the text But according to M y word so as,
to ’
,
‘
fit the phr ase I ch s ag e es denn which l ooms ominous l y in the
,
’
,
wind inst ruments throughout the orchestra l fu gue that fol l ows
-
.
The music loses a fine point without becoming unintell igible ; but
our Victorian composers piously renoun ced the presumption of
understanding either class ical music or theol ogical dogma Thus .
generations o f s choolboys and choir boys have been brought up to -
believe without question in a 4 oth Articl e of Rel igion which no

theologian h as ever explained but which Barnby in E stren , , ,
‘
u o u sly proclaims ; the doctrine that As it w as it was in the ,
beginning ’
.
The cl assical tradition o f musical declamation lies elsewhere .
Artists have a right t o be judged by their strokes of genius and ,
not by their lapses Handel s musi c al rhetoric is s o superb that

.
’
we may safely guess that wherever a beautiful phrase misfits the ,
words Handel is adapting it from something e l se sometimes quite

, ,
uns crupulous l y but more O ften sa c rificing fitness of detail to the

,
fitness o f general impression Thus in M essiah the cho rus .

, ,
F o r unto us a C hild is born presents u s with a rather disconcert

’
‘
ing stress o n the word Fo r O n the other hand the theme of ’
.
,
‘
And the government shall be upon His shoulder is magnificently ’
suggestive o f taking up a burden with zest ; and the descent on the

‘
Word shoulder is musically pictorial and fitting to the metaphor
’
,
without being comi c But both phrases original ly meant s omething

.
quite di fferent and mu ch simpler The chorus I S developed from .
an I talian duet and the first phrase w as N o da voi non piu fidarmi
, , ,
and the other theme I S a scolding accusation o f falsehood with a ,
g lide o n the word lusinghieri And I shal l never c ease to hope that .
‘
some day an original version will be found o f He shall feed His
flock M ost people Object mu ch more strongly th an I to the accent
’
.
He sha ll but I am far more grieved by the evident loss o f meaning

’
,
‘
in the rise and fal l o f the notes se t t o the word shepherd and later ’
,
‘
to the word weary There must have been a time when that very
’
.
remarkab l e musical phrase had words which it expressed with the

same astounding rightness that is famous in Handel s de clam ation ’
‘
of He turned their waters into blood and the falling seventh at ’
,
sheds delicious death ’

.
216 WORDS AND MUS I C
pregn ant theme repeating itself many times as a bass to a varying
superstru cture .
Even a haphaz ard s e t o f quotations from Henry Purcell gives us

the impression o f the work o f a composer quite as great as Ba c h
o r Handel and mo re di fferent from either o f them than they are
,
from ea ch other H is treatment of words is always intere sting and

.
,
at its quainte st n o t merely qu aint even when he c ommemorates ,
the king s narrow es c ape in a storm by making the chief bass

’
‘
singer o f the Royal C hapel sing They that go down to the sea in
ships in a des cending scale o f two octaves from t o p D to bottom D
’
.
H is sturdy British independen c e o f the Italian art of re citative w as

already c ommented upon by his c ountrymen when that art w as '
still a novelty The fa ct is that the art o f re citative is that o f the

.
rise and fal l o f spoken language s tylized in musical notes and that ,
every language oug ht t o devel op it s o w n type o f re citative P arry .
c omments shrewdly o n the wisdom o f C harles I I in sending his

most tal ented choristers t o Fran c e t o learn from L ully the great ,
master o f Fren ch ball et h o w t o write Engl ish C hurch musi c But

, .
in this matter o f re citative Purc e l l anticipated the dramati c re

‘
sourc es o f a later epo ch and in spite o f al l temptations t o belong
, ,
t o other nations remained an E ngl ish man

’
, .
But the musi c al privileges o f remai n ing an E nglishman are few ;

and neither po l iti cs n o r the traditions Of other E nglish arts have
been kind t o music O u r do cility in obeying foreign fas hi ons fails
.
t o be edu c ative be c ause we have n o t the presumption t o Obey with

intelligen c e C harles I I showed ex c ell ent taste and c ommon sense
.
in sending Purcell and Pelham Humf rey t o study under L ully ; but
he disc on c erted o u r E nglish musi cians by appointing the inept
M onsieur Grab u over their heads as c ourt musi c ian And though .
,
Dryden w as gullible enough at first t o praise Grah n above all

E nglish masters he also mistrusted musi c s o profoun dly that he
,
firmly established the miserable tradition that an opera as under ,
stood in E ngland w as a play in wh ich all o cc asions fo r musi c lay

,
outs ide the p l ot I n Dido and A en eas t o a libretto by N ahum Tate

.
,
of the firm o f Tate and Brady Pur c e l l a chieved a music drama ,

-
whi c h anti cipates by some eight y years the full fruition o f Gluck s ’
Operati c reforms but the work does n o t s eem t o have been appre
c iat e d 1n Pur c el l s lifetime except at M r Josias Priest 3 bo arding
’
.
,
s c hoo l fo r whi c h it w as written and where it w as performed

, ,
between 1 6 88 and 1 69 0 By the time D ryden had learnt to think

.
better o f Purc ell the musi c al disjointednes s o f E nglish opera w as

,
WORDS AND MUSIC 217
an established fact D ry den s King A rthur is a voluminous w ork ;

.
’
and P urcell s music to it is important but has nothing whatever to

’
,
do with th e play His masques in Timon of A thens and The Tempest

.
are musical fragments that contribute nothing to Shakespeare .
This Jew and Samaritan relation between music and the stage per
- -
sisted until the second quarter of the nineteenth century and ruined ,
the last work of Weber who wrote in his b est E nglish to P lanché
,
-
the librettist of Ob eron in these words ,
I mus t re pe at that t he cut

f t he whole is ve ry fore ign t o all my ide as
o
an d maxims Th e inte rmixing o f s o many principal actors w h o do n o t

.
s ing, t h e o m iss i n
o o f t h e mus c i in t e mos t i portant mo ments
h m — all
de prive o u r Ob e ro n o f t h e titl e o f an op e ra , an d will make h im unfit fo r
all othe r th e atres in Europe .
It is impossible to suppose that the E nglish talent for musical

composition on a large s c ale could have been crushed by any
adverse influences or foreign dominations if it had been comparable
to our talent for composition in literature The popular theory for .
‘
our failure is that E nglish music was crushed beneath the pon
’
deron s ge m u s of Handel But for most of his life H andel domi .
n at e d E ngland as a writer Of Italian operas ; and the ultimate e ff ect
of his oratorios was b y no means to crush our native talent but to ,
inflate it He was far more dangerous to our composers than

.
M ilton was to K eats In the first pla c e K eats had the sense to
.
,
recognize the danger ; and in the second place M ilton is a very , ,
elaborate artist B eethoven revered Handel as the master of all

.
masters and declared that no one else produced such stupendous

,
’
effects by the simplest means But Handel s means are s o simple .
_
’
that some portion of Beethoven s acumen is needed to see in Handel
the art that c onceals art and to distinguis h it from the effrontery
,
that avoids art At the present time most musicians are terrori z ed
.
out of writing anything that does not profess to be a new language

on some abstruse or subversive theory that contradi cts all c lassi c al
traditi on ; but many of us can vividly remember the prevalent ten
de n cy O f the advice given t o young composers in later V ictorian
days It could all be summed up in two prin c iples Be subli m e
. . .
At the age of twen ty one follow ex c lusively the practice of great

-
masters in the w o rks whi c h they composed at the age of sixty and
upwards avoiding as reprehensible indiscretions all the practices
,
by which these masters developed their style in earlier works .
And so it has come to pass that w e have neither made our ow n

218 WORDS AND MUSIC
musical traditions nor learnt solid lessons from the foreign musi c
,
to which we are so laudably hospitable W e do n o t know from .
firs t hand experience where and why the conventional repetition

-
of words is ex c ellent in s ome class ical art forms ; and we are equally -
at a loss as to the steps by which Wagnerian music drama de -
ve lo p e d the kind of musical composition that fo rb ids u n re alist ic
repetition of words as unnecessary and therefore disturbing I t , , .
is n o t very difli cu lt to spread some kind of musical c ontinuum over

a play as o n e might spread butter over bread N or is it diflic u lt to
, .
make short musi c al themes serve as labels t o the nameable ideas

and incidents o f a drama If this were all that Wagner achieved .
,
his works would probably have made no permanent impression ,

and many composers would n o t have wasted their lives in producing
enormous numbers o f Operas whi ch attempt t hi s and nothing more .
A mature Wagner opera is organized as highly and almost as ,
purely musically as a Beethoven symphony I ts organization is on

, .
totally di fferent lines ; and any analysis that attempts to apply sym
phonic terms t o Wagn er is doomed to fant asti c abstruseness But .
the analysis of Wagner s musi c into hundreds of short themes ’
associated with dramatic in cidents and thoughts carries us no far

ther into his prin ciples o f composition than the compiling of a
dictionary o f his words The music is n o more built from these
.
details than the drama is built from it s words Behind and above .
this app aratus the music is archite ctural o n a scale actual ly from
,
ten t o twenty times larger than anyt hing contemplated in earlier

musi c ; and it is true t o the architectural nature o f music ; its sym
m e t rie s are expressed in recapi t ulations as vast and as exact as
those of any symphoni c music W ords are n o t thus recapitulated .
,
n o r is the singer Often c on s cious o f taking part in a recapitulation ,
since the musi c al de clamation fit s the words at every moment and ,
the voi ce part itse l f therefore does n o t recapitulate The musi c of

-
, , .
the death Of I solde recapitulates the whole peroration o f her love

duet with Tristan in the se c ond act ; and in GOtterdiimmerung Sieg
'
fried guilelessly telling his sworn enemies the story o f his youth
, ,
n o t only t akes the inevitable course o f re c apitulating the music of
the forest s eene but after the brief interruption of his death wound
-
, ,
-
completes the musi c al re c apitulation by dying to the strains of

Brfi nn h ilde s awakening
’
.
These recapitu lations are only a few obvious cases forced upon
the listener by the external s o f the drama ; but the whole tissue of
Wagner s mature music is similarly architectural without being in
’
,
B RA H M S S C H A M B E R M U S I C
’
l
T HE chamber musi c o f Brahms is comprised in t wenty four works -
whi ch probably represent s c arcely a quarter o f the bulk o f c omposi

tion whi c h he devote d to that bran ch of h is art Wo rks o f art are .
_
like i c ebergs ; what is al l owed to s e e daylight is but a fifth of the

whole Great artists differ externally in their way o f disposing of the
.
underlying bulk ; but it s proportion probably remains mu c h the

same Some like Handel combine an enormous physical industry
.
, ,
with a Johnsonian indolen c e and writing as easily as Johnson , ,
talked give it all t o the publi c in the forms o cc asion demands

, .
Others like Bach and M ozart are n o t less adroit in using the daily
, ,
o ccasion but are always exp l oring in organization and technique ;

,
s o that as Brahms said o f S c hubert s s ix hundred songs there is

’
, ,
something spe cial t o be learnt from each work Inspiration is a .
‘
wind which bloweth where it listeth ; but it prefers to visit artists ’
w h o are constantly pra ctising their art

’
Genius said Beethoven .
, ,
‘
is always pro l ifi c ; and Beethoven o f all men o f genius practised
’
, ,
his art with a te chn ique that changed with the nature o f ea c h work .
This made it impossible fo r his art t o th rive o n methodi c al mass

produ ction ; his innumerable sket ches fo r ea c h individual work are
'
the substitute fo r the enormous produ ctivit y o f those masters whose

te c hnique w as more redu cib l e t o routine The habit o f sketching .
saved him at al l events from the ne cessity o f writing hal f a dozen

c omplete ly s cored symphonies in order that o n e might su rvive I t .
is n o t known h o w far Brah m s sket ched in Beethoven s way ; that is

’
t o s ay by dashing down o n o n e stave t o a line the whole course of

, , ,
a c omposition leaving harmony texture and instrumentation fo r

, , ,
consideration at final stages and c ommitting oneself to nothing that ,
c annot be as easi ly altered as improvis e d if need be in a dozen , ,
su c h sket ches all o f whic h will then retain the spontaneity o f im p ro

,
vis at io n enhan c ed by every gain Of insight The method is admira .
bly c onven ient fo r a style in whi c h the texture does n o t determine

any important features and it is a ne c essary method in all bran ches
,
o f vo c al music where words are t o be de c laimed with dramatic
continuity But where the texture de t e rm I n e s the course of the

.
music outline sketc hing be c omes less effi cient and the compose r
,
-
1
An art ic le p ub lis h e d in C o b b e t t
’
s Cyclope dic S u rvey f Cha mb er M usic ( O xfo rd
o
U n ive rs it y Pre s s ) , 1 929 .

BRAHMS S CHAMBER MUS IC
’
22 1
must rely on carrying the fl ow o f the music in his head through ,
all the labour of detail A fugue is composed from the texture

.
outwards ; and in the many bad fugues that have been published ,
the failure is more Often in the general composition which h as never ,
been su c cessfully taught than in the counterpoint w here de c ent

, ,
craftsmanship is n e t unusual A set of variations cannot be sketched .
at all for it presents nothing to write but full de t ail

, “ h
.
Hence Brahms w hose style was from the outset almost evenly
,
b al an c ed betw een the most dramatic sonata form and the highest
polyphony can have e ffected comparatively little b y the practice of
,
outline sketching As he took extraordinary pains throughout his

-
.
life and espe cially during his last illness to destroy all unfi nished
, , ,
and unpublished manuscripts we are almost reduced to guess work ,

-
as to his methods of c omposition A few sket c hes are preserved in .
the library of the Gesells c haft der M usikfreunde in Vienna ; these

c omprise some beginnings of small pianoforte pieces and sketches
of a projected or c hestral overture in E flat minor but no sketches ,
of extant w orks are known On the other hand it appears from .

,
Brahms s correspondence that many important fi nished w orks were

’
supp ressed ; and it is by no means certain that the art of music has
not lost more than it has gained through Brahms s exceptionally ’
s c rupulous judgement as to what was fit to represent him For in .
stance there were two pianoforte trios in D and E flat written

, , ,
about the time of that in C major op 8 7 ; and at least one Of these , .
was preferred t o the C maj or by C lara S chumann a most candid ,
friend and fastidious critic Again P rofessor Jenner of M arburg .

, ,
in an account of his experien c es as a student Of composition under

B rahms tells us that what w e know as the First Violin S onata
, ,
op 7 8 was really the fifth The actual first violin sonata w as in

.
, .
D minor and was written in the period comprised between the

P ianoforte S onata op 1 and the original version of the B major
, .
,
Trio op 8 Brahms had arranged for its publi c ation but the
, . .
,
manuscript went astray The loss is undoubtedly to be regretted ;

.
if only as a do cument in the history o f the art the work must have ,
been as important as the B major Trio But had the manuscript .
been found some ten years later it is extremely unlikely that ,
Brahms would then have published it His recomposition o f the .
B major Trio after twenty O dd years W ill S ho w us as will nothing

-
else in the history of music how ruthlessly he treated anything ,
that seemed defective to his mature sense of movement Of the .
other three unpublished violin sonatas there is no individual record .

2 22 BRAHMS S CHAMBER MUSI C
’
We may then assume that B rahms attained the mastery shown in

, ,
all his published work by means of a mu ch larger bulk not of ,
sket ches n o t even of exercises ( though these he also carried on in

,
a correspondence of exchange and mutual criticism with Joachim) ,
but of actual ly c ompleted works most of which would have passed ,
as masterpiec es to anybody but their c omposer The fact that the .
extant works have by no means passed without dispute as mas t er

pieces and that controversy is maintained about them to the present
,
day may indicate that opinions can di ffer as to what constit u tes
'
good technique in music ; but if the critic lives who h as thought

more deeply than Brahms on the matter that critic s opinions will ,
’
’
meet with even more opposition than Brahms s work in proportion ,
as they are more above the c omprehension of the aestheti c o ffi cial
mind .
The most c onvenient way to enter into Brahms s aesthetic s ys ’
tem is t o begin with his first extant piece of c hamber music the ,
B major Trio op 8 and t o c ompare it with the new version pub

, .
,
lis h e d between tw enty and thirty years later To call the later ve r .
sion a revision is absurd ; and t o talk o f p assages in the original as

being ex cised in the later version is like saying that incidents in
S c hiller s jungfrau c on Orleans have been ex cised in Shaw s S ain t
’ ’
j oan W.h at Brahms h as done in hi s later version is to take the
broad openings o f the first movement and finale ( about sixty four -
bars each down t o the transition passage to a contrasted key) an d

,
to u s e them as the openings of movements otherwise entirely new ;

different in sentiment in theme in form and above all in se nse
, , , , ,
of movement .
In music as in life this sense may be either active or passive ;

, ,
there is the movement of the athlete and the movement of the

passenger in the motor car In neither case does the measurement-
.
in mi l es an hour determine the aesthetic value o f the motion Even .
in the most passive movement it is only by jolts vibrations and , ,
the apparent contrary movement of the surroundings that the

motion is realiz ed ; and when the roads are good the c ar well made , ,
and the driver c apable the faint and rhythmi c remaining traces of
,
motion su ffi c e t o lull the passenger to sleep Such is the mu ch .
‘
praised Rossini an sense o f pa ce in virtue of which Figaro stands ’
,
singing L argo al factotu m at ten syllables a second pointing sym ,
metrically t o right and left as the musi c swings from tonic to

dominant ; and thus the Ro ss inian s gibe at M ozart s slowness with ’
the solemn insolence Of a nou veau riche giving the dust of his ’
2 24 BRAHMS S CHAMBER MUSIC
’
the Wagnerian propaganda ever been precisely formulated as con

cerned with a genera l ized and positive problem o f movement it is ,
c onceivable t hat controversy might have taken less mutually repres s

ive lines ; and certainly the issues would have been far less confused
had it been possible fo r Wagner t o produce The Ring before assert
ing his aims instea d o f using fo r their illustration works like Tann
,
hizus er and Lo hengrin which every honest musician h as n o w long

'
since admitted t o be almost evenly balan ced between the true but
immature Wagner and a composer more o f the order o f the pom '
pous Spontini if n o t rather o f the pariah M eyerbeer

,
.
Even if M endel s sohn then s o ob viously the great master for

,
whom nothi ng seemed di fficul t o r Obs cure had n o t died most in ,
opportu nely in 1 84 7 before he had time t o rea l ize that the new
,
tendencies in musi c were more important in their essence than in

any crudeness o f their first expression the controversy would still
have wasted mu ch energy as between c lassi cists w h o redu ced all
ins trumental art forms t o pre establis hed jelly mou l ds and roman
- - -
t ic is t s t o whom a l l musi c existed fo r purposes o f i ll ustration As

’
.
‘
a matt er o f fa ct few composers have written more programme
‘
music than those c las s i cists M en delssohn and Spoh r ; and the
’ ’
real issues o f mus ical development have never been divided into
su ch obviou s oppo s itions But it w as true that M endelssohn s
.
’
musi cal fo rms though immediately e ffe ctive were t o o loose to

, ,
serve as a foundation fo r the art o f any future master w h o had

’
att ained enough ins ight t o admire them intelligently ; whi le Spohr 3
forms t o s ay no thing o f h is manneris ms had I n his ripe o ld age
, ,
‘ ’
s ettl ed down t o a mastery like that o f the spot stroke in billiards
whi ch be came a nui s an c e ca lling fo r the insti t ution Of spot barred -
mat ches M e anwh il e Schumann had raised an attractive S ide issue

.
-
n o t at fir s t re c ognize d as su c h by h is symphonies and chamber

,
mu s ic in whi ch e verything is start e d in rigidl y s quare antithetic

,
ep igrams and a di s tant e ffe ct o f development is produ ced by long

,
S labs o f c umu l ative sequen c e ; in short a kind o f mu s i cal mosai c

,
whi c h h as it s o w n merit and the merits o f it s precious material just

s o long as it does n o t pretend t o be a painting N othing shows more .
g laringly h o w the musi cal propagandists o f all parties in the

eighteen fift ie s failed t o grasp the essentials o f their art th an the
-
fa ct that Brahms w as from th e outset criti c ized admired and perse , ,
c u t e d as a fo ll ower o f S c humann I t w as natural t o assume that

.
the subject o f S chumann s famous arti cle entitled N eue Bahnen

’
would b e an artist in sympathy with S chumann s art ; but it showed ’

scant y appreciation of Schumann to suppose that while he had ,
health and strength to w rite that arti c le he would have devoted it ,
to an imitator of his own style to say nothing of entitling it Ne w

,
P aths ’
.
’
B rahms s art was from the outset so manifestly beyond the scope
of all parties that partisans of opposite tenets eagerly proved their ‘
intelligence by claiming him as among t he ir le ade rs i T he genuine ‘

:
freedom of his art forms made his pianoforte sonatas acceptable to

-
the romantic extremists grouped around L iszt ; while it w as evident

to anyone whose interest in the classics was not merely conventional
that with inequalities conspicuous b y their rarity this music
, ,
showed a mastery of classical technique unknown since Beethoven .
Brahms never accepted the position of leader of a party and neither ,
j ournalists nor friends could have forced that position upon him
but for two things : his own horror of artistic bureau c racy and
’
claqu es and the catastrophic revulsion which took place in Joachim s
,
feelings towards L iszt w hen after his friendship had ripened to

,
intima cy he made the acquaintance of L is zt s more serious compo

,
’
s it io n s and found in them every quality of sty le and emotion that
most repelled him This and the indisputable fact that L is zt if not
.
,
himself responsible for the position was the centre of a p re ss bureau

,
-
almost as well organized as M eyerbeer s brought about an explicit ’
declaration of estrangement between the masters of the two main

musical forces of nineteenth century music forces that perhaps
- -
might never have been sundered if German and Hungarian musical

party politi c s could have been as separable from aesthetic mor al
- -
judgements as E nglish parliamentarianism B oth these forces lost .
incalc ulably by the separation for Joachim s o w n profoundly origi

,
’
nal fountain Of composition fi nally dried up L iszt was deprived of ,
all the interchange of ideas by which Joachim exercised so st im u lat

ing an influence upon Brahms and B rahms himself did not escape
,
from a somewhat ascetic attitude towards artistic resources w hich

he would have had no di fficulty in developing to legitimate purpose
had not the w ord lisz tisch become current in his correspondence
with Joachim as a synonym for damnable
As to Wagner in whom the real issues of the Z ukunfts M usik
,
-
were finding their goal Brahms s attitude was never satisfactory to

,
’
his partisan friends ; and in his later years persons who tried to curry
favou r with him by talking against Wagner met with fierce rebukes
for their pains .
L et us no w see w hat light is shed upon the problems of musical

226 B RA HMS S C HAM BER MUS I C
’
movement in the eighteen fift ie s by comparing c ertain themes in

-
the tw o versions of Brahms s B major Trio showing his views of

’
the problem before and after he had formed his style .
The first theme extended for over sixty bars is common to both
, , .
These twelve bars the mere first phrase o f a long lyri c melody
, ,
al ready su ffi c e t o raise a problem in sonata style Su c h melodies are .
rare as opening themes o f sonatas and from su ch an opening it is

,
a tou r de force t o swing natural l y into dramati c a ction .
Brah ms w as from the outset quite aware o f the di fficulty and

t w o solutions were possible t o an artist o f h is c al ibre E ither this .
melody must be a normal item in a s cheme that is breaking away

from sonat a style o r it must be an exceptionally big item in a
,
normal sonata scheme There is o f c ourse a via m edia the cheerful

.
, , ,
ambling along in the king can do no wrong c onvention that per

- - - -
vades all bourgeois musi c from M endelssohn s D minor Trio o u ’
wards through Rubins tein til l a highly experimental government

,
intervenes and inno c entl y enacting that c ompo sers shall be paid by
,
the c rotchet c auses a temporary return t o a sixteenth century nota

,
-
tion in which the standard note is worth four time s as much .
Brahms s i n stin ct went t o the root Of the matter no l ess in the first
’
vers ion o f his B major Trio than in the l ast I place o n e below .
,
‘
the other the first phrase o f the main se c ond subje ct in each
,
’
.
Ex 3
. l s t Ve rs io n
2 28 BRA H M s
’
s C HAMBER MUSIC
a totally unkn own continuation This nightmare shock could happen
.
with n o other printed pie c e o f chamber musi c and even here could ,
not have happened t o the violinist For Joachim who had a strong
.
,
dislike o f a long rest fo r the violin at the beginning of a chamber

work c omplained that it made the opening sound as if the violin
,
w as to enter after the tutti o f a c oncerto and made Brahms inter ,
p o lat e a little arpeggio figure three times during the first tw enty
bars o f the early version A violinist would therefore notice at on ce
.
if he had the wrong version fo r Brahms afterwards overruled

,
Joachim s objection and decided that if that Opening w as t o inspire

’
him t o a new c omposition it needed no such tinkering .
‘
The S econd subject themes o f the t w o versions O f the finale
’
show up sti l l more Obviously against each other .
fini h s ed in f
our mo re b ars
It will be seen that the young Brahms h as good reason to write

‘ ‘
pi11 presto over his pretty F sharp major melody and that the
’
- -
qui ckest possib l e tempo wi ll never make these twe l ve bars anything
more l ively th an four bars o f a l eisurely rhythm covering only
half o f his first senten c e Then this twenty four bar senten c e h av
.
- -
ing closed in the toni c must be followed by a second part with

,
wider range o f key and h igher l yri c pathos culminating in a return ,
t o the first st rain more ful l y s c ored After lyri c inaction o n such a
.
scale whatever else might be right orthodox sonata pro cedures

, ,
must be at le ast partiall y wrong and it is n o t surprising that o f the

,
many interesting and some abstruse features o f subsequent develop

ments on l y o n e a quiet passage leading t o a c res cendo at the
,
beginning o f the coda c ould be used in the late r version where it

, ,
BRAH M S
’
S C HAM BER MUSIC 2 29
sounds ten times bigger an d more romantic than in its original

‘
context .
The new w ork is not an unmixed gain upon the old especially ,
in the finale w here the experienced Brahms grips the young Brahms
,
so roughly b y the shoulder as to make us doubt w hether a composer

as angry with t he sentimentalities of his own youth would not be
over ready to tease and bully or still wo rse; to ignore young com
-
posers anxious to learn but less sure of their ground : But his atti
tude to the scherz o shows that his impatience had nothing in
common with the timid fretfulness of the Superior Person w ho ,
will never get over the climax of the glorious tune of the trio in ,
w hich the three instruments finding themselves able to blaz e away

,
in the grandest style of a Viennese waltz band do so without the -
smallest scruple Brahms finding that the resulting quality of tone

.
,
happens to be ex cellent in spite of its resemblance on paper to the

most commonplace failures of its kind not only retains this passage ,
in his later version but puts its most impertinent fi nal gesture an
o ctave higher Pecca fortiter is his motto The original end of the
. .
first movement fails because the three instruments c annot imitate

a chorus and organ ; the trio of the scherz o succeeds because if an
orchestra can sound like that it will sound very well indeed From .
the genteel fear of vulgarity Brahms was as free as the most N orman
of duchesses .
With his early treatment of lyric or ep 1s o dic forms Brahms later

found little matter for regret ; and it w as only at the end Of the
scherz o that he found his mysterious early coda too clever and as ,
usual too slow With the adagio the case is more complex In its
, . .
original form it consists of a mysterious dialogue between the piano

forte and th e stri ngs followed by a lyric episode in the subdominant
, ,
after which the dialogue returns with a w onderful new modulation ,

.
Just before the c lose it breaks into an abstruse discussion of one of

its figures allegro doppio movimento ( i e at exactly double the
, . .
pace so that the change is more in notation than in tempo) This

, .
rises to a climax with many abrupt dramatic gestures after which ,
the last clause of the adagio dialogue closes the movement in its
original mysterious calm In the new version the probability is
.
that as in the fi rst movement and finale Brahms was inspired b y

, ,
new material to set the old opening in a more sublime light N o .
thing can be less likely than the commonly accepted view that he
rejected the E major episode because of its resemblance to Schu
-
bert s A m M eer : the resemblance is of the kind which amateurs

’
’
discover with infantile c as e but which to persons experi enced in

,
‘
composition is like puns partial ly intelligib l e with the aid of
‘
itali cs and a laryngos c ope Brahms s o w n views o f such re m inis
’
.
’
cen ces may be c onvenientl y cited here T o a c omposer friend

’
.
-
w h o apologized fo r borrowing a theme from o n e of his sym phonies

he wrote t o the effect that p l agiarism is o n e of the stupidest topi cs
o f stupid peop l e ; have made into o n e o f your freshest themes
y o u
what w as only an a ccessory detail in my work And when some ’

.
body pointed out a resemb l ance between certain points in the finale
of his C minor P ianoforte Quartet and M ende l ssohn s C minor ’
‘
Trio his now famous comment w as Any fool can s ee that The
, ,
’
.
main Objections t o the original E major episode are that the p izzi -
cato a c companiment whi c h looks picturesque on paper is dis ap

, ,
pointing in sound even with the fines t playing and that Brahms
, ,
h as failed to make it s irregular phras ing and broken conclusion

express that freedom o f form which is already s o conspi cuous in his
earliest work e g in the wonderful l y pla ced extra half bars ex
, . .
-
pressed by 3 / 2 time at the begin ni ng of t h e first movement in both

versions In the new version o f the adagio we are confronted with
.
a totally new middle part a passionate stream of subtle melody in

,
G sharp minor (the same key as that o f the se c ond subje ct in the
first movement) worked o u t o n a very large s c ale The concentrated .
gl oom o f thi s contras ts with the mysterious brightness of the open

ing whic h returns with all the greater mystery and simpli city The
, .
strange allegro doppio movimento coda is n o longer needed and

disappears without leaving a s car O n e extra bar in the penultimate .
c aden ce is all that is required t o bring in the last line .
Between thes e t w o different works with the same openings and

the same opus number lie most o f Brahms s remaining chamber ’
music an d the deve l opment o f nearly his who l e range of style .
After thus sket ching the nature o f the c hanges Brahms made in the
B major Trio we shal l find it easy t o fol low the course of the other
,
extant works .
The next publis hed pie ce of chamber music is the fi rst sextet ,
in B flat o p 1 8 Here we find in a mature form the expression of

, . .
a de lib e rat e re act io n towards classica l sonata style and pro cedure
‘
a rea ction whi c h Brahms had achieved witti l y and violently in his
first or c hestral Serenade o p 1 I originally written as a divertimento

, .
,
for s olo instruments In the B flat Sextet Brahms is n o longer con

.
s trained to u nite new and o l d elements under the cover of jokes to

justify his masquerading like Beethoven in his Sonata op 3 1
, , .
,
3 2 BRAHMS S CHAMBER MUS I C’
piano does n o t blend with other instruments either indi c ates a fact
o f positive aesthetic importance or in its more common question , ,
‘
begging form does n o t blend satisfactorily is a testimony t o a
,
’
,
type of professional incapa city manifested by pianists who have no

experience of chamb er musi c N othing blends with anything unless
.
o u know the measure o f the contrasts involved The bass tuba

y
-
.
does n o t blend imperceptibly with the trombones : hen c e Wagner

invented a spe cial fami l y of tubas and developed fo r them a charac
'
t e rist ic l ife o f their Own in h is Ring also inventing a double bass ,

-
trombone in order that the trombones might have their own deep
bass But in Tris tan M eis tersing er and Parsifal that is to s ay in
.
, , , ,
t w o works written after the first two Ring operas and in a final ,
work written ex clusive ly for Bayreuth and with the fullest e xpe ri
en ce o f Bayreuth c onditions Wagner w as as satisfied as Brahms
,
with the earlier u s e o f the tuba as a bass t o the trombones leaving ,
it t o c orrection at rehearsals if the player fails t o blend where con

trast is n o t intended Orchestral p l ayers expe ct to be instru cted by
.
condu ctors and it is if anyt hing more usual fo r great condu ctors
, , ,
t o understand something o f c omposition than fo r great c omposers

to know h o w t o c ondu ct .
From this it may be inferred that after every allowance has been ,
made fo r superior opportunities and education chamber music ,

-
players esp e cially pianists would have mu ch better current ideas

, ,
as t o their business if it were their habit to perform under the baton
o f composers o r c onductors versed in c hamber musi c — an important
qualifi c ation fo r n o amount o f purely orc hestral experience will

,
give either c omposer o r condu ctor the remotest idea of the totally
di fferent values whi ch single instruments assume when the orches
tral environment is removed As t o the pianoforte in c hamber .
musi c it is nowa days high time frankl y t o admit that the Schumann
,
tradition itsel f is n o t fau ltless even in regard t o Brahms It natural l y .
ac c epts S chumann s Pianoforte Quartet an d Quintet as normal if

’
simple solutions o f the prob l em ; and this is as hopeless a basis fo r

,
tackl ing Brahms s trios and quartets as t o u s e Haydn s trios as a

’ ’
bas is fo r the study o f Beethoven s o r even o f M ozart s C hamber ’
,
’
.
musi c in the sense understood by M ozart Beethoven Brahms and

, , , ,
the Haydn o f the string quartets begins t o exist when eve ry note ,
essential t o euphony is as signed to the instrument w hi c h is in a

position t o p l ay it when n o instrument is s o c onstructed that in
,
playing one written note it produces artifi cial overtones by com

b in at io n s o f organ stops o r harp sichord o ctave strings and lastly
- -
, , ,
BRAHMS S CHAMBER MUSIC
’
23 3
when the whole organization rejects unne c essary or colourless doub
lings in the unison When the pianoforte is combined with groups
.
of other instruments this last criterion has to be re c on ciled with

,
another known to all the classics since the days w hen P alestrina
,
wrote double and triple c horuses ; namely that when vo 1c e s o r in s tru ,
ments are divided into antiphonal groups the harmony of each ,
group must be complete in itself even when t he groups are sound ,

\
ing together Schumann satisfies the antiphonal criterion but like

.
, ,
Haydn in his trios at the ruinous cost of making it constantly im

,
possible to de cide which of two players in unison is the more

unnecessary .
‘
O n e Of B rahms s most often quoted maxims w as If we cannot
’
,
write as beautifully as M ozart and Haydn let us at least write as ,
purely The notion of purity w as primarily applied by him to part

writing in the generalized grammatical sense of harmony and
counterpoint ; but the matters usually classed under the head of
instrumentation are the more extensive consequences and c as es of
the same grammatical laws even where they seem to work out in
, ,
‘
opposite ways like a balloon rising in defiance of the law of gravita
,
On purity in the sense of economy in instrumentation

’
tion .
, ,
Brahms acquired the severest views stimulated by the criticism and ,
advice of Joachim whose ear in such matters was probably the

,
most sensitive sin c e M ozart s time ’

.
The questions here involved must not be confused with matters

of w hat is commonly called colour in music Brahms is supposed ’
.
to be an indifferent colourist and many Official Brah m sian s defend

him as more con c erned with what he has to say than how he say s
it Ou r notions of pure instrumental colour however will never
’
.
, ,
do justice to Brahms o r indeed to any sy mphonic or chamber

— "
music s o long as we think that W agnerian instrumentation sets

—
the normal standard Wagner writes habitually for the stage and
.
,
his instrumentation stands with all its marvellous refinements to

, ,
the general problems of sonata style as the lan gu age of a drama

stands to the question of what styles are good in novels and narra
tive poem s Yet in spite of the in credible naivetes w hich Wagner
’
.
,
bred criti c s and condu ctors (o r even c omposers ) commit when they
discover c hamber music late in life it would be an excellent thing ,
’
for pianists who think Brahms s chamber music incorrectly balanced
in tone to learn the trumpet o r tuba and experience the rough side
of the tongue of a respectable conductor w hen they show a deficient
sense of the weight of their instrument Two quotations from one .
’
’
of the terses t works in Brahms s ripest and most powerful style
(‘the Trio in C minor o p 1 0 1 ) will define the issue c ompl ete l y
,
. The .
se cond subje ct o f the first movement is sc ored thus :

’
and after ten more bars

, , is taken up by the p ian o fo rt e
'
w it h the
following s c oring :
5 X5 Vi o l i n
The crudest o f pianists can not make a mistake as t o the e ffortless

sonority and transparen cy o f the few notes in whi c h the piano richly
harmoniz es the powerfu l mel ody o f the lo w strings in o ctaves ; but
even a good pianist whose cl assi c al expe rien c e o f his instrument is
based mainly o n C hopin and L iszt with an o c casional c o n de sce n ,
sion t o the S c humann Quintet is apt t o feel insu l ted and ridi culed
,
in every professional fibre when he has t o learn that beyond a ring

ing c antabil e in the little finger o f his right hand he must u se no
more energy in his c ounters tatement than in his accompaniment
o f the strings and that i n stead Of getting ex c ited by the enormous
, ,
‘
pianistic possibi lities o f his part con ceived as a C hopin Ballade
’
,
he must put all his pianistic inspiration into blending h is left h an d

with the piz zi cato o f the strings which then becomes one o f the ,
’
p assage like angels if they thought it part of a popular piece of

musi cal c ookery could think that classical chastity compelled
,
them to tighten these Chords into dry cl i cks whi l e the pianist in ,
‘ ’
a burst of noble manl iness without sentiment uses s ix times the ,
tone that Brahms requires fo r his ethereal melody over its distant
bass .
But the mos t c ru cial case Of a piz zi c ato pas s age 1s m the third
movement ( o r s cherzo) o f the last vio l in sonata ( in D m in o r o p
i
.
,
This in the l ight o f the pub l ished c orrespondence between

,
Brah m s and Frau v o n H e rz o ge n b e rg proves that he w as always ,
wi l ling to a ct upon good advice that c ondescended t o concrete fa cts

instead of moving in an aristocrati c atmosphere of the j e ne s ais - -
oi ; and in it s o w n light it exemp lifies one of the most importa nt

qu
re l ations between form and instrumentation namel y that a version , ,
o f a theme that would seem impossibly c rude o r artifi c i al fo r a first
statement may b e the o n e acceptable and admirable thing by way

of counterstatement Thus the pas sage just quoted from the G
.
,
major Sonata is a return n o t a first statement Again n o reasonable

, .
,
person h as ever obje cted t o the or chestral version o f the theme of

the rondo o f Beethoven s E flat C oncerto first announ ced in mag
’
,
n ific e n t so l o sty l e by the pian oforte ; and in the final e o f the G major
C oncerto everybody is del ighted with the variation in which the .
pianoforte repeats the theme which would have been unplayable in

a literal trans cription o f the ori ginal orc hestral announcement But .
both these c ounterstatements wou l d be o u t o f the question as

original themes I n stage music where everything h as t o fit the
.
,
action o f the movement and musi cal form as su c h h as n o power to

,
pi ck up l ost threads this re l ation between form and texture is either

,
a l most undeve l oped o r devel oped in ways w h i c h would require

,
another spe cial essay t o identify But in all the opposition to .
Brahms nothing h as been commoner than the two tri cks first o f , ,
criticizing h is c ounterstatements as if they were initial statements ,
and se c ondly when a p ianoforte s t atement and a string statement

, ,
prove t o be equal ly bril liant o f saying that Brahms is a fo l lower o f

,
S c humann and never gets away from the pianoforte .
The pizzi cato passage in the D minor Sonata is the recapitu l ation
of the main theme o f the s cherzo ( E x 8 Opposite ) . .
I n the opening statement the pianoforte gives the theme in cold

o ctaves instead o f t w o part c ontrary motion and the violin Chords
-
are half sustained with the b o w But Brahms original l y made them
-
.
pizzicato and c hanged them into arco chords when Frau von
,
BRAHMS S CHAMBER MUSI C
’
37
H e rz o ge nb e rg
persuaded him that it was otherwise imposs ible to
get a convincing colour into the opening The pi zzicato becomes .
rich and delightful as a new colour in the recapitulation w hen added

to the contra ry motion two part harmony That two part harmony
- -
.
-
itself w ould have wasted it s opportunity if it had been used at the

opening instead of cold octaves .
We are now in a position to resume and c onclude the c h ro n o lo gi

cal survey Of Brahms s extant chamber music in the light of the
’
principles here illustrated .
The two huge P ianoforte Quartets in G minor Op 2 5 and A , . ,
major op 2 6 were for H an s lick (the first j ou rnalist to support

, .
,
Brahms since Schumann) the centre of Brahms s art from which he ’
was to deviate at his peril U seful as H an slic k s support was to

.
’
Brahms it came from an unfortunate quarter as regards its effect

,
on musical history; for H an s lick was the original of Wagner s Beck ’
messer — in
the first draft of the M eistersing er text that character s ’
name is a ctually Hans L ich He found in thes e quartets the direct

.
,
result of the last works of Beethoven ; an appre ciation based mainly

on the correct convi ction that such abstruse works w ere the sort of
thing a high minded young composer would study Brahms who
-
.
,
made and kept friendship with H an s lick as a gentleman of culture

and benevolent intentions cannot be supposed to have had much
,
respect for the judgement of a critic to whom Beethoven was acce p

table only in his middle works as being puerile in his first period ,
and decadent in his third ; to whom Haydn and M o z art were court
c omposers an aria of Bach a piece of running clockwork and P ales
, ,
trina as incomprehensible a ho cus po cus as N ewman was to Kings -
ley I f this is not a fair account of the light H an s lick was able to
.
shed upon the c lassi c s it is a quite adequate statement of what the

,
general reader will get from a perusal of his writings in s o far as

they are not devoted mu ch more amusingly to violent abuse of
, ,
23 8 BRAHMS S CHAMBER MUSIC ’
Wagner Berlioz and L iszt The loneliness of Brah m s

, , . w as intensi
fie d by the accession of su c h a partisan .
In these two piano quartets the forms are peculiar to Brahms and ,
in some respects to the works themselves The themes especially .

,
in the A major Quartet have a way of grouping themselves in pairs

, ,
the members o f ea ch pair alternating in an a ctu al binary form whic h

narrowly es capes self completion by breaking o u t at the last moment
-
into the wider field o f dramatic a ction T hi s is quite a different .
state of things from the problem raised by the opening Of the B _
major Trio ; Brahms h as already in the B flat S extet thoroughly ac

quired the swing o f cl assi c al sonata movement and is n o w enl arging -
his sc al e T o deal successfull y with the enormous spa c es which these

.
pairs o f themes an d counterstatements fill t o repletion Brahms for , ,
all the resulting length summons up an energy whi ch is really ide n t i

,
cal with terseness F o r obviously as regards the u se o f materials a

.
, ,
monument made o f twenty Stonehenge blo cks is a terser product

than o n e o f the same size made o f a million bri cks The differen c e .
between such mas onry as that o f these quartets and that of the pro
ve rb ially lap ida ris ch Bru ckn er is that Brahms takes his risk in forms
o f lyric melody whereas Bru c kner s materials are huge W agnerian

’
N ib e lu n ge n Ring processes O n the very rare occasions when

-
.
Brahms writes an introduction he S hows as much mastery of such ,

‘
pro c esses as Wagner himself ; se e the introduction to the finale o f

the very next work the Quintet o p 3 4 But it is o n e o f the points
, , . .
o n whi c h perhaps ,
he felt himself dri ven into opposition to the
,
tenden cies o f the day and he nearly always begins plumb on the
,
toni c with his main theme The ex c eptio n s show that he had plenty
.
Of invention in other dire ctions and that his view o f fine imaginativ e ,
introductory flights w as rather that they were t o o easy to h e often

true .
The c onn exion between form and instrumentation be c omes more

and more intimate as the c omposer s m astery grows Brah m s had ’
.
already shown an astonishing maturity in the s coring o f the first

version o f his B major Trio whi c h becomes crud e only where the ,
c omposer’s material h as made the task o f a cl imax impossible .
From the outset Brahms showed an immense talent fo r c ounter

point and Joa chi m whose deli c ate ear could n o t tolerate the
, ,
s lightes t harshness s aw t o it that Brahms should never allow a

,
,
contrapuntal devic e t o attra ct attention by even a Beethovenish

collision Hence from first t o l ast Brahms had unlimited means
.
, ,
of making his themes do duty as humble but n o t lifeless acco m pani

2 40 BRAHMS S CHAMBER MUSI C
’
into diffi culties when they tried to distinguish his classical ways of
development from the damnable heresies of W agner and L iszt for ,
their analysis never go t beyond the identifi cation o f themes and ,
w as n o t up to ordinary po l ice methods at that But when Brahms .
turns the first eight notes o f his opening theme by a simple rhyt h
mic displacement into the l ilt of an an cient ballad thus : ,
the stroke o f genius is of the same order as those by which Wagner

’
deve l ops the thought o f worl d power from the Rhine maidens -
-
go l den t o y th rough the darkness o f the N ibelung s mind to the ’
foredoomed splendours o f W alh alla In point of form it di ffers .
from this an d similar miracles in Beethoven s B flat Trio op 9 7

'
’
, .
,
in that Brahms s transformation is immediate But immediate or

’
,
gradual such trans formations are governed by a very different law

,
from that whi ch permits or even en c ourages the c ounterstatement

of a whole theme t o take a form that wou l d be un c onvincing as a
first statement A metamorphosis o r a fusion o f t w o originally
.
separate figures into a new unity h as either the value of an in de pe n

dent inspiration 01 it h as none I t c annot be a cc omplis hed m e c h an i
.
c ally Brahms would have jumped at the sprightly combination of

.
the b o y Siegfried s horn theme with that o f his sword ; but the
’
-
attempt in Getterddmm erung t o turn that horn tune into an expres

, ,
-
sion o f matured virility by sophisti cating it s rhythm would no more

have satisfied him than the text o f GOtterdcimm eru ng satisfies that
’ '
perfe ct Wagnerite Bernard Shaw , .
T hi s art o f themati c metamorp hosis w as complete l y mastered by

Brahms with inexhaustib l e fu ll ness and n o vestige Of art ific iality in
his very first works and pervades every Opus vocal and in s t ru
, ,
mental from the S onata o p 1 t o the Vier E rns te Gesang e op 1 2 1

'
, , .
, ,
.
,
and the smal l posthumous c o l le ction o f figured chorales o p 1 2 2 , . .
It is the musical essence o f Wagnerian leitmoti ve , and as su ch its

function is not arc hite ctural but illustrative and decorative I t
,
.
cannot create noble proportions in c omposition but it c an and ,
must enhance them o r c ondemn itself Themati c organiz ation can .
no more build Wagnerian musi c drama o r Brahmsian symphonies -
than tracery mou ldings and stained glass can buil d c athedrals
, ,
.
We may now return to o pp 2 5 and 2 6 and finish with a brief .
history o f ea ch remaining work .

’ '
24 1
T HE G M I NO R PIAN OF OR TE QU A RT E T op 2 5 The first movement ,

. .
is one of the most original and impressive tragic c ompositions since

the first movement of B eethoven s N inth Symphony The associa ’
.
tion of two themes ( characteristic of these quartets ) one in G minor , ,
the other in B fl at produces an astonishing dramatic result when

, ,
after the development section the recapitulation begi ns not with , ,
the fi rst of the pair but w ith the se c ond in t he sunniest G major
, .
Still more astonishing is the transformationo ft h e whole latter half

‘
O f the enormous procession of triumphant and tender second
subject themes in D major into tragic pathos in G minor ; an
’
operation on a scale unprecedented in classical music and surpassed ,
only by L iszt s transformation of the bulk O f the first movement o f

’
his Faust S ymphony int o the M ephistophelian scherzo ; a com

’
parison b y which perhaps Brahms would not feel flattered How .
much the work owes to Joa c him is not known but the austerely ,
’
diatonic transition to the second subject must as we know it be , ,
‘
very different from the passage w hi c h Joa c him found positively
painful The se c ond movement entitled Intermezzo is in out
’
.
,
’
, ,
line a gigantic scherz o and trio each highly organized and in de p e n

, ,
dent in the details of their form In style it is a mysteriously tender .
and pathetic romance and with its strange rhythms and its
, ,
muted violin is one Of Brahms s most typi c al movements The fol

,
’
.
lowing andante is another enormous design in dramatic A B A - -
form the broad main theme ( a ly ri c melody in E flat) leading in

,
a spaciously developed transition passage to an ex c iting military -
episode in C major At the climax of this where Brahms has no

.
,
more scruple in writing orchestrally than he had in the scherzo of

the B major Trio the solo pianist who incautiously lets himself go
,
will find himself playing wrong notes ; and if asked to correct these , ,
will complain that the passag e is badly written for accurate playing
with full tone This is true but it seems a roundabout approach to
.
,
the discovery that Brahms kno ws how to balance the pianoforte

against the strings in his most violent climax The main theme .
resurrects itself out of a ruinous crash in C major and swings round ,
to its original E flat by a change of harmony which delay s its course

for only a few bars .
The finale a Hungarian rondo inspired to terrifi c energy b y that

,
‘
in Haydn s Gipsy Trio c ame as a great S hock to the S uperior
’ ’
,
P erson Its section al dance like structure is a bold addition to the

.
,
-
hi gh organic resources of the whole w ork and is brought into com ,
p le t e harmon y with t he m by the wonderful cadenza in which all its ,
R
242 BRAHMS S CHAMBER MUSIC ’
themes are combined in a polyphony as ac curate as Bach s an d a ’
rhythm as fantastic as L is zt s The fact that this movement is from

’
.
,
beginning to end without precedent o r parallel in Brahms s other

,
’
wo rks is in itself a fact with plenty of precedents and parallels in

Brahms and the classi cs .
T H E A MAJ O R P IAN O FO RT E QUAR TET op 2 6 gave those who could , .

,
understand it at all much less trouble to digest than the G minor .
I t s serenity is O l ymp ian and the high spirits o f its finale are in ,
spite of Hungarian traits athletic rather than Bacchan alian Indeed

, .
,
‘
the C major theme in the se cond subje c t region Of the finale ’ ‘
stretches to the utmost limit the pos sibili t y o f arching a slow theme
over a quick tempo without collapsing from sonata style into Wag
nerian operati c ob literation Of tempo Brah m s however knows .
, ,
what he is doing in thus testing the matter Terser and more .
aphoristi c methods are fo r Older men ; an unaffected young com

poser is wise in l earning t o tell h is story in full before his experience
h as enab l ed him t o judge w hi c h half t o omit in order that the half
may be greater than the whole C riti cs who have no respect for
.
“
youthfulness o f this c al ibre are preparing fo r an Old age that will

be merely unp l eas ant fo r thems e l ves an d others There are abundant .
e conomy and halves greater than who l es in other musical dimensions

and categories thr oughout Brahms s early works ; and the all per ’
-
vading problem o f movement is eminently o n e where the broadest

solutions must precede the terser ones .
The first movement is o f statuesque b e au ty b u t anyone who

'
imagines o n that ground that it is c old wi l l be lucky if he h as the

experien c e o f happening t o hear o r recall the climax where its re
capitulation breaks into the coda and t o mistake it fo r a crescendo
,
in a W agner o pera The mistake is quite possib l e an d the e ffort to

.
,
p l a c e the pas sage wi l l be amusingl y c onfined t o the highest climaxes

o f Tris tan o r Die Wa lkure N o insight into the emotional values of
'
the purel y instrumental is possib l e unti l we abandon the popular

de l usion that because good stage musi c is in its o w n surroundin gs
-
, ,
more ex citing it is made o f more passionate stu ff With the e xce p

, .
tion o f M ozart the great masters o f sonata form are inhibited from
Operati c writing n o t by lack o f passion but by excess of concentra
tion in their passion .
The s l ow movement o f the A major Quartet another masterpiece ,
o f romanti c c o l our with u s e o f mutes is in a fu l ly developed rondo

,
form a fa ct that with the size o f its themes involves a length whi c h
, , ,
it is a triumph o f e c onomy t o keep within bounds The first theme .

forte and strings and yet the most lightly s cored The first move
, .
ment h as a lready been quoted ; it is powerfully tragi c The slow .
movement is a broad lyri c in A B A form The thunderous - -

.
s cherzo in its main body follows the form and modulations of that
in Beethoven s C minor Symphony more closely than Brah m s ever
’
elsewhere followed a single example The resemblan ce disturbs .
nobody and the trio a big triumphant binary me lody in the major
'
, , , ,
goes it s o w n Brahmsian way The finale is like that o f the A major .

,
Quartet 3 big binary movement with the development section

,
omitted o r rather repla ced by a considerable dis cuss ion between

,
the re capitu lation o f the first subject and that o f the second This .
form w as amplified from M ozart by S chubert whose spirit pervades ,

"
t hi s quintet more than any other work o f Brahms though from first ,
t o las t it is by far the most c onspi c uous influen c e in the origins of

his style Beethoven is the founder o f his art forms and Ba ch the
.
-
founder o f hi s pol yphony ; but their influen ce o n h is style is as

impe rsonally general as the influen ce o f the s u m Of classi cal litera
ture upon M ilton Brahms w as bound t o Schumann by every tie
.
o f personal a ffe ction sympat hy gratitude ( with him n o irksome

, ,
fee l ing) and sorrow but S chumann s musi c had no more influence
, ,
’
o n hi s style than Spohr s fo r whose jesso nda he c onfessed to an

’
,
auld lang syne a ffe ction o f the kind whi ch he personal l y cou ld
- -
never lose S chube rt however is always looking over his shoulder

.
‘
, , ,
and in this quintet might have been guiding h is pen fo r pages in ,
the se c ond subje ct o f the first movement the main theme o f the ,
slow movement and the whole body Of the finale The savage flat
, .
supertoni c a ccia c catu ra ( D flat C) at the end o f the s cherzo comes

straight from the end o f S chubert s Quintet and from nowhere else ’
in the whol e h istory o f final c hords And the art forms o f this .
-
quintet are the neare s t c on ceivable approa ch t o what S chubert would

have a chieved had he l ived t o bring h is instrument al unorthodoxies
t o mature consisten cy n o t through those amputations by which a cock
,
sure teacher can s o e asily implant in his pupil a profound s cepti cism
as t o any part o f a work being more necessary than any other part ,
but by a c cumulated experien c e o f what his ideas really imply .
From the opening onwards the F m inor Quintet abandons the ,
device o f alternating c ouples o f themes and thus sets itself free to ,
expand it s materia l more rapidly This freedom henceforth extends .
over every type o f Brahms s form s ’

.
Brahms would have acted more kindly t o posterity and n o t less ,
prudently fo r his o w n reputation if ins tead Of destroying all h is , ,

B RA H M S S ’
C HAMBER MUSIC 245
unpublished work s and sketches he had made legal provision that ,
ghouls should not be allowed access to his grave until fifty years
‘
after his death No doubt the best string players of 1 947 w ould
.
-
come to the same conclusion as Joa chim and Brahms himself abou t
the original version Of the F minor Quintet if it could be called up ,
from the flames ; but they would learn incalculab ly more than that
conclusion from the experience which led to it A s things are .
,
however the only four notes which indicate that t he P ianoforte

,
Quintet I s not an intact original are at the beginning of the in t ro du c

tion to the finale where the pianoforte h as to do duty for the
,
original second Violoncello This however need cause no distress

.
, ,
if the pianist c an be shaken out of his professional etiquette to the

extent of realizing that the lack of pianistic character in his faintest
audible touch is here a merit instead of a defe ct The Violoncello .
is here equally deficient in ce llis tic tone It is the character Of all

’
.
whispers to have no character .
S ECO ND SEXTE T I N G MAJ O R op 3 6 From the symphonic , . .
massiveness which annihilated op 3 4 as a string quintet this sextet .

,
shows a delightful reaction The first sextet was sonorous like an .
organ or better like M o zart s Serenade for thirteen wind in s tru

, ,
’
ments The G major Sextet is the most ethereal of all Brahms s

.
’
larger works and is penetrated by sunshine which the shadow of

,
the earthly pathos of the slow movement eclipses only to reveal the
corona and the stars The first movement swings along in rhythms
.
which are now subtle as well as broad ; its development like that ,
’
of the A major Quartet and many of Brahms s later first movements ,
concentrates itself around a single remote ne w key instead of

rapidly modulating Here it does not go to this distant key ( C sharp
.
mino r) until it has Opened in D minor with one Of the most brilliant
contrapuntal tours de force extant which like all the counterpoint , ,
Brahms admitted into his mature works presents not a note that ,
does not strike the c ar as the best possible melodic step in the best
e t asso mm e ingenuit y of similar
’
possib le harmony The m arche ou j
.
- - -
canonic devices in e g the tenth of the Variations op 9 on a theme

, . .
, .
,
of Schumann was in after years marked by Brahms with a huge

,
in the copy of a friend .
The scherzo of this sextet is of a new kind and tempo its main ,
poco allegretto time ) portion being a highly organi zed binary

movement with two well de fin e d themes and considerable develop
-
ment aerial in scor i ng ( like the whole work) and quietly plaintive
,
in an e lfin way The key is G minor The trio is a rousing dance

. .
24 6 BRAHMS S CHAMBER MUS IC
’
( presto 3,
returning to the m ain movement in a picturesque
diminuendo Brahms s scherzos generally have a simp le da capo
.
’
with no coda and unlike Beethoven he does not usual ly alter the
, , ,
dynamics or scor ing o f his da capo s o as t o necessitate writing it

out in full But here he does s o because the original quiet end
.
,
without change of a bar in the plan breaks away in a livel y rush O f ,
trip l ets Altogether a study o f childhood worthy o f Haydn Words

.
,
worth or even o f life itself Sti ll more profound is the slow move
,
.
ment a s e t o f variations in E minor o n a theme m o re s u b tle than

,
h as ever been s o treated elsewhere The theme is bi nary but its .

,
sections are n o t repeated until after two quiet variations ; it arises

in wrath in the th ird and fourth variation where the repeats reveal ,
it s firm solidity The fifth variation is separated from the others b y

.
a few bars o f quiet introd u ction upon which it unfolds its e lf in , ‘
the major in a tempo half as fast and therefore twice as big (the
,
semiquavers cont inuing the original quaver motion s o that no ,
change o f pace is felt) And s o sustained by an adequate coda this

.
, ,
last variation arches itself over the whol e l ike a s ky in which all
clouds are resting o n the horizon and dazzl ingly white This move .
ment is the quintessence o f Brahms in a form which neither ,
puzzled hi s admirers n o r O ffered t o his opponents a region of art

in whi ch they could imagine that their writs were current N ot so .
the finale whi ch presented far t o o wide a range of style for the
,
“
f
’
g rowing band o Brah m ins t o feel co m fortable The movement .
is n o t l ess brilliant than subtle one o f the very few whi ch Brahms
,
opens by preluding in harmonies that lie ob liquely across the key ,
and misleading rather from the fearless simplicity of its first canta
bile theme (another sublime study in chi l dhood) than from the
abstruse intellectuality t hat w as imputed t o it by Deiters and other
friends o f Brahms .
F I RS T S ONATA F OR P IAN OFO RTE AND V I OLO NCELL O I N E M I NO R ,
op 3 8
. . This first extant duet o f Bra h ms is a work o f dark colou r in ,
which full advantage is taken o f the superb bass that a Violoncello

can give t o the pianoforte even in massive pianoforte chords pro
, ,
vide d that all meaningl ess doubling is avoided I n t his work the .
vio lo n c e llo hardly rises beyond it s tenor region The first move
~
‘
ment marches like gorgeous tragedy in s ceptred pal l until the ’
‘
quiet major end o f it s indignant second subject is in the re ’
,
capitulation expanded into a pathetic coda in which the movement

,
expires in peace .
The develop ment is very broad and is re m arkab l e in form for ,

whi ch possessed no s cale but the harmoni c series (ratios k i 4
,
‘’
:
‘
SI C ) as open not es with the addit io n o f such m u flie d adjacent
’
.
,
lower semitones o r (with extreme m u fliin g) such tones as c ould be

obtained by partially closing the hell with the hand into an in s t ru ,
ment with a c ompl ete chromatic scale and a capa city fo r blending
imperceptibly with a l l other orchestral tones thr oughout it s com
pass except if for ced to extreme height when it be c omes nervous
, , .
This capa city fo r b l ending depends however upon the horn

‘
, ,
p l ayer s retaining o n e Of the cl assi cal methods in u se with the

’
‘
primitive instrument by whi ch the tone o f the Ope n notes w as
,
’
softened s o as t o a llow the cl osed notes to be used wh ere melody ,

‘
required them without obvious pat chiness In the first fin e care
,
.
less rapture o f the ventil horn this habit w as abol ished like aristo ,
crati c manners in a reign o f terror and the ventil horn threatened ,

‘
to be c ome n o better than that c hromati c bullo ck the ophi cleide ’
, .
Stronger language c ou l d n o t be used than that o f Wagner in the

preface t o Tris tan the very work whi c h first fu l ly exp l ored the
,
possibilities o f the ventil horns and n o t a p age o f whi c h c ould be ,
re s c ored without them

-
Y et Wagner says that he wou l d have made
.
up his mind t o do without the new instrument had he n o t found ,
that by c arefu l pra cti c e under proper instru ction the p l ayer could
a c quire nearly the qualities o f the o ld horn s tyle .
Brahms Was doing nothing more rea ctionary than illustrating

‘
Wagner s prefac e t o Tris tan when he laid spe cial stress upon using
’
a val ve l ess horn with an E flat c rook fo r this trio He explained to .
his friends that if the p l ayer were n o t compe ll ed t o b l end his Open
notes with his c losed ones he wou l d never learn t o blend his tone
,
in Chamber musi c at a l l N owadays when every horn player a cc epts

.
,
-
the demands o f Tris tan as c l assi c al it is n o t necessary t o risk a ,
pub l i c performan ce o f Brahms s Horn Trio o n the natural in st ru ’
ment o n whi ch many unavoidab l e difli c u lt ie s are merely vexatious

, .
But every horn p l ayer shou l d before resting satisfied with his easy
-
mastery o f this work o n the modern instrument find o u t by prac , ,
t is in g it o n the E flat crook without using the valves what a wonder ,
ful variety Of tone c o l ours it presents when he is c ompelled t o blend

-
c losed notes with open ones O n the modern instrument he is in .
no danger o f playing brassily as in the days o f Wagner s prefac e to ’
Tris tan ; the troub l e nowadays is that the soft legato technique is
distributed uniformly o n e may n o t u n fairly s ay artlessly over the
, ,
whole scale and that the p l ayer h as no longer the s l ightest idea of
,
what his instrument c ou l d do if he p l ayed Brahms t o s ay nothing ,

’
2 49
of M ozart and Beethoven on the intended Waldhorn method , .
When he has explored that possibility to it s limits then let him u s e ,
the ventils to remove merely vexatious diffi culties and minimize the
risks Of aestheti c ally expressive di ffi culties But the attitude of a .
C hau ffeur to an obsolete make of motor c ar does n o t lead t o dis t in c -
tion in the fi ne arts All wind instrument players must live by

.
-
orchestral work in default of scope in c hamber musi c and many ,
orchestral wind players must imperil eve n t heir or ch estral te c h

-
nique by scavenger work in revues and c inemas In these c ondi

-
.
tions finan c ial endowment is required if a horn player is t o have

,
-
leisure to discover what Brahms s trio really means ’

.
The first movement I S I n a form whi c h Brahms may have remem

bered to have seen in a little known violin sonata of M ozart in C
-
w here an andante theme a lternates with a lively al legro in the co m

p le m e n t ar y key the two
,
se c tions then re c urring ( both in the toni c )
so as to balan c e in a binary form without development Brahms s
’
.
‘ ‘
balance of keys is new and delicate ( andante in E flat ; piti
‘
mosso ’
in C minor and G minor ; andante again in E flat ; piti
’
mosso in E flat minor and B flat minor s o as to lead to andante ,
in G flat with a dramatic crescendo leading to a c limax in the tonic

,
followed by a solemn dying away) .
The scherzo is ex c eedingly lively and gives the horn plenty Of ,
scope for energy A personal reminiscen c e may be pardoned here

.
and may serve to indicate that many statements in this article have
been left I n the form of unsupported dogma merely from lack o f
space When I played this trio with Joa c him and Rudel 1n Berlin
.
‘
9
i n 1 02 ,I was ferociously atta c ked by a critic for n o t feeling the
’
impertinence of bolting like that in the presen c e of Joach im But .
during rehe arsal Joa c him had found neither my first n o r my se c ond
starting of the scherzo fast enough and he w as exactly satisfied with ,
my tempo at the c on c ert In the quiet B major passage where the violin
.
and horn pull the theme out by holding every third note for an extra
bar w hile the pianofo rte interpolates pianissimo arpeggios a custom ,
has long arisen of taking a S lower tempo This I can testify .

,
from the above experien c e to be a mistake Though this way o f

, .
‘
augmenting a theme ( here devised for the first time) became a
’
chara cteristic of Brahms s later style he had n o t yet c ome to the point
’
,
w hen his action w as so rapid and his texture so concentrated as to

compel him to sla cken h is tempo The time when marks like p iu .
’
sostenuto are required for stormy and exciting developments is
not reached until the G major Violi n Sonata o p 7 8 ; in t h e Horn , .
’
Trio Brahms is still solving his problems on the broadest lines .
This B major episode is n o ruminating profundity o r c on c entrated

development but the l ig htest and most p l ayful episode in the work
, .
The dramatic mystery and gl oom o f the powerful slow movement

are lightened by o n e gleam o f grey dawn before it c loses in darkn ess .
This gleam foreshadows th e theme o f the finale whi ch in full , ,
sonata form c loses the work in a glorious hunting s cene ; appro

,
-
c Wald
'
p riat e,
ly for t o what other purpose is the natural horn alled
horn and co r de chasse ?
- -
T w o S T RI N G QU AR T ETS I N C M I N O R AN D A M I N O R op 5 1 The
, , . .
history o f Brahms s Pianoforte Quintet and the fact that up till now
’
his t w o other works for strings alone were sextets may incline u s ,
to be l ieve that Brahms had extraordinary difficulty in reducing his

massive harmony and polyphony to the li m its o f four solo strings .
We know that he destroyed an unas c ertainable number of string

quartets before the appearan c e o f o p 5 1 and it is very unlikely .
,
that this pair o f works w as fashioned with e as e Their c riterion is .
Of impe cc able e c onomy and purity o f quartet style if we do not ,
in cul c ate a dis cip l inarian idea that it is a c rime t o succeed in makin g
four solo strings sound like an or chestra O n that dis ciplinarian .
View we shall without any need t o u se o u r ears n o t only c ondemn

, ,
the agitated middle episode o f the andante o f the A minor Quartet ,
with it s tr emolo a cc ompaniment t o a canoni c re citative between

‘
violin and Violon c ello but shall deliver t o the c ommon hang m an
,
the development o f the first movement and the main bulk of the
s c herzo o f the very quartet o f Beethoven from whi c h the author of
the arti c le Quartet in Grove s Diction ary cited as th e criterion of
’ ’
,
quartet style a pas sage fo r whi c h the most perfect earthly orchestra
,
would be into l erably coarse Brahms s string quartets especially

’
.
’
,
the A minor have p l enty o f su ch ethereal pas sages and to Cxpe ct

, ,
a big string quartet t o c onsist o f nothing else is l ike expecting a

c osmi c epi c whi c h provides the onl y environment in which the
,
‘
l ines M atthew Arnol d c ites as tou chstones o f poetry c an grow ’
,
t o provide lines o f n o other type .
Another difference between Brahms s string quartets and those ’
of Beethoven and M ozart is that there is far more double stopping -

.
T hi s might be expe cte d in any c ase from the ful lness o f harmony
ne c essary fo r even the most as cetic statement o f Brah m s s ideas ; ’
but hi s double stopping h as n o tenden cy t o destroy his quartet

-
st yl e ; the four instruments retain th eir individuality even though ,
as at the end o f t h e romanz e in the C minor Quartet the viola ,

The scherzo is in it s main body like a querulous brother or sister

o f that o f the G major Sextet in darker c olour throughout , The .
trio ( also analogous to that in the sextet as regards major mode and
the c ontrast betw een duple and triple time) is highly picturesque
in scoring .
From the F minor key o f the s c herzo the opening figure of the
short finale arises in wrath Brahms never indi cates that two in.
depend e nt movements are t o fol l ow o n without break ; b ll t not only

does he in all c ases c alculate the e ffe ct o f the last chord of one
mov ement o n the first o f the next ( Haydn and Beethoven are very
parti cular in this matter) but he here fo r the first time contrives to
,
make a short finale gain in weight by it s effect as a kind o f epilogue

t o the previous movement and t o the who l e work Su c h is the sens e .
o f the fin ale s o f the C major Trio o p 8 7 the V io l on c el l o Sonata , .

, ,
op .
99
, and the Cl arinet Trio o p 1 1 4 Their wonderful ,
c omplete
. .
ness o f form and climax is disgI Iis e d by their extreme terseness

'
but produ ces an effect o f the noblest proportions and final e m o

t io n al aptness if the l istener regards these movements as codas to
the pre c e ding s c herzos .
T hi s impression o f final ity is enfor c ed in the C m inor Quartet

by the fa ct that the opening figure o f the final e is a compound of
those o f the romanze and the first movement This might have .
happened without intention but the allusion is made quite explicit

,
in the l as t bars A s a single movement this finale is not one to

.
‘
fl att e r the Brahmin s but p l aye rs w h o have outgrown mad bu ll
’
,
-
method s o f atta c k fin d it excitingl y sonorous and l isteners find it a ,
c onvin cin g an d impre s s ive end t o a work full o f tragi c passion .
The A minor Quartet though al so fu ll o f tragedy and Often dark

,
‘
in col our h as abundan c e Of re l ief the second subje ct of the first
, ,
’
movement being o n e o f the most attra ctive and graceful passages

Brahms ever wrote Po lyphony o f Bac h l ike thoroughness and
.
-
M ozart l ike euphony is the normal texture ex c ept fo r the tremo l os

-
above des c ribed and these o c cur in passages o f cl ose c anon I n the
, .
first movement the pathetic first theme ( p l a c ed ob l iquel y a c ross the

key) is foredoomed t o a tragi c end The s l ow movement is a broad .
and e l aborate A B A design with considerab l e expansion in de

- -
v e lo p m e n t and c oda ; it s ruminating first theme is o f a kind that
many Brahmins have eagerl y imitated under the mistaken impres

’
‘
s ion that su c h thi ngs c an be a c hiev ed by logi ca l deve l opment ’
.
I n the p l a c e o f s c herzo the third movement is a s l ow minuet

with patheti c ally drooping c aden c es alternating wit h a polyphoni c ,
BRAHMS S CHAMBER MUSIC ’
253
t riO in du ple t im e
'
'
and running rhythm twice I nterrupted by the ,
minuet tempo with a combination of the two themes wonderfully

-
transforming that of the trio .
The fi nale is a lively rondo not tragic but master Of its fate and , ,
in high spirits of a kind which exhilarate the listeners without

suggesting that their temper is to be t rifle d with .
T HI RD PIAN OF O RT E QUAR T ET op 60 in C minor This work , .

,
‘
.
—
had been drafted h ow far finished we do not know at the same

, s
time as the other two pianoforte quartets It w as then in C sharp .
minor but we do not know whether the key relation of the other
,
movements was the same as now nor indeed whether the draft ,
proceeded beyond the first m ovement The scherz o w as long b e .
lie ve d to be of a still earlier period and to have been expanded from

that of a violin sonata written on the musi c al letters of the name
of Joa c him s friend Gisela von Arnim ( Gis e la) by S c humann
’
, , ,
Brahms and Dietri c h each writing a movement Joachim himselfwas

, , .
under this impression until he s aw this sonata again some years after
Brahms s death and found that the scherzo ( which it w as then de cided
’
,
to publish as a posthumous work) had no resemblan c e to that of op 60 .
beyond being in time free in form and of a fiery temper , , .
The first movement of op 60 seems in its original form to have .
got into di ffi culties the nature of whi c h it is useless to guess All

, .
w e know is that at the time of the first draft Brahms told a friend
to think of the opening as of a man resigned to utter despair ; a
description which still holds good in its present form For the rest .
,
‘
it has been a misfortune to criti c s especially to the Brahmins ,
’
themselves that the work was ever known to have had a history
, .
‘
H an slic k dropped expressions about the technique Of a beginner
’
which showed how unlikely it is that Beckmesser ever will attain

the st atus of a beginner even in the knowledge of the art w hi ch he
most sin c erely admires The only passage in the whole work which
.
might have been achieved with an earlier te c hnique than that of the
B flat Sextet is the grandiose transformation of the first theme in
the development with its Schubert like twofold appearan c e in B
,
-
major and G major If as is likely this belonged to the first draft

.
, , ,
its retention with its drastically simple scoring only shows that a
great artist s view o f the range of styles that can be united in o n e
’
_
w ork of art is that o f a spe ctator o f all time and existence It gives
rise to a far more drasti c ally simple passage by which the re c ap itu
lation ( which is in an unexpected new key) leads to the abrupt
tragi c coda From beginning to end the first move ment is writt e n
.
2 54 B R A H MS S C H A M B E R M U S I C
’
with a technique as far beyond that of the tw o other piano quartets

as Beethoven s Fifth s y mphony is beyon d the possibilities of his
’
S ec ond W e have no re c ord o f the changes Brahms had to make

.
in this work but they must have been enormous ; fo r Joachim told
,
me in private conversation that in its first version this C minor (then

‘
C sharp minor) quartet w as very diffuse And as we have seen ’
.
, ,
it s t w o prede c ess ors though n o t diffuse fo r their own purposes

, ,
strain to the utmost permiss ible limits the length Of their themes
and the c ompleteness o f their statements and c ounterstatements .
A work that can have seemed t o Joachim diflu s e in comparison with

the G minor and A major Qua rtets cannot have proceeded for more
than tw o o r three su cc essive staves upon the lines of op 60 as we .
n o w kn ow it . Di ffuseness is the l ast quality t o impute to a work in

whi c h the S chubertian pro c ess already cited and the leisurely hand
ling o f the se c on d subje ct o f the slow movement give an effect Of
’
ex ceptional breadth A c omparison o f that S c hubertian pro c ess

.
with typi c al examples by S chubert himself w ill show that Brahms .
h as made and repeated his point in the time it takes S chubert to

S how the pattern o f his sequen c e N 0 other works o f Brahms not
.
,
even the First and Fourth Symphonies S how s o wide a range of

,
‘
forms The most as tonishing novelt y is the c asting o f the second
.
subject o f the first movement into the form o f an eight bar melody -
ending o n a h alf close and fol lowed by a s e t o f five variations In

-
.
the recapitulation which is very unexpe ctedly in the bright domi

,
nan t key o f G major Br ahms begin s with two new variations

,
marking the return t o the o ld ones by an expansion the original ,
third and fourth variation being expanded into the tragi c c oda .
The key o f G major had been arrived at as a revelation of the pre

destined result o f a mysterious incident in the opening of the move
ment when over the first pause o n the dominant a pizzi c ato E
,
n atural asked an unexpect ed question t o w hi ch an immediate for

,
t is s im o replied with what w as evidently an angry refusal t o consider

it Thus Brahms is n o w developing his forms entirely from their
.
dramati c import outwards as in the maturest works o f Beethoven

, .
He w as always t o o great an artist t o s et up form s a priori and S hovel

his musi c into them ; but he h as n o w reached a level o f organization
at w hi ch a prio ri notions o f form n o t only fail t o illustrate his work ,
but often simply mis l ead .
The short and powerful s cherzo is best understood as b oth a

rea ction from and a c oda t o the auda cious l y abrupt tragic end of
the first movement Some o f it s themes are near enough to the
.
from the middle works o f Beethoven as can be seen to be in good

taste without any referen ce t o su c h tiresome things as contexts .
T HI RD S TR IN G QUART ET I N B F L AT o p 67 The tragic work that , . .
’
proved in digestible t o the ort hodox Brah m ins w as promptly fol
lowed by a H aydn e s q u e comedy that gave far more offen c e Solemn .
peop l e do n o t like being teased and in real l ife Brahms never quite
,
g o t over the teas ing habit But he did n o t take the trouble to tease
.
peop l e whom he dis l iked ; and that is where the humour o f the
alternate l y teasing and c oaxing first movement o f this quartet
resembles Haydn s and differs radi c al l y from that Of Wagner who
’
c ertainl y did n o t l ike either Be ckmesser o r the original Hans L i ch .
The slow movement is in form l ike a popu l ar version of that in

, ,
the A minor Quartet I t does n o t deserve disparagement but it doe s

.
,
sugge st the probab il ity that Brahms had among his reje cted works
written many like it o n the border l ines o f ea s y c on c eption and lab
‘
,
-
o u re d ex e c ution an d th at h e re we have the onl y examp l e that did

,
n o t overstep those l ines U ndoubtedl y he would have become far

.
more popular if most o f h is slow movements had been rep licas o f

this.
The third movement a s cherzo in form and a pas sionate lyri c

,
in s tyl e h as always made a profound impression I t is both in its

,
.
,
free l y expansive main se ction and in its trio a viola so l o the other , ,
strin gs being muted I t requires a moderate tempo and great

.
natural freedom o f rhyt hm in the viola part .
Throughout the first movement s c herzo and final e o f this quar , ,
tet the pro m inen c e o f the viola h as rather s c andalized the orthodox ,
but there is nothing in it antagonistic t o quartet style The c riterion .
o f absolute equa l ity o f the four parts is impra cti c ab l e and all ows for
nothing but the most c omp l ex styl es The e ffe ct o f giving spe cial .
prominen c e t o the viol a o r ( as in M ozart s last three quartets ) to

,
’
the Vio l on c e l lo is as here a spe c ial e ffe ct o f c olour ; and obviously

, , ,
t o give spe c ia l prominen c e t o the se c on d violin would be either to

produ c e an a cc ompanied violin duet o r in ex c ess t o ex c hange the , ,
‘ ‘
terms firs t and se c ond
’ ’
.
The finale is a s et o f variations o n o n e o f the most kittenish

themes sin ce Haydn Brahms nowhere shows a profounder insight
.
into sonata style than in his cl ear preservation o f the melody

throughout a s e t o f variations when it is a movement in a sonata .
I n the sonata s tyle we fee l o u r way by identifying the themes as

mel odies ; hen c e a s e t Of variations as part o f a sonata S hould not ,
in Brahms s opinion treat the mere harmonic and rhythmi c scheme

’
,
’
57
as equivalent to the melody in the w ays w hich are so interesting
and desirable in independent variations .
N othing could have been easier than to drag in the ghost o f

previous movements in free variations towards the end of the
finale ; in this way a popular idea of musical evolution is readily
jerry built w hen in vention fails But Brahms does something very
-
.
different Towards the end of these M ozart H aydn mel odic varia
.
-
tions the main themes of the first and second subjects of the first
movement are combined not contrapuntally but with the melodic
lines of the variation theme And so the work expands in grand
.
proportions and childlike happiness to its close .
F I R ST S ON ATA FOR PIAN OF O RTE AN D VI O L I N I N G MAJ OR op 7 8 , , . .
This fifth of Brahms s e fforts in the most di fficult of all problems in

’
chamber music solves its problem in terms of an extraordina ry

predominance of cantabile in which the violin is leading almost the
,
whole time In the first movement the development is the only

.
stormy passage in the whole w ork and room is made for its crow ded,
‘ ‘
incidents by slackening the tempo ( p it I sostenuto — s o that the
‘
poco a po c o tempo I m w hich leads to the return is a slight
O
’
accelerando a point not always understood by good players without

,
special experience in Brahms .
The adagio is a solemn dramatic and highly developed A B A

, ,
- -
movement with themes of great rhythmic freedom and a coda in

‘ ’
which those Of the agitated middle section are augmented in a
passage of treme ndous depth The influen c e of the adagio of
.
Beethovens G major S onata op 9 6 may be suspected here

’
, .
,
.
Disaster awaits performers who attack the middle section without

‘ ’
understanding that Brahms uses the words piu andante in their
‘
correct Italiansense of going on i e faster ’
, . . .
There is no scherz o and the fi nale is a gently fl owing rondo in

,
G minor ending in the major only in the coda The theme though
,
.
,
its rhythmic initial figure suggests that of the first movement ,
comes from a couple o f songs (Regenlied and N achklang) written

some years earlier ; but a flood of light is throw n on the nature of
musi c al form and rhetori c by carrying the comparison beyond the
first two bars It will be found that not only is the continuation
.
different in each of the songs but that within the sonata there are
,
several fresh continuations rising in proper order to their climax

,
.
An equally significant point is the use of the theme of the slow

movement for the second episode and coda of this rondo I t is no .
mere ghost su c h as can be easily evoked by writing o u t the Old

,
S
25 8 BRA H MS
’
S CHA M BER MUSIC
theme in the notation o f the new tempo in disregard of the resulting
stagnation o f movement ; but it consists of the first s ix notes of the
adagio with a new c ontinuation that makes it not on ly the warmest
but the most urgent theme in the finale I n the c oda its new iambi c .
rhythmi c figure gives rise to a series o f modulations anti cipating on

a small s cal e the so l emn end o f the Third Symphony .
TR I O I N C MAJ OR F O R P I AN OF O RT E V I O L I N AND V I O L ONCELL O

, , , ,
op 87
. Three movements o f this work are o n the l argest possible
.
scale while the short finale is as h as been suggeste d above best

, , ,
understood as if the s c herzo had led t o it The first movement is as .
broad as those o f the first t w o pianoforte quartets with the differ ,
ence that it s numerous themes instead Of being immediately of t he ,
utmost permissible breadth are terse statements with unlimited ,
powers o f expansion The styl e is grandly energetic with deep

.
shadows o f mystery the mystery Of nature rather than romance

, .
The deve l opment is remarkably S c hubertian and transforms the

‘
first theme into an augmentation fo r whi c h Brahms requires a ’
qui cker tempo an unexpe cted phenomenon fo r him especial l y in

, ,
S O late a work .
The slow movement is a gl orious s e t o f variations on a theme of

heroi c pathos akin t o that o f the first sextet but o n a higher plane
, ,
.
At first o ne might think t hat the quiet fourth variation in the majo r
mode w as an ex c eption t o Brahms s rule that in sonata works varia ’
tions S hou l d preserve the melody but in this movement there are ,
t w o simu l taneous melodies o n e fo r the strings and the other for

,
the pianoforte ; and here the pianoforte theme is c arried straight

through with ornamentation whic h c ombines the harmonic lu xu ri
o u s n e s s o f Brahms with the s c hematic accuracy o f M ozart .
The dark pianissimo s c herzo with it s huge white cloud bank ,

-
trio is extremel y d iffi cu l t fo r the pianist t o execute with the n e ce s

,
sary lightness o f tou c h but never fai l s t o make an impression The

, .
final e o n the other hand is usuall y ruined by being p l ayed far too
, ,
fast when nothing resu l ts but an admirab l y terse exer cise in form
, .
I n real l ife it is fu ll o f humour and mystery and leads t o a m agn ifi ,
c e n t ly sonorous end Brahms s notation goes t o o far in pres c ribing

.
’
c ommon instead o f alla breve time but at al l events it conveys

-
a hint .
S T R I N G QU I NTET I N F MAJ OR o p 8 8 This comparatively , . .
neglected work is o n e o f Brahms s most unconventional c omposi ’
tions It h as al l the sonorousness o f the first sextet and one is

.
,
tempted to think that Brahms enjoyed in it a feeling o f relief after

’
excell ent c oncert programme their contrasts being in the nature o f

, ,
the case exactly what represented the happiest rea ctions o f the c o m
,
poser himself .
’
They are the tersest o f all Brahms s works the only passage ,
whi c h takes up any room o n paper being the cloud capped tower -
’
opening o f the coda o f the first movement Of the A major Violin

Sonata Their forms though presenting few abnormalities S how
.
, ,
all the more clearly in their extraordinary compre ssi o n that Brahms
never c onstru cted o n an a priori s c heme and never exa ctly repeated
The F major C ello Sonata gives thi s instrument far more range
’
than it had in o p 3 8 This is splendidly illustrated by the transition

. .
from first subje ct to second .
Ex 15
.
The broken rhythm o f the main theme and the ways in whi c h it
is transformed into sust ai ned figures in the course o f development
c onstitute a notable addition t o the resour c es o f sonata style The .
whispering c hromatic episode in F sharp minor at the beginning o f

the development is another pe culiar feature and in its c hoice o f
,
key prepares the ear fo r the remote key o f the slow movement The .
tremol os fo r the pi anoforte and ( l egato a cross the strings ) fo r the

’
c ell o shocked the o rthodox at the time this work appeared but ,
Brahms knows n o aesthetic criteria but those o f the ear and of the
individual work as a whole and does n o t hesitate t o add t w o magni
,
fic e n t new c o l ours t o the resourc es o f c hamber musi c The c ellist

’
.
should keep the b o w evenl y o n the t w o strings involved with a move ,
ment hardl y distinguishable from a sustained double note ; and the

pianist sh ould observe that Brahms foll ows Beethoven ( in the D
major Trio) and L iszt passim in regarding the best tremolo as n o t
indefinit e ly fast but c onsi sting o f an exa ct even number o f notes The .
marks Of damping down the sound (sf p ; f > mp ; should be

carefully acted upon Brahms however once found hi mself play
.
, ,
ing this sonata with a c ellist Of n o great promise o r a c complishment

’
,
an d accordingly opened the throttle o f the pianoforte and let her

BRAHMS S CHAMBER MUSI C
’
26 1
rip an d roar The cellist s voice penetrated the din with the com
.
’ ’
plaint M aster I can t hear my self at all and Brah m s barked

, ,
— ’
‘
back at him L ucky for you B ut this is n o t the w ay classical
,
’
.
traditions should be formed .
The slow movement in F sharp major the key a semitone above ,
the tonic might have been written in G flat had n o t it s important

, , ,
modulation ( after the return of the main theme) t o i ) major been

a troublesome affair to read in E double flat The unusual key -
.
relations hi p is thought out with the profoundest thoroughness and

accuracy There are three important earlier classi c al examples
.
which neatly show the stages of progress in the handling of such

ideas First there is C arl P hilipp E manuel B ach w ho in a sym
.
,
phony in D major has a sho rt middle movement in E flat To justify .
this he introduces it by a dramatic passage ta cked on to the end of

the fi rst Translated into E nglish prose this means grotesque and
.
,
foolish as it may seem to the sober listener it is absolutely true that ,
the slow movement is in E flat Very different is the procedure of ’

.
Haydn to whom such a key relation is a paradox true enough to

,
-
be worth stating violently In his last pianoforte sonata ; which is

.
in E fl at the slow movement is in E natural

, F fl at) Hay dn .
begins the slo w movement straightforwardly on its tonic and ,
pointedly b e g1n s his finale with the one note which unharmonized , ,
most fl atly contradicts the key of the slow movement without re

asserting the key of E flat until the bass explains it The third stage .
is represented b y Beethoven in his C sharp minor Quartet and ( in

a more extreme form) by Brahms here To Beethoven and Brahms .
this remote key is Simply that of the flat supertonic as used ever ,
since mid classical tonality of major and minor modes in scales of

-
all pitches communicating with each other by chords in common .
The founder of classical tonality Alessandro Scarlatti already used , ,
this flat supertonic so constantly in ultra minor cadences that the -
form of chord in which it conveniently occurs is called after his ,
scu o la the
, N eapolitan sixth ’
.
This F sharp major slow movement compresses a great amount

of design into a small space whi c h nevertheless seems able to ,
expand without limit The pi zzicato of the cello here makes a

.
’
splendid and novel bass to the full harmony of the pianoforte an d

is worked to a tremendous climax when the strain is brought back
after the dark remote depths of the F minor middle episode .
’
Hausmann with B rahms s approval made a great accelerando at
, ,
this crescendo thus providing a natural means of carrying the

,
2 62 B R AH M S S C H A M B E R M U S I C
’
resonan c e o f the piz zi c ato over the notes before th ey dry up .
The impassioned and highly devel oped movement whi c h takes

the form and pla c e o f s c herzo and trio requires free rhyt h m and
more l egato and cantabile in both instruments than the l o ok O f the
page suggests The openi n g p ianoforte theme though diffic ult
.
, ,
should n o t be c on ceived as a bril l iant tour de force O ther c on .
t ras t e d themes must press forward but as a whole the movement ,
is n o t t o be hust l ed The great me l ody o f the trio is also in no

.
hurry and in the B major p assage beginning sevente en bars after

,
the doub l e bar the pianist must real ize that h is l ight figures are
,
n o mere a cc ompan iment but are outl i ni ng the c ontinuation of the
mel ody The rondo whi c h ends the sonata with the smallest and most
.
c hildl ike o f Brahms s fin ale s is o n e o f those c ases where the small

’
final e h as the effe c t o f an epi l ogue t o the previous movement Brahms .
l iked a l ivel y temp o fo r it I n any tempo it is di ffi cult to achieve

.
the nec essary l ightn ess o f tou c h and ac c ent in both instruments .
The A major Vio l in Sonata o p 1 00 is throughout one of , .

,
Brahms s most me l odious works I t is sometimes known by the

’
.
‘ ‘
mutton head title o f M eis tersing er sonata because o f its first
-
’ ’
,
three notes but Wagner s o w n text te ll s u s that the M eistersing er

,
’
ru l es enact that a song c ounts as original when it does n o t trespass

upon more than four syll ab l es o f another master song -
.
The first movement with it s impressive c oda does n o t strike one

, ,
as very terse until it s proportions are actua l ly measured against
those o f s ay the A major Quartet o p 2 6 The slow movement is

, , , . .
an a lternation o f andante and s c herzo a counterpart in pastoral ,
c omedy t o the sub l ime mystery o f the slow movement of the F

m ajor String Quintet H e re if e ver we must judge by ear and n o t
.
, ,
by eye ; the dangerous l ittle learning in form leads to a state of

mind whi c h refuses t o be c onvin c ed that t w o lines and a half ,
o f andante c an be c orre ct l y ba l an c ed against t w o pages and a half of
Viva c e ; yet in point o f time su c h is the resu lt and n o t o n e master ,
in a hundred ( o n the p l ane in whi c h there are hundreds) c ould

have guessed it As in the rondo o f the G major Sonata the
.
,
andante theme here h as a di fferent c ontinuation every time it re curs .
I t is more often p l ayed t o o slow than t o o fast ; fo r though broad , ,
it shou l d n o t be adagio The d ire ction Viva ce di p iti o n the second

.
’
,
appearan c e o f the s c herzo theme does n o t as it might mean only , , ,

‘ ‘
viva c e again but faster than before I n any c onvin cing tempo
’
,
’
.
it is very di ffi cult t o p l ay with a su ffi ciently l ight and a c curate piano

forte tou c h and in the se c ond version the pianoforte should be
, , ,
2 64 BRAH M s
’
s CHAMBER MUSIC
is reproduced as a tonic pedal in the c oda From Joac hi m I learnt .
that at the first forte Brahms made a decided animat o which he

might as well have marked in the score ; t hi s o f c ourse implies that , ,
the tempo Of the outset m ust be broad though o f c ourse flowing , , , .
‘
The cross accents o f the imp assioned second subje ct require not ’
less emph asis and tone in the single notes of the violin than in the
big chords of the pianoforte The most di fficult passage is o f
.
,
c ourse the intense l y quiet development on the long dominant pedal

, .
The violin whi c h begins it by distributing the opening melody

,
“
with it s c ounterpoint a cross t w o strings must keep the bow over ,
both strings in the manner o f double stopping instead of letting -
the passage sound dry ; the pianist must let all his melodic figures
quietly penetrate the whole texture an d the moment where t h e,
violin holds a high E fo r a bar before climbing down the scale o f

,
D major must assert itself like a long s u n ray through the clouds
,
-
.
The s l ow movement is a c avatina that is t o s ay a single melody

, ,
a chi eving the spa ciousness Of an entire movement by expanding ,
without al lowing a middle section t o part ition itself o ff This idea .
w as first achieved by Haydn in his wonderful little D minor Quar

tet o p 4 2 ; and even the c avatina o f Beethoven s Quartet op 1 3 0
, .
’
, .
,
h as more o f a separate middle episode Su c h simplicity comes of .
the concentration o f a life s experience ; it c annot be imitated by

’
merel y writing a t une and refusing t o develop it The third move .
ment puts far more than the c ontents o f a s c herzo into four minutes
o f plainti vely elvish music in a design which without an en c losed ,
middle se ction ranges from F sharp minor t o the immense distan ce

,
o f F major .The history o f it s s c oring h as already been described .
With the final e we return t o symphonic dimensions in a powerful

sonata rondo with a grandl y tragi c climax The o nl y passage whi ch .
is liable t o be misunderstood is that in its middle development

where the violin after stating a c antabile transformation of the
,
opening figure ( in G minor) a cc ompanies the answers o f the piano

,
forte with a syn c opated c ountersubje ct Here it is important n o t to

.
let the tone o f the violin become dry o r husky against t o o full 3
pianoforte ; the well meant pra cti c e o f letting the violin murmur
-
indistin ct l y against a leading pianoforte passage is (p ace C ésar

Fran ck in the se c ond movement o f his violin sonata) always
thoroughly unsatisfa ctory in it s resu l t With an even balan c e o f .
tone we appreciate the depth o f the harmony and the dramati c

force o f its modulations .
S TR IN G QU I NT ET I N G MAJ OR o p 1 1 1 At its first L ondon per

, . .
BRAH M s
’
s CHAMB ER MUS I C 2 65
fo rm an c e ,
before printed parts w ere available I distin ctly remember ,
that there was no di ffi culty in hearing the Violon c ello with its theme
in the lowest bass under the Niagara of sound in the other four high
‘
lying instruments who seemed to me to be letting themselves go
,
without scruple This shows the importance of properly balanced

.
marks of expression to the composer and of exact observance of ,
them for we know that at first there was great difficulty in getting
,
the opening theme through ; and Brahms went so f ar as to draft a

scoring (the draft has been preserved) in whi ch the upper strings
divided their movement with alternating rests so as to halve the ,
mass of tone while still keeping the movement going This how .
,
ever w as abandoned as pat c hy in colour and as the experience of

, , ,
a listener with no s c ore to guide him shows by the time Joachim ,
brought the work to L ondon the diffi culty was triumphantly settled
,
by damping the violins and violas to a mez zo forte as soon as the -
Violoncello enters If nowadays the opening still fails that is b e

.
,
cause the players get too ex c ited to a ct according to directions The .
whole work is an immensely po werful outburst of high spirits .
The fi rst movement seems unlimited in its c apacity for expansion ,
and a ctually has a leisurely tonic and dominant peroration in its- -
‘
coda such as had not been heard sin c e Beethoven s E roica and ’ ’
N inth symphonies ; yet the movement is by no means long The .
adagio is another cavatina if its form admits of codification at all

, ,
’
and is one of the most impressive of all Brahms s tragic utterances .
Its proper te m po is slower than that of any other movement in

classical music since the largo of Beethoven s C minor C oncerto ’
.
Then comes an exquisite plaintive little s cherzo and trio with a

, ,
simplicity of effect whic h con c eals a mi c roscopi c c omplexity of

polyphoni c detail ; no figured c horale of Bach is more closely knit .
The finale beginning in a foreign key is a sonata movement of

, ,
such range and vigour that the listener will never realize how short
it really is At the end its coda breaks away into a completely new
.
dance tune the phrases of which reel down in bacchanalian irre gu

-
larity to explain themselves with impudent assurance as connected

with the main theme by ties as intimate as a borrowed visiting card -
.
Brahms was beginning to talk of regarding this work as re pre

senting the end of his c areer wh en the wonderful clarinet playing
,
-
of M fi hlfe ld inspired him to fo u r m o re works whi c h made another

‘
definite extension t o the range o f his own style and restored wind ,
instruments to the place in chamber music appointed for them b y

M ozart .
2 66 BRAHMS S CHAMBER MUSI C ’
The Trio for pianoforte clarinet and Violoncello in A minor , , , ,
op I I 4 is overshadowed by its great neighbour the C larinet

.
, ,
Quintet ; but it is by no means the small and unimportant work it

is often supposed to be From Steinba c h I learnt that Brahms at
.
first intended its opening theme fo r that o f a fifth symphony ; and

if the first movement and s l ow movement had been followed up on
a larger instead o f a smaller scale or had the fin ale b e en pathetic ,
instead o f alternatel y defiant reflective and humorous the work , , ,
would n o t have been easil y e clipsed The first movement is broad .
and fu l l o f roman ce wi th a development w hi c h as usual in Brahms s

, ,
’
later works is c ompressed and thoughtful and must not be dryly

, ,
delivered The c olo ur o f the coda espe c ially the last line is very ,
.
, ,
romanti c and in the slow movement whi ch is in a broad arioso

, ,
sonata form n o more gorgeous c olouring h as been achieved in

,
chamber music N o t less c harming in colour is the following

.
andantino whi c h is in the form o f a minuet in A major with two

,
trios ( F sharp minor an d D major) I ts themes have been severely .
censured but are inseparable from their ingenious scoring

,
.
The finale is over in five minutes and contains everything that a ,
full sized sonat a movement h as room fo r I ts development like

-
. ,
some in Beethoven s last works is a single pro c ess o f a sequence

’
o f falling thirds and S hould if properly interpreted be as full of

, , ,
a sense o f t h e silent workin gs o f gods fates and nature as any , ,
similar monumental simpli c ities in Greek tragedy .
T H E QUI N TBT I N B M I N O R F O R C LAR I NET AND S T RI N GS op I I 5 , .

,
made an immediate impression whi c h eclipsed the Trio and would ,
have eclipsed the C larinet Sonat as had they n o t appeared after

’
another year s interval and been from the outset regarded as smaller
,
works The Quintet is o n e o f the most original and also one o f the
.
most patheti c o f all Brahms s works I t s ambiguous opening in a ’

.
key that seems t o be D major instead o f B minor is another interest

ing development o f an idea suggested by Philipp E manuel Ba c h
in a sonata begi nning
and carri ed out by Haydn in two of his most subtle quartets that ,
in B minor o p 3 3 no I , .
, .
,
works itself o u t o n sti l l broader lines o f melodic bin ary form In .
spite o f it s strict form it is unl ike anything else in classical music ;

,
but if o n e h as the goo d fortune t o hear a genuine Hungarian band

whose leader happens to be a clarinettist o n e will be thrilled on ,
recognizing exactl y Brahms s treatment o f the instrument here’

.
The p assage leading back t o the main section is exc eptionally

dramati c and n o subtler stroke h as ever been a c hieved than that
,
by w hi ch the last bar o f the c ommon time does dut y fo r the first
bar o f the 3 /4 opening theme ,
Ex 20
.
The third movement is unique in form I t begins with a pair of .
themes in D majo r c ommon time andantino whi c h after a climax

, , , , ,
c ome t o a quiet cl ose Then a transformation o f these themes in

.
‘
contrapuntal c ombination time presto n o n assai (the beats
, ,
’
hardly faster than those o f the andantino) is worked o u t in B minor ,
into a terse binary movement with a contrasted se c ond subject in ’
syn c opated rhythm in F sharp minor The whole exposition o f this .
is pianissimo After some dev e l opment a c omplete recapitulation

.
fo ll ows with a c oda that bursts o u t vigorously and leads without

,
change o f tempo t o the theme whi c h appeared at the climax o f the

andan tin o and s o in a few l ines t o it s quiet close in D The abrupt
, , , .
nes s is n o t more astonishing than the fact that the e ffect is more
and more c onvincing o n every hearing .
The fin al e is a s e t o f variations M ozartean in their strictl y melodi c

,
prin ciples with all Brah ms s Ba c h like l ogic o f polyphony and

,
’
-
unique in the s ubtl ety o f th e ir theme wh ich fo r al l it s apparent , ,
simp l i c ity c annot be expressed by a singl e voi c e After the fifth

, .
variation whi c h is in 3 / 8 time in c ontrast with the previo u s

,
the bars are merged into the bars o f the first movement ,
the opening theme o f whi c h appears and c ombines with the c adence
of the 3 / 8 variation And s o the work closes in sorrow
. .
The t w o C L AR I NET S ONATAS o p 1 2 0 n o I in F minor and , .

,
.
, ,
no . 2 in E flat end Brahms s chamber music

, , It is noteworthy
’
. ,
that they are des c ribed as fo r c larinet and piano n o t vi c e versa as ,
with all classi c al vio l in and Violoncello sonatas from M ozart o n

wards Yet the piano is if anything less subordinate t o the other
.
, ,
instrument than in the G major Viol in Sonata As the forms are .
ext re m e l y te rse the range they c ove r is very l arge I n the F minor .
B RA H M S S C H A M B E R M U S I C
’
69
S onata the fi rst movement is full of passionate melancholy the coda , ,
with its strange canonic development o f an ornam ental figure arising

out of the main themes being specially impressive The two middle
, .
movements are both in the same k ey A flat major a thing u n pre c e , ,
dented in four movement sonatas and of delicious effect here where

-
both are so short the slo w movement b e ing an A B A design

,
highly organiz ed in detail and the scherz o the me et deliciously

,
Viennese of all Brahms 3 w orks The fi nale in rondo form with

’
.
,
very whimsical themes is high Comedy of the wittiest kind

, .
The E flat C larinet S onata begins with a quiet first movement in

‘
a mood not unlike that of the first movement of the A major Violin
S onata ( also headed allegro amabile) The mysterious triplet epi .
sode 1n the development 18 one of those profundities which players

_
inexperienced I n Brahms are apt to redu c e to the aesthetic level of

the multiplication table P layers who can not make of this move
.
ment one of the most mellow products of all chamber music should
leave Brahms alone .
There are only three movements the se c ond being an impas ,
s io n e d scherz o in E flat minor with a sonorous trio in B major
C flat ) The fi nale is a set of variations on an andante theme

.
in time The fifth variation breaks into Vivace

. time in E
fl at minor and then settles down in a peaceful c oda which finally
,
arouses itself to a spirited end .
S tudents of chamber music should not negle ct Brahms s two ’
arrangements o f these clarinet sonatas for violin and for viola .
These are on quite a di fferent plane from the u s e of a viola as

substitute for the clarinet in the Quintet and Trio though Brahms , _
authorized t he issue of parts so transcribed But in the Trio and .
Quintet the relation of the clarinet to the string parts makes it im

possible t o alt e r the position of anything and transcription accord
_ ,
in gly reveals all the points where the Viola fails to represent a
clarinet But with these sonatas Brahms could u s e a free hand
. .
In the Violin version he sometimes alters the piano part Joachim .

,
who would h ave nothing to do with transcriptions as a rule took ,
great pleasure in playing the violin version of both sonatas The .
viola version is better besides being a welcome opportunity for

,
viola players In it the piano part is unaltered but the viola part is
.
,
a fine demonstration of the different c haracters of the instruments .
The Viola is querulous and strained just where the cantabile of the
clarinet is warmest The lowest o ctave of the clarinet is of a
.
dramatic blue grotto hollownes s an d cold nes s where the fourth

-
,
2 70 BRA H M s
’
s CHAMBER MUSI C
st ring of the viola is of a rich and pungent warmth A c ompari s on .
o f Brahms s viola part With his original c larinet part makes every
’
difference o f this kind vividly re al and these viola versions deserve

,
frequent performance in publi c .
I f every o n e of Brahms s works in sonata form rewards the e ffort

’
o f a reasoned defence o n all points on whi c h attack has been
directed this is n o t because Brahms is either h imself i nfallible or

,
acceptable only t o those who are ready t o take him as gospe l I t is .

,
o n the contrary be c ause Brah m s w as s o far from thi nking himse l f

,
infallible that he consented to the pub l i c ation o f nothing to which

he had n o t devoted more severe criti cism long after the work w as ,
finished than c ould be colle cted from all the sensible remarks that
,
have ever been made o n his works sin c e they appeared I n his e arly .
days what his o w n c riticism might have let slip w as subjected to

,
the sensitive ear and pra ctical experien c e o f Joa chim and Brahms s ,
’
do cility w as stri ctl y reasonable never revolting against the authority

,
o f proved fa ct an d therefore never imputing unsympathetic

,
'
motives t o so disinterested a frie n d The result is that the defen c e

.
o f hi s works is an i nfi nitely more fruitful line of c riti c ism than that
o f atta c k ; fo r atta c ks are easy o n superficial grounds while the ,
defence rests o n bedrock .

2 72 SOME ASPECTS OF B EET H O VEN S ’
A RT FORMS
typical o f the unsound analysis whi c h prevents many lovers o f music
from c ontinuing t o appre ciate what the naive listener h as n o diffi
‘
culty in enjoying The t erm se cond subje ct is fo r re asons which
.
’
,
will soon appear the most misleading in the whole range o f our
,
British musi cal provincial isms : it is unkn own in Germany where ,
the term used in it s pla c e is S eitensatz a term conveying no fal se ,
ideas sin c e the word S atz can mean anything from a single phrase
,
to a long paragraph whi le the epithet S eiten means no more than

,
that this is secondary t o the H aup tsatz The result of the u nfo rt u .
nate E nglish terminology is that yo u cannot even if you try ( and ,
many teachers do n o t know that they ought t o try) eradi cate from ,
the young mind all traces o f the notion that in the sonata forms
‘ ‘
the word S ubject means theme as it does when we are talking
’ ’
,
o f fugues . No w there is a large but by n o means overwhelming

number o f sonata works in whi c h there are t w o cons pi cuous themes
contrasted in key and texture I t is perhaps easier t o c onstru ct an
.
e ffective movement with su c h a pair o f themes than with material

less easy t o anal yse T w o c omposers w h o lived through and s u r
.
vive d the time o f Beethoven wrote a l l their sonata works o n such
pairs o f themes eked o u t with bri l liant passages and were firm ly
,
convin c ed that they were c arrying o n the tradition of M ozart .
Hummel was M ozart s pupil and Spohr a ctual ly told Joa c him that
’
he hoped some day t o write s ix quartets in really stri ct form with

shakes at the end o f the p assages N o w there is nothing inherently
wrong in having running passages between t w o contrasted themes ;
and a shake is the natural way o f ending a run by turning its move
ment into a faster but stationary vibration instead o f merely ending ,
with a bump o r an interruption Simi l arl y there is n o reas on why

.
a brown tree shou l d n o t be a feature in a lands cape These things .
are o ft e n c onve ien c es and it saves trouble t o make a convenien c e

.
n ,
into a c onvention But we need n o t put up with a convention that

.
is n o l onger c onvenient .
I t w as n o t Beethoven s forms but hi s dramati c power that gave

’
him the reputation o f a musi ca l revol utionary N either in fact n o r .
in c ontemporary opinion cou l d his art forms be regarded as s u b ve r

sive o f the principles o n whi c h M ozart and Haydn worked ; for
those princip l es were the m se l ves thought modern and the mature ,
works o f M ozart and Haydn were in point o f time l ess remote from
the middl e works o f Beethoven than the symphoni c poems of
Strauss are from the compositions produ c ed in this present year .
I nterest in the hi story o f musical theory is n o t strong enough fo r

SOME ASPECTS OF B E E T H O VE N S A R T F O R M S ’
273
me to be in a position to say w hat the orthodox opinions as to

sonata form were in Beethoven s time We kn o w however that ’
.
, ,
musical theory has never had the advantages o f Alexandrine crit i

c is m though it has had more than its share of Alexandrine pedan
,
tries But the Alexandrine criti c s had to deal with languages already
.
remote and with masterpieces already sele cted as c lassics M usical .
theory has had to struggle with material hardly eve r more than a
generation older than the theorist ; and the generic inferiority of the
theorist to the creative artist shows itself in the choice of authorities
‘ ’
for classical procedure If these authorities were avowed the .
,
mischief would not be serious : students would know that normal ’
‘
form is normally exemplified only by Spohr and Hummel ; and
’
an extravagant fan cy for Spohr s style is easily outgrown and as ’
harmless as a child s appetite for toffee ’

.
‘
B ut the names whi c h orthodoxy associates with this normal ’
form are those of Haydn M ozart and Beethoven three composers

, , ,
who di ffer from ea c h other in their treatment of form as profoundly

as they differ in other aspects of style and matter They resemble .
each other not less profoundly But I search even M o z art the most .
,
symmetrical of composers since Bach and the exemplar chosen b y ,
Spohr for any work that can be said to be a model for S pohr s
,
’
procedure The first difficu lty is to find two movements by M ozart

.
that are sufficiently alike to produce any such uniformity of pro c e

dure as can have served Spohr s purpose Of course the general
-
’
.
,
resemblances of M oz art s hundreds of examples of any form are

f
’
as striking on a superficial acquaintance as the general resem

, ,
blan c es of C hinamen But people who know the C hinese well do

.
not find them much more alike than E uropeans M usi c al forms .
need in t im at e kn o w le dge before w e can pretend to tell one specimen

’
from anot h er Strange to s ay the first movement of Beethoven s
.
,
S onata Appassionata one of the most violently dramatic of all his

,
’
works approximates unusually closely to Spohr s scheme while
, ,
the first movement of the Waldstein Sonata even has shakes at the
end of t he passages Y et a mid Victorian O xford Professor of M usic
.
-
,
who is the authority quoted b y the great Oxford Eng lish Dictionary
‘ ‘ ’
for the word contrapuntal ( Beethoven had not enough contra
puntal resou rce for the purposes of his M ass in D) laid down that ,
‘
the Waldstein Sonata was not in true sonata form because its
’
second subject was not in the dominant .
I propose to base a su rvey of Beethoven s art forms on tw o speci ’
mens the one chosen as the closest approximation by B eethoven

, ,
2 74 SOME ASPECTS OF B E E T H O VEN S A R T F O R M S ’
‘ ’
or any composer to normal sonata form ; the other chosen as
,
outwardly the most abnormal of all his larger works .
‘
The normal examp l e is the first movement of the Pianoforte
’
Sonata in B fiat 015 2 2 This sonata is neglected by pianists and

, . .
despised by the Superior Person But Beethoven set great store by .
it though he had already written su c h impressive and original works

,
as the Sonatas op 2 n o 2 o p 7 Op
, 1 0 no
.
3 the wonderful
, .
, .
, .
, .
,
String Trio s o p 9 and w as at the time occupied with the String

'
.
, ,
Quartets o p 1 8 D ie Son ate hat s ich gewas chen he wrote to hi s

, . .
’
,
pub l isher ; an expression fairl y equival ent t o R L Stevenson s ’

'
. .
claim that The M as ter of Balla ntrae is a howl ing cheese Beet ’
.
hoven felt that whi l e dramati c for ce and surprising originality were
all very well it w as a fine thing to a c hieve smoothness also and to
,
show that he w as n o longer i nferior t o M ozart in M ozart s own line ’

.
Hithe rto his works were never l ess M ozartean than when they
resembled M ozart external l y Yo u have but t o compare Beethoven s .
’
Quintet fo r pianoforte and wind instruments o p 1 6 with the , .

,
M ozart work which it emulates t o se e that point fo r point ,
Beethoven is doing something s light di ffu se an d yet rigid , , ,
where M ozart s quintet is important concentrated and supple

’
, , , .
Beethoven c ould n o t mas ter M ozart s te c hnique by imitating ’
M ozart o r by restri cting his o w n ambition ; and in op 2 2 he .
first a chieved an entire work in which maste ry o f M ozart s forms ’
is attained without either the timidity o f the works with -
wind instruments o r the self assertive boldness and abruptness -
whi c h in many o f Beethoven s other earl y works are the ’
characteristi c mas k o f that timid ity when he has something

unusual t o s ay .
Before anal ysing the Sonata o p 2 2 it will save trouble to dispose , .

,
o f the main false issues that have misled students and music lovers
as to the nature o f musi c a l forms in genera l .
‘ ‘
N o t only do the ter m s firs t and se c ond subject have no
’ ’
I .
reference t o a c ouple o f themes but there are n o ru l es whatever ,
as t o the number o r distribution o f themes in any sonata movement ,
ex c ept in the case o f rondos I n rondos it is o f c ourse improbable

.
-
.
, ,
that a square cut mel ody whose fun ction is t o return several times
-
after contrasted episodes should itsel f furnish all the material for
‘
those episodes But when musical theorists wonder at the b ad
.
proportion o f the first movement o f Beethoven s Sonata op 1 1 1

’ ’
, .
,
be c ause the second subje ct cons ists o f a s ingl e declamatory two bar -
phrase repeated with ornamentation and after an e c ho of its last

, ,
2 76 S OME AS P E CT S OF B E E T H O VE N S A R T F O R M S ’
unexpected position P erhaps the most advanced o f all Beethoven s

.
’
works is the Quartet in A minor 0p 1 3 2 Here whe re the whole , . .

,
main se ction of the second movement consists of 1 2 0 bars ringing

the changes on the following combination :
it strio c ontains four fantastic ally c ontrasted themes t w o o f whi c h ,
happen t o have been s c ribbled down years before as a little Alle

mande fo r pianoforte M oreover in the first movement there o ccurs
.
,
in the deve l opment se ction (i e just where orthodoxy expe cts logi c
. .
to be most evident) a theme whi c h it is futile t o try t o derive from

anythi ng heard before o r to connect with anything heard later .
’
In the works o f Beethoven s middle period yo u will n o t find
‘
logi c any more i n fallibly in the c onnexions o f themes than in h is
’
earliest and latest works The Sonata in D minor o p 3 1 no 2

.
, .
, .
,
is a high ly finished c omposition mar king emphati c ally the change

,
from his first manner t o his se c ond and distinguished by the ,
advanc ed logi c al c ogen cy o f it s treatment o f themes Y et palmistry .
is n o t more debilitating t o the mind than the attempt t o derive the

last s ix bars o f the slow movement from any theme that h as been
heard before .
1
I t wi ll save trouble t o investigate this case here though it anti c i ,
pates my main argument Even if analysis were t o derive the theme

.
o f these s ix bars from anyt hi ng heard before the ear o f the listener ,
would ge t n o benefit from the analysis The theme sounds new .

,
and n o argument wi ll make it sound less new N o doubt things .
as new have been derived from o ld material but then the composer ,
S hows u s e ve ry s t e p o f the pro cess F o r instan c e in the B flat

.
.
,
1
I g ive no q u o t at io n s f ro m Be e t h o ve n s s o n at as , fo r it is un lik e ly t h at an yb o dy
’
w ill att em pt t o re ad t his art ic le w it h o u t h avin g at le as t Be e th o ve n s p ian o o rt e

’
f
SOME ASPECTS OF B E E T H O VE N S A R T ’
FO RMS 2 77
Trio op 9 7 B eethoven takes the third fourth and fifth bars of his
, .
, , ,
main theme
Ex 3 .
and turns them into this
P ut these two ideas side by side and it would be an idle fan cy to

'
,
'
build an argument on an y dis c o ve rab le resemblance But Beethoven .
does not put these tw o ideas side b y side He transforms the one .
b y a long and slow process every step of which is clear until he , ,
reaches the final transformation Without this process w e might .
hazard as a far fet c hed guess that the quavers Of the second quota
,
-
tion could be derived by diminution from (a) of the first quotation ,
but no mortal ingenuity could guess that there was any connexion
between the trills and figure (b ) ; and there is none until B eethoven ,
works out his long process of development .
N 0 such proce ss is present at the end of the slow movement of

‘ ’
op 3 1 no 2 and therefore the logic of that epilogue must be
.
, .
,
compatible with the fact that t he theme is new AS soon as we .
dismiss the m atic connexions from our minds we fall back up on the ,
very first thingt h e naive listener would notice the enormous S lo w

—
ness of the main theme In true music a S low theme is not the
.
,
same thing as a quick theme play ed slowly S lowness is bigness ; .
how big in the case of this movement y ou can very conveniently

measure as follo ws The main theme occupies sixteen bars closing
.
,
into a sevent eenth and forms one symmetrical sentence during

, ,
which n o thing can happen The naive listener is duly impressed b y

.
this ; but the student who can read a certain amount takes the whole
sentence in at a glance and while making no positive mistake about
, ,
its slow tempo does not exercise his imagination to the purport of
,
realizing any difference betw een it and a S imilar proposition in

minuet time N ow let us measure the actual dimensions of this
.
theme C rotchets at 4 8 to the mi nute is a very fair metronome

.
278 SOME ASPECTS B E E T H OVEN S A R T F O R M S ’ ‘
OF
tempo fo r the whole movement and it makes the first theme fill ,
pre cisely o n e minute W hole bars ( dotted c rot c hets) at 7 2 is a good

.
moderate tempo fo r the final e whi c h should n o t sound hurried ; and ,
n o w s e e where bar
7 2 br ings yo u ! .
N early to the end of the e xp o s i
tion C onsider the end of t he Adagio in the light o f the dimensions
.
thus revealed The enormous fir st theme ( o r its latter half) h as

.
returned fo r the last time and h as fo r ever Closed on ; the toni c .
Over the toni c pedal a new theme sails in and tells it s whole tal e ,
in t w o bars Another voice repeats it and it s l ast notes ( o c cupying

.
,
a third o f a bar) are reiterated throughout another bar until the last ,
bar o f all brings the movement t o an end actually o n its sixth and
last quaver A human figure plac ed in front of the sphinx s o as t o
.
,
show the c o l ossal s c ale .
3 .I f themes c annot determine the logic o f musi c neither can a ,

‘
single figure really form the idea o f a whole movement or se ction '
.
I n the second movement o f the A minor Quartet the 1 2 0 bars of

'
its main section are indeed built up from the two bars of double
, ,
.
‘ ’
counterpoint quoted above ; b u t those t w o bars are not the idea
o f the movement n o r is ,
‘
the idea o f the Fifth Symphony These figures these smallest
’
.
,
re c ognizab l e portions these mol e cu l es o f musi c are l ike singl e

, ,
words A singl e word must have a ccumulated a long history before

.
it c an be c ome s o much as a pol iti c a l S logan : even as an established

s l ogan it must first be l ed up t o in a stump oration M usical figures .
represent ideas onl y when the figures have been in c orporated in

musi c al paragraphs The ab rupt statement interrupted by pauses
.
, ,
Of the first four bars o f the C minor Symphony misled Spohr into
taking the singl e word fo r a whole idea and he a c cordingly thought ,
the opening inadequate fo r a serious work As a matter o f fact the .
first sentence does n o t c ome t o a stop until the twenty firs t bar -
and then it is evidently only the first half o f the statement Spohr s .
’
mistake w as exact l y that o f the Wagnerian leitmotive labeller who ,
whether as an enthusi ast o r as an anti Wagnerite analyses I solde s -
,
’
Lieb es to d into a dozen o n e bar themes giving a psy c ho l ogical name

-
to ea c h n o t noti cing the psy c ho l ogi c ally and musical ly vastly

,
more important fact that the dying I so l de ( o r rather the orc hestra) is
2 80 SOME ASPECTS OF BEETHOVEN S ART FORMS ’
And so the idea is n o w at las t c ompletel y stated and Beetho ven

does n o t ab andon it inasmu ch as it h as c overed three quarters
,
‘
o f the movement an d h as l eft nothing t o be said ex c ept by way o f
the subtlest and profoundest o f epil ogues N o doubt there is the .
logi c al poss ibil ity o f obje cting a priori t o the spreading o f an

‘
idea over ten minutes in this manner But yo u must n o t main .
tain this obje ction and cl aim at the same time t o unders tand
Wagner s musi c dramas The fact is that nobody would have
’
.
thought that there w as anyt h ing wrong with the slow movement o f .
Beethoven s N inth Symphony if they c oul d n o t read musi cal

’
notation and s o be stru ck by the unusual appearance Of th e changes

o f t ime s ign ature
-
.
TH E B F LAT MAJ O R S O NATA Op 2 2 Le t u s n o w go through t he

, . .
first movement o f the Pianoforte Sonata Op 2 2 mentioning other , .

,
works as they s erve fo r ill u stration The first movement begins .
abruptly with t hree bars all o n the toni c c hord o f B flat c ontaining ,
a figure In a pregnant rhythm o f wh ic h the semiquaver group w ill ,
be c onstant l y used ( M ark this semiquaver group a ) The c o n

. .
t in u ati o n is a cantabi l e whi c h in four bars closes into a passage in

whi c h a is worked up o n the to ni c an d dominant ending in a ,
h alf close o n the dominant ( bar 1

-
Thus far we have a statement
whi c h by ending o n the dominant and by its energetic
,
businesslike manner strongly suggests that it will be followed by

,
a c ounterstatement that is to s ay by a restatement o f the same

, ,
material with a di fferent outl ook A single bar ( plus preliminary .
beat) with an uprush o f a from the bass is all that does duty fo r
this c ounters tatement It leads t o t hree bars o f sustained harmony
.
in quite a di fferent s tyle driftin g down t o the domi nant o f F O n

, .
this domin ant C s ix bars o f a tremolando fi gu re follow with the

, , ,
sole purpose o f impressing upon u s t hat we have left the key o f

B flat and are intending t o settle in F n o t as by way o f goin g from ,
one part o f a de c orative design t o an other n o r as a n ecessary ,
variety o f key in an argumentative work su c h as a fugue but as a ,
dramatic event the first turning point in the a ction Students are
,
-
.
far t o o often allowed t o think that these passages o f do m inant

preparation o w e their existen ce t o an uns ophisticated style o f har
mony and that wi th greater harmon ic wisdom they disappear
, .
With greater harmoni c wisdom they may be very mu c h modified ;

and indeed nobody h as ever gone further t o modify them than
Beethoven in earlier works than o p 2 2 ( e g o p 1 0 no but . . . .
, .
,
modified o r plain they are as necessary to Brahms as they are t o

,
SOME ASPECTS OF B E E T H O VE N S A R T F O R M S
’
28 1
M o z art Indeed we must recogniz e their function in Wagner and

.
,
S trauss before we can fully appreciate M o z art s and Beethoven s ’ ’
power in the handling of them .
‘
At bar 2 2 the section misnamed second subj ect begins First
’
.
,
there is an eight bar phrase closing into another theme The run
-
.
ning bass which supports these eight bars arises out of a scale at
‘
the end of the preceding dominant —This fact is a
mere ornament of style and if the sonata were to s w arm with such
,
‘
facts the logi c o f the music would still depend on prin ciples
,
’
deeper and radically different The next theme beginning at bar 2 9 .

, ,
is a new melody of great distinction built on rising sequences and

'
closing after eight bars into itself with the obvious purpose of
, , ,
being repeated We have then reache d a point w here the action

.
, ,
of the music is at leisure for melodies to behave like lyrics wit h a

regular stan za form But we shall always find that in masterpieces
-
.
of sonata style this behaviour is not allowed to interfere with the

dramatic a ction A phrase of this length will repeat itself perhaps
.
,
( as here ) with ornamental variation as far as half or three quarters ,

-
of its length but then it will take a ne w turn and will expand into
,
something unpredictable In the rare cases where a broad theme .
is repeated entirely ( as in the E major theme of the fi rst movement

‘
of the Waldstein S onata) the theme will be austerely simple and
’
the passage which follows its repetition will be enormously ex

p an de d. At all events the composer deals waril y w ith the repeating
of a theme that ends on it s tonic When it ends with a half close .
-
the matter is di fferent ; for when it begins to repeat itself the

listene r is unable to guess whether the repetition is going to be
exact and s o leave the theme unfinished or to substitute a full ,
close and 3 0 complete the matter by answering instead of repeating

a question The principle the composer acts on is that at all events
.
dramatic continuity must be maintained and that these passages of

repose must not relapse into m ore strophic songs Here in op 2 2 .
, .
,
the repetition of the melody diverges at the seventh bar with an ,
unexpected modulation and an outpouring of rapid motion on the

surfa c e ( bar Below the surface the harmony moves slowly ,
veering back to F in the co urse of four ba rs With this a climax is .
reached and t h e rapid semiquaver movement forms itself in a bril

,
liant four bar phrase on chords expressive of a full Close in F

-
.
T hi s closes into another four bars w hich repeat the same cadential
matter in another position Then ( bar on a tonic pedal we have .
,
a quiet two bar phrase closing into it s repetition in a higher posi

-
282 SOME ASPECTS OF B EET H O VEN S ART F O R M S ’
tion I n this repetition the supertonic is flattened ( G flat) whic h

.
1
gives a spe c ial point to the device o f repeating t he last bar twi c e ,
first with the natural then with the flattened note The devi c e o f ,
.
breaking o ff and reiterating the last bar o f a cadential phrase clear l y

means that a stage o f the action is co ming t o an end Yo u will not .
find thi s devi ce in Ba c h o r Han del fo r they have n o dramati c in ,
t e res t in thus marking the sections o f their des igns Their contem .
‘
p o rar y D ome ni co
, S c arlatti uses it cons t antly hammering in his , ,
’ ‘ ’
points as Parry says like a m o b orator Bach s so n Johann
, ,
’
.
,
C hristian the L ondon Ba c h o f the Ba c h and Abel c oncerts uses it

, ,
typi c ally and M ozart c aught it from hi m though he would have

, ,
undoubtedly arrived at it in any c ase Here again we are not .

,
masters o f its meaning until we c an tra c e the principle in Brah ms

and in the music dramas o f W agner and Strau s s I n o p 2 2 this . .
quiet cadence theme is however n o t the end o f the exposition o f

-
, ,
the first movement A new theme going straight up the scale and.
,
down again in a strong rhythm enters with drasti c force and closes , ,
into three bars o f tonic and dominant caden c e whic h allude to - -
‘
figure a the o nl y piece o f thematic logi c sin c e the detail o f the
,
’
bass in bar 2 2 .
B efore dis cussing the development section let u s review this

exposition in the light of general prin ciples and c l assical precedents .
N 0 one w ho h as analysed the movement o f a drama o r of a great ,
pie c e o f prose can fail t o recognize that o u r analysis h as depended

,
o n t w o t hings : first the assertion Of key and key relation which is

, , ,
so t o speak the topography o f musi c and secondly the len th s of

, g , ,
the phrases What themes thes e phrases contain and whether one
.
,
phras e alludes t o an other n o t in immediate juxtaposition whet her , ,
in short the whole c omposition is written o n o n e theme o r o n a

,
dozen are questions entire l y se c onda ry t o the proportio ns and

,
c ontras ted movements o f the phrases I n the present c ase even if .

,
we ignore the semiquaver d igression from bar 44 t o bar 5 5 ( a

digression whi c h h as n o dis c overable connexion in theme with what
h as gone before ) we c annot a cc ount fo r the se c ond subject with less
,
than four to t ally distin ct themes The quiet penultimate theme o n .
a tonic pedal has indeed a quaver figu re whi c h might be regarded

, ,
as an augmentation o f figure a but Beethoven gives no e vidence ,
that he s o regards it o r expects it t o be recognized By a su fficiently .
elaborate and imaginative process yo u can derive any theme from

1
W ith f
t h e m u s ic b e o re h im t h e rea de r w ill u n de rs tan d t h at I s e ak o f o n e p
p ‘
h rase as c lo s in g in t o t h e n ext w h en t h e c los in g ch o rd 18 n o t w it hin t h e rh ythm ic
’
pe rio d b ut at th e b e gin n in g of th e n e tx p e rio d .

2 84 SOME ASPECTS OF B E E T H O VE N S A R T F O R M S
’
leading in four bars to the note D on which bass we have the whole,
s ix bars o f the quiet toni c pedal theme o f bars 5 6 6 1 with its

- —
,
doubts as t o whether t h e supertoni c shou l d be flat o r natural N ow .
here we have a typical instance o f the subtlety o f class i c al tonality ,
fo r though this is an exact transposition ( ex c ept in position o f parts )

o f the pass age which we a cc epted as o n the tonic o f F half major ,
-
and half m inor nobody c an possibly mistake it fo r D major in

-
it s present c ontext I t is unquestionably the dominant of G and

.
,
it arouses anticipation o f some event in that key But the scale .
figu re n o w in three part and four part polyphony angrily drives

,
- -
u s from dominant t o dominant t w o bars o f s c ale figu re alternating

,
-
with t w o o f figure a as a c ontinuous run Three o f these four b ar .

-
steps then drive u s from the dominant o f G minor to that o f C

, ,
minor and then c e t o that o f E minor Figure a with an arpeggio .
pendant then move s al one in no less than seven t w o bar steps the -
bass moving still more slowl y by tones and semitones s o that from
bar 9 0 ( where ignorin g di fferen c es o f o ctave its progression real ly
'
, ,
begins) it descends from C t o the E flat rea c hed in bar 1 04 The .
whole fourteen bars thus c onstitute a dramati c de c res c endo n o t ,
less unmistakab l e in it s e ffect though the a ctual drop o f tone is co n

fi n e d t o the single bar 1 05 whi c h Beethoven requires t o fal l from
,
fortissimo t o piano W e are n o w o n the dominant o f A flat of all

.
,
keys the most unl ikely t o lead t o o u r toni c The s c ale theme stirs .
-
in the bass in four bar phrases The harmony c hanges to a domi

-
.
nant o f F with a minor ninth which even in pianissimo presses

severe l y o n the D natural o f the s cale theme below Then c e it -
.
drops t o the dominant o f B flat ( o u r toni c) al so with it s harsh minor ,
ninth whi c h does n o t yie l d until the latter half o f the fourth bar
,
.
The tension o f expe ctation is great and is kept up fo r fifteen bars ,
ending with a pause ( bar

And s o we are at home again and the re c apitulation begins The .
whole phenomenon o f re capitulation is o n e o f the most subtle

thi ngs in music and is usual ly dismissed by criti cs and by some
, ,
c omposers as merely the part Of a design whi c h m ay be m e c h an i

,
cally copied from a previous part And it would be idle t o deny .
that in the physi c al process Of writing a large c omposition the re

capitu l atory portions are a more me chani c al t ask than the rest and ,
may well be deferred until matters o f greater difficulty are settled .
But we must n o t c onfuse the pra cti c al te ch nique o f writing and the
function o f the imagination No great composer making full u s e of
.
h is mature powers ever thought o f a re c ap itu l ation merely as a part

SOME ASPECTS OF BE E T H O V E N
’
S ART FO RMS 28 5
which is t he transposition or copy of another part It is his pro .
foundest instinct to think of re c apitulations as things coloured by

the first stateme nts and all that has happened between ( Of course .
,
a recapitulation is n o t an immediate repetition exa ct o r varied of , ,
a section with nothing intervening ; such i mmediate repetitions ,
when exact and on a large s c ale merely treat musi c as if it were

,
spatial like a picture o r a building and givet h e liste ne r an o pp o r

, ,
‘
t u n ity to take another look before passing on to a new aspect or

place ) O n e of the first conditions o f musi c al invention is the
.
capacity to con c eive the e ffect of a statement not only in its fi rst
context but in the possible ways in which it may return Students .
would Obtain a far sounder grasp of the forms of pure instrumental

music if they were made to read Wagner s later operas with a strict ’
I njunction never to label the S hort leitmotives until they had mapped
out all the long passages whi c h are re c apitulated as wholes To take .
an instan c e already c ited Isolde s Lieb estod which recapitulates

,
’
,
the entire last movement of the love duet in the second act is as ,
long as the longest stretch of recapitulation to be found in any

classical symphony being almost exactly the length of t he whole
,
second subject in Beethoven s E roica S ymphony An d it is b y no

’
.
means alone in Wagner s designs Of course the circumstances of

’
.
Wagnerian music drama enormously emphasize the psychological

and dramatic value of the principle that a recapitulation depends
for its e ffect on the new light thrown by it s immediate antecedents
in relation to t he original statement We should do w ell to see in .
’
Wagner s mature art of composition a magnified and popular illus
t rat io n of the prin c iples of pure music instead of contenting our ,
selves with the old View shared by his earliest parti s ans with his
9
most violent enemies the View that he i s formless and a mere

!
illustrator of w ords from point to point .
In the re capitulation of a classical sonata movement the first -
thing to noti c e is obviously any point which differs from the

, ,
o r1g1n al statement In well con c eived works you will not find that
.
-
such points are mere digressions introduced for the sake of variety .
If there is t o be a recapitulation at all ( and Haydn was far from

thin king this necessary nor did Beethoven disagree with him) the
, ,
composer will not be afraid to make it exa ct Y et there will always .
be some differen c e possibly very S light but of the kind that makes
, ,
all the di fferen c e It will be as if the original m att e r w e re some

thing you h ad seen with one eye and the recapitu lation were some
,
thing you S aw with both On e point where there must be some

.
28 6 SOME ASPECTS OF B E E T H O VEN S A R T F O R M S
’
change is at the moment of transition to the key of the second

subject As the second subject is to b e recapitulated in the tonic
.
,
the passage which changed the key cannot remain unaltered unless ,
the c hange h as been effected ( as in Beethoven s First Symphony) ’
by the old I t alian practi c al joke of treating a mere half close o n the -
dominant as if that dominant were a key instead of a c hord Beet .
hoven s treatment of this joke is amusing in his Namensfeier Over

’
ture o p 1 1 5 written about the same time as the Seventh Sym

, .
,
phony F o r the dominant chords o f the exposition he substitutes

.
toni c Chords with the gesture of a debater t aking a metaphorical

,
argument literally and turning it to his own advantage But even .
at this juncture a change in the recapitulation is not to be as cribed

to mere pra ctical necessity : and in the Sonata o p 2 2 we have a , .
,
beautifully typical c ase o f a great m aster s procedure The opening ’

.
had been perfunctory to the verge of insolen c e ; and as we have

seen it s c ounterstatement had been redu c ed t o a S ingle bar and a
,
quarter N o w turn to bar 1 4 0 and s e e h o w the two new bars o f

.
vigorous dialogue on a make the whole retrospect stand out in

re l ief Then c o m es the uprush corresponding t o bar 1 2 I t rea c hes
. .
a higher note and five bars are required instead o f three for the
,
drift down t o the dominant w hich is n o w o u r own dominant of

,
B flat n ot t hat o f F From this point the p assage Of do m inant

, .
preparation and the whole o f the second subject are recapitulated

in the tonic with no alteration except occasional shifts Of octave not ,
’
always necess itated by the limited compass o f Beethoven s piano
forte at that date There is n o c oda ; the movement ends in the
.
tonic exactly as its exposition ended in the dominant .
Perhaps we are wise after the event ; but the perfunctory first
subje ct is almost a su ffi cient indication that the weight of the move
ment is s o poised upon a luxurious second subj ect that the re c apitu
l ation o f the se c ond su b je ct is the inevitable and su fficient end of
the story Such is the case with most o f the sonatas of Domeni c o
.
S carlatti that were known to Beethoven The openings are dras ti .
c ally bald assertions of a tonic from which the elvish Domenico

bounces o ff into a dominant or some remoter key there t o pour o u t ,
a number o f ideas some sentimental but most o f them rattling

, ,
away with a fantastic keyboard technique and always ending with ,
a caden ce phras e broken up into smaller and smaller fragments It .
’
is a mistake to read into Scarlatti any anticipation of Beethoven s
uses of remote modulations or po wers of deve l opment ; these things
he anticipated o nl y as The A rab ian Nights anti cipates modern travel
288 SOME ASPECTS OF B E E T H O VE N S A R T F O R M S ’
forms The rondos o f M ozart s con c ertos are as large and rich as
.
’
rondos can possibly be ; and Beethoven took a spec ial del ight in
working o u t luxurious rondos o n M ozart s lines His usual ten ’
.
de n cy is t o make his rondo theme as primitive and self repetitive as -
possible ( s e e the rondos o f the Sonatas o p 2 8 o p 5 3 and op , .

, .
, .
so that the listener may be thoroughly impresse d with the sense o f
rondo style from the outset I n the same way when he expanded
.
,
and qui ckened the minuet into the s c herzo he did n o t abandon ,
the dan c e styl e but emphasized it more vigorous l y than anybody

could have c on ceived possible I n o p 2 2 however the fitting
. .
, ,
con clusion is a rondo o f M ozartean suavit y and a cc ordi ngly Beet ,
hoven writes o n e o f his most gra c eful themes and admits no su s

p ic io n o f caricature Here
. are the se c tions : rondo theme bars ,
1 1 8 ; transition theme bar 1 8 5 modulating t o dominant at bar 2 1

—
, ,
and settling there fo r the fi rst episode about bar 2 2 L ike many , .
su c h episodes and se c ond subjects o f Beethoven s fin ale s the ’
material Of t his do m inant se c tion avoids standing o u t very plas t i

- v
cally and soon ( about bar 3 6) S hows a disposition t o return t o the

tonic This is in a cc ordan c e with the prin cip l e that al l the dramati c
.
interest o f a rondo c entres round the returns t o the rondo theme

in the tonic Here this is n o t rea c hed until bar 4 9 The second
. .
episode beg ins at bar 6 7 an d is in and around the tonic minor I t s .
materi al c onsists o f the transition theme treated with argumentative

polyphony and alternating with a new theme in bustling demi
,
semiquavers whi c h a ctuall y makes up a kind o f binary form appear ,
ing first in F minor from bars 7 2 t o 8 0 and then again in B flat ,
minor from bars 95 t o 1 03 The rondo theme returns ( after some

.
anxious in quiries ) at bar 1 1 2 Then the transition theme is so

.
hand l ed as t o bring about a re c apitu l ation o f the whole first episode

in the to ni c thus making it behave just l ike a second subject
, .
T his brings about a drift t o the subdo m inant in which key the ,
rondo theme puts in a prompt appearanc e ( bar soon veering

round t o the tonic where it h as it s fina l entry as a whole ( bar
The l ast eighteen bars ( from bar 1 8 3 ) are a coda very sub tl e in ,
phrasing and detail .
T H E C SHAR P M I N O R QUAR T ET o p 1 3 1 n o 1 4 N o w that we

,
.
, . .
have seen the uniqueness o f this most normal o f Beethoven s ’
sonatas we sha l l be in a better position t o appre ciate the fundamental

normal ity o f his most unique work the Quartet in C sharp minor ,
.
The idea that Beethoven in su c h works as this broke the mould

, ,
’
o f the cl as si c al forms is fatall y wel l expr e s s ed in that metaphor

-
.
SOME ASPECTS OF B E E T H O VE N S A R T F O R M S ’
2 89
There w as no mould to break The art forms of Hay dn M oz art

.
, ,
and Beethoven w ere not moulds in which music could be cast but ,
inner principles b y w hich the music grew The great family like .
ness between hundreds of M ozart s movements does not prove ’
that they are not alive Their differences are as vital as those which
.
distinguish one C hinaman from another “ and with study the

di fferences soon become Vital to us B ut with B eet h oven s later
.
’
works the di fferences are more cons picuous than the resemblances .
If form means c onformity to a mould then indeed Beethoven s last ,

’
works require a separate mould for each D oes this then mean .
, ,
that there is more form in these w orks or less form than in works , ,
that will all fit one mould ? Evidently the mould metaphor is u n

profitable : when we come down to anything more detailed than
the most c hildish generali z ation M o z art is no more comfo rtable
,
in a mould than Richard Strauss L e t us take the C sharp minor

.
Quartet from point to point and see w hat it tells us w hen w e are
unencumbered b y a priori notions .
It begins with a fu gue of w hich I quote the subject for con

,
ve n ie n c e .
The method of a fu gu e is argumentative ; and w hile its argument is

proceeding dramatic action is in abey ance This fugue is clearly .
bent on its own business and show s no S ign of being an in t ro du c

tion to anythin g else Space forbids a detailed analy sis and only
.
,
a detailed analy sis can thro w an y light on a fugue Three p o m t s .

,
however can be made here First a fugue inasmuch as it is not a

,
.
, ,
dramatic form has no tendency to emphasize its changes of key or

, ,
even to S ingle out a return to its tonic as an important event .
Hence there is somethi ng unusually formal in the eight bars of

clearly cadential tonic and dominant at the return to C sharp minor
- -
( marked by a double bar and four sharps in this score b ars 8 3 ,
and the preceding ethereal passage in A for the two violins an ,
s w e re d by D for the viola and Violoncello is also considerably more ,
like a distinct event than one would expect in a mere fugue In .
short this fugue has subtle signs that it is part of a w ork in sonata
,
style though the hard dramatic facts of that style are not allowed to
,
disturb it s quiet flow Secondly the range o f key is very small

.
, ,
U
9
2 0 SOME ASPECTS OF B E E T H O VEN S ’
A RT FORMS
being practically confined to directly re l ated keys ; that is to say ,
keys in whi ch the c hord o f o u r tonic ( C sharp minor) can be found .
The reader must n o t be misled by the change t o s ix flats at bar

( 45 .
Beethoven had a great dis l ike t o writing double S harps and wou l d
‘
change his notation o n the s light e st h in t of su c h troub l e A few .
a c cidental double sharps would have kept the whole pas s age visibly
around D sharp and F sharp ) Thirdly both the beginning and
.
,
the end o f thi s fugue throw strong emph asis o n the flat supertonic
( D natural ) I n the subje c
. t the minor sixt h A
( ) with it s S forzando ,
:
is refle cted by D natural in the answer which h as been put into ,
the subdo m inant ( instead o f the orthodox dominant) fo r t hi s very

purpose The counterpoint o f this answer even emphasizes G
. .
natural the flat supertoni c o f this subdominant At the end of the

, .
movement the flat supertonic is s o strong that the major tonic

chord is almost in danger o f sounding l ike a dominant This danger .
is ave rted by a D sharp five bars before the end A s the final c hord .
dies away the Violon c el lo rises an o ctave ; the harmony vanishes

,
into unison as the other inst ruments echo the rising octave .
The rising o ctave a semitone hi gher begins a lively self repeat

, , ,
-
‘
ing eight bar tune pianissimo in a q u i ck
-
,
(, a l legro molto
S o the key is D major flat supertonic t o C sharp minor
,
,
and in spite o f al l the emph asis that prepared it utterly unexpected

, , .
The viol a repeats the tune w hi c h the violin resumes at the fifth
,
bar and c ontinues with another eight bars that overlap into a new
theme evidentl y destined t o be a transition theme We are u n q u e s
, .
t io n ab ly moving in sonata style and h ave left the fugue behind u s .
N o w what will be c ome o f the sonata form in these extraordin ary

c ircumstan c es ? From the fact that the movement is in this strange
key we may expe ct that it wi ll n o t modulate very widely fo r fear
,
,
o f losing it s bearings o r damaging it s spe c ial key colour by remind -
ing u s o f the C S harp minor which is s o firmly established by that

great and sole m n fugue as the key o f the who l e work Again the .
,
development o f a sonata form movement is bound t o be argu m e n

-
t at ive : and here again the fugue h as forestalled u s A cc ordingly .
this D major movement whi ch h as started with a ro n dO l ike tune

-
, -
sets o u t at bar 2 4 with a hi ghly organized transition theme whi c h

expands unti l at bar 44 having overshot A major (the dominant
,
) ,
it finds itself poised o n a chord Of C S harp major dan ge rOII s ly near ,

'
the key o f the fugue After a pause the situation is saved by the
.
bol d stroke o f playing the first theme again a ctuall y in E the domi ,
nant o f the dominant Thi s is dominant preparation with a ven

.
’
29 2 SOME ASPECTS OF B E E T H O VE N S A R T F O R M S ’
theme in an in creasingly excited allegretto leads back to A again ,
in the original tempo ( Beethoven s intention is certain though hi s

’
dire ctions are confused) ; and in a coda o f fourteen bars the details ,
o f whi c h cost Beethoven immense pains this slow movement dies ,
away with broken a c cents from the cadence o f its theme .
N o w follows the most c hildlike o f all Beethoven s s c herzos

’
.
Beyond being in al la breve instead o f triple time it does not di ffer

from the form laid down by him in the Fourth and Seventh Sym
phonies The key is E major The trio begins with atune in E
‘
. .
,
and c ontains four distin ct ideas the last t w o Of whi c h are in A

, .
The first da capo o f the s cherzo h as its repeats written o u t in full

in order that ( as in the Seventh Symphony) a large portion may be
at first kept mysteriously subdued The whole trio is made to come
.
round again and s o there is a third appearan c e o f the main body

,
o f the s c herzo Th e tunes o f the trio then try t o prove themselves

.
irrepressib l e But repressed they are and the s c herzo dies away in
.
,
a mis chievous whispering passage whi ch suddenl y swel ls o u t t o a

fortissimo end So far this des c ription might apply t o half a dozen
.
o f Beetho ven s other s c herzos W hat is pe culiar t o the scherzo o f

’
.
the C shar p m inor Qua rtet ( apart from it s c hild l ike spirit) is the
joints o f the form ; the humorous treatment Of it s first four notes a ,
humour which is heightened at ea c h re curren c e when the trio leads

back t o the main theme ; and the strange diminuendo leading t o
‘
poco adagio in the middle o f the se c ond part o f that theme
’
.
Su c h things are always typical and yet always unique .
C atastrophe overwhel ms the e n d o f th e s cherzo I ts last three .
note s are savagely repeated on a G sharp and then a solemn slow ,
tune adagio quasi u n poco andante is given o u t by the viola in G

sharp minor I t s first strain is repeated by the violin and a se c ond
.
,
strain finishing the tune in e ight bars is divided among the in

, ,
s t ru m e n t s and repeated After this three more bars move to C

.
,
sharp minor and s o l ead t o the finale

, .
At this point we must survey the keys whi c h have been heard in
the c ourse o f the work The fugue may be taken t o have established
.
C sharp minor with a firmness beyond the power o f any mere intro
‘
du ction The all egro molto viva c e w as then ab l e t o maintain
.
’
itsel f in D major the flat supertoni c but c ou l d n o t venture far

, ,
afield and s o had a fin ale like se cond subje ct that speedi l y returned
,
-
t o it s toni c The slow movement in A major w as c onfined to the

.
, ,
key of it s theme throughout S ix and a half va riations I t then made .
the on ly modulatory purple pat c h in the whole q uartet by going ,

’
SOME A S P EC T S OF B EE T H O VEN S ’
ART FORMS 29 3
outside the circle Of directly related key s into C major and F major
( the p air of keys that are s o important in the introduction of the
Seventh Symphony) The scherz o was confined to E major and
.
A major .
N o w at last in t he introduction to the fi nale w e have heard the

, ,
dominant of C S harp minor And now at last it will be at all events

. , !
theoretically possibl e to cover a wide range o f key and have some

,
expansive and argumentative development L et us se e what hap .
pens The Finale begins with four bars o f a savage tonic and
.
-
dominant theme in quavers and crotchets (We will call this the .
anapaest theme ) Thereupon follows a wild yet square cut tune in

.
-
dotted rhythm and tragically sardonic mood It occupies sixteen .
bars of w hich the last four are a sad echo emp hasizing D natural
, ,
( our fl at supertonic ) in an ominous wa y Then follows ( over an .
undercurrent in the sardoni c dotted rhythm) a new theme w hich

must be quoted N ote that answer in the second violin
. .
We will c all this the mournful theme With its rondo like s ym .
-
metrical eight bar shape and its immediate full repetition in the
-
bass this theme strengthens the conviction that the Finale is in no

, {
hurry to take action as y et The anapaest theme reappears below .
the dotted rhyth m and then pretends that it was part of the sar
donic tune w lu c h is resumed from its fifth bar Suddenly after its
'
.
,
twelfth bar ac tion is taken In four bars we reach E major ( the

,
.
usual relative major) and a theme of extraordinary pathos in ,
dialogue between the instruments occupies twelve bars of tonic ,
and dominant before it reluctantly moves up fi rst one step then ,
another and then tries hesitatingly to come to a close which is

, ,
frustrated by the drift of the harmony into F sharp minor Thus .
the second su bject has occupied only twenty one bars and has been -
thoroughly typical of Beethoven s ways in a fi nale of this kind ’

.
The first themes anapaest and sardonic tunes burst out in F S harp
, ,
m i nor the subdominant N ow if this Finale were going to be a

,
.
rondo these themes would have entered here in the tonic ; and the
fact that they are in another key how ever closely related at once , ,
convinces us that this is no rondo but a movement of highly organ ,
iz e d development And after the tw elfth bar of the sardonic tune

.
2 94 SOME ASPECTS OF B E E T H O VE N S A R T F O R M S ’
we find the development in full Swi ng The austere simplicity of .
it s first process may be real iz ed if we take the new c ounterpoint of

rising se m ibreves which a c companies the figure of the sardonic
tune and put it all into o n e line starting the first steps ( five bars
, ,
before the double bar and signature of two sharps) in the extreme
bas s .
£ x 10
.
I f this line does stret c h t o the c ra ck of doom it at all events

n ot ,
lands u s in a key whi ch though n o t remote from C sharp minor is

, ,
:
quite in compatible with it I n thi s key o f B minor a new develop

.
ment o f the anapaest theme arises M odulating in seven bars t o D

. ,
it n o w proceeds in a c ouple o f s ix bar periods ( thrice tw o) to land

-
itself o n the dominant o f C sharp minor Here relapsing into four .

,
bar periods (trust your ear n o t your eye) it continues for eight bars
, ,
.
Suddenl y al l trace o f any theme vanishes Beethoven writes Ritmo .
di tre b a ttu te and in this three bar rhythm the music vibrates
,
-
griml y o n the dominant fo r twelve bars Then the recapitulation .
begins The vibration still c ontinues above while the anapaest

.
theme is tossed t o and fro in the b ass I t s four bars are expanded
.
t o eight The sardonic tune o n the other hand is expanded in

.
, ,
another way I t is n o t al l owed t o take its origin al shape but its

.
,
first four bars are treated in a toni c and dominant dialogue with a ,
new counterpoint o f semibreves This occupies S ixtee nbars which

.
,
seem mu ch more S pa cious than those o f the original tune The .
mournful theme n o w enters in the subdominant and we are s u r ,
prised t o find that after it s repetition in the bass it drifts into a

quiet passage o n the last figure o f the sardonic theme with a running
a c companiment like that o f the later stages o f the development And .
this passage l as t s some time : thi rteen bars What does it mean ? .
It means that the se c ond subject is going to be recapitulated in

the flat supertoni c ! The wheel h as c ome full circle The whole .
qu artet is a perfe ct unity governed by the results o f the initial event

,
o f that mod ified fi rst movement whi c h mainta ined itself in the flat
2 96 SOME ASPECTS O F B E E T H O VEN S A R T F O R M S
’
to the best o f my ability already T w o points must be mentioned . .
’
First the answer t o the mournful theme quoted above is taken
, , ,
up and turned into an emphatic and unmistakable allusion t o the

firs t four notes o f the fugue F o r re asons already disc ussed I am
.
,
generally s c epti c al about su c h long distance resemblan c es where -
the composer h as n o means o f enforcing his point ; fo r instance I ,
S hall never believe that Bee thoven intended the transition p assage
t o B flat in the firs t movement o f the N inth Symphony to fore
shadow the c horal finale whi c h c omes three quarters o f an hour -
afterwards I f he had me ant anyt hing by the resemblan c e he c ould

.
,
have made his meaning clear in the introdu ction t o his finale where ,
he c al l s up the ghos ts o f the previous movements But h e re in t h e .

,
C s harp minor Quartet he goes o u t o f his way t o a cc entu ate h is

,
point ; the point refers t o the very beginn ing o f the work and n o t ,
t o some transitio nal pas sage heard onl y twi c e in it s course ; and n o t
only is the point thus exp li cable but it h as n o other explanation .
The other matter is the reappearan c e o f the flat supertoni c in a

shuddering c adential p assage that breaks in upon the height o f the
passion ; having n o c onnexion o f theme with it s surroundings and ,
requiring n o su c h connexion .
This essay deals w ith form and therefore does n o t profess t o

,
discuss emotional c ontents But true form is as inseparable from

.
emotional contents as the plot o f a play W hat after all is the .

, ,
stri ctest possible notion o f form ? Are there any pie ces o f musi c s o
c onstru cted that a c omp l ete definition o f their form will ac c ount fo r
every note ? Wo u ld n o t su c h pieces achieve the theoreti c al ulti
mate possibility in the way o f strict ness ? Strange t o s ay thi s is no ,
mere theoreti c al possibility W hen Bach writes a pie c e in whi c h a

.
known chorale tune is tre ated by several p arts in Cl ose fu gue phrase
-
by phr as e while another part gives o u t the p hrases in their order

, ,
in long notes at regular intervals this form a ctually does pres c ribe ,
fo r most o f the notes in the who l e pie c e and the exigen cies o f ,
counterpoint seem t o determine the rem ai n ing notes Su c h a form .
is a n o t unre asonable exer c ise fo r students ; and a student s exer c ise

’
appears t o di ffer from Ba c h s in n o dis c overable matter o f form

’
.
But whereas the student is proud t o achieve grammati c al c orrect

ness Ba c h s choral e fugu e is a m asterpie c e o f rhetori c No w if we
,
’
-
.
are correct in o u r view that an art form grows from withi n instead
o f being moulded from without then it ought t o be possib l e to
,
regard Ba c h s c horal fu gue as having rea c hed it s strict form by inner

’
rhetori c al necess ity And again this is n o abstra ct absurdity Ba c h

. .
SOME ASPECTS OF B EET H O VEN S ART F O R M S
’
2 97
wrote two enti rely different stri ct chorale fugues o n A ns tiefer No t

-
.
The original tune was undoubtedly moulded by the words to which

it was s e t : and if rhetoric moulded the tune why should it n o t mould
the polyphony ? The practical fa c t that B ach must have known
beforehand that h is art form w as going to be s o stri ct h as nothing
to do with the principles that guided him to prefer the better
rhetoric of two equally strict and correct tu rns of harm o ny .
’
The forms of Beethoven s last works S how the m ore we study
,
them a growing approximation to that Ba c h like condition in whi c h

,
-
the place of every note c an be deduced from the scheme The more .
the forms di ffer from each other the more strictly do they carry out
their own principles Thus they are stricter than the forms o f o p 2 2
. .
the pianoforte itself having proved far too inexact fo r Beethoven s ’
‘
latest ideas As to the S tri ctness of poor Spohr s proje cted s e t o f
.
’ ’
quartets with shakes at the end of the passages it compares with,
the strictness of Beethoven s C sharp minor Quartet as railway

’
trains in a fog c ompare with the stars in their c ourses .

E L G A R; M A S T E R OF MUSIC 1
T HE E ditor s invitation to write a few words about Elgar impels me

’
to utter indiscretions w hi ch I believe to be less dangerous now than

they would have been twenty years ago Perhaps cowardice is the .
onl y motive that could have prevented me and others from uttering
them then fo r indis cretions are most valuable where they give
,
most offence I do not mean personal o ffence to individuals but

.
,
o ffen c e to fas hions ; and Elgar s relation to the fashions of his day
’
is peculiar O n his side it is quite S imple in the all important

.
,
-
respe ct that he did n o t c are two hoots fo r fashions but wrote as a ,
sincere artist entirely t o please himself On the ot her hand the

, .
relations o f fashions t o E l gar are very complex and will have b e ,
c ome whol l y unintell igible t o historians a generation hence At .
present however the se trifle s obstru ct the view as the donkey s

, , ,
’ ‘
’
ears obstructed M ark Twain s camera when he photographed the
M atterhorn M oreover E lg ar su ffered from a S hyness whi c h re
.
,
vealed itself in unexpe cted forms and in parti cular made him , , ,
avoid talking about m U S I c I n the presence o f anyone o f whose

c apacit y t o understand him he w as n o t quite assured
. .
At the present moment I feel very strongly the need o f in cu l

,
cating a better and wider appre ciation o f Elgar s art To c ertain ’

.
elements o f hi s style and taste I have always been re c alcitran t ; and

o n e o f the element ary lessons that people must learn if they are to
c ome to terms with anything outside the most habit ridden contents -
o f their o w n minds is that greatness in art is n o t a matter o f taste
at all N obody ought t o s ay that he likes what he does n o t like ; but

.
it is c hildish t o measure great things by one s likes and dislikes ’

.
And by c ontinual l y taking one s temperature in likes an d dislikes’
o n e develops n o fine artisti c sensibi l ities but merely becomes a ,
chr o ni c aestheti c valetudinarian I myself don t like a Wagnerian .

’
atmosphere and I like it least o f all in Parsifal I prefer Beethoven s

, .
’
atmosphere to Wagn er s because the atmosphere o f a man who h as

’
,
a profound s ense o f responsibil ities and whose chief sorrow h as c ome

from his failure t o live up t o it is more sympathetic to me than ,
the atmosphere o f a person whose ax10m is that what he wants it ,
is h is duty t o have and that the mean s he uses t o gain it are washed
,
1
W ritt e n at t h e re q u es t of t h e E dit o r o f M usic and L e tters ( th e lat e M r . A .
H F o x S t ran g w ays ) fo r his is s u e

. of J an u ary 1 9 3 5 (Vo l X VI NO
.
, .
298
3 00 ELCAR ,
MASTER OF MUSIC
‘
he liked the clothes better than the body The autograph of ’
.
E lgar s Dream of Geron tius h as a note in words whi c h I have fo r

’
gotten but w hi c h are a tou c hing expression o f the c onviction that

,
this w as the best that the composer could ever do : words equivalent
‘
to Beethoven s note o n hi s M ass in D written from the heart ;
’
may it go t o the heart Wh at c o n c e ivab le u se can there be in

’
.
answering a genuine appeal fo r advice by a general c ondemnation

o f the work as superficial ? It is n o t as if o u r British musi cal
a c ademics were an immensely prosperous and popular group like
the Victorian painters There has been n o British musical e q u iva
.
lent t o Burlington House in any o f its aspects Elgar had a genuine .
respe c t fo r o u r sincere and ide alistic E ng lish masters of music and ,
t hi s w as the recognition they gave him .
As to Elgar s mastery nothing but sheer ignoran c e c an bri n g it

’
into question T o put the clothes before the body his orchestration
.
,
is as wonderful as S t rau s s s wou l d be if S t rau ss s harmony were

’ ’
clean and his economy severe That is t o s ay fo r Elgar s p u rposes .

,
’
it is the most perfe ct or c hestration conceivable I t is astoundingl y .
subtle uncan nily e ffi c ient and utterl y original I am n o t S O sure

, , .
about hi s mastery o f form ; that it is masterly there is no reasonable

doubt but like the form o f the Ch e ru b in is o f all artisti c periods
, , ,
it is apt t o fil l up space with sequen c es o n figures that are n o t suffi

c ie n t ly pregnant t o S how well under the amount o f repetition forced
o n them Yet I do n o t know any E nglish c ompositions that are

.
more free from t his fau l t than Elgar s ex c ept some that have ’
definitel y abandoned the classi cal forms and language .
O u r C h e ru b inis do n o t attempt t o s ay anything about the soul o f

’
Elgar s work That is a mysterious thing that eludes analysis O ne s
’
. .
sympathies may be rather with other sou l s ; fo r n o t every reaction o f

taste is l ike mere connoisseurs hi p o f wine Between souls there is .
personal rea cti on o n both sides even if o n e soul en c ounters the other
only as embodied in Elgar s Violin C o ncerto I f your approa c h to ’
.
E lgar s Vi olin C oncerto is donnish and c ensorious the concerto will

’
behave t o yo u exactly like a s hy person with a vein o f irony I t wi ll .
then su ffer a cutely if yo u are c ondu cting it o r playing it S O wi l l

, .
y ou ; and serve yo u right I am n o t claiming that it is a faultless

.
work n o r that it represents my idea o f a c on c erto I prefer it t o

, .
represent its o w n i deas The Viol oncel lo C on c erto is a mu ch less

.
i mportant work and is mu ch more a cc essib l e t o me though ( o r per

,
haps even be cause) it is n o t in the great classical forms and there ,
fore amongst other l iberties is unen cumbered with the ne c essity

, , ,
ELGAR , MAST ER OF MUSIC 3 01
techn i c al or conscientious fo ra large acreage o f sequential develop

,
ments An d Elgar s humour is of the highest order

.
’
.
I have had to interrupt the writing of this little screed in order t o

rehearse and conduct a performance of w hat I believe to be Elgar s ’
‘
greatest work the symphonic study F alstafi I t seems to me o n e
'
’
, .
of the immeasurab ly great things in music and entirely free from ,
anything that can be imputed to Elgar s o t he f works as faults O n e ’ ‘

, .
of R L S tevenson s best fables tells of a touchstone the light o f

, .
’
which revealed the truth . M any other touchstones w ere found

before the genuine one was produced In ea c h other s light they .
’
were all dark but each one S howed some glow in the light o f the
,
true stone If I w ant to understand anything in Elgar s music t o

.
’
‘
which I find myself recalcitrant I shall in future stand on F alstaj ,j as
on a mountain ( you will s e e at once that the equator of a recumbent

Falstaff provides an excellent place of observation) and shall trust ,
in what the infinite charity of this work c an tell me of Elgar s mean ’
ing in other things This c harity extends even to Prince Hal s con
.
’
version into Henry the Fifth S o I believe did Shakespeare s It .

, ,
’
.
sheds a humor ous light on the tub thumping finale of the beloved -
’ ‘
E nigma V ariations ( By the way I cannot subscribe t o the Auld
.
,
L ang Syne solution of the enigma : the counterpoint is not nearly

‘
good enough ; the translation into the minor is like adding barks
’ ‘
like a dog to the riddle about the hen pheasant in order to make -
,
’
it harder ; and any composer designing a counterpoint to the
melody wou ld b e practi c ally certain to make it fit the bass also ) .
A report is no w current that E lgar originally ended the Variations

quietly and that this Finale was forced upon E lgar b y more e xp e ri
,
e n ce d friends If this is true fo r Heaven s sake let every e ffort be

.
,
’
made to recover the original Finale There is always the possibility .
that Elgar himself may have found it inadequate ; and in any case
the present Finale has enough humour to entrap the humourless .
I fell badly into the trap myself when I fi rst heard its solemn organ
strains with their facile descent into prestissimo semibreves But .
we do want to know how E lgar rounded o ff the work before he was

induced to put a brass hat on to it instead .
M eantime let us be thankful that popular and o fficial recognition

,
had the sense to recognize in Elgar a master in spite of our in ,
v e t e rat e prejudi c e against every body who does not profess and call
himself an amateur .
DOHN AN Y I ’
S C HA M B E R M U S I C I
DO H NANY I showed proclivities fo r the writing of c hamber music

in his earl iest days ( vide Grove) I n h is c ompositions we have art in .
whi ch the form arises organically from the matter W e also have .
mastery describable I n a c ademi c terms and traceab le beyond any

,
thing that a cademies have codified Fortunately there I s no need .

,
fo r D ohn anyi t o justify himself to the criti c s of the future by writing

feeble passages t o show his moderni ty fo r he is a musi c al adm in i ,
s t rat o r as well as a c omposer and the contemporary composer , ,
whatever his tenden cies h as no grievance against either the pro

,
;
grammes o r the performan c es o f the Philharmonic O rchestra o f

Budapest as dire cted by D ohn anyi .
M eanwhile D Ohn an yi s o w n work S hapes itself without inter

,
’
ference o r inhibition from external pressures The things that have .
influen ced it are su c h as make fo r the freedom that c omes from

‘
mastery though t hi s does n o t mean that Do h n én yi h as been in flu

,
e n c e d o n ly by perfe c t works o f art M astery in the sonata forms .
and style is nowadays attributed automati c al ly to the influence of

Brahms and Dohn anyi unquestionably owes mu ch t o his intimate
,
knowledge Of Brahms s works and also t o some c onsiderable ac

’
quaintance with Brahms himself P assages in Do hn an yi s ripest .

’
works can sti ll be traced t o an origin in Brahms Fo r instance it .

,
‘
is impossible t o know the augmented return Of the theme in the
’
first movement o f Brahms s Fourth Symphony and fail t o re c ogniz e

’
it in prin ciple and dramati c e ffect when we meet the device in

D o hn é n yi s Violin Sonata o p 2 1 I t is the influen c e of a master
’
. .
,
o n a later master and su c h influen c es operate with c omplete dis

,
regard fo r co m mon notions as t o the nature and obligations o f

original ity .
But the influence o f Brahms is neither in form n o r in style the

dominating feature in Do h n anyi s work The prefa c e t o the Phil ’
.
harmonia miniature score o f his First String Quartet in A major ,
op 7 describes the first movement as o f c lassi cal perfe ction in

.
,
form and the whole as modelled o n Brahms in themes and part

,
writing This is an a cc eptable c riti cism but it needs adjusting to

.
,
the fact that when B rahms s way o f moving was anything like as ’
easy going as that o f the first movement o f Do h n é n yi s A major

-
’
An art ic le co n t rib u t e d t o C o b b e tt Cyc lop edic S urvey f Chamb e r M usic

1 ’
s o
(O xf o rd U n ive rs ity Pre ss ) , 1 9 2 9 .

3 04 D O HN AN Y I
’
S CHAMBER MUSIC
a s c herzo ( in this case with a well de fin e d trio) in a way w hi ch
-
D ohn anyi develops in t w o later works D etai l s remin d one super.
fic ially o f the second movement o f Brahms s C minor Trio but the

’
form with it s bur den in the toni c major is quite new The on l y
, , .
other external influen ce o n the style is the H aydn e s q u e breaking up

o f the burden by measured pauses at the end a joke rather t o o ,
elementary fo r the style o f the whole work and c ertainly not tra c e ,
able t o Brahms The sombre slow movement is the ripest though

.
,
n o t perhaps the mo s t attra c tive part o f the work N O page o f the

, .
quartet c ould have been written by anybody but a c onsummate

c ontrapuntist ; in the first movement the inversion Of the first theme
forms the bass o f t w o o f the most striking passages and the prin ,
c ip al return o f the main theme o f the slow movement is given to
the bas s with powerfu l effe ct .
The finale is amusing but is o n e o f those youthful diversions

,
in which n o liveliness o f tempo c an avail t o bring the pace above an

imperturbable amb l e At first t hi s seems humorous and in t e n
.
t io n al espe c ially when the first episode ( C sharp minor the Finale
, ,
being in A minor) enters as a quite separate se ction drawling

c anoni c ally over drone chords and fran k ly rejoi cing in its laz iness
-
.
Apart from the question whether the humour like the H aydn e s q u e ,
joke at the end o f the se c ond movement is o n the same plane as ,
the general style doubts arise as t o the c omposer s intentions when

,
’
the main theme ( a Hungarian minor scal e des cending from E to

E with an augmented se c ond in both tetra c hords) is later o n de
ve lo p e d in a fugato with a four bar rhythm as rigid as any dance
-
musi c I nterest and surprise are present t o the last but the art o f
.
,
movement is la cking M u c h may be learnt by c omparing this

.
finale with that o f Do h n é n yi s later chamber works the Quartet in

’
,
A minor (written in where we seem t o have the mature and

energeti c expression o f the high S pirit s whi c h fail t o find an outlet
in the ear l ier work .
T H E SERENADE I N C MAJ OR fo r string trio o p 1 0 whi l e appar

, , .
,
ently a mu c h s l ighter work makes a great advan c e towards the

,
attainment o f Do hn an yi s later style Dvo fé k s little T e rz e tt o fo r

’
.
’
t w o violin s and viola may o r may n o t have been in D o hn an yi s

’
mind but the c omparison between the t w o works is instructive I n

, .
both c ases the c omposer might have s at down t o write the first
movement with nothing parti cular in hi s head getting inspiration ,
in due c ourse from the p l easure o f han dl ing the de l i c ate in s t ru

mental me dium The important movement in D vo i é k s Terzetto
.
'
’
D O H N AN Y I
’
S CHAMBER MUSIC 3 05
is the fi nale where inspiration arri ves I n a s e t o f variations

,
a on
s ingle ep i grammatic musi c al sentence with unsymmetri c al rhythm
and recondite harmonies Here and nowhere else we may find a .

, ,
prototype of Do h n an yi s variation themes as exemplified in the

’
beautiful fourth movement of this serenade But Do h n an yi s wit ‘

.
’
an d technique are too resour c eful to keep him waiting fo r inspira
tion until a fourth movement The o pe nin g m arc h s oon proves

’
dramatic as well as witty and provides the first example o f the kind
'
of short cut which becomes s o important a chara cteristic o f Do h

n é n i s later forms and which enables him t o weld whole sonatas
’
y ,
into a unity like that of a sy mphoni c poem without loss o f the

terseness of true sonata style and without any feeling that material ,
is lacking for the later movements when they draw upon themes
already employed N obody would believe a priori that a mar c h
.
could adequately represent a da c apo afte r a trio by three medita

tive murmurs of it s first bar follow ed by a figure like a sneeze ; but
su ch is the end of the first movement of this serenade ; and the
finale after a vigorous career as a fully developed rondo ends by

, ,
bursting into the trio of the march This dies away and the work .
,
closes with the same figure as the march without alluding to ,
the fi rst theme To the learned musi c ian the humour is ac c e n

.
t u at e d by the fact that D o h n é n yi is here following the precedent

of the Classical serenades and cassations which began and ended
with a march (vide Beethoven s S tring Trio 0p E a c h move ’
,
.
ment of this serenade h as some point of form o r style pe culiar to

‘
Do h n é n yi s mature works The se c ond movement entitled Ro
’
.
,
’
manza ends on the dominant with an effect akin t o that of the
,
M ixo lydian m o de and also t o the tendencies of mu c h recent Spanish

’
music (vide Granados the Goyescas passi m ; M ixolydian for major

, ,
keys and Phrygian for minor) The third movement is a scherzo

, .
in fugue style in w hi c h a trio like theme is eventually combined

,
-
with the first theme in double fugue The key is D minor which . ,
follow s dramatically upon the M ixolydian close of the F major

R omance and ending in D major makes the only deviation in all
, ,
Do h n an yi s works from the key system of classi c al models This

’
-
.
deviation arises quite naturally and is in artistic harmony with the

ostensibly irresponsible style of the whole Fro m D major the G .
minor of the beautiful theme and variations follows inevitably .
This movement is the most serious and romantic part o f the work .
E nding in G major it is an admirable ante c edent to the prosai c ally

,
witty rondo —fin ale with its theme plunging into C via D minor
, ,
X
3 06 D O H N AN Y I
’
S CHAMBER MUS I C
its mocking vein and its indignant end with the trio of the opening
,
march .
A student of the relation between musical form and dr amatic

expression could hardly fail to s e e in this serenade clear signs that
Do hn é n yi w as n o t o nl y an inveterate c omedian but an artist with
a genuine gift fo r operatic writing ; he h as in fa ct composed three , ,
operas and a pantomime It is not altogether agreeable to the .
orthodoxies o f c riti cism t o note the dramatic vein in his instrumental

works ; fo r the usual way to recognize a composer s ability to write ’
operas is by discovering his inability to do anything else And .
Do hn é nyi s c hamber music is without flaw in the purity of its style

’
and the complete freedom from anything dependent on stage c o n

dit io n s fo r its e ffect But just as the theme o f the slow movement
.
,
o f Brahms s A major Quartet shows rhythms that c ould only have

’
been invented by masters o f the musical treatment of words so ,
the forms and devi c es o f Do hn an yi s c hamber music from the ’

,
Serenade onwards have a M ozart l ike perc eption o f what is an d

,
-
what is n o t adequate to produ c e intelligible form with rapid move

ment a perc eption whic h betokens a c omposer who c an handle
,
stage drama with a fastidious perfection o f musical form This is

-
.
n o t necessarily connected with staginess of style as M ozart demon ,
s t rat e d o nc e fo r a l l The power t o move at any and every pace from

.
point t o point o f the plot is essential t o both drama and pure music .
Sonata forms the m selves arose from those o f music drama and a -
sonata s t yle that is n o t essentially dramati c is nothing O n the other .
hand the sonata h as its o w n rate o f movement whi c h is n o t that of

, ,
the drama I ts forms are based o n two principles : first its rate of
.
,
movement and secondly it s exposition o f key relations in sharp

, ,
-
c ontrasts o n a large s c ale W hy Bru ckner and Reger S hould have

.
encumbered themselves with these forms is a mystery which must

remain unsolved seeing that they were really suited to neither
,
c omposer Do h n an yi s rhetorical power and h is mastery of texture

.
’
,
o n c erta in schemati c but elaborate l ines make it indifferent what ,
forms he uses so long as he keeps himself and u s interested ; but the

,
interest is neither dramatic n o r formal Dohn anyi with far greater

- .
,
variety o f form is incomparably nearer t o classical foundations In

, .
h is mature work there is n o stroke o f form without its dramatic

value and n o stroke o f drama that does not serve to complete the
,
form The question o f tonality is intimately c onnected with that of

.
movement and from the outset Do hn é nyi s sense of tonality is

,
’
classical o n other than c onventional grounds A mere list o f the .

3 08 D O H N AN Y I
’
S CHAMBER MUSI C
s an t l
ythe same spot Yet the sacrifice of classi c al movement has
o n .
positive results and differs widel y from the stagnation of our modern
Ro s s in ian s The real movement is latent as in Greek choruses ;
.
,
and it is onl y ne c essary t o note the e ffect o f the Phrygian end o f

that s cherzo ( o n t he dominant of F minor) followed by the chord of
C sharp minor o n the beginning o f a molto adagio t o s e e that the ,
action of this musi c h as that intense l y and maturely dramati c

qualit y by whi c h a situation prepared fo r generations explodes in
a moment into an inevitab l e c atastrophe .
The finale I S the adagio I n C sharp minor which gathers up the ,
themes o f the s c herzo and first movement working them first into ,
it s o w n tempo w hi c h finally approa c hes that o f the introduction to

,
the first movement Thereupon it settles o n the c hord of D flat

.
major and bui l ds up a climax and de cline fo r over forty bars all
,
o n the opening t heme with whi c h the first vio l in dies away ( on the
,
u n resolved sixth) .
T H E V I O L I N S ON ATA I N C SHAR P M I N O R o p 2 1 is a work in a ,

.
,
simi l ar vein o f romanti c pathos with a quiet first movement more ,
nearl y o n the lines o f Brahms as h as already been S hown in regard ,

‘
to the augmented return o f the main theme Yet this very detail
’
.
is worked o u t in su c h a c onnexion with the end o f the development

as t o produ c e the Bruckner W agner movement t ypical of D o h -
n é n yi s maturer works
’
The second movement whic h follows
.
,
without break is o n e o f Do hn an yi s variation s cherzos and it works

,
’
-
in a l ongish episode o n the sec ond subje ct o f the first movement ’

,
whi c h is made t o behave part l y like a variation and partly like a trio .
The fi n al e burs ts o u t as soon as the s cherzo h as d ied away Beginning .
with the motto figu re o f the firs t movement ( C sharp D sharp E ) in

-
, ,
shri l l c hords it transforms the rest o f that theme into an agitated

,
strain somewhat as L iszt turned the who l e first movement of his

,
Faust Symphony into a M ep hi stophelian s cherzo ; but this is n o t

’
rigorous l y c arried o u t On the c ontrary this finale develops o n its

.
,
o w n lines n o t unlike a free s c herzo with a quiet trio A major and a

, ( )
return in a foreign key with modulations A s soon as the toni c ( C
-
S harp minor) is rea c hed the musi c settles o n a long dominant pedal
and after a great cl imax returns t o the tempo and opening o f the
, ,
first movement bringing the work t o a romanti c all y patheti c close

,
.
T H E SEC OND QU I N TET I N E F LAT M I N O R With mature masterpie c es .
a class list in order o f merit is the most futile impertinen c e but this
-
is c ertainl y the most immediate l y impressive Of Do hn é n yi s works

’
,
even if we in clude his or chestral music .

D O H N AN Y I
’
S CHAMBER MUSIC 3 09
H ere we have even more unmistakably than in the D flat Quar

,
tet the perfect fusion of sonata style with Bruckner Wagner move
,
-
ment and a finale that gathers up the threads of the first movement
,
with an effect of normality not before attained Fo r this normality .
is quite different from that achievable by a s tyle whi c h is a mosaic

of short epigrams as in S chumann s Fourth Symphony ; and an
,
’
impassable gulf separates it from the worldly wisdom of Saint

S aé n s .
Do hn an yi s mastery of the severest forms o f c ounterpoint h as an

’
intimate connexion with the art which rounds o ff the whole design
in little over twenty minutes while seeming to go through vast ,
cosmic processes from the outset The enemy would blaspheme at .
a list of the contrapuntal devices in this work and would s ay a ,
p rio ri that su c h a tissue of inversions and diminutions and au g m e n
tat io n s and combinations was as incompatible with poeti c inspira

tion as the construction of a triple acrostic in palindromes He .
w ould also say the same of Bach s B minor M ass And M etastasio ’
.
expiring in a c anz ona is not a greater formalist than Bach blind ,
and on h is death bed dictating Vor deinen Thron tret ich hiem it in
-
four part chorale fugue by inversion

- -
.
E laborate contrapuntal devi c es are to music as argumentative

dialogue is to drama The writer who still thinks su c h things clever
.
will dissipate his action in h is proud pursuit of them The writer .
whose command of them is supreme will find in them a powerful

means of concentrating his action as Beethoven came to do though , ,
his mastery of c ounterpoint was by no means supreme He did n o t .

,
ho wever think these things clever but he grasped their purport

, ,
and found them necessary D ohn anyi who could at any time have
.
,
amused himself with the most outrageous contrapuntal talks pro ,
duces in his Second Quintet a counterpoint in whi c h every combi

nation is a masterpiece of tone c olour and every masterpiece o f -
tone colour is the result of fine counterpoint This is the relation

-
.
between form and drama in another c ategory .
The tone of the whole work is very sombre only the delicious ,
scherzo variations affording relief to the prevailing solemnity The

-
.
finale is almost entirely in fugue beginning slowly with the strings ,
alone until the piano enters with a chorale tune which must have -
brought the spirit of Bru ckner from his communings with W agner
in Walhalla to bless Dohnanyi for bringing his grandest ideas into
relation with human time as well as Wo t an e s q u e eternity .
As in all Do hn an yi s works the scoring is rich and yet e c o n o

’
,
3 10 D O H N AN Y I
’
S CHAMBER MUSIC
mical I t conveys the ideas in the fewest notes with the finest sounds
.
and the most practical technique S o long as it conveys ideas no .

,
scoring will be popularly regarded as bri l liant A great Russian .
composer h as classified orchestration as (a) that which sounds well

with competent sight reading and wonderful after proper practice ;
-
b
( ) that which does n o t sound well until it h as been adequatel y
practised ; and ( c) that w hich does not sound well under any cir
c u m s t an c e s This cl assification makes no allowan c e for ideas and
.
,
provides fo r nothing more than the cu l inary department of musical

art C ertainl y Do hn é n yi s scoring is n o t fool proof enough for that
.
’
-
Russian first c lass unless competent s ight reading is held to include

,
-
an instantaneous grasp o f the composer s idea o n the part of every ’
player Very few great ensemble works wi ll sound well throughout

.
with even the best o f sight reading The highest type of great -
.
instrumentation is that whi c h requires much practi c e but which ,
sounds wonderful as soon as it begins t o sound well .
T H E T HI RD S T R I N G QU AR T ET in three movements in A m i nor 18 , ,
a large work but l ess serious than t h e D flat Quartet The impas
, .
s io n e d first movement h as a temper that averts tragedy by letting
O ff steam in a long runaway c oda The middle movement is a

, .
l ovel y s e t Of variations and the direction andante religioso is rather

,
-
a warning n o t t o play t o o fast than a claim t o any such solemnity

.
as that o f the E flat minor Quintet The finale is in high if satiric .
spirits I n the first movement some notable concessio ns are made

.
t o recent tendencies in harmony c hiefly by way o f obstinate cling ,
ing t o o n e key by some voices after the others have gone the
opposite way .
T hree operas and a pantomime are what it is hardly slang to

call a good alibi fo r having produced n o more than eight pieces of
’
c hamber musi c N othing is more necessary in an age of artistic

.
experiment than that c omposers should test the Obje ctive reality
o f their ide as by writing operas Verdi produced F als tafl when he
'
w as in h is e ight ieth year I f Dohn anyi will cont inu e t o that age pro
.
du c in g c hamber musi c and operas in the present ratio o f e ight to

three there will be n o excuse fo r c omp l aining o f the exhaustion of
,
‘
the higher artistic resou rces in modern musi c absolute o r illus ,
’
t rat iv e .
‘
3 12 THE LEAN ATHLETIC STYLE ’
OF HINDEMITH
art he drew the line firmly at two things O n e o f these he c alled .
“ “ !
bad blood and the other rotting Both are as impossible to .
Hindemith as to an athl ete His musi c is at least as serious as a

.
game and that is something far more serious than anything that can
,
put o n solemnity as a garment .

’
M ost modern pianoforte music is far t o o unreadab l e fo r any

player t o derive pleasure from it ex c ept after many hours o f c areful
te c hni c al pra cti c e ; but fo r pages together the te c hniqu e o f Hinde
m it h s Sonata N o 2 is apart from what is paradoxi c al to the ear
’
.
,
and therefore u n fami l iar t o the fingers n o t more diffi cult than that ,
o f sonatinas fo r young p l ayers and the unprejudi c ed listener if his

, ,
o w n playing is equal t o that can hard l y introdu c e himself to Hinde

,
mith with better prospect o f understanding ( o n e might al most s ay

mutua l understanding) than by trying t o p l ay this sonata fi rst before
he listens t o an adequate rendering o f it O n e o f the main prin ciples .
o f H indemith s ait is that th e re S hal l never be an unne c essary note

’ '
in the harmony Every note S hall be as dire ctly essential t o the idea
.
as in Ba c h s stri c test po l yphony T his n e o classi cism goes far

’
-
.
beyond Ba c h in it s severity fo r ex c ept in musi c fo r the clavi c hord

, ,
and fo r the una cc ompanied vio l in and Violon c ello none o f Ba c h s ,

’
musi c consists only in the writt en notes The o ctave registers of .

-
the organ and the harpsi chord often multiply the written sounds by
three and the Greek aristo cracy o f the ful l y written parts o f Ba c h s
,
-
’
or c hestral and c hamber musi c rel ies upon the s l ave system o f the -
c ontinuo the figured bas s filled o u t o n a keyboard instrument by a

—
a player w h o l eft n o empty spa ces un l ess he w as told by the dire ctor
t o play only the b as s .
‘
I t is real ly with M ozart and Haydn that the l ean athletic style ’
begins and their dummy a cc ompaniments are the devi c es by whi c h

,
the or ch e s tra an d t h e interior harmony provide th e ir o w n dome sti c

se rvi c e Hindemith does n o t approve o f dummy a cc ompaniments
.
in h is o w n work and he surprised me b y the severity with whi c h

, _
he regarded some quite l ight musi cal equival ents t o an engraver s ’
c ross hat ching in o n e o f his early violin sonatas whi ch he wou ld

-
have preferred t o repla c e by something more l ike l ine drawing -

.
But he is no pedant E ven romanti cism driven o u t with a poly

.
,
‘
tonal pit chfork c omes ba ck— but n o t as an is m fo r the true
,
’
,
roman ce is nature lurking round the c orner .
The Se c ond Sonata c ons ists o f four movements ( o r three and an

introdu ction t o the Final e) all in classi cal forms easily traceable if
,
o u find ( as I do n o t ) that the naming o f form s is the shortest way

y
‘
THE LEAN ATHLETIC STYLE ’
OF HINDEMITH 3 13
towards the enjoy ment of musi c The form o f the first movement .
—
( M oderately fast why s e t forth the original German tempo as if
it were a technical term ? ) is quite orthodox as t o exposition o f t w o
groups of themes with devel opment recapitulation and coda ; and
, , ,
perhaps this information may help some listeners t o enjoy a work

of which t he harmo ni c language does n o t remain within classi cal
orthodoxy for a single line But like Wal her s si ng ing in Die .
, t
’
M eis tersing er it steps firmly and unerringly in it s o w n path The

, .
second movement ( L ively) is a very short scherzo The third move .
ment consists of an introduction ( V ery slow) t o a Rondo ( With

movement b eweg t) which as its title implies consists o f a re curring
, , ,
theme alternating with episodes Hindemith is the c onverse o f Dr . .
’
Johnson s naive friend E dwards whose e ffo rt s a t philosophy were
, ,
frustrated by the irrupti on of Cheerfulness N othing frustrates .
Hindemith s cheerfulness ; but roman c e in it s truthful form o f

’
beauty may break in at any moment as fo r instan c e when this ,
Rondo o n it s last page indulges in c omfortably fat c hords repeat

, , ,
ing its mai n theme in several clear and separate keys sla ckening ,
ba c k to the tempo of the introduction and ending quite solemnly , .
L e t me urgently repeat my advice to every listener who can play the

pianoforte for his own pleasure to see what he c an make o f this
sonata with his own pair of hands .
For the Violin C oncerto no su c h advice can be given The violin .
ist is ins ide the work ; and if anyone thinks he can read the score
to himself in an arm chair he is either de c eiving himself o r being
-
wise after the event So my advice is metaphori c ally that o f the

.
steward of the C lyde steamer I have n o t yet heard t hi s violin .
concerto and my shortest way to know it would be t o condu ct it

,
.
Without that I can from an examination of the s c ore assure yo u

“
, ,
that every b ar is evidently the work of a master w ho imagines pre

c is e ly the sound of every note he writes ; though fo r me the trouble
of assembling su c h unfamiliar sounds outweighs the pleasure o f

reading them I n the score L istening and performing are other .
matters an d for very experienced score readers but for n o others

,
-
, ,
the ple as u re o f listening may be enhanced b y following from the

score .
The listener will gain nothing by thinking of other violin c o n

certos The prominen c e of the s olo violin is here se cured by the
.
fact that there are no violins in the orchestra The string section .
c onsists of four violas four violoncellos and four double basses

, ,
-
.
The wind band is utterly unlike any classical group I t c onsists of .

‘
3 14 THE LEAN ATHLET IC STYLE ’
OF HINDEMITH
two piccolos an E flat clarinet ( the squeaky treble of military
,
h an ds) a B flat clarinet ( the classi c al instrument) a b ass clarinet

, , ,
two bassoons a contrafagotto a cornet a pistons a trombone and

, ,
- -
, ,
a bass tuba The p ercussion consists of four t ambourines without

.
jingles of a kind sometimes found in j azz h an ds They are of

, .
difiere nt siz es s o as to give sounds of di ffere nt though no t definitely

musical pitch .
The movements are numbered I to V but are I n e ffect three , ,

.
The fi rst movement is entitled S ign al and is a dramatic intro du c

tion Broad majestic minims marching with a steadiness whi ch the
increasing excitement of the com et cannot hurry to the eventual ,
entry of the solo violin who dominates the second movement (Ve ry ,
lively) throughout a w ild atonal career whi c h is la cking neither in

romance n o r in q uotable themes The third movement is entitled .
Nachts tuck ( i e S erenade) I t s tempo is M oderately fas t quavers

'
. . .
whi ch as there are twe lve in a bar means a slow movement In

, ,
.
su c h a tempo beauty always intrudes upon Hindemith s severity

,
’
without compromising his atonality o r polytonality ( or whatever

else yo u may call his language) The fourth movement strides in .
‘
L ively crotchets at three a bar setting o u t with a sturdy theme
’
,
for the com et whi ch is developed fo r several lines before the violin
tak es it u p Twice the violin h as a strange kind of cadenz a ac co m
.
p an ie d o nl y by the j azz drums and a few groans from the tuba -

.
I n the second cadenz a the violin is muted and the tuba is silent .
Suddenly the violin breaks into perpetual motion in alla breve time ,
two in a bar and ends the c on c erto in what is numbered as a fifth

,
‘
movement ( V : As fast as E xcept fo r a few momentary
explosions t hi s p erp etuu m mo bile is pianissimo throughout The .
piccolo h as an ex cellent tune whi c h it plays from time to time in

rather erratic keys and at o n e point the piz zi c ato strings provide a
,
waltz accompaniment a c ross the duple time Schumann began .
t w o o f his fin ale s S o ras ch w ie m Og lich and then twi c e ( in ea c h

'
case) ordained N o ch schneller Hindemith is more reasonable ; .
he asks onl y that the final running o u t o f this humorous and

n au gh t ily i work shou l d be W m li h h h ll
‘
O
’
p c t u re s
q u e en n g c n o c s c ne e r .
And perhaps the passages lie more smoothly and s o can be played
faster Anyhow al l reasonable players w h o are n o t sho c ked by a
.
,
n o n classi c al l anguage delight in the magnifi c ent adequacy fo r it s

-
purposes o f every note that Hindemith writes

, .
3 16 PREFACES TO CLASS I CAL CONCERTO CADENZAS
ac curate timing T h e im m e n s e labour S hown in Beethoven s in
.
~
’
numerab l e Sket ches fo r al l manner o f works from the greatest to ,
the s l ightest is mai nly devoted t o giving the written work the
,
rhetori c al perfection o f an extemporization Fo r the pro cess of .
writing music is s o slow that it tends far more than the writing o f ,
words t o inhibit the virtues o f an extemporaneous styl e

,
.
The n atural defe ct o f extemporized musi c is t h at t he e xt e m

‘
o riz e r s memory is unequal t o the task o f a c hieving the arc h it e c

’
p
tural symmetries whi c h great musi c habitual ly p ro dII ce s by actual
recapitulation o n a large s c ale A kna ck o f remembering a few .
pregnant phrases may a c hieve something astonishingly like re c api

.
t u lat io n ; and c onversel y few people wou l d guess that when

, ,
M ozart in Die Z au b erflbte shows u s a fairy tal e prin c e falling in

’
, ,
l ove with the portrait o f the fairy tale prin cess T am in o s aria re -
,
’
c apitu l ates nothi ng whatever ex cept a cl i ché whi c h di ffers from

other c li c hés on l y in being the right thi ng in the right pla ce But .
nothing is more fatal ly easy than t o extemporiz e large arc hitectural

symmetries o n paper with your first statements safely re c orded and
,
at hand fo r c opying The consequen ces o f this and o f other material

.
circumstan c es in the writing o f musi c are that the typi c al defects

o f extemporaneous l y written music are far le s s to l erab l e than those
o f unwri t ten extemporization By all a cc ounts Beethoven s actual .

,
’
extemporizations w hi c h he c ould extend t o as mu c h as an hour

, ,
were overwhe l mingl y impressive and probably owed but little of ,
their impress iveness t o the trivial detai l reported in the statement

that Beethoven extemporized pass ages far more diflic u lt than any
that he pub l ished A faithful re c ord o f his extemporizations would
.
probab l y seem t o u s and t o Beethoven himself both empty and

, ,
wild with frequent fine ideas a l ready better expressed e l sewhere

, .
But it wou l d c ertainl y be in c omparab l y better than the written

c adenzas whi c h Beethoven extemporize d o n paper O nly o n e of .
these is great the biggest o f the three c adenzas t o the first move
,
ment Of the C major C on c erto o p 1 5 whic h I have des c ribed in , .

,
my anal ys is o f that work (Essays in M us ical A n alysis Vo l I I I , .

,
p . This c adenza raises t o the level o f the Walds tein Sonata

the whol e o f a b e autiful but l oo s el y bu il t early work greatl y under ,
rated by Beethoven himself Another c adenza attempted t o gather .
up l oose threads but Beethoven evidently found that this w as a

,
hopel e ss t as k which c oul d onl y introdu ce me chan ical sti ffness into
,
what had at al l events a natura l exuberance and flo w S o fo r once .

, ,
he a chieve d o n paper a grand l y improvisatorial peroration whi c h by

PREFACE S TO CLASS ICAL CON CERTO CADENZAS 3 17
sheer contrast made the rest of the work seem a c lose knit argu -
ment I should never dream of writing another c adenza to Beet

.
hoven s C maj or C onc erto

’
.
The C oncerto in B flat op 1 9 pu b lis he d a s the second piano

, .
,
forte con certo is really earlier than op 1 5 Though the first move
, . .
ment is full of pretty things its looseness is past praying fo r The

,
‘
rest of the concerto is ex c ellent early Beet hoven and an attitude ,
of contempt towards the whole work is no S ign of more than

commonplace critical sense But one of the most amusi ng minor
.
details in the growth of B eethoven s style is the downright ill ’
tempered fugal cadenz a with which some years later he ki cked its , ,
first movement downstairs As the great cadenza to op : 1 5 is t o o

.
sublime for my competiti o n so this c adenza to op 1 9 is t o o good

, .
a joke N o wonder the or c hestra seems s o frightened by it as to

.
Close with only s ix mild bars of the long forgotten ritornello -

.
Th e C minor C oncerto which Beethoven valued s o highly as to

,
sacrifice to it the reputation of his first two before publi c ation of

any of the three is ill served by the perfunctory and dry cadenza
,
-
Be ethoven afterwards wrote for it He can never have e xt e m p o r .
iz e d as feebly as that ; and even if he ever did the mere spe ctacle o f ,
’
the composer in the act of exte m porizing would lull the listener s
critical faculty Nowadays the listener could recover more easily
.
’
from the most absurd anachronisms than from Beethoven s own
authentic failures either to re c ord an extemporization or to construct
a coda in the place of a cadenza .
Of Beethoven s caden z as to the G major C on c erto one s e t is

’
,
tolerable and when played by Schnabel almost c onvincing The

, ,
.
other inscribe d by Beethoven with the pun Cadenz a per non cadere
, , ,
is far sillier than t he pun E arly in this century an ex c ellent player

.
made her début in Berlin with the G major C oncerto and played
this cadenz a I have always felt sorry for the c ritic who had to live
.
down years of derision because he said her c adenzas were down

right unmusi c al His judgement w as better than his information
’
. .
The written cadenza to the E flat C oncerto is of course an , ,
integral part of the c omposi ti on It is not as often described .

, ,
accompanied by the orchestra ; for the actual cadenza is only

eleven bars o f purely cadential flourish and the pianoforte h as ,
already settled down t o a recapit u lation of the last two thirds o f the -
orchestral ritornello eight bars before the or c hestra begins to take

“
part in it .
The queerest of all cadenzas is the fantasia for pianoforte and

3 18 P REFACES TO C LA S S I C A L C O N C E R T O C A D E N Z A S
kettledrums which Beethoven wrote for his arrangement of his
Violin C oncerto for pianoforte From it I have been unable to learn .
anything definite The arrangement of the whole c oncerto is not

.
without significant points but these c an be appreciated only in ,
private study ; and publi c performan ces reveal nothi ng but in

e p titu des .
As with other inconvenient survivals in classi c al art forms there -
are cogent reasons which impelled great composers to tolerate the

extemporized cadenz a in c oncertos There is no m ore voluminous .
single design in classical music than the first movement of a con

‘
certo N ot even the first movement of the E roica Symphony is
.
’
both longer and more cl ose knit than movements like the first -
movements of M ozart s longest c oncertos Su c h movements need

’
.
great symphonic c odas N o w how is a symphoni c climax to be .

,
a chi eved by a Combination o f a solo part whi c h must dominate ,
with an orchestra whi c h cannot rise to a climax without drowning

the solo ? Obviously the orator must perorate and the orc hestra
, ,
must remain in spell bound silenc e because the peroration is or

-
seems t o be extempore In the days o f M ozart and Beethoven the

.
c on c erto w as usual ly played by the c omposer and the extempore

c adenza automatical ly solved the problem o f the coda With .
M ozart the codas o f the greatest symphonic fi rst movements do not

go far afield and his c on c ertos do no t need longer cadenz as than
,
those in the c ollection he provided fo r many o f them sometimes ,
with several alternatives .
Brahms s cadenz as have been published posthumously It is

’
.
unlikely that he would have consented t o their pub lication for they ,
are early e fforts and n o t quite mature But they show that his ruth .
lessness in des troying every unpub lished work o f his that he thought
immature h as deprived u s of much that w as b e au tifu l an d probably , ,
o f things that would have e n larged our notions of his range of
thought
C lara Schumann s cadenzas t o Beethoven s G major C oncerto
’ ’
will always c ommand the affe ction o f every musi cian who came into
contact with her o r her pupils and may well inspire affection in ,
others ; none the less fo r the slightly feverish S ch u m an nesq u e

warmth that pervades the harmonies .
With Beethoven s Third and Fourth Pianoforte C oncertos an d

’
his Violin C oncerto the written cadenzas to the first movement

,
should cover as nearly as possible the ground o f his largest s ym

phonic cod as As h as been already pointed out there is no im
. .
,
be c ause they are a ctually Beethoven s M uch as they seem to re ’
. -
‘
semb l e ea c h other they are in origin as wel l as in results entirely

, , ,
d ifferent I forbear t o give a further ana lysis o f my c adenzas Some

. .
thirty five years ago I c onfided the plan o f my G major c adenza to

-
a great p l ayer whose authority already high in the year of his u n ,
timely death would have be c o m e supreme if he had l ived to old

,
‘
age Though an ex c e l lent al l round musi cian he la cked the ex

.
-
,
‘
ie n ce o f a c omposer and w as somewhat S ho c ked at the un
p e r
digested re c apitu l ations imp l ied by my s c heme Ta ct prevented .
‘ ’
me from assuring him that without information received he , ,
wou l d never suspe ct any su c h features in the result At that time .

,
and unti l quite re c ently I did in fa ct a lways extemporize my cade n

,
z as in cl ud ing vio l in c adenzas ( played o n the pianoforte) a pra c ti c e

, ,
whic h I began at the age o f thirteen and which is none the less a ,
firs t rate exer c is e in c ompos ition be c ause o f the des irabil ity that it
-
shou l d be restri cted by some relevan c e t o a classi c al c omposer s ’
style W hatever obje ction may be urged against my present efforts ,

.
the obvious a p riori c avi l against laboured ex c ess o f s c holarship

will n o t app l y I f o n e c annot a c hieve a natural fluen cy o n paper
.
after forty five years pra cti c e o f extemporization why as c ribe the
-
’
fa il ure t o excess o f schol arship ?

C adenzas t o fin ales need never be long ; and in the Finale to the
G major C on c erto Beethoven express l y says L a C adenza S ia ,
c orta I t is an inc ident in o n e o f Beethoven s greatest c odas To

’
.
’
.
modu l ate widely in it would be a c rime fo r Beethoven h as already ,
provided his highest light o f modulation in the F sharp major p as

sage short l y before the c adenza I bel ieve my c adenza t o be the .
right length ; fo r I do n o t think that a mere flourish wou l d be

a dequate ; and the midd l e o f the movement provides e xce l lent
c adential material fo r pu ll ing the c oda together The intention o f .
my last t w o c hords is o f c ourse t o provide a question fo r the horns

, ,
t o answer when the or c hestra re enters A cc ordingl y stri ct time is -

.
,
essential here Generall y speaking the p l ayers o f written c adenzas

.
,
are apt t o be c ome uninte ll igib l e from e xce s s ive ru b at o This c omes ’
.
,
paradoxi c ally from la ck o f pra ctice in extemporization The ex

, .
e rie n ce d imp ro vis a to re in any art is at spe c ial pains t o satisfy Beet
p
’
hoven s demand that extemporizations should seem passable as
written compositions ; and a reasonably stri ct time is o n e of the
first conditions o f su c h an il lusion .
M y cadenzas wi ll n o t have fail ed in their obje c t if they stimu l ate

p l ay e rs w ho mos t dis l ike them t o deve l op the art o f extemporizing .
b
( ) TO TH E CA DEN ZA FO R B EETH OVEN S VI OL I N C ON CERTO
’
( O F . 61, I N D MAJ OR)

The possibilities of cadenz as to Beethoven s Violin C oncerto are ’
incalculable : and the whole work is like all violin concertos less , ,
liable to damage from incongruous cadenz as than any pianoforte

concerto Violinists even if the technique of P agani ni were equal
.
,
to a really extemporiz ed unaccompanied violin musi c on a sym

phonic scale c annot either I n extemporiz ation or in written musi c
, , ,
keep themselves afloat ve ry long without the support of the orches

tra ; and a long violin cadenz a detaches itself s o obviously from its
surroundings that the worst conflicts of style cannot detach it
much more .
In practical matters of art historical scholarship is far more in

,
need of severe restraint by aesthetic sensibility than vice versa ; and

if we are to worry about it in the matter o f cadenzas we may as ,
well revive the pra ctice of playing the first movement o f a con c erto
in the fi rst part of a four hour programme and the other two move
-
ments in the second part ; taking reverential care in the case of ,
Beethoven s Violin C on c erto to include among the intervening

’
,
items the violinist C lement s Sonata on On e String with the Violin

’
R eversed S imilarly as I have remarked elsewhere S cholarly per

.
, ,
fo rm an c e s of Ba c h s C hurch C antatas S hould end with the thrashing

’
of the leaders of the choir .
From Beethove n s queer arrangement of his Violin C oncerto fo r

’
pianoforte w e can learn a few interesting details as to what he might

have written or did actually sketch when unrestricted by scruples
, ,
of violin technique Even apart from the violin these details are
.
aesthetically n ot improvements and the dire necessity of providing ,
something for the left hand drives Beethoven to S heer blasphemy

against the sublime calm of the L arghetto An d C lement s one .
’
string sonata can hardly have been more topsy turvy than the -
pianoforte cadenz a that Beethoven wrote under the stimulus of

relief from restrictions of violin technique From it nothing can .
be learnt unless it be the speculative possibility that the intrusive

,
little four square qui ck march for drums and pianoforte may be a
-
topical allusion to the march in F idelio An indigestible topicality .
is a normal stimulus to the making of cadenz as and a normal reason

why they prove perishable By all means let them exist and perish
.
,
if they are genuinely extempori z ed The beauty of the perishable .
extemporization is different from anything that can be readi ly

3 22 PREFACES TO CLASSI CAL CONCERTO CADENZAS
a chieved in the permanent record ; and as I have indicated in the ,
introduction t o my cadenzas t o Beethoven s Fourth Pianofo rte C on ’
certo the c o n ditio n s o f c on c erto form giv e c ogent reasons fo r ad

,
mitting that beauty as a necessary adjun ct .
N evertheless I cannot resist the temptation t o try and w rit e fo r

,
Beethoven s Violin C on c erto c adenzas whi c h will c ontain as near l y

’
as possible what ought to happen in symphonic works Joa chim s .

’
magnificent cadenzas are o n written re c ord at all s t ages of his

c areer What he p l ayed at his début in L ondon at the age o f twelve
.
a l ready shows the nobility o f h is style in the days o f his diamond

jubi l ee From h is c adenzas in their midd l e and penultimate ve r
.
sions I adopt certain recognizab l e features It is foolish to avoid .
what is exa ctl y right from fear o f fal l ing into the obvious W hat is
,
.
exactly right will in most cases be obvious l y right ; but nothing is

less obvious than the proverbially world wide differen c e between the
-
obvious and the exa ct truth ( N o t that there can be an exact truth
.
in cadenzas unsupplied by the composer ) Joa chim s c hromati c end .

’
to the final tri ll w as a l ways beautiful h is later habit o f ending it

—
very s l owly and without turns seems t o me an over re fin e m e nt -
a c ceptable on l y in quasi extemporization from him in person

-
.
This chromati c shake be c omes a ne cessity t o me after my device

o f interpo l ating a digression t o C sharp minor in order that Beet
‘
hoven m ay seem t o repeat Handel s remark Wel c ome home to
’
,
’
,
the violinist whose cadenza had modulated wide l y This digression .
may perhaps sho ck some musicians ; the fa cts o f cl assical key rela -
tions have n o t yet found their way into current musi cal orthodoxy ;
and modern harmoni c theories are like Old ones t o o much pre
, ,
o ccupied with c hords in detail t o in cul c ate either large o r clear

views o f the cl assical o r Wagnerian hand l ing o f keys in extenso I .
bel ieve my d igression t o be the most Beethovenish feature that

I have c ontributed t o the c adenza and it is exa ctly proportioned
,
t o the ep il ogue that Beetho ven h as provided .
By the way I am de cided l y against the reading whi c h in that

, ,
epil ogue makes the Violon c ell o answer the theme in the bassoon
, .
The fact that su c h an answer is in bad c ounterpoint with the violin

is n o t d ecisive against it ; Beethoven is notorious l y insensitive on
that point and l ike Shakespeare Handel and other great untidy
, , , ,
artists c annot be c orre cted without danger o f injuring the ultimate

,
subtl eties o f his thoughts What is de cisive against it is that the

.
violin figures are n o t a counterp oint at al l but are themselves the ,
answer to the theme and ought neve r to be disestablished by c om

,
3 24 PREFACES To CLASS I CAL CONCERTO CADENZAS
theme Wi th the cadence theme in the fi rst movement ; whi c h prob
-
ab l y wou l d have delighted Beethoven still more Yet I am as certain

.
o f the corre ctness o f my c onstruing of those gra c e notes as the
Tichborne Cl aimant w as c ertain that Laus Deo semper w as Greek

‘
for the laws of God fo r ever So let me follow Ba ch s custom of
’
.
’
giving a pious motto to h is M S S Q and conclude thus :

,
S it La us pe r
( )
c To TH E CA DENZA FOR B RAH M S S VI OL I N C ON CERTO ’
( O P 77 I N D M AJ
. O R ),
The pupils of Joachim are not the only musi c lovers who will -
regard his cadenz a to B rahms s Violin C on c erto as an integral part

’
of the composition and those friends who know of Joachim s u n

,
’
bounded generosity and kindness to me t hrm m h o u t th e last twen t y '
years of his life will think that I am the last person who ought t o
come forward with a cadenza of my own But Joachim s o w n truth .
’
fulness is my best example and excuse Thirty years after his death .
,
I feel like many other musicians that the time is ripe fo r providing
, ,
violinists and B rahms s V iolin C oncerto with something that does

’
’
not depend on Joachim s unique personality t o make itself in t e lli
gib le as a coda to the fi rst movement of that strenuous and s m
y
phoni c work The circumstances that impelled Brahms to entrust
.
his cadenz a entirely to Joachim were personal and highly pathetic .
M ore than enough has been published about the causes that
estranged the friends for many years The Violin C oncerto was .
’
B rahms s first step towards reconcilement with the friend who had
so powerfully helped him to ripen his early style and had through ,
out the time o f estrangement continued in unceasing and effi cient

propaganda for the recognition of his works N o gesture o f gratitude .
could be nobler than the tribute of leaving to Joachim the task of

crowning the Violin C oncerto with a cadenza And yet this gesture .
narrowly es c apes being one of the major disasters I n the history of

a specially dangerous musical art form In the first place Brahms -
.
,
could not issue a prohibition against the u s e of other cadenzas than

Joachim s Least of all could he nullify his gesture by writing a
’
.
cadenza himself I am not aware of any record of his opinion of

"
Joa c him s cadenza and I doubt whether in the circumstances he

’
would have allowed his judgement free play .
Apart from personal matters Joachim s c adenz a goes far t o ,

’
justify Brahms in shirking a problem which only Brahms could have

solved if any perfect solution w ere possible Yet I am convin c ed
,
.
that Brahms s own solution w ould have been simpler clearer and
’
, ,
more perfect than Joachim s And I am quite certain that if ’

.
Joa c him had encountered his own cadenz a as the work of someone
else he would have strongly objected to its obscurity He himself
,
.
’
spoke to me of one of its passages as disagreeable and explained ,
’
this as a playful mimicry of Brahms s querulous voice when raised
in argument The explanation is delightful as between private
.
3 26 PREFACES TO CLASS ICAL CONCERTO CADENZAS
friends but the passage do e s n o t exp l ain itse l f U nexpl ained su c h
, .
,
intima cies have no more place in permanent musi c than the c rypti c
allusions to t rivial e ve n t s in the l ove letters o f Robert Browning -
and E lizabeth B arrett have in literature .
O n general prin c iples Joachim s c adenza h as the serious te c hnical

’
,
d efe ct o f presenting without a bass certain themes which c annot

stand unsupported On e o f these themes the figure of ninths near
.
,
the end o f the development gives rise t o the disagre e able passage
,
which Joa c him exp l ained t o me : and I c annot find any means of
making it intel l igible in una cc ompani ed viol in writing at all The -
.
other is o f c ourse the plaintive ly c ajoling episodi c c ounterpoint in

, ,
the C minor episode o f the devel opment It c ertainly ought to play .
a large part in the c adenza but it ought n o t t o try to exist without

,
its bass .
I c annot expe ct other musi cians to find my cadenza which they ,
do n o t know cl earer o r easier than Joachim s which they have

,
’
,
always known And in this very point I am c ompe ll ed t o make a

.
much more difficult affair in presenting the episode theme with its -
proper harmoni c draughtsmans hi p than Joa chim makes o f it by

l eaving it unsupported Perhaps my intention in bars 3 0 5 of my
.
—
,
cadenza wi ll be c ome more unmistakable with the aid of the follow

,
ing transl a tion I leave t o violinists the option o f finding better

.
bowings than mine ; but my legato and my c ontinuous semiquaver

movement are essential parts o f my idea An evenl y flowing tran .
qu il lo tempo is indi c ated Rubato would mean chaos as it generally

.
,
does in una cc ompanied violin musi c where c omposer and l istener ,
are in any c ase achieving a tou r de force in expressing and under

standing harmonic sense at all .
Fo r the rest I must expe ct my c adenza t o seem both s light and

,
d ifficult t o p l ayers w h o are ac customed t o the ri chness of Joa c him s ’

.
M y general prin cip l e s o f c adenza writing are exp l ained ( above ) in

-
the prefac e t o my c adenzas t o Beethoven s G major C on c erto Here ’

.
,
PREF A CES To CLASSICAL CONCERTO CADENZAS 3 29
as in my other e fforts I aim at produ c ing the feature s o f a symphoni c

,
coda The di ffi culties o f this task are enormously greater with an

.
unaccompanied violin than with the self su ffic ie n t pianoforte ; and -
unaccompanied violin music that c onveys a sense o f symphoni c

harmony cannot lie technically within the possibilities o f e xt e m
p o riz at io n .
1
M y last bars are almost identical with Jo ac hifn s fo r the position ’

,
“
of Brahms s fi nal trill leaves no other option In the epilogue the

’
.
stringendo and animato indi c ated by Brahms have caused wide

spread misunderstanding whi c h will be c ome aggravated as editors ,
gain confiden c e in altering Brahms s severely economical and accu ’
‘
rate dire ctions The stringendo po c o a po c o lasts exa ctly fo r the
.
’
four bars over whi c h Brahms has extended it with a dotted line ;
and the following animato represents pra cti c ally the steady tempo
of the fortissimos in the opening tutti admissibly (though n o t I , ,
think advisedly) a shade faster but with no hurrying whatever

, , .
Thus the stringendo serves merely to restore energy once fo r all

after the tranqui l lo whi c h as always with Brahms h as meant a
, , ,
de c idedly slower tempo O n the other hand Brahms c ould hardly .

,
have represented the animato by tempo fo r the quiet opening

of the work though not tranquillo is c on c eived as o n the slow side
, ,
Of the main tempo The essential point is that Brahms s tempi are
’
.
always steady with an elasti c ity that lies n o t in hurryings and

slackenings but in prompt response to the mood o f ea c h passage
, .
Among E nglish readers shocking misunderstandings have been

broadcast by the E nglish translator of Dr Altmann s ex c ellent .
’
preface to the miniature s c ore Dr Altmann tells us that Brahms . .
on two o cc asions adjured Joa c him to be ruthless in suggesting

improvements in the violin technique of the concerto and playfully ,
‘
added Y ou can t impress [me] ex c ept by many suggestions and
,
’
alterations This the translator represents as fearing that Joa c him

“
was not h o ld and strong enough in interpretation Y our sole .
means of impressing the world is by making alterations and s u gge s

! ’
tions he wrote in joke .
But the translator s own boldness and strength of interpretation

’
is no joke .
1 p
I n t h e o rig in al se arat e iss u e o f t h is c ade n z a p f re ac e , S ir D o n ald T o ve y m ade a
S im ilar dis c laim er t o t h at w hic h a e ars pp on p .
3 23 . I t is su it ab ly o m it t e d h e re , b u t
f
s h o u ld n o t b e o rg o t t e n .
T H E M A I N S T REA M OF MUSIC 1
MY title is a metaphor whi c h is useful s o long as it is not over

worked I t is ob viously s o loose an expression that it c annot be
.
misunderstood Ruski n h as somewhere pointed o u t that a c curate

.
writers are mu c h more often misunderstood than those whose in

a ccura cy c oin cides with the inaccura cy o f the average reader Far .
be it from me t o insu l t my audien c e by suggesting that any su c h

mythi c al person is present among u s I only wish to make sure that .
we shall a l l mean the same thing when we ta l k of the main stream

o f music ; though yo u may find food fo r thought in the fis h whi c h
I propose t o c at c h in those waters But yo u will be disappointed .
if yo u expe ct me t o mention other than the most ha c kneyed musical

subje cts The main stream o f musi c is what we all think we know
. .
The metaphor is ob viously use l ess if it is extended t o spe culations

as t o the source o f the stream The sour c e o f a river is usually
.
supposed t o be that spring wh ich l ies farthest from the mouth ; but
many tribu taries must have been united before the waters were
worth c all ing a main stream and the titl e is n o t earned until as a
, ,
pious tel eologist on c e preached it h as pleased Providen c e t o bring

,
large rivers into c ontact with important towns W e need n o t .
trouble ourselves about origins n o r about bran c hes o f art whi c h

,
are t o o remote fo r any but spe cialists t o understand The Siamese .
have I am to l d t w o princ ipa l musical scal es s o constru cted that

, , , ,
if o n e note is identified with a note in the scales o f o u r c lassi c al

musi c none o f the others c an be p l a c ed in o u r s c heme There are
, .
musi cians in E urope and America w h o tell u s that we have no right

t o ta l k o f the main stream o f musi c until we have in c orporated the
Siamese and hundreds o f other orienta l s c ales into o u r o w n system .
O stens ib l y this attitude represents breadth o f mind Pra cti c ally it .

,
is quite c ompatible with views about o u r o w n music whi c h are

almost absurd enough and narrow enough t o deserve the status o f
“
fashions The exquisite urbanity o f the orienta l musi cian usual ly

.
c onceals h is c ontempt fo r o u r cl aims t o understand his art There .
is doubt l ess a main stream o f Siamese musi c fo r the Siamese

, , .
M y present purpo s e is t o s u m up the important fa cts about the

main stream o f musi c as I understand it in other words as I thi n k
—
,
1
Th e An n u al L e ct ur e o n A s p ect s o f A rt ( H e n rie t t e H e rtz T rus t) of th e Brit is h
A c ade m y, re ad 2 9 u n e 1 9 3 8 J
‘
.
33 2 THE MAIN STREAM OF MUSIC
le cture must be deficient Resting dog l ike on my el b ows I watch
.
-
from my tower the settings and risings o f the stars ; but upon my
tongue h as stepped a mighty O xford .
‘
And yet in spite o f all temptations t o belong t o other nations
,
I have t o begin with what those who do n o t know the facts will
believe t o be an extravagant claim fo r E ngl ish music from the earliest
beginnings o f counterpoint down t o almost a generation beyond
the Go l den Age I t is impossib l e t o maintain a theory that the main
.
-
stream o f mus ic is something that we have never heard of or are

never l ike l y t o hear o f The a ctual size o f the stream is n o t in ques
.
tion C ompared with the M ississippi the Thames is only a creek

.
, .
Perhaps a cc ording t o M issi s s ippi standards it might have been

, ,
entitled t o be considered part o f a river in the prehistori c times

when it joined t he Rhine and a few other E uropean streams in what
is n o w the bottom o f the N orth Sea ; but o u r artistic metaphor o f
the main stream is n o t c on c erned with prehistoric matters ; and t he
most patriotic American must admit that his own c ivilization
originall y grew round the Thames long before it deve l oped round
the M iss issippi and that neither Hu ckl eberry Finn n o r the more
,
h ighly edu cated T o m Sawyer owed t o the ba ckground o f that mighty

river the admirable E nglish style o f h is creator .
I have n o intention o f tra c ing the main stream o f musi c any

'
farther ba ck than t o a period in which the art w as already something

without whi c h the experien c e o f a l l mus ic lovers t o day is in c o m - -
p l e t e And
. the time h as long passed in whi c h any reasonable
musi cian c ou l d doubt that the musi c o f the sixteenth century indeed
deserved it s title o f the M usic o f the Go l den Age and ought as ,
su c h t o be made the foundation o f o u r musical experience and

c u lture I t h as n o t yet attained that position and until we have
.
,
permanentl y freed ourselves from the notion that H is an archaic

matte r o f int e re st onl y t o s p e cial i sts o u r mu s ical c ulture is as imper
,
fe ct as the cl assi c a l c ulture o f an eighteenth c entury gentleman who -
returned from his Grand Tour with the information that the Apollo
di Belvedere and the Venus de M edici represented the ultimate
’
standard s o f cl assi c a l art in c omparison with whi c h the E lgin

,
marbles with their quaint thick ne cked horses were objects o f

, ,
-
histori c interest .
N o competent musician wi ll nowadays deny t hat a musi c al cul

ture that does n o t in cl ude the sixteenth century is like a classi c al
s c ho l arship that does n o t incl ude Greek I personal ly have neither .
des ire n o r l eisu re t o explore musi c al regions whi c h seem t o me

THE MAIN STREAM OF MUSIC 333
archaic ; and as a listener I even confess myself bored with most o f
what is transitional and interesting mainly for it s c onsequences .
Time is not wall space and no multiplication of museums will ex

-
tend it For me the main stream of music be c omes navigable at

.
the end of the fifteenth century with su c h composers as Josquin des

P rés an d remains smoothly navigable through out the s ixteenth
,
.
century At the beginning of the seventeenth c entury it enters into

.
,
regions partly mountainous and partly desert and becomes choked ,
with w eeds In the eighteenth c entury it is drasti c ally cleared up

.
,
by B ach and Handel and drained o ff into various smaller c hannels

,
by other composers In the middle of the century these c hannels

.
reunite and carry the main stream in another direction represented ,
by Hay dn M oz art and Beethoven In the nineteenth century there

, , .
emerges the facile half literary distinction between the classical and
,
-
the romantic which has been used with fatal efficien cy in tra c ing
the obvious and obliterating the essential .
At this p oint the metaphor of the main stream is becomi ng a

nuisance and I S hall therefore have little further u s e for it except
,
as a term of reference by w hich to distinguish the kind of art that

has branched away from it or been diverted into a backwater But .
the regrettably large number of musicians who are not widely and
deeply read in S ixteenth century music will now begin to suspect -
me of patriotism for I must roundly declare that in spite o f my

, ,
conscientious obj ec tion to any such bias I am convinced that ,
throughout t he sixteenth century and for nearly a generation of the ,
seventeen th E nglish composers contributed largely and adve ntu r

,
o u s ly to the main stream of music Even so a musician who for .

,
their sake neglects P alestrina is like a classical scholar who knows

’
no Attic Greek Palestrina s music besides being in the main
.
,
stream is also of the Centre : another useful metaphor P alestrina

,
.
achieves and represents consummate purity But s cholarship may .
be so confi ned to the centre as to have no settled convi ction about

the Circumferen c e There is a dreadful tradition I wish it were
.
—
only a legend o f an eminent Greek s c holar who would allow

—
neither himself nor his pupils to read Homer lest the Homeric diale ct
should corrupt the purity of their Atti c Greek It is diffi cult to s e e .
’
in what sense such a person s education has n o t been a total loss .
Such a purist c onfesses to a very weak faith in the strength o f his

o w n grasp of pure style For the musician a fi rm understanding of
.
,
the strictest purity of P alestrina s mature works is as vitally n e c e s ’
sary as Attic G reek is to the classical s c holar ; but that understanding

334 THE MAIN STREAM OF MUSIC
h as not begun to exist if it is in any d anger of being _ weakened by
an equally developed capa city to enjoy music throughout the wide
range o f sixteenth c entury styles both sacred and sec ular that lie
-
, ,
outside the scope o f the Spanish and Roman schools ; and in these
styles by far the most extensive range is that o f the E nglish masters ,
w h o n o t only c ontinued t o u s e with vita l fitne ss ar c haisms whi c h

, ,
were t o o harsh fo r Palestrina and Victoria but often anti cipated ,
the solid tonal ity o f the nineteenth c entury and even the romantic ,
modulations o f S c hubert and Brahms without any loss of the ,
subtlety and freedom whi c h sixteenth c entury harmony owes to its

-
derivation from the e cclesiasti c al modes .

The chief pra cti c al obstacles t o o u r understanding O f sixteenth
c entury musi c have c ome from the misuse o f it s grammati cal
d is c ip l ine in forms sho c kingly c orrupted and mutilated in our
, ,
a c ademi c training M odern musi c al s chol arship is making praise

.
worthy e fforts t o remedy this and in E ngland the e fforts have all
,
the better chan c e o f succ ess because we have always been notori
o u s ly provin c ial and hav e allowed many foundations o f o ld traditions
t o remain instead o f following the explosive methods by whi c h our

,
l ivel ier neighbours extirpate the past The only serious defect in
.
o u r e fforts at a renas c en c e o f musi c al edu c ation is that they are
dire c t e d t o students o f the wrong mental age In the sixteenth c en

. .
tury a c ademi c c ounterpoint w as a pra cti c al matter fo r c hoirboys

,
with unbroken voi c es The scepti c al undergraduate is definitely

.
t o o o ld fo r it .And we do n o t so l ve his diffi culties b y c o m b inin g in .
o n e pro c ess the elementary problems o f the i n ky little s c hoolboy
with the refinements o f adult scho l ars hi p N othing is easier than .
t o make those problems laborious and musi c is probably in not

,
mu c h worse c ase than other subje cts o f culture in its liability to

su ffer from edu c ational methods that have from the outset con ,
s u lt e d the so l e c onv enien c e o f the tea c her and in the out c ome have
,
shown that the teacher s o w n edu c ati on h as mis c arried

’
.
The l abours o f C anon F e llo w e s have recently made a sound

pra cti c al grounding in E ngl ish sixteenth century musi c possible fo r
-
everybody w h o can as mu ch as sing in h is bath Hitherto we have .

,
suffered from the tenden cy o f musi c al s cholars to present their

resu lts in ways n o t available fo r performance E ditions o f o ld music .
in more pra cti c a l form have fo r the most part been the work of
Philistine adapters w h o have n o s cruple in substituting what they
,
would have written themselves fo r every detail whi c h they do not

happen t o understand In consequen c e o f this every experienced
.
,
a table at home and produ cing their music out of their part books -
.
Thanks t o C anon Fe l lowes s labours any English masterpie c e of

’
,
the Golden Age can b e obtained fo r a few pen c e in a s c ore perfectly

“
legib l e t o everyone w h o c an read ordinary staff notation and edited -
with the highest schol arship and the sanest common sense Dr . .
John son s Dic tio nary w as rightly he l d by himself and al l right

’
thinking E nglish c onnoisseurs to S how that a single E nglis hman

could surpass the l abours o f any number o f Fren c h Academi cians .
The John son ian c ommon sense w as trans c endental insome ways ,
and l imited in others I have n o t yet dis c overed the limitations of

.
t h e pra cti c al c ommon sense o f C anon Fe ll owes .
E arly in the seventeenth century the vio l ins ousted the flat
ba cked nasal toned fa m ily o f viols an d instrumental music began
-
t o assert itself The harpsi chord w as already in it s early form of

.
,
sp inet and virgirials a resourceful instrument that amused William

,
Byrd and other great Tudor c omposers Queen E lizabeth herself .
c ondes c ended t o be a great virtuoso in keyboard musi c ; and E nglish

patriotism does n o t outrun dis cretion if we cl aim that this interesting
ba ckwater the instrumental mus c o f the S xteenth c entury w as
— i i —
thoroughly explored by E ngl ish c omposers The heal thiness o f a .
ba ckwater depends upon it s a cc ess t o the main stream and its

immunity from the en c roa chments o f the C orporation dump U n .
fortunatel y the subsequent h istory o f E nglish musi c up t o recent

,
t imes h as been a dep l orab l e story o f frustration stagnation and , ,
drifting into s il ted u p c hanne l s There are periods in whi c h it may

-
.
be fair l y said that E ngl ish musi c h as itself c onsisted o f the C orpora
tion dump O u r greatest mus ica l genius Henry Purcell w as born
.
, ,
either fifty years t o o soon o r fifty years t o o late : t o o late to be a

master o f the Go l den Age n o w that instrumental musi c had flooded
,
o u t every landmark o f Pa l estrina s art : t o o early t o g ain command

’
o f the future resour c es o f Ba c h and Hande l H is opera Dido and .
A en eas written fo r the pupi l s o f M r Josiah Priest s boarding

’
.
,
s c hoo l with a l ibretto by N ahum Tate o f the firm o f Tate and

, ,
Brady a c hieves musi c a l c oheren c e and anti cipates every quality o f

,
the operas in whi c h G l u ck reformed dramati c musi c nearl y a c en

tury later I f Purce l l had been a l lowed t o write more operas o n su c h
.
l ines he wou l d h ave c arried a recognizab l e main stream o f music

through a ll the tangl e o f mountain torrents and par che d arroyos -
which the musi c al historian finds s o interesting in the eighteenth

c entury but whi ch is s o distressing t o the sear c her fo r mature
,
masterpie c es w h o is n o t deceived by the nineteenth centu ry c ookery -

T H E M A I N S TR E A M OF MUSIC 337
w hi c h makes the of seventeenth century musi c
disiecta membra -
palatable to the concert singer To any one who realizes what might.
have been achieved for and by P urcell the honoured name o f ,
glorious John D ry den deserves always to be accompanied by a

heartfelt recitation of the 1 09t h Psalm That completely unmusi c al .
time server began by insulting P ur c ell and other gifted E nglish

-
musicians in a p an n ric of an obviously incompeten t M onsieur

Grab u whom K ing C harles II had foolishly s e t at the head o f h is
,
court musicians and whose work proved more perishable than

,
waste paper A few years later Dryden mended his manners to

.
wards P urcell in his public utterances but proceeded to dam the ,
whole future current of E nglish dramatic musi c b y ordaining that

the music of his op e ras should be confined to characters outside the
real action of his plays Thus even when D ry den condescends to
.
,
adapt S hakespeare s Temp es t he contrives that P ur c ell s musi c for

’
,
’
it shall have nothing to do with Shakespeare And what S hould .
have been P urcell s most important work K ing A rthur has not the
’
, ,
smallest chance of taking shape as a coherent musi c al scheme We .
not only accepted the c onsequences o f Dryden s Philistinism ’
throughout the next century but imposed them with murderous ,
results upon one of the greatest dramati c composers of the early

nineteenth century Weber who found w h e n he had already c om
, , ,
m it t e d himself to writing an opera for the E nglish stage that the ,
librettist Plan c hé n e it he r knew nor c ared to learn that a composer

, , .
of dramatic musi c was concerned with the coherence of a music

‘
drama as a whole P lan c he cheerfully said And now we will show
.
’
,
’
them what we can do next time ; but it was already obvious that
Weber s time was fully oc cupied in dying o f rapid c onsumption
’ ’
W e can hardly doubt that if the musical resources of Bach and

,
Handel had been at P urcell s c ommand his genius would have had
’
the power to break through the bonds o f the P hilistines and in fact ,
I know no other case where musical genius has come into the world
s o manifestl y at the wrong time and place w ithout having found ,
the opportunity to develop some other art or science more ready

for the work of a great mind For we cannot doubt that a talent for
.
music in spite of its highly spe cial nature is part of a very much
, ,
larger general ability whi c h has become concentrated upon music

b y circumstances less normal than we are apt to suppose In more .
re c ent times we have noticed that great Russian musicians have

been arm y generals admirals chemists and other useful people
, , ,
before they were recognized as musicians ; y et so professional is the

33 8 T HE MAIN STREAM OF MUSIC
prestige o f music that a presentable musi cianship will always take
preceden ce over whatever the musi cian h as achieved in other ways .
Berl ioz w as d is c overed by W E Henl ey to be a fellow c raftsman in

. .
-
literature and is in fa ct far more impe cc able in the hand l ing o f words
, , ,
than in his musi c al te c hnique Yet we shall never thi nk of him o r of

.
,
that other ex cellent prose writer S c humann e xcept as a musi cian

-
, , .
And n o w a few steps o f argument whi c h I need no t work out , ,
may lead t o some notion o f the way in whi ch the main stream o f
musi c passes from o n e c ountry t o another E a c h nation h as it s own .
forms o f musical talent and wi ll be ready t o take leadership when

,
it s spe c ial ta l ent is what is need ed The argument is facile but n o t

.
, ,
as far as I c an s e e dangerous Before the Golden Age beca me

, .
go l den the difli c u lt ie s o f polyphony were best surmounted by a

,
c ertain kind o f ingenuity whi c h the F l emish races possessed in an

eminent degree : They did n o t possess in a primary degree th e
sense o f physi c al beauty W hen ingenuity had accomp l ished it s
.
task the L at in rac es found in musi c an art ready fo r the develop

,
ment o f their sense o f beau ty ; and the Hispano Roman sc hool t e -
pre sented by Vi ctoria and Pal estrina w as the resu l t L atin logic and .
L atin euphony supp l ied some order in the c haos whi c h ensued
when the prin cip l es o f instru mental musi c began t o subvert the
pure vo ca l a esthetics o f the Golden Age And in later times it h as .
general ly been the L atin musi c ians espe ciall y the Fren c h who have , ,
cleared up the issues when musi c h as lost it s way .
N obody w h o is capable o f measuring the gulf that separat es the

art o f Pa l estrina from that o f Bach and Handel wil l be surprised at
the fact that the whole o f t he seventeenth c entury w as spent in
pioneer efforts and small sporadi c a c hievements before such masters
c ou l d emerge W hat emerged with them w as the stupendous phe
.
n o m e n o n o f abso l ute m u sic whi c h in spite o f eve ry pra ct ical and

, ,
h istori c al argu ment against it h as dominated a l l the c entral musi cal

,
thoughts and instin cts o f l ater composers even when they most ,
exp l icitly oppose it I t is very doubtful whether Ba ch and Handel

.
were c ons cious o f it O n the o n e hand it is quite c erta in and h as

.
, ,
been demonstrated in detail by S c hweitzer and Pirro that Bach s ,

’
whole musi c al vo cabu l ary is dominated by a musi c al symbo l ism ,
partl y anc ient an d part l y original which associates definite turns ,
o f melody and rhythm with definite words ; s o that to take a gro ,
t e s q u e instan c e it c osts him less troub l e t o u s e a h igh note in refer

,
ring t o the H igh Priest than t o avoid that harml e ss absurdity The .
symbo l ism is often profound and h as been said by some musicians

,
3 4 0 THE MAIN STREAM OF MUSIC
which perhaps we may take as a symbol o f the Eternal Verity of
Absolute M usic .
And yet absolute m Us ic is n o t absolute nonsense All difli c u lt ie s .
in recon ciling it s existen c e with histori c al fa cts and pra ctical c om

m o n sense c ome o f o u r habit o f c onfusing pro cesses with resu l ts The .
notion o f the main stream is a better metaphor fo r my subje ct than

the term c lassical and it is also better than the n o t l es s important
’
,
notion that the greatest art is o f the centre C ertainly the greatest .
art is truly c entral but we have n o right t o s e t a priori limits to the

,
S ize o f it s c ir cl e ; and it s cir cumferen c e is s o large that great minds

may spend their lives in exploration and small minds may live in
the belief that the only c entre is that o f their o w n parish pump .
F o r Ba c h and Handel the aestheti c c e n t re o f musi c the point from

, ,
which all musi c al grammar and all art forms radiated w as still the -
aestheti c s o f the una cc ompanied po lyphoni c c horus yet neither

’
Ba ch n o r Handel wrote any chora l musi c whi c h did n o t presuppose

the a cc ompaniment o f the organ o r the orc hestra The great motets .
o f Ba c h whi c h are printed as unac c ompanied choruses S how in

, ,
almost every l ine that Ba c h is thinking o f h is basses as doubled by

instruments in a lower o ctave This does n o t mean that he has
.
deserted the c entre o f h is art It means that fo r him instruments

.
are voices
Purely instrumental music is o f c ourse from the outset free from
, ,
the c omplications whi ch are produ ced by asso ciation with a verbal
text The chief limitations imposed upon it from without arose
.
from it s early asso ciation with dan c e The symmetries o f dan c e .
forms have mu c h in c ommon with the symmetries o f l yri c poetry ;

and from them arose the tuneful forms o f the suite whi c h were ,
naturally restri cted t o a small s c ale Yet even in the suites o f Bach
.
few o f u s fee l any curiosity as t o h o w his more elaborate al lemandes

and sarabandes c ou l d ever have been dan c ed ; and the great suite
preludes with their forms derived from the overture the c on certo
, , ,
and the to cc ata are still less l ikely t o let o u r histori cal curiosity
,
interfere with o u r enjoyment o f their spa c ious musi c .
The to cc ata is an interesting and a musing c ase o f an art form -
arising o u t o f human trial and error in the construction and p l aying

o f an instrument The tou c h o f the o ld organs w as unequal and
.
unpunctua l Yo u must run your fingers over a l l parts o f th e key

.
board and walk all over the pedal board t o find o u t the holes in the
-
road This done yo u c ould then draw o u t your full diapasons and
.
,
‘
s e e if the instrument had as Bach put it , good lungs after whi ch
,
THE MAIN STREAM OF MUSIC 3 4 1
yo u could settle down to music in its most solid and brilliant form
a fugue imitating the behaviour o f a four part o r five part c horus- -
discussing a subje ct in dialogue but usually taking advantage o f

,
your instr u ment t o propound a florid proposition beyond the range

of the most athlet ic singer Here we already have an art form o f
.
-
which the origins though grotesquely practi c al are entirely musi

, ,
cal I f Bach and h is c ontemporaries were not asyet c ons ci ous o f the
.
absoluteness of music they were already healthily aware that cer

,
tain art forms had a technical usefulness that had nothing t o do

-
with words ; and throughout the first half o f the eighteenth century
the absoluteness of musi c was modestly proclaimed by the laudable
‘
custom of publishing great works under the title o f L essons ’
.
’
B ach s Forty eight P reludes and Fugues doled out by him t o his
-
pupils for keyboard pra cti c e were made to serve a still more p rac t i
,
cal purpose when he c ollected them into two books s o grouped as ,
to represent each of the twelve major and twelve minor keys within
the tempered chromatic scale in order to in cul c ate a system o f
,
tuning by whi c h all keys would be equally in tune on keyboard

instruments with twelve equal semitones to the octave instead o f ,
tuning a narrow range of the most used keys as perfe ctly as p o s

-
sible and leaving other keys painfully out of tune Two o f h is most .
imaginative compositions the C hromati c Fantasia and the O rgan

,
P relude in G minor purport to display their most fantastic modula

,
tions t o the exte nt of laying stress on chords that would be imper

m iss ib ly out of tune u nless equal temperament were used I t is .
’
absurd to suppose that B ach s inspiration lay in this practical
purpose The pra cti c al purpose must be fulfilled if the works are
.
to be played and if the works had n o t been of transcendental

beauty the musi c al world might not have troubled to fulfil the p rac
tical purpose At all events nothing could be more ridiculous than
.
,
to suppose that Ba c h needed the stimulus of a theory o f tuning to

enable him to conceive his stupendous modulations ; though he
evidently had the common sense to understand the theory .
With the advent of Bach music be c ame an art s o congenial to

,
all that is best in the Teutoni c intelle ct that fo r the next t w o cen
t u ries there is no musical art form in which German musi c ians have
-
n o t produced the supreme masterpieces There can be no supreme

.
musical art without the qualities of absolute music whether the ,
art be as compounded with other arts as Wagnerian opera o r as

exclusively musi c al as the string quartets of Beethoven So much .
attention h as been aroused by recent e fforts to assign literary mean

3 42 TH E MAIN STREAM OF MUSIC
ings t o Beethoven s purest music that I must mention the fa ct ; but
’
only t o s ay that I thi nk urban ity towards su c h S illiness is a mistake .
M usi c is ( as M endelss ohn courteously pointed o u t to a troublesome

inquirer) n o t less definite but more definite fo r being u n t ran s la
, ,
tab l e The problem of absoluteness in music is n o t essentially dif

.
feront from that o f abstra ctness in science Geometry doubtless .
c ame into existence in E gypt under the practical persu asion of the
N ile floods which enforced its prin cip l es empirica l ly upon the
,
l and surveyors ; but it needed the Greek philosop hi c power o f

-
abstraction t o make it a s c ience But in science and perhaps in .

,
philosophy the fa cu l ty o f abstra ction may be c ome abused or

, ,
starved by pro l onged dissociation from the practice of observing

,
fa cts Plato obvious l y went t o o far when he suggested that the true
.
astronomer should regard it as vulgar t o observe the a ctual stars ,
but S hou l d rathe r think o u t h o w they ought ideally to behave ; and

Tyndall and Huxley still had reason t o warn u s o f the pitfalls of the
high priori road Ba c h at all events had both feet firmly planted
-
.
, ,
o n the ground though he breathed the upper ether o f absolute

,
musi c and in h is last work Die K uns t der F ug e produced a master

, , ,
piece s o abstract that musi cians who might have been expected to
know better have denied that it w as musi c at all I n art absolute .
,
ness and purity are n o t working hypotheses but final results , .
M y o w n pra cti c al experience is t hi s : that though I am by tem ,
p e ra m e n t and training the most abstra c t minded o f musi c ians and -
have from c hildhood practised c omposition by preference in po l y

phoni c and pure sonata forms I find it quite impra cticable to teach
-
c omposition except as mus ical rhetori c and I never realized the ,
intense depth power and essential meaning o f absolute musi c until

, ,
I went through the experience o f c omposing an opera That ex .
p e rie n c e taught me t w o things : first that no musi c could illustrate ,
a situation expressible in drama o r lyrical poetry unless it was

satisfa ctory as mus ic ; and second l y that n o mus ic written mere l y ,
t o express words h as ever achieved o n e tenth o f the intensity and -
power o f abso l ute musi c Theatre musi c is like theatre scenery : it

.
- -
is a medium in which simp l e resour c es and methods produce imme

diate and vivid e ffe cts This is in itself a severe limitation t o o
.
—
severe fo r artists w h o feel the need o f more evidently intel lectual

resources t o inspire them But the supreme operati c masterpieces.
o f M ozart and the l ater music dramas o f Wagner abundant l y prove -
the soundness o f Dean C hurch s di ctum that a s c ientific criticism ’
refuses t o class art forms into degrees o f higher and lower

-
.
period I f our estimate of Handel were based as it w as in contem
.
p o rary L ondon upon his fort y two Italian

-
operas instead of upon ,
M essiah and I srael in n yp t we S hould s e e nothing but c ommon

’
sense in the c ontemporary judgement as t o the rivalry between

“
Handel and Bonon cini : Strange that su c h di fference should be
’
Twixt Tweedledum and Tweedledee M ost of u s know little of .
’
Handel ex c ept M essiah and I srael in Egyp t Both o f those works .
were failures in their o w n day T o h is c ontemporaries Handel

.
w as the great man if ( and only if) yo u happened t o live in L ondon ,
where the rivalry with Bonon cini took p l a c e I f you lived in Ger .
many yo u wou l d probab l y know far more o f Graun and Hasse I f .
y o u lived in Paris your great ma s ter would have been R amea u .
N owhere in the world wou l d yo u find John Sebastian Ba c h regarded

as more than an astonishing p l ayer o n the organ a writer o f ex ,
‘
t re m e lyc ompli c ated musi c in obso l ete styles the thi rd c hoi c e fo r the ,
post o f C antor in St Thomas s in L eipzig and t h e ido l only o f a small

.
’
,
group o f pupi l s w h o found it wise t o keep t o themselves their personal

c onvi ction o f h is greatness Even his first b iographer F o rke l dared
.
, ,
t o s ay n o more o f h is c horal works than that They t o o have their

admirers O nly o n e o f some t w o hundred C hur c h c antatas w as
’
.
published in his l ifetime and before the centenary o f his death .
W e o f the twentieth century are in n o better position than our

an c estors t o identify the main s tream o f c ontemporary musi c W e .
learn from history at leas t this : that c ontemporaries are often p re

o ccupied with trivial matters I n the gl orious days o f Beethoven
.
the early development o f the pianoforte and espe cial l y the exten ,
sion o f its c ompas s t o higher o ctav es diverted the talent o f quite

,
eminent masters s u c h as Hummel into o n e o f the most weedy

, ,
ba ckwaters in musi cal history I t seems t o u s in credible that a

.
musi cian w h o as a c hi l d had been brought up in M ozart s house as ’
a favourite pupil and w h o w as regarded by most c ontemporaries

,
as the equa l o f Beethoven should have ma intained h is reputation

,
by works that are the musi c al c ounterpart o f spa cious pala ces in
which the dignified interior ar chite cture h as become invisible in the
glare of innumerable gl ass c handeliers We c an all se e through poor
.
Hummel nowadays O u r power o f seeing through things h as the

.
uses and some o f the dangers of X ray photography : if X rays are

- -
t o o hard o r their exposure t o o long we s e e right through everything

and into nothing L ife is n o t long enough fo r u s to t ry and investi
.
gate the bones Of Hummel s pinguid organism But on the who l e

’
.
h is c ontemporaries w h o regarded him as indisputably repr e senting

. THE MAIN STREAM OF MUSIC 3 45
the main stream of music were more in the right than his adverse
c ritics We have no eviden c e that the people who did n o t admire
.
Hummel could appreciate anything better M astery is n o t enough . .
But it is a quality of the main stream When academic c riteria .
become lazily me c ha nical we may come t o regard as part o f the

main stream some kinds of c orrect art that have n o importan c e at
all But perhaps plain dullness is less dull than mere I gnorance o r
.
pre cious capri c e .
The tributaries which were drifting towards a confluence beside

and above the deep current o f Bach s art united in a new stream ’
whi c h seems at first to be almost as in c ompatible with Ba c h as the

music before Bach was in c ompatible with Palestrina The resu l t .
w as indeed akin to what K ant would have called aC opernican revo

lu t io n in the whole orientation of music ; yet until quite late in the
eighteenth c entury most musi cians probably regarded the progress
of musi c as an uninterrupted development ever sin c e the time when
Alessandro Scarlatti a generation before Ba c h founded the whole
, ,
musi c al language that comprises the art forms of music throughout -
the eighteenth and half the nineteenth c entury Alessandro Scar .
latti w as eminently capable o f forming a c lassical language ; but he

is not nearly s o well known to u s as his s o n D omeni c o who wrote ,
hundreds of e ccentri c and c rassly una c ademic sonatas fo r the h arp s i

chord fo r whi c h he apologized in his prefaces as works merely
,
meant to amuse and not on any ac c ount to be regarded as learned .
Su c h work taken by itself seems as isolated as a dew pond ; but

, ,
-
M oz art C lementi an d Beethoven assiduously pumped the whole

, ,
contents of that dew pond into their own main stream Similarly
-
.
,
in a later age E is z t drained o ff the c hromati c irides c ence from the

,
dew pond of C hopin and presented it to Wagner with stupendous

-
, ,
results .
W hat was happening duri ng the lifetime o f Bach unknown to ,
himself and unknown to the small and fashionable masters w ho

were innocently promoting it as a form of decaden c e was the trans ,
formation o f the whole art of music from an ar c hite ctural decora ,
tive and rhetori c al art to an art inveterately dramati c in it s move

,
ment and power Handel was a c onsummate rhetori c ian and h is

.
,
contemporary fame rested mainly on his operas Recently some of .
them have been revived with a succes d estime attained by the re ck ’

’
less expenditure on stage production o f a tenth of the money and

-
ten times the attention that were devoted to these externals b y

Handel and his supporters ; yet the prefa c e to the fourth volume of
The Oxfo rd H is tory o f M usic is quite corre c t
toin saying that as
’
opera Handel s period represents the darkness before dawn The .
fa ct is that Ba ch had n o disposition to deal with opera and Handel

‘
no disposition t o reform it fo r the simple reason that musi c itself

,
w as no more dramatic than arc h ite cture Han del lived t o s ee the .
early failures o f Glu ck who produ c ed o n e o r tw o operas in L ondon

,
‘
and w h o as Hande l remarked knows no more c ounte rpoint than
, ,
my c ook But Handel did n o t live t o s e e o r t o foretell that this

’
.
c rass ly n o n c ontrapuntal c omposer w as soon t o reveal to the world

-
a musi c s o dramatic that opera be came henceforth the most emo

t io n al kind o f sta e play whether it s a c tion w as as drasti c ally simple
g
-
as that o f O rfeo and A lc es te o r as inextricab l y c ompli c ated as F ig aro .
Glu ck c ould have done nothing o f the kind if there had n o t been a
radi c al c hange in the whole nature o f musi c I n the works o f Ba ch s .
’
most famous 8 011 C arl Phi l ipp E manuel and his more fashionable
, ,
s o n Johann C hristi an w h o settled I n L ondon thi s radical change

, , ,
in the nature o f musi c is manifest though they themselves were c o n ,
s cious o f n o more positive fa ct than that their father s style w as o ld ’
fas hi oned and his preoc cupation with c ontrapuntal forms pedanti c .
The c hange is s o radi c al that we are apt t o imagine some su c h

c hronologic al gulf as the century whi c h separates John Sebastian
Ba c h from Palestrina ; but as a matter o f fa ct Philipp E manuel Ba c h
w as producing quite mature works in the year in whi c h his father
wrote the B minor M ass and h is l ast se t o f sonatas w as published
,
in the year in whi c h M ozart produ c ed Do n Giovanni .
I t is doubtful whether even M ozart and Haydn were much more

aware o f the stupendous c hanges that they were bringing about in
the art o f musi c C ertainl y none o f their contemporaries suspected
.
a great revo l ution and o u r o w n text books o n formal analysis are

,
-
s o preo cc upied with the merest externals o f musical forms that ,
whil e they take the c hange fo r granted they c omp l etely fail to S how ,
its essentia l features Within the lifetime o f M ozart and Haydn

.
the language o f musi c c overed a range akin t o that o f the c omedy

o f manners Hence as E dward Fitzgerald profoundly remarked
.
, ,
most people failed and stil l fail t o recognize that M ozart is power
, ,
fu l be c ause he is s o beautiful With Beethoven the language of .

,
musi c enormous l y in creased it s range and Beethoven w as ab l e to ,
become the most tragi c as well as the most humorous o f composers .
The te c hni c al resour c es by whi ch he extended his art amount to

little more than a c ombination o f the habit s o f M ozart and Haydn ,
stimulated in later years by an intensive study o f Handel and of

‘
The term romanti c h as a definite an d us e ful me aning in litera
ture through whi c h it h as as in the c ase o f S c humann and Berl ioz
, , ,
some a ctual c onta cts with music When used more widely and c o n .
t ras t e d with classi c al it is o n e o f the major nuisances o f musi c al

’
,
c riticism A s in the middle o f the eighteenth c entury musi c w as

.
,
ripening fo r the de velopment o f a dramati c style s o b y the middle ,
o f the nineteenth c entury it had deve l oped it s ful l lyri c possibilities .
C riti c s have often commented o n the time lag between the appear -
an c e o f great l yric poetry and the c apa city o f compo sers t o express
it in musi c The tardiness o f M ozart and Beethoven in finding
.
expression fo r the lyric poetry o f Goethe comes from n o spiritua l

o r intelle c tual defe ct I t is a natural result of devotion to mus ic al
.
forms in whi c h harm ony espe cial ly in it s larger aspe ct o f tonality

, ,
had t o be treated broadly and o n a large scale It h as been said of .
Beethoven that n o c omposer c ontributed less to the progress o f

harmony H is Variations o n a Waltz by Diab elli S how that on t he
.
,
c ontrary n o composer S i n c e Ba c h w as c apable o f contributing more

, ,
if it w as advisable t o confine the listener s attention t o detai l s But ’

.
in the large s cal e hand l ing o f tonal ity n o t even W agner covers a
-
wider range than Beethoven and t o a ccuse Beethoven o f restri cted ,
harmoni c views is as inept as t o assert that the designer o f the Forth

Bridge has contributed nothing t o the progress o f domestic ar chi
tecture P arry put his unerring finger upon the spot when he c ited
.
as a thing unattainable in earlier musi c the harmoni c a l ly ob l ique

‘
entry o f the voice in S c hubert s setting o f Goethe s ErlkOn ig ’ ’ ’
.
Abstruse harmony is n o t the essential matter fo r song writing but -
powerful and long experien c ed c on c entration A musi cal lyri c h as

-
.
n o business to sound l ike a fragment that ought t o have come from
something larger The asso ciation o f romanti c music with romanti c

.
literat ure is a natura l fa ct ; but it s musi c al imp o rtance is less than

o n e might suppose The derivation o f many o f S c humann s finest
.
’
pianofo rte works from the writings o f Jean Paul Ri c hter and -
E T A Ho ffmann is enthusiasti c all y pro cl aimed in general and in

. . .
detai l by S chumann himself But I frank l y o w n that though I .

-
know m ost o f the musi c by heart I hav e like many o f my c ontem , ,
p o ra rie s failed
, t o penetrate deep l y into the jung l e o f those prose
writers and have n o t found my efforts I n the slightest degree n e c e s
,
sary t o my understanding o f the musi c .
A more pre cise definition o f romanti c musi c identifies it n o t

mere l y with lyricism but with the tenden cy t o rel ate purely in s t ru
menta l musi c to external subjec ts in l ife l etters and art As far as , ,
.
THE MAIN STREAM O F MUSIC 3 49
modern music is con c erned , this tendency is at least as o ld as the
Fitz william Virginal Boo k M oreover , the only . report we have o f
purely instrumental musi c in an cient Gree c e is o f a c omposition
purpor ting to describe Apollo slaying the P ython Such p ro .
grammes are often re c eived gratefully by listeners who find the

atmosphere of abstra ct musi c too rare ; but S c humann himself ( w ho
with all his formal limitations w as by no means scatter b rained but -
belongs to the great ra c e of attentive artists ) goes far to demonstrate

the flim s in e s s of all theories of programme music by confessing that
he wrote his titles afterwards and expecte d the music to speak fo r
itself This does n o t impugn the depth o f S c humann s poeti c al
.
’
thought whether in instrumental pie c es with romantic titles o r in

,
genuine songs in which his output w as equal ly important and

,
almost as voluminous .
W ith S c hubert the current of song becomes a mighty torrent ,
unquestionably one of the major phenomena in musical history .
S c hubert wrote over S ix hundred songs and Brahm s asserted that ,
something definite could be learnt from ea c h o n e of them This is .
’
as true as Beethoven s assertion that Handel was the master o f all
masters and that no other composer c ould produce su c h stupendous

e ffects by su c h simple means The trouble about these truths is
.
that one must have made considerable progress towards being a

Beethoven or a Brahms before one can learn the lessons corre ctly .
Schumann is now c oming into fashion again after a period of

,
eclipse The e c lipse is in any case n o t as fatal as that whi c h has

.
overtaken all but a small sele ction o f M endelssohn s works ; fo r ’
M endelssohn s w as the kind of mastery whi c h carries everything

3
before it at the t ime and leaves to a later epoch the fatal discovery
‘
that it is s u p e rficial w he re as the defects in S c humann s art were

,
’
not only obvious from the outset but self c onfessed and turned to -
positive a cc ount as working hypotheses S c hubert is in a di fferent .
position N arrow pseudo c lassi c al ideas o f musical form akin to

.
-
those Whi c h regard Beethoven s later works as formless have led

’
to a gross underestimation of Schubert s greatness o f conception ’
and a ctual mastery of execution in larger musi c al forms M usi c al .
critics are spoilt Children by reason of t h e almost superhuman stan

dards of perfection s e t b y the masters of the Golden Age and b y ,
B ach M ozart Haydn and Beethoven S c hweitzer rationalizes the

, , ,
,
.
severity o f c urrent musical criti cism by roundly stating that o f all

,
arts musi c is that in which pe rfe ction is a sine qua non I n literature .
and other arts c ritics have been compelled to take a more practical
view ; and they would assuredly h ave never dreamt of pla cing an
a rtist o f the c alibre of S c hubert in anything sho rt ( if the highest
rank He died s o yo ting that his ripest work ought t o be considered
.
as early And I question whether Shakespeare up to the time o f

.
,
produ cing s ay King john surpassed S chubert s attainments in

, , ,
’
the handling o f l arge forms .
O n e more major event marks the development of the main stream

‘
o f musi c Perhaps some of u s may be in clined to compare it rather

.
with the flowing o u t into the ocean At all events th at is the normal .
,
out c ome o f the main streams ; an d n o amount of cl assical s c ruple ,
or o f wish t o retain o u r c entral position in criti cism should prevent ,
u s from fa c ing the fa ct and it s c onsequen c es Throughout thi s dis .
c u s s io n I have shown n o patience with either of the terms c lassi c al

’
and romanti c Fo l lowing with a certain respe ctful independen c e , ,
Sir W alter Ra l eigh s lead I am c ontent t o define the classi c al as

’
what I always expected and the romanti c as what I did not expect .
E minent c riti c s c an sti l l be found t o maintain that W agner s styl e ’
is entire l y un c lassi c a l and will nev er be c ome cl assi c al I f this is .
meant t o imp l y that Wagner s art wi l l ever be c ome negligible in an ’
a cc ount o f the main stream o f musi c it seems t o me t o be frankly ,
nonsense Fo l lowing the lead given by Bradley in his c riterion o f

.
poetry for poetry s sake I find n o diffi culty in regarding opera of all
’
kinds as in it s integrity an u l timately pure form o f musi c The main .
pra ctical difli cu lty with opera is that it s histori c progress h as by no

means been essentially the progress o f good music O pera h as c o n .
t in u ally subsided with full popular and fashionable a cc lamation into

dead c onventional ity and botto m less vulgarity ; but from the lowest
depths it h as shown a c apa city t o rise al most as high as absolute
musi c can rise ; and in Wagner we have the astounding phenomenon
o f it s rise from downright bad musi c su c h as is sti l l painfully evi ,
dent in Ta nnhauser t o the l oftiest and purest regions o f The Ring

'
, ,
Tris tan M eis ters ing er and Parsifal Te c hni c all y the revolution
, , ,
,
e ffe cted by W agner is n o t l ess important o r as Kant might s ay

—
,
’
n o t less C operni c an — than any previous event in musi c al hi story .
I t c on cerns the time s c al e o f musi c All the c onventions and diffi

-
.
c u lt ie s o f opera before W agner may be regarded as resulting from
the fa ct that classi c al musi c moved some ten times as fast as drama .
C onsequently every cl assi c al opera w as c ompelled to consist of

,
between twenty and thirty separab l e musi cal designs fitted into the
framework o f the drama W agner s a chi evement c onsisted in re
.
’
fashioning the whole texture and form o f musi c unti l it c overed the
to the list o f spurious works h as been proved by some learned in
u ire r on the strength o f water marks handwriting and musical
q
-
, , ,
vocabu l ary t o be genu ine I S hould be sorry t o lose the first

,
. .
eighteen o f Haydn s string quartets o p p I 2 and 3 and am very

-
’
, .
, , ,
g l ad that M iss M arion S c ott h as dis c overed and proved the au t he n

t ic ity o f a still earlier quartet But Haydn himsel f expressed a wish
.
that his works should be c onsidered as begi n ning with t he quartets

in o p 9 whi c h is about where the midd l e symphonies begin So
.
, .
long as I am hindered from performing o r even studyin g the , ,
splendid symphonies o f hi s mi dd l e years I c an only be annoyed

that anybody shou l d waste time in disputing the authenti cit y o f a
work o f whi c h Haydn himsel f wou l d probably s ay that he neither
knew n o r c ared whether he had written it .
I t is obvious that the a c hievements o f Sadler s W el l s and the ’
Old V i c are asse t s o f vital importance t o o u r musi c al civi l ization ,
and that everything should be done n o t only t o secure their perma

n e n c e but t o provide simi l ar enterprises throughout the kingdom .
The main pra cti c al c ause o f the universal musi c al culture o f Ger
many w as the tradition o f lo c al royal patronage in many small
prin cipalities As I am al ways pointing o u t we l ost o u r musical
.
,
prospe cts when we abo l ished the Heptar c hy As an experienced .
abso l ute musi cian I do n o t be l ieve that absolute music c an be

,
understood where opera is n o t a l so appre ciated in it s integrity as

musi c drama Wagner as represented in the con c ert room is o n e o f
-
.
-
the major nuisan ces in o u r musical c ivilization The typi c al Wag .
nerian excer pt h as trained both the pub l i c and the c ritics t o be

total l y insensitive t o whether any pie c e o f musi c h as a beginning ,
an end o r any meaning beyond that imputed t o musi c by L amb in

,
his E ssay o n E ars Otherwise it seems t o me that musi c a ll y a l l is

best in the best o f all possible worlds At all events I am an .
,
optimist in my bel ief that this must be the best o f all possible
worl ds sin c e it is the on l y o n e that exists And in c ondes c ending
, .
t o a cc ept the universe I must agree with C arlyle that indeed I d

’
better .
A NOTE O N O PE R A l
T HE text and music of The Bride of Dionysus are c onceived from the
’
standpoint of Wagner s later operas as regar ds the relation o f the ,
music to the words ; that is to s ay the Words are s e t I n a manner,
best described as realistic Wagner himself c reated the te chnique

.
of su c h a treatment of words and having created it did n o t long

, , ,
remain bound by it s strict limitations I n Die Walkiire he confined .
his text to words as they would be treated in p ure drama and refused ,
to let Siegmund and Sieglinde sing together in t h e ir love duet

‘
because in real life when two people speak at once they can neither
understand each other nor convey their meaning to an audience .
Wagner had not finished S iegfried before he realized that if we c an

accept singing as a standard form of dramatic language we have ,
already a c cepted all that is implied by polyphony and need n o t ,
deprive ourselves of the possibilities which vocal ensemble presents

for a sort of emotional composite photograph of a dramatic situa
tion And so Tristan and I solde not only sing a real duet but are
.
,
joined by the voi c e of the wat cher Bran gae n e in the ba ckground, , .
N obody complains that the effect is n o t realistic ; and in fa ct n o , ,
body doubts that it is dramati c I n a way beyond the capa city o f

o rdinary drama W hat is n Ot permissible
. in opera o f this kind is
any convention by which words are repeated in order to c omplete

a musi c al design If there are not enough words for the musi c al pur
.
pose the poet must supply more If the musical purpose interferes
, .
’
with the poet s dramatic purpose the musician must find a purpose ,
which does not ; and this must in the long run be a better musical
purpose It is not by accident that the greatest master of musica l
.
stage craft before Wagner was also the great exemplar of sym m e t ri
-
cal form in purely instrumental music C onversely we shall best .

,
understand a mature string quartet of M ozart if we begin by reali

zing t hat in every aspect its style is inveterately dramatic in dire c t
p roportion to the richness of its form .
The general formula for the solution of the problem of opera is

that ea c h step in the a ction must occur swiftly and culminate in a
1
S ir D o n ald T o ve ys o p e ra, Th e Bride of Dionysu s , w it h a lib re tt o b y Ro b e rt C
’
.
T re ve lyan , w as p ro du c e d in E din b u rgh in 1 9 2 9 , an d ag ain in 1 9 3 1 T h e p o e m w as .
p f
rin t e d an d is s u e d in b o o kle t o rm , w it h an an alys is o f t h e m u s ic b y t h e c o m p o s e r .
T o t h is an alys is , t h e re w as an in t ro du c t io n , w hic h is p
rin t e d h e re u n de r a n e w
t itle — ED I TO R
. .
2C
3 54 A NOTE O N O PERA
tableau whi c h gives opportunity fo r highly developed music This .
formula may be fo l lowed stupidly o r me chani c al l y M etastasio ( a .
respe ctable figure in I tal ian literature though he devoted hi s whole ,
life t o opera libretti) handled it skilfu l ly and w as by no means ,
satisfied with the way in whi c h the c omposers s e t his plays With .
opera before G l u ck the b lame fo r failure lies neither with M etastasio

n o r with the composers but is inherent in the musi c al art forms of
-
the time M usi c itsel f w as n o t dramatic The supreme greatness of

. .
Ba c h and Hande l makes u s unwi l ling t o deny t heir music any

qual it y whi c h we think good but if l anguage is to have meaning
:
we must n o t app l y the word dramatic t o sunsets and cathedrals ; ’
n o r even t o such soul stirring c ont rasts as those o f the duet an d

-
chorus near the end o f the first part o f the M a tthew Passion or the ,
Et e xs p e ct o o f the B minor M ass These are the contr asts whi c h

.
static musica l forms can produ c e by mere juxtaposition Their .
emotional force may be at l east equ al t o that o f drama ; and o h

vio u s ly n o stage representation c ou l d attempt them But to c all .
them dramatic is merely the opposite abuse o f l anguage t o that by

which newspapers c all every murder dis c overed by the poli c e a
tragedy I t may be c onvenient t o u s e words o n that p l ane ; and
.
there is another plane lofty beyond o u r ken o n whi c h sordid l ives

, ,
and deaths are neither l ess n o r more tragic than those o f the most
famous heroes But terms o f human art are a humbler subject
.
,
whi ch is all that c on c erns the present essay And o n this humble .
p l ane it is important fo r u s t o real ize that Glu ck w as n o m ore re

former o f opera but the pioneer in a total change in the nature of
,
musi c w hi c h thereby became dramati c fo r the first time in history

, .
There is nothing spe ciall y o r c onventionall y musi c al in M eta

s t as io s s c heme o f tab l eaux stru ng tog e ther by dialogue O n the
’
.
c ontrary it represents a tendency chara cteristi c o f a ll drama at al l

,
periods D ramati c a ction is exp l osive and ea ch exp l osion c hanges

.
,
o n e tab l eau into another No w whi c h is the more important

.
,
the exp l osion o r the tab l eau ? W ere any dramatists profounder
,
draughtsmen o f c hara cter than the Greeks and are any dramas more ,
statuesque than theirs ? Yet w h o should know better than Aristotl e

,
when he says that the aim o f drama is n o t chara cter but action ?
Popu l ar taste agr ees with Aristotle in principle ; but the p ractical
difli cu lt ie s o f p l ay making co n fuse the issue
-
.
There is a boys s choo l where the experiment h as been tried o f

’
making the boys organiz e their work fo r themselves The boys .
natural ly emb arked o n dramati c e fforts and o f c ourse began with ,

35 6 A NOTE ON O PERA
cl imax whi c h attra cted Beethoven and which raises F idelio above ,
the level o f other pretty treatments o f the politi c al prisoner and - -
heroic wife theme that were in vogue as an a rtistic reaction after

-
the French Revolut ion .
At l e ast three p l ays o n this theme were written by Bouilly

F ide lio o u l A mo u r conj ug ale ; L es Deux f ou rne es C h e ru b in i s
’ ’ ’
, ,
masterpie c e ; and H elena a pretty little Opera by M é hu l whi c h

'
, ,
even h as the res c uing trumpet c all in the overture and at the c risis
-
.
I n all three it is evident that Bo u illy s main interest is to give the ’
adventures and dangers a ba ckground o f sweet domesticity not in ,
c ompatible with a vein o f gentle playfulness F idelio is no e xc e p .
tion ; the good o ld jailer s blessing is upon his little M arz ellin a an d
’
his industrious assistant M arz e llin a herself h as substituted the

.
mysterious F idelio fo r her faithful Jac q u in o onl y t o look forward to ,
the same S weet domesti c ity as the s u m o f human feli city ; and when
the heroine is revealed M arz e llin a returns t o her Jac q u in o as if n o
thing had happened And s o the climax o f the first o f the original
.
three a cts o f Bo u illy s p l ay is the p l ighting o f troth between M ar

’
zel lina and Fidel io under the b l e s s ing o f Papa Roc c o N o w this is .
,
Ob viously a good and su ffi cient o cc as ion fo r musi c in an opera where

most o f the story is enacted in spoken dialogue But t o Beethoven .
and the first German adapter o f the text this w as inadequate to their
c on c eption o f the h e roine Aft e r all the betrothal w as o nl y a step in
.
,
her sublime proje ct o f penetrating t o her husband s dungeon This ’

.
proje ct must be hand l ed in musi c and in Beethoven s musi c ! ,

’
A cc ordingl y some o f the previous dialogue which dis cusses Fide lio s ,
’
betrothal in c onnexion with her prospe ctive o ffi cial appointment as

under jailer is n o w in c orporated in the trio The result is that the
-
, .
musi c bursts into the middle o f a prose dialo gue and continues the ,
subje ct thereof without any dis c overable reas on The story is good
, .
and the musi c is Beethoven but the resulting s c e n e is a puzzle

'
, ,
n o t a mystery .
C ontrast a few in cidents in Die Z aub erflb te A young prin c e is

’
lying o n the ground having fainted in flight from a serpent whi c h

,
lies slain b y three veiled ladies w h o appeared in the ni ck o f time

and then departed t o tell the news t o their queen The young .
prin c e revives and hears a singing and piping from a distan c e ; the
,
singer approa ches sings his song and p l ays h is pipes Then the
, , .
piper and the prin c e enter into c onversation L ater the three .
,
veiled ladies s e t a padlo ck o n the lying piper s mouth and te l l the ’
prin c e that the Queen o f N ight l ooks t o him t o rescue her daughter .
A NOTE ON O PERA 3 57
They give him a locket c ontaining her portrait The orchestra .
heaves two sighs ; the prince has fa l len in love ! In another scene
the music begins with the entry o f the poor padlocked Papageno
S In In
g g H m h m h m hm patheti
, c a l ly unti
, l h i s,punishment is re , ,
m i tted . And S O at every point whether the s c ene C hanges o r n o t , ,
t h e entry of the music explains itself as aptly as any fine detail in

M o z art s style And the merit is not exclusivelyM ozart s : Though
’ ’
.
the story is not only nonsense but flatly shifts it s ground and after , ,
enlisting our sympathies with the Queen o f N ight tells u s that the ,
wicked enchanter is the chief priest of Isis (scilicet Grand M aster

of the Freemasons ) who from the noblest of motives took Pamina
, , ,
’
from her unscrupulous mother s clutches ; though nobody ever
understood either it or the music better fo r reading up the interest
ing lore concerning its political and M asonic allusions ; though few
people have ever read the sequel whi c h no less a person than Goethe
sketched for it ; yet Die Z au b erflb te remains n o t only M ozart s ’
’
sublimest work but one of the most perfect operas ever written
, ,
because it is theatrically and histrionically in perfect c o ordination -
from beginning to end .
N ow strange to say the use of spoken dialogue makes very little

, ,
‘
difference to the essential problem of opera It vexes the a priori .
aesthetic theorists who complain that the human mind c annot enjoy
a work of art that thus jumps from one plane to an incompatible
plane But human minds confronted with anything s o thrilling as
.
, .
the stage generally prove as able to jump from plane t o plane as

,
C heshire cats prove able to gri n ; I n fact they all can and most o f
‘
, ,
’
em do And the a priori aesthetics have as w e already s ee no
’
.
, ,
priority over t he practical problem The step from spoken dialogue .
to the perfunctory convention of secco recitative satisfies the -
theorist s de m and for unity of plane but in practice leaves the gulf
’
,
between dialogue and music almost as wide as ever I t makes .

,
’
however a step forward in enlarging the composer s responsibility
,
for coheren c e in the general dramatic movement M ozart w as al .
ready taking trouble over h is secco recitatives at the age o f eighteen -
in L a Fin ta Giardiniera and Gluck had at once begun his dramatic ,
reforms with the deliberate elevation of all recitative to high musical

I mportance with aptl y c oloured instrumentation
,
Gluck moreover .
, ,
arranged with his librettists that whole scenes should be welded

together by recurring stan z as for chorus or principal singers Thus .
his action though eminently statuesque and of the utmost s im

,
p lic it y,
approaches that of Wagnerian opera more nearly than that
35 8 A NOTE ON O P ER A
of any other c o m p o s e r b e fo re W agner But apart from Gluck and
‘
.
,
that wonderful triumph over imposs ibil ities F idelio the main re , ,
sour c es o f opera were worked o u t in c omedy o f manners by M ozart

and in romantic fairy t ales by Weber Afterwards M eyerbeer and
-
.
,
the I talians dis c overed the possibilities o f blood and thunder to - -
the great hindran c e o f W agner s propaganda Wagner s effects ’

.
’
c ame by c auses ; but M eyerbeer c ould produce them all as a box of

tri cks w ithout any c ause worth bothering about An d if W agner .
had n o t been histrion ic al ly and theatri c l l y as well as dramati c al l y

a , ,
right h is reforms and his sublime mus i c would have no more pre
,
v ai l ed over M eyerbeer s we l l staged shows than Schumann s Geno

’
-
’
‘
veva o r S c hubert s fourteen unprodu c ible operas and fragments
’
.
The advice o f Wagner t o young opera writers is surely the ad -
vi c e o f the most dr asti c idealist that ever brought his prin ciples into
‘
pra cti c e Yet he said I f yo u want t o write operas begin with
.
, ,
S ingspiele That I s t o s ay the creator o f the perfect c o ordination

’
,
o f music and drama ad vi sed c omposers t o begin with works in
whic h the story w as a cted in S poken dialogue with s e t pieces of

musi c whenever a situation produ c ed a good tab l eau And t his is .
obvious l y good practical advice Begin with a scheme that gives the
.
c omposer opportunities and d o es n o t load him with the kind of

responsibility that inhibits hi s musi c al ideas Yo u c annot begin by .
trying t o derive musi c al inspiration from those business aflairs of

dramatic presentation whi ch must be m ade clear without being
al l owed t o weaken the c limaxes T h e lu xu rio u s p o et e g the
.
, . .
Shakespeare o f Richard I I h as exa ct l y the same problem as the

,
musi c ian Poetry delays a ction and action interrupts poetry I n

. .
pure music the art o f or chestration presents the same problem

, .
Bach and Handel re l egated the background business of their orches -
t rat io n t o the continuo the player at the keyboard who c ontinuall y

,
supplies the harmonic c onne ctive t issue and l eaves the or chestral
instruments in aristo c ratic freedom G l u ck Haydn and M ozart .
, ,
c hanged al l that ; their orc hestra whether symphonic o r dramatic

, ,
must do it s o w n domesti c servi c e .
The essential Wagnerian reform in opera is o f the same kind ,
but h as still wider consequences The musi c must undertake al l .
the business o f the drama N o w this affects somet hing more than
’
.
,
its style from moment t o moment A s long as there w as a definite .
gulf between business dial ogue and emotional music ea c h musical

-
se ction remained c omp l ete in itself A motto theme a sign al or an .

-
, ,
ancestral ballad ( such as conveniently narrates important ante

3 60 A NOTE ON O PERA
To this the only answer w as the Obvious if paradoxical o n e that the ,
I liad w as n o t c ompiled by a c ommittee of experts ranging from

Pisistratus to James M ac Ph e rs o n but w as mainly a singl e work o f
,
art whose separable threads be c ame interdependent be cause they

really belonged t o it I c an s e e n o a priori reason why an opera on
.
Wagnerian lines sho u ld n o t be equally full of promising be ginnings

suggestive Of any features o f classi c al form that c an b e turned to
dramati c a ccount O f c ourse a classi c al form that conventionalizes
.
the words o r hampers the action is unpardonable in relation to the ‘
Wagnerian time scale O nly the mo ck heroi c style c an be allowed

-
.
-
ana chronisms in it s conventions Cl assi c al forms are notorious l y as

.
like l y t o hamper the de l ivery o f lyric poet ry as t o hamper dramati c

a ction The s c ope o f lyri c poetry in drama is also severe l y limited
. .
T o the musi c ian it s limitation c an be summed up thus : that ( ex c ept

at the end where we may side with M ozart and Beethoven in dwell
,
ing upon final happiness rather than with the Fren c h deman d fo r
a qui ck curtain) every expanse o f lyric poetry o r episode shou l d rest
o n an under l ying dramatic tension ; as t o quote the work n o w t o be
,
des c ribed when a ll o n the stage doubt whether Theseus wil l return
,
from his dive into the s e a ; o r when we know that Ariadne is de

s e rt e d and are waiting t o s e e h o w and when s h e wil l find this o u t
1
.
,
1
H e re f
o llo w s t h e an alys is b y the com p o s e r o f his o p e ra
,
The Bride f Dio nysus
o .
STIMU L US AND THE CLAS SI CS OF M USIC 1
WH EN General John Reid founded the C hair o f M usi c in the U ni

versity of E dinburgh he like all pioneers an d prophets w as in
, , ,
spired by a vision the meaning of whi c h gro ws with t he passage o f

-
time By this growth the truth Of the prophet s vision is tested and
.
’
the history of the Reid Professorship h as amply vindi c ated the fore
sight Of its founder I need not des c ribe its experimental stages
.
they are past and their monument is around u s in this beautiful

,
c lassroom with it s fine organ its valuable colle ction o f instruments , ,
both musi c al and s cientific and its c opious library o f musi c and ,
musi c al literature The name of Professor D onaldson must always

.
remain asso c iated with many of these excellent resour c es T 0 h is .
predecessor Sir Henry Bishop the C hair owes the prestige o f being
, ,
held by a c omposer whose musi c w as a household word ; and after

him the name of Hugo P ierson is o n re c ord t o show that this uni
,
versity had the c ourage to appoint a man of genius whose artisti c

outlook was one of open revolt against the musical orthodoxy o f h is
time Aft e r h is merely nominal tenure the C hair w as held fo r
.
'
twenty s ix years by Sir Herbert O ake le y whose fame as an organist

-
survives in the memories of many of my friends It is always .
difli c u lt fo r a new c omer to take up an O ffi c e whi c h h as be e n held

-
for an entire generation by one man Such a di ffi culty w as faced .
twenty four years ago in this place and I have to fa c e it now

-
, .
But my diffi culty is not quite the same as that whi c h P rofessor
Nie c ks had before him when he c ame here T w e n ty four years ago .
-
the fiercest of British musical patriots could hardly claim that o u r

normal stan dard o f musical c ulture had attained a level comparable
to that whi c h we instinctively demand in literary culture The very .
a ctivity in serious musical propaganda which had already s o long

distinguished E dinburgh proved that musical culture w as still no
matter of course but an interesting and special phenomenon E ven
,
.
if that had not been so we must still honestly face the fa ct that
,
our universities are not normally centres for training in music o r ,
other non lite rary arts the solid foundations fo r whi c h ought to be
-
laid down in c hildhood by very spe c ial methods In these cir cum .
stan c es a new professor could have only two alternative wishes fo r

1 ’
f
T o ve y s I n au gu ral A ddre s s as Re id Pro e s s o r o f M u s ic in t h e U n ive rs ity of
E din b u rg h , de live re d in t h e M u s ic C lass ro o m o n 9 O c t o b e r, 1 9 1 4 .

3 6 2 STIMULUS AN D THE CLASSICS OF MUSIC
the conditions of his task He might wish to find a system already
.
in working order whi c h corresponded with his ideals Similarly the .

,
angels we s e e in pi ctures having wings might wish fo r mus cles

, ,
w ith which t o work them A practi c al man does n o t waste time on

.
wishing for ideals which he sees to be U topian : he will if he is ,
energetic wish rather t o be hampered as little as possible by tradi

,
tion even if he h as to create an entire organization fo r him s e lf out

,
‘
o f rudiments and fragments .
This enviable task fell to Professor Nie c ks All that had been .
done before him may without any disparagement to tho se who had
,
a chieved it be des cribed as the coll e cting of apparatus I t w as

, .
admirably done and the time had n o t yet been ripe for turning the
,
apparatus t o it s full a cc ount as a means o f edu c ation Professor .
Nie cks knew that the time is never ri pe until someone tacitly
assumes that it is He c hose M usical E ducation as the theme of
.
his I naugural L e cture H is ideas had wings and he developed the

.
,
mus cles with whi c h to work them A c cording l y his successor find s .
,
realized that most U topian o f wishes a tradition whi ch corresponds ,
with his ideals ; my ideal s and Professor Nie cks s Another way o f ’
.
putting it is that Professor Nie c ks h as done everything that man

could do t o make hi s post impossible fo r h is su ccessor He h as .
a ccustome d this U niversity t o h is o w n standard and never for a ,
moment hinted that that standard is exceptional I t is a standard of .
development ; it c annot be maintained by imitation Professor .
N ie c ks is inimitab l e ; the new Professor must do things in h is own

way o r fail There must be c hanges ; fo r what is estab l ished here is
.
a living tradition and the right c hanges imply no criti c ism but the
,
maintenan c e o f its life With the loyal co operation o f the U ni

.
-
versity Professor Nie cks worked in his o w n way ; and that is h o w

I must imitate hi m .
He did n o t u s e the prestige o f his position t o the advancement

o f h is fame though h is musi c al powers wou l d have su ffi c ed fo r the
,
reputation o f half a dozen musi cians F o r some years Professor .
Nie cks played the viola here in string quartets ; thereby devoting
far more exe cutive skill t o a true musi cian s task than many a
'
’
violin ist h as devoted to a c quiring the reputation of a virtuoso O n .
the other hand a c omposer w h o produ c ed an oratorio every year

,
might show less se l f criticism than Professor Nie cks without show
-
ing as mu ch real experience o f c omposition I t is admissible by a .
pardonable m ixture o f metaphors to s ay that in devoting to educa

tion s o mu c h that other musi cians have given more ostensibly to
6
3 4 S T I M U LU S A N D T H E C L A S S I C S OF MUSIC
revolt against everything that c alls itself cl assical tradition Some .
e l ements o f revolt have al ways been tra c eable at o n e o r more points

in the c areer o f every master w h o h as ever be come a classi c C heru
“
b ini the most not orious ly pedanti c and dis c ouraging tea cher known
,
t o m u s iC al hi story wrote some o f the greatest operas in the Fren c h

,
cl assi c al reperto ire ; and then di ctated t o his pupil Halevy (the
c omposer o f L a f uive and other operas famous in their day) a
f
treatise o n c ounterpoint in whi c h he says that c ertain progress ions

,
whi c h serious c ounterpoint stri ctl y forb ids may be found here and
‘ ’
there in operas and symphonies and compositions of that sort .
‘
For even as ceti cism is a revolt against the weight o f t o o much
l iberty W hat is new in the artisti c spirit of revo lt at the presen t
’
.
day is it s bitterness and it s universal range Without entering into .
c ontroversial questions I may venture t o assert that to day it has

,
-
as it seldom h ad before the aspe c t o f a grievan c e

, The mi l dest and .
,
therefore perhaps the most serious form o f the grievance is that the
,
load o f cl ass ic al tradition h as long been S O heavy as to repre ss

further c reative impulse and that it is always in c reasing And I
, .
am unab l e t o s e e any la ck o f l ogi c in those w h o feeling thus argue , ,
that they must shake o ff this load even at the c ost o f a violen c e that
s hal l destroy at l e ast fo r themselves the very record of what
, ,
the cl as si c s have been What I do believe t o be fundamental ly

.
wrong is every attitude towards classi c al masterpieces which does

n o t make them a stimulus instead o f an oppression L e t me take .
this as an axiom : grant me that when a theory o f musi c proves that

a cl ass ical masterp iece h as n o stimulus fo r an a ctive minded musi -
e ian that theory h as redu c ed its elf t o an absurdity

, And where my .
assumptions seem t o o dogmati c let me appeal t o the whole teaching

,
o f my prede c essor .
What theories o f cl ass ical masterpie ces are there then whi c h are , ,
n o t stimu l ating ? I have a re c o ll e ction whi c h I regret that I have

,
n o t been ab l e t o verify that round a dome in o n e o f o u r c hief

,
national c entres o f art is an ins cription whic h reminds u s that it

is good t o turn frequentl y t o the c ontemp l ation o f those imperish
‘
ab l e m ast erpie c es O f the past whi ch n o modern e fforts can ever
hope t o rival It is easy fo r u s nowadays t o s e e in such an in s c rip
’
.
tion the we ll m eaning fal se modesty o f a period in which current

-
ideas c on cern ing art isti c masterpieces were utterly chaoti c when
!
reveren c e in cu lc ated bound l ess admiration but indignantly dis

claimed the presumption o f understanding and when every young ,
a rtist w h o ventured even t o Obey the advi c e t o contemp l ate the

STIMULUS AND THE CLASSICS OF MUSIC 6
3 5
great masters was practically warned from the outset that it w as
folly to believe a word they said .
It is hardly possible to exaggerate the depths o f insensibility that

have often resulted from this kind o f reverence fo r great names .
‘
I c an remember that a c omposition known t o fam e as M oz art s ’
Twelfth M as s was a ctually performed in L ondon at a by n o means

insignifi c ant festival on the c entenary o f M oz a rt s death ; N o w this ’
Twelfth M ass is one of a large series o f forgeries w hich began t o

’
be foisted upon M oz art s name already during the lifetime o f his

’
widow I n the c ase of small works an intellig e nt musi cian might

.
,
perhaps have di ffi culty in dete cting the forgeries ; fo r instan c e o n e ,
well known and typi c al spurious s e t of de c entl y written pianoforte

-
variations ascribed to M ozart betrays itself rather by t o o ri c h and

full a pianoforte style than by it s poverty o f thought ; fo r M ozart
threw O ff most of h is pianoforte variations s o c arelessly that they
are almost certainly inferior to those he used t o extemporize in h is
c on c erts if indeed they may not be regarded as attempts t o s c ribble
,
a record after the event But only the hypnoti c suggestion o f his
.
mere name in an age of cons cientiously unintelligent reverence c an

account for the very publi c ation of such a work as this S O c al led -
Twelfth M ass at all I t is longer than any o f the genuine M asses

.
,
except perhaps the great unfinished work in C minor ; it is therefore

very ambitious The genuine M asses S how little o f M ozart at h is
.
best The Ar c hbishop of Salzburg for whom he wrote them w as

.
, ,
a most unsavoury p ersonage and the time w as in any c ase hardly a

‘
,
great period fo r C h u rc h musi c I t would be possible to quote p as

.
’
sages from M ozart s genuine M asses which anticipate the notorious
Rossinian crescendo to s ay nothing of more c lassi c al if n o t less
,
lively features of opera b ufia But it would n o t be possible t o quote

.
from M ozart or from even any competent representative o f a good

,
s c hool such elaborate pointlessness and su c h grammatical and

,
structural blunders as pervade every page o f the spurious Twelfth

M ass ’
Its author one Z u le h n e r has been identified ; he w as n o t
. _
, ,
without talent for even the name o f M ozart could otherwise hard l y
,
have hoisted no less than five of his M asses into a genuine p o p u

larity; but he was no master and perhaps a motive fo r the fraud,
may be guessed from the fa ct that I myself have seen a sta ck o f his
manuscripts lying in the ar c hives of the house o f S c hott in M ainz ,
where they still wait in vain fo r publication S ince he sent them a ,
hundred odd years ago in his own name

-
.
A reverence that dis claims criticism is as dangerous as no rever

3 66 STIMULUS AND THE CLASSICS OF MUSIC
ence at all C lassical masterpieces can tell us nothi ng if we remain
.
at the mer cy of any label that chan c e or fraud affixes to the clum
sies t works o f their period These dangers are no doubt c harac
.
, ,
t e ris t ic o f the p ast : o u r present dangers c ome rather from la ck o f

reveren ce I have in mind a re c ent treatise on composition whi c h
.
,
has extraordinary merit as a most pra cti c al embodiment of the ex

p e ri e n c e o f a bril l iant c omposer who is eminently su c cessful as a
tea c her and w h o h as fol lowed the example o f the classics by

, ,
always stimulating in hi mself and in his pupils an interest in con

temporary d e velopments H is book contains many illustrations
.
from the great c lassi cs and c annot be ac cused of any failure to

,
stimulate enthusiasm fo r them Y et I confess that for me the whole

.
tone o f the work is spoiled by o n e senten ce in the prefa ce t o the ,
general effe ct ( I quote again from memory) that while it used to ,
be orthodox t o c onsider the cl assi cs infal lible the experienc ed ,
musician knows that they are n o t The attitude o f mind whi c h.
su ch a remark indi c ates does n o t like it s opposite extreme se e m at

‘
, ,
first sight t o c rush originality and all creative impulse but it ,
starves it and can infli ct serious damage o n just that most priceless
,
originality that wou l d survive and rea ct against o ld fashioned -
methods o f c rushing I t fails t o distinguish between wisdom and

.
inform ation ; and it en c ourages the student t o as sume that every

thing he does n o t readi l y understand in a classi c must be a blunder
o n the same mental le v e l as h is un c riti c al imitation o f it would be .
This assumption h as real l y been just as c hara cteristic of periods o f

unreasoning reveren c e and it always produ ces mu c h the same t e
,
s u lt s whatever it s manner o f expression Ba c h and Handel have a

.
method o f treating the or c hestra whi c h is radically di fferent from ,
and obviously more primitive than that o f M ozart to s ay nothing

, ,
o f more modern or c hestration C onsequently throughout the nine

.
,
t e e n t h c entu ry this primitive or c hest ration w as unhesitatingly dis

missed as merely inartisti c by the spirit o f reveren c e that admired
‘
M ozart s Twe lfth M ass ; and though we have fi n ally dis c redited
’ ’
the nineteenth century pra cti c e o f plastering Handel s oratorios

-
’
‘
with some s ix layers o f additional accompaniments beginning ’
,
with M ozart and n o t quite ending with Sir M i c hael C osta the ,
musical s cholarship that h as l earnt the pra cti c al methods o f realizing

Hande l s o w n ideas in his o w n musi c al l anguage is no t yet s o
’
wide l y spread that performances without additional ac c o m p an i

ment s can be trusted always t o give pleasure .
These th e n are the two extreme errors possible in our attitude

, ,
3 6 8 STIMULUS AND THE CLASSICS OF MUSIC
I am n o t c on c erned s o mu c h with the truth o r falsehood of all
these current do ctrines as I am with the di fficu l ties o f their appli c a
tion The doubtfu l n ess o f this parti cu l ar do ctrine is very obvious
.
,
and more s o in pr oportion t o the time w hic h h as tested it With .
An cient Gree c e time h as n o doubt been less c apri cious than earth
,
quakes and vo lc anoes but it has been quite as ruthless ; and though
,
we may have a pious opinion that the seven extant p l ays of Aes chylus
rea l ly are the topmost tenth o f his works nothing is more c ertain ,
than that the dis c ov e ry o f the other nine tenths wo u1d profoundly -
mo dify that Op in ion even if it c onfirmed it O n the other hand to

, .
,
musi c time h as in c omparison with it s treatment o f almost any

, ,
other art app l ied hard l y any real tests fair o r unfair The whol e
, , .
art as we understand and cu l tivate it first as sumes something like

, ,
maturity after the invention o f printing C onsequently there is .

,
l ittle o r nothing t o make it s records in c omp l ete ; and as it s real

existen c e is n o t in writing but in performan c e n o t in spa c e but in ,
time there is n o question o f a musi c al masterpie c e existing on ly

, ,
l ike a pi cture as a thing unique and perishab l e c ompared with

, ,
whi ch the best c opies are t o be regarded as se l f c o n fessed fai l ures -

.
W hatever may be the true definition o f a c lassic the musi cian if , ,
he h as used h is opportunities as they wou l d be used by a s c holar

in l iterature wi ll have a host o f reasons fo r arriving at a c onception
,
thereof whi ch difle rs marked l y from any formed by connoisseurs o f

other arts Apart from the ex c eptional c ompleteness o f his re c ords
.
,
he is a ccustomed as perhaps n o other artist ever h as been sin c e the

,
best days o f An cient Gree c e t o expe ct perfe ction from his classi c s :
,
perfe ct authenticity perfe ct form and perfe ct sty l e I do n o t s ay

, , .
that he always understands t hi s o r even that he wi l l Often agree that

,
it is the c ase Stated as an absolute truth it will repe l most people

.
,
and may even seem a mis chievous doctrine ; but as a rough c o m

parison between music and other arts it proves itself easi l y and
c opious ly .
AS t o authenti c ity I have already spoken o f musi c al forgeries ;

,
but they wou l d have been far less gross and we should have long ,
ago be c ome far less helpless in criti c izing them if they had n o t been ,
s o rare A composer w h o should be as important as Giorgione and

.
,
whose most deservedl y famous works shou l d be o f su c h doubtfu l

authenti city wou l d n o t stimu l ate o u r present musi ca l c onno isseur
,
ship as G iorgion e h as stimu l ated the connoisseurship o f painting ,
but wou l d drive musical s cho l ars into a state o f despair whic h could
hard ly be re l ieved by any me asure short o f giving the degree o f
STIMULUS AND THE CLASSICS OF MUSIC 6
3 9
D octor of M usic to every Baconian in the E mpire What are the .
usual di fficulties in de ciding upon the c orrect text of one of Bach s ’
F o rty eight Preludes and Fugues ? They lie in this that we have
-
sometimes as many as ten manus c ripts three o f which will be ,
autographs and the rest copies made for and b y Ba c h s own family
,
’
and pupils with changes that may or may n o t b e dictated o r auto

graphed by him These difli c u lt ie s are o t e n s e rio u s but they make
f /
.
,
the musical scholar a spoilt child in comparison with the man who
restored to M istress Qu ic kly s account of the death of Falstaff the
,
’
line
H is no se w as as sharp as a p e n , an d a b abb le d o f gre en fie l ds
’
.
Y et I must say that musical scholars have sometimes risen as nobly

to the wealth of their heritage as any Shakespearean has ever soared
from the squalor of the folios and quartos Wilhelm Rust in the .
,
’
S ixties and seventies more than once re c overed modulations as
’
,
priceless as they are abstruse from recitatives of Bach that seemed

quite unintelligible since the figu re d bass part which is the,
-
organist s only Clue to the harmonic fillin g out was lost or perhaps
’
-
, ,
had never been written down S ince Bach played the organ himself .
And to go back to what we sometimes hastily regard as the D ark

,
Ages of musical scholarship that notoriously dan difie d eighteenth ,
century historian of music Dr Burney can never be overpraised , .

,
for the sympatheti c ingenuity with which he deciphered one of the

most touching w orks of the great early sixteenth c entury composer -
whom a friend of mi e has aptly called the C haucer of musi c the

n —
Dirge written b y Josquin des Pré S for his master O ckenheim

’
The perfectio n of form in the musical classics is a subject that

only the thorough analysis of entire works can even pretend to
illustrate T o day I must leave it as a dogmatic assertion and can
.
,
only pause to observe that it more than any other peculiarity of

_
,
musical history is the cause of most musical fashions in fastidious

,
ness scepticism and revolt The C hurch the stage the human
, , .
, ,
voice itself often invite musi c as by royal command to illustrate

, , ,
and absorb ( as far as it can) ideas expressed primarily in words and

a ctions But have they e ve r s e rio u s ly invited music to produce any
.
'
thing but art for art s sake ? The N ovel with a Purpose may have ’
served its purpose and yet remain as a work of art O r it may do .
either or neither But has anyone ever heard of an O pera with a

,
.
P urpose ? Y es we have heard of Die Z aub erflb te with its special

,
‘
interest for Freemasons : and w e kno w that nineteenth century -

3 7 0 S T I M U LU S A N D T H E C L A S S I C S OF MUSIC
Ital ian opera gave t o o mu c h scope fo r anti Austrian propaganda to -
be always acceptable to the poli c e : but did the poli ce have anything
to s ay t o the musi c apa rt from the words ? And is the music of Die
Z aub erflfite as cryptic and formless as the libretto ? O r has the t e
sear c h into it that identifies the Queen of N ight with the E mpress
M aria Theresa and the nigger M o n o s t at o s with her cleri c al sup
porters c leared u p any mysteries in the music ? I t has sho wn us
how M ozart came to take an interest in su ch a pantomime just as it ,
shows us h o w such apparent nons ense c ould interes t Goethe enough

t o indu c e him to write a sequel to it But it does not S how us how
.
any interest M ozart took in it c ould make him compose it with suc
c ess h e had twi c e before it fai l ed to finish an opera because Of the
— '
badness o f the libretto I t w as not the po l itics Of Die Z aub erflb te

.
’
whi c h helped M ozart to pu l l it through ; it w as the fact that this

absurd and i ll iterate pantomime showed real musi c al stage craft -
and therefore could he l p the c omposer instead o f hampering him .
There may then be music that h as to deal with n o n musical

, ,
-
ideas ; but there is n o need fo r it t o serve other than artistic ends .
I n the C hurc h it is o ffered t o the D eit y and if this c ondition l imits ,
the scope o f it s beauty a l l the more severely does it demand that

,
the scope shall be limited t o the purest beauty even if thereby it ,

’
repud iates M ozart s genuine M asses .
L astl y l et u s c onsider the perfection o f style in the musical

,
cl assi c s Here we may hope to find some c ommon ground between

.
what is classical in music and what is classical elsewhere ; and so

,
we may come t o utter some truths about cl assical music which shall
tally with the views o f other artists and s cho l ars and shall prove to ,
b e e s se n t ially stimu l ating I wi l l take the po int o f musi c al style in

‘
which al l modern mu si cians and students feel themse lves to be

most fastidious and most fu l ly in the enjoyment of all their faculties :
the treatment o f the orchestra W hy it is sometimes openly asked
.
, ,
should we retain any but a merel y histori c al interest in Beethoven s ’
orch estration seeing that even if his deafness had n o t led him into
, ,
frequent errors in balan c e o f tone he wrote fo r string bands Whose

,
-
members c ould n o t to day retain their posts in any good or chestra

-
and fo r wind bands furnished with instruments on which half the

-
most ordinary types o f passage were unplayable in a l l but a small '
and very haphazard list o f keys the trumpets and h o rn s p o s se ss in g

,
an apology fo r a scal e in whi c h the gaps oft en seemed more relevant

than the notes whil e no experienced l istener w as so unreasonable
,
as to expect the w ind band to be in tune with the strings until the
-
3 7 2 STIMULUS AN D THE CLASSICS OF MUSIC
imply an art language in whi c h all the means o f expression— for
-
mal te c hni c al and rhetorical are coherent This qualifi c ation is

, ,
— .
in o n e sense quite independent o f the range o f the art S o long as .
that range is t o u se a suggestive cat c h word cen tral then the mind
,
-
, ,
will be fi ll ed by the art and we know that its field o f vision always
,
subtends the same angle But unless the range is central the field
.
,
o f vision wi ll n o t be fi l led .
Palestrina s art is c omprised within a very n arrow field at the

’
very c entre o f the aestheti cs o f una cc ompanied ch oral music N o w .

,
I believe it c an be S hown that the aesthetics o f the una c companied

chorus lie at the very centre o f what we know as c lass ical musi c
itse l f ; and if Palestrina radiates evenly in a l l directions from this
c entre h is circumferen c e wi ll be t o yo u the vaults o f heaven s o
, ,
l ong as your view h as also started from the c entre and not from
outs ide A very small step will put yo u outside : M onteverde took
.
that step and fo r a hundred years n o man c ould bui l d a new dome
,
t o c ontain the new musi c o r even guess whether the dome should
,
be limited by the prin ciples eventual ly attained by Ba c h o r by ,
those o f Glu ck W agner o r if yo u like Strauss M eanwhile o f

, , , , .
,
c ourse outside the c entre there are always ways o f attaining a c o m

,
p ara t iv e ly artifi c ial

.
pe rfe c tion C hopin is a wonderfully perfe c t
.
artist : yet orthodoxy is justified in it s almost instinctive refusal to

regard him as a clas si c o n s o high a p l ane as Palestrina H is range .
o f thought is in c omparably wider than Palestrina s ; and there is a

’
sense in which his wonderfu l treatment o f the pianoforte is as truly

classi c al as it is original But here we tou c h upon just what makes
.
h im a genius with a spe cial provin c e instead o f a spe ctator o f all ,
musi c al time and existen c e (t o borrow P l ato s chara cter o f the ’
phi l osopher) The pianoforte is an ex c eeding l y complex aestheti c

.
phenomenon ; and it s pecu l iarities are very far removed from the
c entre o f musi c W hat is truly c las s ic al in C hopin s treatment o f it
.
'
’
is that instead o f c onfining himself t o it s outermost and latest t e

sour ces he used it as a great writer uses l anguage ; he made it s every
,
utteran c e suggest the vo c al origins o f musi c and never misjudged ,
the amou nt o f sugges tion that it s tones c ould bear But he never .
attempted t o leave thi s artifi cial medium and interest hi mself pro ,
fo u n dly in the rea l c entre o f musical aestheti c s ; and s o h is very

suggestiveness h as a note o f exile in it whi c h is n o t the universal
note o f the cl assi c .
Well yo u wil l s ay Beethoven is supposed t o be a great c las s I c

, ,
he wrote a c ert ain amount o f very important choral music ; how

STIMULUS AN D THE CLASSICS OF MUSIC 3 73
comes it that he is never supposed to have a good choral style ? The
question of what makes a good style is not quite the same as the
question of what makes a good model This is w here we musicians .
are so often misled by possessing such an extraordinary number of

very perfect works We are not trained like architects and Shake
.
,
s p e are an scholars to look for qualities of m in d b e fo re ;ye demand

, .
{
finished execution unimpaired preservation and undivided author

, ,
ship I f Beethoven s choral writing were twice as uncouth as w e

.
’
find it there would still be ample evidence that his imagination

,
grasped every quality that choral writing ought to possess It is not .
a merit that the writing is unpractical ; but that however deplorable ,

’
and however much Beethoven s own fault has no more to do with ,
the quality of his imagination than the even more reprehensible

habit of painting Wi th c heap and perishable pigments h as to do with
a painter s sense of c olour
’
.
C an we in conclusion define an attitude towards Classical music

, ,
that shall satisfy every man of culture as being a stimulus to the art ?
It need not be new ; and so I venture to suggest a very familiar
argument We should regard a classical masterpiece as a stimulus
.
to our own activity be c ause it g eneraliz es our special problems It

, .
has solved them once for all in I t s own way an d that encourages ,
our originality because its way cannot possibly be ours Time may .
not always have preserved the greatest classics or have exposed the ,
hollowness of inferior favourites ; but it preserves far too vast and

heterogeneous a collection of undoubted masterpieces for us to
have any justifi cation in pleading their ever increasing and diverging -
testimony in support of narrow doctrines whether ortho dox or ,
revolutionary .
When critics adopt the eighteenth century method of saying that -
such and su c h a classic ought to inspire us w it h n o b le feelings b e '
c ause its sentiments are edifying and its form perfect we may ,
legitimately argue that it is useless to tell us that we ought to feel

this and that when as a matter of fact we feel quite otherwise O n
, .
the other hand we shall do well to beware of the ex c lusively sub

,
je c t i ve methods of criticism s o much in vogue since the latter part

of the nineteenth c entury ; methods whi c h may be but mildly
c aricatured as consisting in S itting in front of a work of art feeling ,
our pulses and noting our symptoms before we have taken the
,
slightest trouble to find out whether as a matter of fact the language , ,
of that art means what we think it means .
NO one ever had a sane love of any art without a curiosity to

3 74 STIMULUS AND THE C LASSICS OF MUSIC
extend his knowledge of it : and no one with a rational c uriosity
ever expe cts his appet ite t o be always in the sam e c ondition towards
the same objects L e t the student and lover of musi c u se every
.
means to stimulate and satisfy his curiosity ; and let no one be dis
c o u rage d from playing or composing s o long as those activities do
n o t hi nder him instead o f helping hi m t o enjoy music

, . His neigh
bours if not his tea chers will help him t o form an opinion on that
, ,
point The future o f music lies at the ba ck o f th e you ng musi cian s

.
’
head ; let him produ c e it if he can But his eyes are n o t inside his
.
head ; hi s wides t field o f vision looks o u t into the past and it is ,
fo r him t o s ay h o w many c enturies his gaze shall sweep W hatever .
the range o f his vision it will always subtend the same

,
this fact arise the ill u sions o f c onceit and o f de p res s I o n ; I n its right
understanding li e their prevention and cure .
37 6 THE TRAININ G OF THE MUSI CAL IMAGINATION
te e nth centu ry had grave defe cts whi ch M acaulay s s choo l boy c an ’
easily dete ct nowadays and whi c h give deli c ious o ccasion fo r sneers
,
from persons t o wh om they are pointed o u t by the inheritors o f the

despised o ld s cho l arship by which the pioneer work w as a c hieved ;
but the worst blunders o f those Gesamm tausg ab en are venial sins
compared t o the massive ineptitu des o f much that h as more re cently
been put forw ard as results o f musical s c holarship M r W otton . .
h as exposed the iniquities o f the c riti c al edition o f Berlioz s works ;

’ ’
and while I must enthusiasti c ally join in the re c ognition re c ently

,
given t o Ba ch s Ku nst der Pag e I cannot refrain from insisting that

’
,
the re c ognition h as been a cc ompanied by statements whi c h S how

that many persons claiming t o musi c al s c holarship and t o knowledge
o f the or c hestra have never played from s c ore in their lives At the .
end o f the nineteenth c entury we may have been more innocent but ,
we were more enterprising The experiment w as often tried and .

,
in o n e c ase published at great expense o f putting fugues from the ,
Forty eight into open s c ore Prout reveal ed by that pro c ess th at
’
.
Ba ch s part writing w as real and that M endel ssohn s w as n o t The

’ ’
.
K u ns t der F ug e prepared as far as it w as finished by Ba c h himself

,
fo r pub l i c ation in s c ore and published immediate l y after h is death

, ,
w as when I w as a b o y a c cessib l e c hiefly in C zerny s edition which

’
, , ,
w as printed as keyboard musi c with C zerny s often ex c e ll ent fin ge r

’
ings ; and n o sane person had any reason t o doubt that it w as

keyboard musi c unti l re c ent editors have stated that it w as n o t
pl ayable and have thereby proved that they never tried t o p l ay it
,
.
M y o w n wish is t o s e e it adopted in musi c al edu c ation as I u s e

it mysel f I n s c ore without the distra ction o f an interlined piano
.
,
forte c rib it c onstitutes the finest possible s c hool o f s c ore reading -
in it s first stage the stage at whi c h a ccuracy must be learned and

,
c an be a c hieved before the student attempts the c ompromises o f

,
or c hestra l s c ore playing .
M y present c on c ern however is rather with the imaginative

, ,
read ing o f musi c than with the reduction o f s c ores t o the limits o f
pianoforte p l aying W hat is at stake here is the whole training o f
-
.
the musi c al imagination This should be the first and last c on c ern
.
o f musical edu c ators As we do n o t live in U topia we need n o t be

.
,
surprised t o en c ounter famous musi cians whose habits and training

disp l ay everyt hing that the c ons cientious tea c her should regard as
naughty These great artists do n o t prove that the c ons cientious
.
teacher is wrong n o r even that their habits have been harml ess to
,
them ; though t h e c riti c would be rash as wel l as impertinent w h o

THE TRAINING OF THE MUSI CAL IMAGINATION 3 77
S hould deduce p a that riori
their art must be defective because of
their habits W e need not imitate the rabid apostle of temperance
.
who prophesies delirium tremens to persons who are well able to

carry their liquor The ill timed use of the pianoforte is foremost
.
-
among the bad habits which not even the achievements of Haydn ,
S chumann and Berlioz can turn into good _h abits Sullivan com
, .
m it t e d an unpardonable blasphemy against the art o f IiI u s ic when

' '
he s e t Adelaide P ro ctor s poem about the L ost C hord The poetess

’
.
may be forgiven for her sentimental description of the lowest type

of musi c al maunderings but no real c omposer ought to have con
,
firmed h is c ountry in its self s at is fie d ignoran c e of music by signing

-
his name to a musi c al setting of those words Fu m b lin g for Great .
Amens on the noisy keys of an organ is a method of composition

whi c h ought not to be en c ouraged in students who have talent for
anything better ; and it is encouraged by people who talk scepti c ally
about score reading -
.
That whi c h trains the imagination is good ; that whi c h starves or

dulls the imagination is bad Sitting at the keyboard and fumbling .
for lost c hords is bad for the imagination The poetess herself .
c learly tells u s that the lost chord was stru ck by accident S amuel .
Butler has already pointed out that it must have been two chords
if it sounded like a great Amen an d my own theory is that the ,
organist had stumbled into a plagal cadence and probably often ‘
afterwards struck o n e or other of the chords without recognizing

them be c ause he or S he never got the first chord in a subdominant
,
relation to the other O bviously a little knowledge of theory would

.
have given the organist s imagination the freedom of all the Amens
’
in Berlioz s Requiem ; which by the way ends with one now known
’
, ,
‘
as the Gounod caden c e This C harles Hallé tells us Berlio z
’
.
, ,
actually dis c overed by letting his fingers wander idly over the key
board What amused Hallé was that Berlioz S hould have thought
.
the c adence particularly original .
Evidently it must be a bad habit that p ers I st e n t ly substitutes

ac cident for imagination But the old fashioned method of con
.
-
fi ning harmony exer c ises to paper work is now discredited and the -
teachers Of it undoubtedly starved their pupils in precisely the food

that the imagination needs I have in mind the case of an excellent
.
musi cian who gave up all hope of learning any musical theory
be c ause her tea c her would never let her hear or play an unfamiliar
chord before she had worked it out on paper in an exercise Su c h .
dis cipline is nonsensi c al M emory is the natural food of the

.
37 8 TH E T RA IN IN G OF THE MUSI CAL IMAGINATION
imagination and abstra ct c al culation is a worse s u bs titute for it
,
th an the idl est o f wanderings over noisy keys Dr R 0 M orris . . . .
and others have fo r some time past been leading a renascen ce o f the
real class i cal method o f studying harmony from figured b ass : not
on paper ( un l ess as a preliminary exer c ise in spelling) but at the ,
keyboard in a cc ordance with th e original purpose o f the figured

,
b ass as a shorthand fo r the fillin g o u t o f the harmonic background

-
o f an instrumenta l ensemb l e What the tea cher must forbid is any

.
c onfusion between keyboard work and paper work The student at

- -
.
the keyboard must n o t write The student w h o is writing must not

.
‘
u s e the keyboard as a crib Extemporization is a pastime whi c h
’
.
may lead t o all manner o f bad habits but at least hal f the aesth etic ,
resourc es o f cl assi c al music have originated in it and the wise ,
tea cher will neither c lose the playground n o r supervise the games
until they be c o me a worse tyranny than the lessons .
Every musi c al a ctivity h as it s proper part in trai ni ng the imagina

tion an d it s danger Of warping o r starving the imagination by m is
,
u se
. The orthodox ru l es o f musi c al grammar are general izations
from the experien c e o f c omposers They are c ompletel y m isu n de r
.
stood if they are re garde d as a priori prin ciples t o whi c h the c om

posers were bound by authority Beethoven s fellow student s .
’
-
laughed at him fo r finding o u t by dis c oncerting experience what

“
more do ci l e p eop l e knew by ru l e o f thumb ; and Beethoven s o w n ’
epigram that he learnt the ru l es in order t o know h o w t o break

them h as often been supplemented by the comment that he learnt
them first and broke them afterwards O n e o f W alter Bage h o t s .
’
most il l uminating phrases is hi s d e s cription o f M a c aulay as a per

‘
so n of in e xp e rie n c in g c hara c ter A photograp hi c and phono
’
.
graphic memory l ike M a c aulay s must be a c onstant Obsta cle to

’
growth fo r it makes the re c orded and immutable past nearly as

,
vivid as and mu c h more varied than the living and c hanging

, ,
present ; yet it wou l d be better fo r most o f u s never t o outgrow the

ple asures o f M a c au l ay s mental pante c hnicon than t o grow up into
’
an aestheti c system in whi c h music h as degenerated into mental

arithmetic Su ch a c ons ummation h as more than on c e been at
.
t ain e d through an orthodox trai ni ng that w as thought to be c lassical ,
and it is more like l y t o be attained through some o f the a priori

revo l utionary systems o f the present day .
A S t o the resu l ts o f the orthodox training I have seen them ,
embodied in a printed exer cise fo r the D octorate of M usi c as

achieved under the regu l ations o f some fifty years ago This e xe r .
3 8 0 THE TRAINING OF THE MUS I CAL I MAG INAT I ON
To return t o the case o f o u r do ctor s exercise I ts c o m p o se r may
’ '
at o n e time have had some imagination but his hand l ing o f the ,
or c hestra showed c on clusively that h is whole training had been

systemati c al ly devoted t o destroying whatever imagination he had
started with He can never have had any ambition t o handle an
.
or c hestra fo r it s own sake and n o w the regulations for hi s do ctor s

,
’
degree c ompel led him t o handle it by rule o f thumb as a support

t o an eight part c horus constru cted also by ru le o f thumb
-
The .
regulations themselves showed an infanti l e notion Of the te c hni que

Of choral writing The Ba c helor o f M usic w as required t o handle
.
'
five vo ices The D octor o f M usi c must S how a higher ac compl ish
.
ment by handl ing eight A moderate knowl edge o f the fa cts o f

.
classi c al music ought t o c onvince anybody that the proper treat

ment o f eight voi c es is mu ch simp l er than that o f five I n any c ase .
,
the techni c al di fference is negl igible if the music h as any rea li ty at

all The framers o f the regu l ations showed n o kn owledge o f why
.
any c omposer should write fo r eight voi c es ; and the eight part -
writing o f Handel h imself would have been ignominiously ploughed

if it had been presented in a degr ee exer cise .
However this D o ctor o f M usi c complied with all the regulations

, ,
and having gi ven in c ontestab l e proof that he had n o previous

,
or c hestral experience whatever had the costly but intense thrill o f

,
condu cting hi s o w n work M y o w n imagination boggles at what

.
the experien c e must have meant t o him He c annot have been very .
sensitive t o the e ffe ct o f works o f art as who l es and s o the du l lness ,
and monotony o f h is composition c an hard l y have been evident to

hi m The work had cost him hi deous labour quite as satisfact ory
.
,
as that o f an arithmeti c ian e v a l uating 7: t o a thousand p l aces
o f de c imal s And n o w the faithfu l labours o f the graduand were

.
rewarded by an hour s outburst o f so l id unwavering euphony

’
nothing more and nothing less He had n o t imagined th is : he had .
o nl y kept the ru l es ; but the work w as h is o w n though he had n o t ,
known that it w as in him F o r the rest o f h is life the who l e past

.
,
present and future o f musi c were l ost in the gl ory o f h is o w n

,
real ization that if yo u keep the ru l es nothing c an prevent your

c horal harmony from attaining the sound o f a Great Amen There .
is o f c ourse a slight exaggeration in saying that the inhabitant o f

, ,
this foo l s parad ise had n o idea o f the sound o f his work whi l e he
’
w as writing it ; but it is quite a ccurate t o s ay that hi s training had

systemati c all y deprived him o f the free exercise o f his imagination ,
and that the glorious experien c e o f hearing s o mu c h euphony

‘
THE TRAINING OF T H E M U S I C A L I M A GI N A T I O N 3 8 1
created merely b y his keeping the rules must have confi rmed him
in a state of mind to which any exercise of free imagination w ould
seem painful if he could conceive it at all .
There is nothing destructive to the imagination in keeping rules .
If everything in this exer cise had been as imaginative as the most

inspired works of Handel the rules might still have b e e n j
, ge pt more
strictly than b y Handel himself And it s not only possible but .

,
sometimes desirable to u s e an orchestra simply to double voices for

,
a chorus It might even be desirable as happened once or twice

~
.
,
t o Ba c h himself that such an orchestral support might be furnished

,
for a whole choral work which the choir had not time to learn
properly without such support But here was a composer living in .
a world where the symphonies of Beethoven were in the repertoire

of every decent or c hestra and the s c ores of most of the orchestral
c lassics were published at reasonable prices ; yet every natural
ambition to u s e an orchestra to proper purpose w as so c rushed out
of him by his training that when he was actually c ompelled to pro
vide an or c hestra in a performance of his o w n work at his own
expense he could think of nothing for it to do beyond supporting
,
and imitating standardized vocal harmony The opportunity was .
far more rare than it is now though I myself never heard my own,
or c hestration until I w as twenty eight -

.
’
At the other extreme of a composer s opportunities we have a
case cited by Richard Strauss in his edition of Berlio z s treatise on ’
instrumentation A man brought to him a concert overture in

.
which the four tubas specially devised by Wagner for the solemn
purposes of his Ring danced throughout the score in the simplest
of waltz rhythms W hen Strauss pointed out the futility of this
’
‘
procedure the composer said : But goodness me every orchestra
, ,
has them nowadays : why shouldn t I use them ? Such people says ’ ’
,
Strauss cannot be helped

,
.
The problem then is this : first to train the musical im agI n at I o n ;,
and secondly to keep it fresh I shall now venture to go int o some

, , .
details of my own experience as a reader of music ; there being no

thing immodest in choosing an experience which nobody can know
so well as myself .
I began the study o f harmony at the proper mental age that is

,
-
to say when I was ten The correct resolutions of t h e dominant

, .
seventh the dodge for avoiding forbidden consecutives in a s c ale

,
of four part chords of the sixth the ruling by which a sequence

-
c an or c anno t justify a rough progression : all such matters belon

g
3 8 2 THE TRAINING OF THE MUSI CAL IMAGINATION
to the mental age o f the inky s choolboy and are a ri diculous diet for
the mind o f the s c epti c al undergraduate I frankly do not know a .
satisfa ctory solution o f the undergraduate s problems if he has n Ot ’
had the right edu cation ; unless the solution is to endure the martyr
do m o f Berlioz as a man Of genius and chara cter The bree zy s olu .
tion o f omitting the e l ementary training altogether has not been

accepted by su c h men themselves E ven Beethoven felt that his .
early training had been defe ctive and h is grievance against Haydn ,
w as n o t that Haydn advised him against publishing the best and

boldest o f the three trios o f his first opus but that Haydn had not ,
the patien c e t o c orre ct h is c ounterpoint exer cises thoroughly I am .
n o t c omparing myself with any such great men but am dealing ,
with edu c ation al conditions that should be open betimes to all

musi cians M y first mas ter in harmony and counterpoint was
.
Parratt whose g l orious sense o f humour enabled m aster and pupil

,
t o s e e the fun o f admi tting frankly that drudgery w as drudg e ry

'
The authors o f the text books he found it c onvenient to u se might

-
hav e been dis c on c erted if they suspe cted h o w he spoke of them ; but
perkiness towards great musi c w as n o t a weed that could flourish in
h is cl imate though it pervaded large tra cts o f the technical articles
,
in Grove s Dic tio nary The o n e great lost opportu nity O f my early
’
.
years was that under the mistaken idea that organ playing would
,
-
be bad fo r my pianoforte touch I never learnt the organ from ,
Parratt ; but I did form all my notions o f that instrument from

hearing and wat c hing hi m every Sunday in the organ loft of St .
George s C hapel at Windsor and I grew up in the happy and s tim u

’
,
lating delusion that the organ w as a rhythmi c instrument and that ,
the u s e o f its stops w as analogous t o good orchestration I n Par .
rat t s hands both these propositions were true and many significant
’
,
eviden c es o f t hi s are sti l l t o be found in his c ontributions on organ

playing in Grove s Dic tio nary where he laid down prin ciples whi c h
’
,
n o c hanges in the modern instrument c an make o u t of date My .
disi l lusion w as great when I first heard organists o f c oarser fibre o n

the C ontinent and elsewhere ; and as a tea cher I have sin c e acc u m u
l ated a long experien c e o f the diflic u lt ie s o f syringing o u t the mental
ears o f organists w h o never know h o w many sounds they are pro
du c in g with their mutation stops I w as n o t c ons c ious in my chi ld
.
‘
hood that there w as su c h a thing as a spe cial Parratt s chool of ’
organ p l aying and t o this day the expression makes me s e e red

-
, ,
be c ause for me Parratt stands fo r musi c and yo u might as well t alk ,
o f the musi c al s choo l o f musi cianship o r describe such and su c h

’
‘
,
8
3 4 THE TRAININ G O F TH E MUSICAL IMAGINATION
score M y expectations o f l arge musi c al form were based o n the
.
experien c e o f sonatas and I w as very mu c h puzz l ed by what seemed

,
t o me the pat chi ness o f the l ong opening tutti and espe c i al ly by the ,
fact that after the first fortissimo irruption in a remote key the who l e
enormous process ion o f themes remained flatl y in D major I w as .
held up at the tenth bar by the mysterious D sharp whi c h s o o b st i

n at e l
y refus e s t o explain itself ; and I had great di ffi c ulty in imagin
ing the sound o f it both in itsel f an d in it s effe ct u pon the c ontext
, .
A S t o tone c o l our I suppose that I must have imagined it more o r

,
less as pianoforte musi c though I had al ready begun t o feel s u s pi

,
c io u s o f the sty l e o f p ianoforte arrangements o f or c hestral musi c .
M oreo ver t o this day I find that my imagination is as lazy as N atu re

,
in fo l lowing the line o f le ast resistance I am bored by reading .
pianoforte music because if it is n o t monstrous ly difli c u lt I c an do

,
s o mu c h better by playing it ; and if it is t o o difli c u lt t o read at s ight

!
it is a l so probab l y diffi cu l t t o c onstrue s o that in any c ase t o p rac ,
tise it te chni cally is as qui ck a way t o kn ow it as t o read it in an

arm c hair And s o what with o n e thing and another I did n o t get
-
.
, ,
far beyond the entry o f the so l o vio l in in reading the pianoforte

score o f the Beethoven c on c erto o n the way from Windsor t o Pad
dingto u I c ann ot s ay what d ifferen c e it might have made t o my
.
experien c e if I had had the full s c ore t o read Probab l y n ot mu ch .

,
fo r I did n o t asso c iate the names o f oboe c larinet and bassoon with , ,
definite tone c o l ours and I remember read ing M ozart s three great
,
’
symphonies in 1 8 8 9 whi l e un c ertain whether horns transposed u p

wards o r downwards .
O n the who l e I thin k it w as an additional stroke o f l u ck that I

,
had n o means o f forete l ling the or chestral sound o f the opening o f

Beethoven s Violin C on c erto A more vivid first experien c e o f
’
.
orchestral sounds c annot be c on ce ive d The fa cts are both elemen .
tary and intense l y surprisin g Widor in h is de l ightfu l ly stimulating

.
,
work o n instrumentation h as wittil y tra c ed the young musician s

,
’
progress in the appre ciation o f or c hestra l va l ues I t begins with .
‘
what is known t o E nglish musi cians as the kit c hen department ’
,
‘
an exquisite refinement o f Bottom s favourite tongs and bones ’ ’
,
ranging from the big drum t o the gl o ckenspiel From this it passes .
,
l et u s hope quickly t o an extreme ven eration fo r the h arp w hich

, ,
detains the student more o r less acc ording t o whether he h as an

in e xp e rie n c in g o r an experien cing nature I t then dwe ll s fo r a whi l e .
,
as it did in Beethoven s o w n c ase among the wind instruments with

’
,
their fixed an d vivid di fferen c es o f tone c o l our and it be c omes ripe ,

THE TRAINING OF THE M U S I C A L I M A GI N A T I O N 8
3 5
only with the growing consciousness of the inexhaustible and u n
fatiguing beauties of string tone I had already had the advantage
.
of being awakened betimes to the transcendental light of common

day diffused by the string quartet ; but what further enlightenment
Was needed the B eethoven concerto supplied with a systematic
'
e ffi ciency which I can fi nd in no other work of art C onsider the .
facts as they presented themselves to my ear al m ost in t h e exa ct ‘
order traced by Widor with the exception of the harp the presence
, ,
of which would have been an unmitigated nuisance ( N o sane .
composer would introduce into a violin concerto an instrument so

distracting to the attention and I cannot help it if the harp
,
prominent in a well know n half witted violin concerto by a virtuoso

-
eminent in his own day .
Well here begins Beethoven s Violin C oncerto with a my sterious

,
’
summons to attenti on by means of a simple rhythmic fi gure on a

drum a musical no te completely detached from all other or c hestral
,
experiences On the top of this Parrat t s pupil suddenly heard a

.
,
’
mass of organ like harmony that sounded as if the organ had

-
become as alive and human as P arratt himself I believe there are .
people who have discovered that if the conductor allows the wind
players to play like pigs this opening can be made to sound quite
,
nasty C lassical orchestration is severely critici zed on these lines

.
nowadays by bright y oung men and dull old men who will certainly
bury six of their own children by way of qualifying themselves for
seeing their grandchild through an attack of croup All scoring can .
be made to sound bad if you do not kno w the composer s style In ’

.
the ninetie s it was assumed that Brah ms could not orchestrat e and
’ '
‘
that Tchaikovs ky and Dvo i ak w ere infallible Brahms will not .
sound well in the hands of a c ondu ctor to whom Wagner is the only
‘
normal composer ; and composers as reckless and untidy as Dvo i ak
and Tchaikovsky will sound as magnifi cen t as Brahms only if the
conductor is brought up to believe that it is his duty to make them
so B eeth oven is an untidy artist though not as untidy as many
.
,
people seem to think ; but he is uncannily accurate in his Violin

C oncerto and I had the good luck to begin my orchestral exp e ri
,
ence with a first rate performance of it After the shock of hearing

-
.
the radiant tones of these wind instruments extended over the mys
t e rio u s bass of the drums ho w could the subtleties of orchestral
“
string tone be more impressively put before me than by the mys

t e rio u s D sharp with w hich the violins enter ? And what could be
more lucky for me than the fact that the D sharp itself had already
Z E
'
3 86 THE TRAINING OF THE MUS ICAL IMAGINATION
aroused my curiosity so that there was no danger o f my losing the
,
e fle ct of the strings in a general daz zle o f n e w experiences ? C hild

‘
ren must be allowed to lose definite impressions in such a dazzle ;

and nothing c ould be worse than S poil ing their c hances of enjoy
ment as well as their hopes of constru cting their own impressions
, ,
by sub m itting them t o the equivalent of a Fairchild family examina -
’
tion on the contents of Sunday morning s sermon I remember that .
either before o r after my experience o f the Violin C oncerto I heard

Beethoven s M issa S olennis ; and t hat although I had been much
’
,
excited by what I could make of the vocal score I c ame away from ,
the perform ance over ready fo r bed and made the illuminating c o m
-
‘ '
ment that it w as a curious drum part This did me no b arm and

-
’
.
,
the comment w as obviously correct though I did not see the point
,
of B eethoven s dru m s o f war in his Dona nobis pa cem

’ ’
.
Re t ur ning t o the Violin C once rto let me point out that my best
,
c hance o f early appre ciating the beauties o f st ring tone was suppl ied
by the fa ct that the composition is a violin c oncerto and that the ,
long deferred entry o f the solo violin gave me the most vivid p o s
-
sible experience o f the contras t betw een the tone of one violin and
the tone o f an orchestral m ass o f strings In his admirable treatise .
o n instrumenta tion whi c h follows Widor s line o f experien c e and

’
,
‘
begi n s w ith the kit c hen departm ent passing gradually to th e
’
,
higher and more universal r anges o f the orchestra M r C e cil , .
Fo rs yt h observed that in a con c erto an absurd effect is Often pro

du c e d when the solo violin h as given o u t a phrase which is after
wards taken up by the strings of the or chestra who seem imme ,
‘
diat e ly t o demonstrate : this is h o w it ought to sound
’
This is .
the sort o f experience that ought n o t t o happen and I w as lucky ,
in beginni ng with the experienc e of a con c erto in which nothing of

the kind does happen Some o f the diffi culties in training the
.
musi c al imagination come from two facts : fir st that the glorious ,
normalities o f the class ics are rare in comparison with the c ommon
place errors o f most composers an cient o r modern ; and secondly
, ,
that we take the classics fo r granted by accepting them as common

places b efore we have reall y allowed them to be granted to u s at
all M y early experience w as lucky in that I w as carefully protected
.
from the experience o f bad music and that the experience of firs t
,
rate performances of great musi c w as never s o common as to cease

to be a treat Through n o fault o f M r F o rsyt h s a great many
. .
’
,
students will read his wise remark about the di fference betw een solo
and tutti tone with the tacit assumption that Bee thoven and
3 8 8 THE TRAIN IN G OF THE MUSI CAL IMAGINAT ION
back o f one s mind seems t o me as useless as to say that the sou l
’
is either blue o r n o t blue M oreover I am convin c ed that a large

.
,
category o f errors n o t on l y in students com positions but in

,
’
s e c ond rate works by c omposers of some standing c omes from

-
failure t o imagine the S imple fa ct that if a passage that h as been

p l ayed at a fairl y fast tempo is p l ayed four times as Slow it wil l take ,
four times as long .
I n the eighties and nineties it w as commonl y supposed that young

’ ’
,
and otherwise reprehensible c omposers who might do wel l enough

in scherzos always broke down when it came t o slow movements ;
and their failure w as as c ribed t o l a ck Of sentiment and t o the attempt
t o repla c e it by a display o f ingenuity The e ffe c t o f these warnings.
against being young and otherwise reprehensible is that n o t even

the most reprehensib l e o f u s h as often shown the s l ightest need for
them I bel ie ve that in the majority o f amiable if unconvincing
.
, ,
s c hool works at the end o f the nineteenth century the slow move
-
ments wi ll be best and that the worst and most artificial move
,
ments wi l l be the s c herzos Good fin ale s are the rarest o f al l and

.
,
their defi cien cy I bel ieve t o c ome from l a ck o f trai ni ng in any sense
o f movement whatever The c ommonest c ause o f failure in slow
.
movements is that the c omposer h as never imagin ed a slow tempo ,
either in his o w n works o r in his reading o f other music I should .
be in cl ined even in the absence o f more interesting evidence to

, ,
regard it as a sign o f promise in a young c omposer if he had the

patien c e t o play me a slow theme in a slow tempo C omposers .
’
p l aying is proverbially bad and misrepresent ative in its sket chiness ,
but I firml y be l ieve that the sket c hiest c omposer player who pre -
sents a c orre ct tempo in strumming a slow movement has the root

o f the matter in him .
E arl y in my adventures in s c ore reading I encou ntered a useful-
but dis c on c erting experien c e Playing from scores as distinct from

.
,
reading them is a pra ctic e t o whic h I o w e mu ch ; and it w as wisely

,
c ontro ll ed by being assumed t o be rather a naughty diversion

destru ctive t o my l egitimate pianoforte tech ni que but t o be o fli ,
c ially ignored o n mu c h the same prin c iple a c cord ing t o which E ton
masters c onsidered that a b o y w as n o t o u t o f bounds if o n emerging

from the tu ck shop he c on c ealed himse l f ostri ch like from the
-
,
-
mas ter s eye by ho l ding a teaspoon before his o w n eye N ow some

’
.
s c ores are eas ier t o p l ay than others Beethoven s Serenade Trio .

’
,
o p 8 almost instant l y be came a favourite pianoforte work for me

.
, ,
but I w as d iscon c ert ed t o find that I c ould hear nothing but piano
THE TRAINING OF T H E M U S I C A L I MA G I N A TI O N 8
3 9
forte tone in it when I tried to read it to myself This might seem .
t o o O bvious to be worth recording as an experience but it applies ,
to the whole field of the musical imagination Imagination will .
alway s follow the line of least resistance .
If y ou can overcome the diffi culty of assembling its facts the ,
printed page will convey to you almost as vivi d an jm pressio n as you

have had from the actual sounds of the m u S I c What is feeble in .
this impression may even be over compensat ed b y y our discovery

-
of details that y ou missed in listening to an actual performance ; and

these details are also those of remembered sounds though the ,
memory is of generalities not confined to the music before y ou .
No tw o performances will bring exactly the same details vividly to

y our ear as no tw o day s or times of day present the same lights and
,
S hado ws in a scene or building But a well imagined compositi o n

.
-
like a w ell imagined building will make sense in every reasonably

-
good presentation The musician s capacity to imagine new combi

.
’
nations o f sound is in no way inferior to the reading capacity of

love rs of literature ; and the data given to t h e musician by a full
score are inco m parably more exact and adequate than those given
by the most readable printed pre sentation of a play .
-
Of course you must not expect from the musician feats of imagina
tion which would be manifestly absurd to expect from the reader of
literature Y ou may contrive to learn much of the grammar and
.
vocabulary of a lang uage without knowing the sounds of it It is .
doubtful whether the fin est and most philological of scholars can get
.
nearer to the sound of classical Greek than the equivalent of an

E nglishman pronouncing French according to the phonetic chaos
of E nglish sp elling On such conditions not even the most insular
.
,
of E nglishmen would be satis fi ed with his enjoy ment of Frenc h

literature even if he mastered the arithmetical rules of Fren ch
,
prosody B ut we are not justifi ed in concluding that the e n t hu

.
s ias m o f classical scholars is a mere a ffe ctation If I am confronted

.
with a score in a lang uage so private to the composer that I kno w n o

more of its sounds than an E nglish scholar or a modern Greek ,
without a classical education can know of the sounds of Homer

, ,
my im p re ss io n s o f that score will be vague and its construing too

di fficult an exercise to give me much pleasure But one experience .
of an actual performance will if the composer is a master give m e

, ,
the freedom of his style once for all ; and if he is not a master I shall
probably have seen unmistakable sy mptoms of the fact in the mere
appearan ce of the score .
3 90 THE TRAINING OF THE M U S I C A L I M A GI N A T I O N
It is notoriously unsafe to diagnose rashly from S u ch symptoms .
Berlioz is with all res pect to his more fanati c al worshippers not an
, ,
advanced or adventuro us master of harmony except sporadically ,
and capriciously ; and the difli cu lt ie s in im agining the effect of his

scores mostly come from the fa ct that they look all wrong to a
reader who h as never heard B erlioz s orchestration Some of the ’
.
details are —
cert ainly wrong as wrong as split in fin itive s or M ala
i m — and these will natura l ly attract a d isproport ionate atten
p p
ro s s
tion from the s c ore reader who does not know Berlioz s style and
-
’
,
who is perfec tly justified in refusing t o believe that such features in

the style of any of his o w n pup ils indicate anything like Berlioz s ’
talent But if you h ave heard or still more have conducted one
.
, ,
representative s c ore of Berlioz there is not mu c h in hi s orchestral

,
resources that will not reveal itse l f t o you by the printed page .
Some t hin gs yo u cannot foresee and I am not so very sure that,
Berlioz himself al ways foresaw them The effect of six p airs o f .

.
pianissimo cymbals in the San ctus o f the Requ iem is incomparably

more mysterious than anything that can be produced by a single
‘ ’
pair ; and the pedal note s of trombones in u n ison in the Hostias
is n o t a thing the sound of wh ich can be gues s ed by its appearance
on paper But it is ridiculous and mis c hievous to discourage the
.
musicians imagination by citing details that are ex hypo thesi quite

’
outside the normalities o f music in which every musician should .
’
keep himself fit The experienced mu sician can rec ognize Berlioz s
.
scoring at a glance and Stanford tel ls us that he can als o recognize

,
at a gl ance its unfortunate influence on students who are not getting

on w ith their proper work .
Once more t o c ite my o w n experience this time more recent I , ,
can ass ure the reader th at the s c oring o f Sibelius which looks ,
al most as wrong headed as Berl ioz s seemed t o me n o t onl y obviously

-
’
masterly but almost impec cable long before I experienced it in

, ,
actual performan c e and that I have n o t found much trouble in

,
discrimin ating between it s occas ion al miscal c ulations and its chronic
neces sary diffi cul ties With Strauss there is of course the diflic ult y
.
, ,
of asse mbling the detai l s of a complicated skyscraper score and

‘ ’
,
of determining h o w mu ch may be negl e cted of the all pervading -
grit that results from his road h o g procedures thr ough the rules of
-
musical traflic ; but I have found my experience as an ordinary

concert goer quite adequate to the purpose of guessing the general
-
effect of a tutti by Strauss or by any modern master whose w orks

are not t o o unpractical to be performed at all .
3 9 2 THE TRAINING OF THE MUS I CAL IMAGINAT ION
into the condition in whi ch the composer would ha v e left them if
he could have c ontrolled the rehearsals Beethoven s deafness would .
’
have been an irreparable disaster if and only if it had come upon , ,
him before he had a c cumulated a more intimate acquaintance with

the a ctual sounds of an or c hestra than Schubert attained in his
whole lifetime Practi c ally Schubert m ust be considered far deafer
.
,
than Beethoven for he never heard his own greater or c hestral

,
works at all Brahms always refused to publish any work whether

.
,
for chamber music o r orchestra until he had heard a publi c per ,
fo rm an c e of it But none of the diflic u lt ie s and limits of the score

.
reader s imagination are as serious as those of a general reader of

’
literature I t is true that the time element in musi c forbids any

.
-
thing analogous to a coup d ceil ; fo r as I cannot too often urge to ’
, ,
glan c e is n o t to read The coup d cvil is perhaps the crowning glory

.
’
of ar chite ctural j o y but it s nearest aesthetic equiva l ent in musi c

,
can exist only in the memory fresh o r remote o f a finished perfor , ,
man c e that cannot have been short As a person ignorant o f ar c hi .
te cture though perhaps n o t incapab l e o f enjoying it I con fess

, ,
myself quite unable t o understand in what sense one c an know a

cathedral either as a whole o r in detail unless by the a ccumulated
, ,
experiences of a lifetime A ccumulated experience is ne cess ary fo r

.
knowing any work o f art whatever The coup d ceil is a fortunate .

’
asset t o archite cture but it c an never deal with more than one
,
aspect o f a building at a time and the eye h as no su c h guidance for ,
assembling the impressions o f ar c hite cture in a proper order as is

given t o the ear by the time sequen c e o f music -
.
O n the whole then I c ome to the c on clusion that to those who

, ,
can enjoy it at all music is n o t more di ffi cult but easier to enjoy , ,
than most arts whether in performance o r in silent reading ; and

,
that the ch ief obsta cles t o the enjoying Of great In US ic and to the
c omposing o f enjoyable musi c c ome from habits that dull the
imagination M y first and last advi c e to students of c omposition
.
,
even in the humblest o f exer cises is that they S hould write what ,
they can hear I f anyone whether inexperienced or experien ced

.
, ,
tells me that he wonders how su c h and such an experiment will

sound I can tell him that if his wonder is an ordinary doubt and
, ,
not a So c ratic irony his passage will sound fluffy and hollow these
, ,
being the almost invariable qualities that resu l t from unimaginative

brea ches of rule N obody is ever in doubt about the sound of a
.
pass age that keeps the rules I f it h as n o t been imagined it will b e.

,
dull though cleaner than dit c h water I f it h as been imagine d it

‘
-
, . ,
THE TRAINING OF THE MUSICAL IMAGINATION 3 93
may be as vivid as t he opening of Beethoven s Violin C on c erto even ’
,
if it is as unoriginal as Handel s Hallelujah C horus ’

.
Neither as admirers of nor as critics of Berlioz must we be misled

by him His grammatical solecisms will always loom disp ro p o r
.
t io n at e ly large in the imagination of even the most experien c ed

score reader because it is hardly possible t o “ be a score reader
-
,
-
without wondering how su c h blunders are compatible with a sensi

tive ear ; and as a matter of fa ct Berlio z h as left abundant p ro o f in
’
, ,
his criti cisms that his capacity for reading harmony was very small .
His crusade against appoggiaturas and his detestation of the e b ro

matic style of Wagner are not manifestations of academic prejudi c e ,
such as he himself was the first to ridicule but simple demonstra ,
ti ons of what he could not read C harles Hallé tells us in this con
.
n e xio n that when Berlioz was s c oring Weber s I nvitation d la

,
’
Danse Berlio z c ame to him in great bewilderment at Weber s quite

’
,
ordinary enharmonic return from C major to D flat and was sur ,
prised and relieved to find that when Hallé played it it sounded all
right But in spite of limitations and solecisms the experien c ed
.
,
score reader can s e e at a glan c e that B erlioz imagined with un c anny

-
accuracy the sound of everything he wrote I t is not true that the .
s olecisms sound well ; and though it is true that every attempt to

c orrect them will sound c ommonplace it is not true that Berlioz s
’
,
style would not be better without them His ear is simply defective .
on these points exa ctly as M rs Browning s ear is defective in her

,
‘
.
’
inability either to a chieve or to avoid rhyme And there is no ’

.
wisdom in inventing special theories of assonance or of apostleship

’
of the fund am ental bass in order to glorify such defects The .
Berlioz h agio ldgy has gone so far as to e xpress regret that C heru
bini did not grant Berlioz s application for the C hair of Harmony
’
at the Paris Co n s ervat o I re The tyranny of an orthodox pedant is

.
bad enough without being aggravated by C h e ru b in i s bad temper ; ’
but it would be enlightened liberty compared with the tyranny of

an unteachable composer of genius who built infallible doctrines on
every result of the defe cts of his own edu c ation The average s t u .
dent shows a healthy spirit if he is puzzled by a teaching which

imposes upon him the orthodox rules of strict c ounterpoint without
telling him that while they are true of unac c ompanied vo c al music
, ,
there are conditions of instrumental s c oring in which they become

false He must be trained to re c ognize very fine distinctions of har
.
monic progression true for all qualities of tone just as Shaw s

, ,
’
Eliza Doolittle must practise her natural talent for recogni zing and
3 94 THE TRAINING OF THE MU S I CAL IMAGINATION
imitating every nu an c e of vowel and consonant in Professor Hig
gi ns s thousands of phonograph re c ords before her Pygmalion can
’
present her at a royal garden party But the we l l trained c lo c u .
t io n is t does n o t believe th at every correct l y pla c ed aspirate can

blow o u t a c andle ; and the musician with a delicate ear fo r harmony
is not he w h o is in danger of lo ck jaw whenever it is possible by a -
counting o f intervals to detect that two parts have moved in for

bidden c onse cutives U nf ortunately there are such people I re
.
, .
member that some thirt y years ago one su c h musi ci a n contributed

to a learned musical journal an arti cle o n Bac h s brea ches of rule ’
.
He hi mself had written fugues in quadruple counterpoint which

looked impressive enough o n paper to produ ce glowing testimonials
from eminent musicians who ought to have known better His .
quadruple counterpoint w as wrong from beginning t o end be cause ,
it s themes all m oved at the same pace and were n o t transparent to

ea c h other ; whereas every example that he cited as licentious I n
Bach happened t o i ll ustrate perfe ctly the real prin ciples whi ch t h e
rules attempt t o c odify I o w e t o this inno c ently terrible person
.
mu ch o f my impu l se t o investigate these prin cip l es fo r myself ; and

at the time I began a detail ed arti cl e by way o f rejoinder But I .
had n o t pro c e eded far before I felt that the do ctrines to be refuted
were t o o s illy t o be asso ciated with the diffi cult demonstration I
t
w as proje cting ; and I w as v ery glad when in the next iss ue of the
journal a M usikg elehrte dismissed the atta ck o n Ba c h in three snort
ing senten c es I t is a pity that o n e c annot s ay that the day for such
.
controversies h as passed Al l that h as happened is that the ground

.
h as shifted and I am n o t sure that the present state o f thi ngs is not
,
worse th an in the times when orthodoxy w as impenetrable But the .
impenetrable orthodoxy and the present chaos are equa l ly amenable

to treatment by s core reading -
.
L e t u s then fo ll ow the line o f le ast resistan c e and qui ckest pro

, ,
gress as the c lassi c al masters did ; but remembering as they did

, , ,
that the l ine o f leas t resistan c e must be that o f o u r o w n progress

and not o f me chani cal transportation through tunnels and over
clouds Gramophones and broad c asting wi l l do much for us but
.
,
only if we do still more fo r ourselves L e t u s learn o u r vo cabulary by.
a chi eving fluent figu re d bass p l aying and score reading at the key
- -
board and let u s sto ck o u r imaginations by using printed scores to

,
remind u s o f what we have heard and enab l e u s t o l earn many times

more than we can hear in a lifetime There is as mu ch se n se as satire .
in M r Be llo c s pseudo s c ie n tific aspiration : Oh l et u s never never

.
’
-
, ,
‘
THE M EAN I N G OF MUSIC 1
I T is hardly reasonable to expect that all lovers of music wil l agree

in their attitude towards instrumental music that professes to
describe things outside itself But to the non m II sician there is
.
-
something inti m idating in the severely uninformative titles of the

pures t musical c ompositions ; and Beethoven himself did not object
t o h is publisher giving the title App assio nata t o the powerful work
whi c h would otherwise have been known mere ly as Sonata in F
minor o p 57 Yet there must be some cogent reason in the n atI I re
'
, .
of music that h as prevented Beethoven and other great composers

from giving des c riptive titles even to their most emotional and
dramatic instru mental works although Beethoven himse l f said that
,
he al ways c omposed a cc ording t o a Bild in his min d I t is m is .
‘
leading t o translate Bild as pi cture fo r it is a mu ch more general ’
,
term whi ch a scrupu l ous translator c ould easily whittle down till
,
‘
it amounted t o idea Thus if Beethoven had been t alking Greek
’
.
, ,
he would have told u s simp l y that he had some idea o f what he was
writing B ut he w as as c hurl ish as Brahms in his response to in t ru
.
sive inquiri es into s o private an affair as h is Bilder .
The dislike o f external titles fo r purely instrumental music is as

ancient as the u s e o f them and h as probably always been a trait of
,
musical orthodoxy W e kn ow o f the famous pie c e of programme

.
music which represented Apollo slaying the Dragon m ai nl y ,
because it w as cited by philosophers as a flagrant instan ce of the

abuses t o whi c h art can d escend On the other hand pure musical
.
,
orthodoxy be c omes fanati c al pedantry when musi cians and c ritics

Obje ct t o vocal o r stage music that illustrates the words of the poet
and the S ituation o f the drama Plato who never mentions absolute
.
,
musi c is real l y o n the side o f the musi c al illustrators W here

, .
voices are used words must be used T o P l ato the only thing more
,
.
degraded than making the human voi c e imitate the c ries o f animals
is for it t o imitate inanimate noises such as the sound o f wind , .
The human voice should n o t be wasted on less than human spee c h ,
and when the musi cian h as t o deal with words his natural duty is
t o i ll ustrate them I f he dismisses this as a nuisan c e he is repudia
.
ting a normal c ondition o f his art The human voi c e is the oldest.
and most perfe ct o f instruments and M e dt n e r s vocalized sonata is

,
’
1
F ro m The Lis te ner of 1 6 S e pte m b e r 193 6 .
39 6
THE MEAN ING OF MUSIC 3 97
a more diflicu lt proposition to defend than any musical mis

handling o f w ords or conflict with an intrusive programme ( In .
parenthesis may I hope that M r A P Herbert will not range me

,
l
. . .
on the side of the enemy in his Word War for pointing out that
vocali z e is the necessary and only possible term for the art legit i ,
mate within its limits of singing without w o rd s ? )

,
I regret that I have not M endelssohn s letters within reach and ’

,
that I have been too lazy to learn by heart an excellent reply which
he took the trouble to give to a correspondent who asked him the
‘
meaning of some of his S ongs withou t Words The gist of that
’
.
reply is a demonstration that at all events to the musi cian it is

, ,
music that has a de finite meaning whereas t he m e an in gs of words ,
are at the mercy of the personal equation M endelssohn says that to .
one man t h e words Praise the L ord may be asso ciated with the same
emotional thrill as another man would receive from the words P ar
for c e Jagd ; an expression which I take to mean something like a
’
g ra n de b at tue or other C ontinental mode of sport He expects .
nothing better from w ords than the ridiculous discrepancies that

are shown when different people try to give titles to pieces of pure
musi c He used titles himself more often than Beethoven but he
.
,
shows the two possible extremes in the relevance of these titles .
At the age of seventeen he reached the summit of his powers in

the M ids ummer Night s Drea m O verture which is a perfect piece
’
, .
of absolute music and at the same time a miraculously accurate

, ,
illustration of the main features of the play not as a sequence of ,
events but as the world that Shakespeare s imagination had built

,
’
up therein I ; for one have learnt a good deal about Shakespeare

.
,
from that overture and still more fr om the later incidental music
,
with which M endelssohn accompanied large areas of the play as

accurately as M oz art ever translated his libretti into mus ic On .
the other hand I took the trouble to read Victor Hugo s Ruy Blas
,
’
in order to find out what w as in M endelssohn s mind when he ’
wrote his effective and popular overture to that title ; and my re

search amply bears out M endelssohn s assertions in his letters that ’
Vi ctor Hugo s play was an abomination to him and that the over
’
ture might just as well have the t itle of the c harity for which it was
written Accordingly I snatched a fearful joy both from Hugo s
.
,
’
’
play and from M endelssohn s peevish inattention to it .
O bviously no light c an be thrown on programme music b y seek

,
m g a common ground in all the reasonably masterly instrumental

1
No w S ir A lan P H e rb e rt , M P
. . .
39 8 THE MEANING OF MUSIC
compositions that have titles The use of titles fo r absolute mus ic .
will always meet a natural public demand If our more abstract .
painters not only r educed the art of painting entirely to abstra ct

elements of line and c olour but insisted on describing their master
,
pie c es merely by the dimensio ns o f the canvas they would not ,
h asten the coming o f that gloriou s time when their art shall become
as popul ar as B e ethoven s C minor Symphony
’
.
The public wi ll remain starved of i n formative titles ; but every

reasonable lover o f music will wel c ome M endelsso h n s paradox that ’
words convey miserably vague information as to the meaning of

music I ndeed they often mislead precisely where they are most
.
,
appropriate Beethoven would have been foolish to deny the illus

.
t rat ive elements in his P astoral Symphony But there are probably .
few great classi c s that are more gro s sly underrated and more unin
t e llige n t ly abused by wisea c res than that work I have n o t spa c e here .
t o defend it s integrity as pure musi c but I take the opportunity t o ,
point o u t o n e o f the c hief falla cies in c omparisons between p ro

gramme music and absolute musi c as exemplified in what M r , .
E rnest N ewman h as quoted from W agner w h o addu c ed the regu ,
l ar re capitulation o f the O verture L eo no re No 3 as an example of .
h o w abstra ct musical form c ompe l s the composer to falsify h is pro

.
gramme Wagner n o t only missed the point but quite in c orrectly

.
described what happens The trumpet cal l is not as he assumes

.
, ,
the c limax o f L eonor e N O 3 It w as the climax of Leonore NO 2

. . .
,
and w as there followed by a coda w hi ch wound up the overture as

quickl y as poss ible and made thereby as Weingartner points out
, , ,
an admirable prelude t o the rise of the cu rtain N o person in .
musical history w as less likely than Beethoven to sac rifice dramatic

and emotional fit n e s s t o an a priori musi c al form and Wagner s
-
,
’
c riti cism dates from a time in whi c h it w as already ass u med that
the laws o f sonata form had been established as things to whi ch in ,
Ro cks tro s pious phrase

’
The Great M asters l ent their loving
,
obedien c e Wh o es tab l ished these forms we are not told ex c ept

’
.
,
that we are led t o suppose that orthodoxy w as represented by

M ozart an d Haydn But at the beginning of the ni neteenth c entury
.
M ozart and Haydn were as recent as Ri c hard Strauss is to us .
They differ from each other widel y in their habits of form a n d as , ,
far as te chni cal analysis can dis cl ose most o f Beethoven s enormous ,
’
extensions in form c an be defined as an integration of the different

habits o f M ozart and Haydn Su c h an integration is a very different
.
’
matter from an average ; it raises Beethoven s resources to an incal
4 00 T H E M E AN I N G OF MUSIC
or when in the early days of broadcasting the s u dde n zin t ru s iOn of
‘
a pianoforte c rudely cued in for a pas sage in the Tannhduser
g
-
’ ’
O verture caused a sheaf o f leaves and stalks o f honesty t o dance

before my eyes These impre ssions were n o t only spontaneous but
.
,
irresistible I f they were normal in my musical experienc e I might

.
be too much a cc ustomed to them to noti c e whether they enh an c ed

or spoiled my enjoyment o f the musi c But a powerfu l and habitual .
Visualizer is probab l y much more ready than I am to associate

instrumental musi c with literary and p ictorial ideas .
I do n o t myself experience any di ffi culty from confli ct s between

instrumental music and the programmes imputed to it by the com
poser o r foisted on it by others I f the musi c fits the program me it
.
wil l tell me more of the programme than the programme wi l l tell

me o f the musi c N O illustrative e l ement can make bad composition
.
S
good : an d the merits o f good composition are not reducible to rules

of abstra ct musi c al form L iszt s Symphonic Poems are more
.
’
weakened by his mechani c al theory o f thematic deve l opment than

by his programmes Berlioz tells us that the publi c h as no imagi
.
nation and that therefore some parts o f h is Romeo et juliet te will

, , ,
be intelligible o nl y to those who are thoroughly fa m iliar with

Shakes peare s p l ay with the dénouement o f Garrick Berlioz s Romé o
’
.
’
et j u lie t te c ontains some of his best music and some o f his worst .
The best of it is quite intelligible without Shakespeare and the ,
Queen M ab S cherzo is untrammelled by the necessity that com

p e lle d Shakespeare t o kill M ercutio What is not so intelligible
.
remains unilluminated by any ray from Shakespeare or Garri ck .
I am g l ad that M r N ewman has mentioned Elgar s F ab taf b e

.
’
,
cause fo r me t hat work will always be a lo cus classicus for perfect

relation between matter and form U nlike Berlioz Elgar is one of .
,
the most attentive artists who ever lived His knowledge o f Shake .
speare w as as profound as that Of many professed Shakespeare

schol ars I am in a position to give eviden ce as t o the musical
.
integrity and inte lligibility o f his F als taff be cause I ventured to ,
send him the analysis I wrote o f it for o n e o f my concerts n o t ,
knowing as I must confess with shame that his own ana lysis had
,
‘
been published some years ago in the M usical Times He kind l y .
sent me a c opy of it and permitt ed me t o corre ct my analysis by

,
footnotes quoting his des c riptions wherever I had gone wrong I .
did not find that I had gone seriously wrong c ertainly not in any ,
matter of aesthetic importance ; but I can ce rtify that whil e my ,
own ana lys is went into c onsiderable detail as a resu l t o f careful

THE MEAN ING OF MUSIC 4 0 1
reading of both parts of H enry I V I had at no time felt the slightest

,
need for explaining Elgar s form by his programme Of course if

’
.
,
I had started with the idea that there were laws of abstract musical
form which must be reconciled somehow with the sequence of
dramatic events I sh ould have been involved from the outset in
,
inextricable tangles and mendacious terminology to just ify Elgar s ’
music ; but as I do not regard even the strictest sonata form as an

external framework I simply took this music as I w ould take a
,
Haydn quartet first as a whole then phrase b y phrase and read my

, , ,
Shakespeare after I had enjoyed the music Then indeed it w as.

, ,
thrilling to see the splendid independence and integrity of Elgar s ’
mind ; to realiz e the musical convenience of a view of the character

and kingship of P rince Hal that was more sympathetic than my
own if not more sympathetic than Shakespeare s ; and to realize
,
’
that though Shakespeare gives us only M istress Qu ickly s account of ’
Falst aff s death E lgar views its pathos no t through poor Qu ic kly s
’
, ,
’
eyes but through S hakespeare s S uch is the po w er of absolute

,
’
.
m u SIc .
I N DEX
( N O TE : in de re fe r o nly t o m u s ic al w o rks m en t io n e d
E n t ries in t h is x
’
x
in th e au t h o r s t e t S e ve ral es s ays de al s p e c ific al ly w it h c e rt ain c o m
.
po se rs — e g t ho s e o n t h e cham b e r m u s i’ c o f H aydn an d Brah m s , o n

. .
S c hu b e rt , Glu c k , E lg ar , an d Be e t ho v e n s ar t o rm s N O w o rk b y t h e f .
s ub j ec t o f t h e ess ay in q u e s t io n m en t io n e d in t h at e s s ay is in c lu de d
as a se p arat e e n tr y in t h e in de , t h o u g h s u c h w o rks , if q u o t e d x
in o t h e r p art s o f th e b o o k , o c c u r in t h e ir p ro p e r o rde r, an d s o do w o rks
o f o t h e r co m p o s e rs c it ed in t h o se p ag e s , w h ic h are g e n e rically list e d s v . .
th e co m po s e r
’
s n am e — En ) .
‘
An n ie L au rie , 1 8 9 : 8 fn 2 64 ,
’
op . 1 3 0, 1 3 .
, 3 07 .
‘
A u l d L an g S yn e , 3 0 1 6 1, 149, 1 5 0, 1 8 1 , 2 6 1 .
’
. 0p . 1 3 1,
op . 1 3 2, 1 8 0—1 .
BACH C P E . .
Q u in t e t , o p . 29, 1 3 8, 158 .
—
S o n at as 2 8 , 2 9 3 5 6 , 4 9 , 2 66
,
S ym ph o n y in D , 1 4 9 , 2 6 1
, .
fo r p ian o fo rt e
No 48
.
op 2, 1,
BACH J S
. . .
op 7, 3 o
.
C h aco n n e , 4 1
. .
.
op 2 2, 1 81
C h o rale — Var Dein en
. .
op 3 1 , No I , 1 5 2
C hris tm as O rat o rio , 3 5
. . .
op 3 1 , N O 2 , 1 72 , 3 07 , 3 8 7
.
. . .
5 3 ( Wa lds tei n ) , 1 5 2 , 3 1 6
C h ro m at ic F an tas ia, 1 5 6 , 3 4 1 .
op
C h u rc h C an tatas , 3 2 1 , 3 44
. .
op 5 7 ( Appa ssi o na ta ) , 3 9 6
.
. .
C lavierfibu ng , 1 6 5 , 1 7 9 , 2 4 3 .
op 7 8. 5 3
. .
F an t as ia in G m in o r, 1 5 6 .
op 1 06 ( H am merclavzer) , 1 4 6
F o rt y E ig ht . T h e . 4 4 . 1 5 6 . 3 3 5 . 3 5 1 .
. .
0 P 1 09 .
3 76 .
op 1 1 0, 3 5
. .
K u ns t der F ug e . Die . 4 3 . 44 . 1 1 3 . 3 4 1 . fo r v io lin an d p ian o fo rt e

3 76 .
op 4 7 ( K reu tz er) , 4 2
. .
M as s in B m in o r, 2 7 , 1 5 6 , 3 09 , 3 4 6 , op 9 6, 2 5 7
.
p
.
3 54 S ym h o n ies
h
M att e w Pas s io n , 3 5 4 .
I 5 0, 1 3 8
P
.
re lu de in G m in o r ( o rg an ) , 3 4 1 .
II, 254 .
S u it e s , 1 8 8 I I I ( E roica ) . 1 97. 265 .

13 7. 153
.
.
V io lo n c e llo in C m ajo r, 1 4 .
BEETH EN , 2 7 9 7
OV 1 — . V 3 98
C o n c e rt o s V I ( Pas to ral) , 1 64 .
fo r p ian o fo rt e V I I , 2 99 .
C m aj o r, 3 1 6—1 7 . I X , 2 0, 1 8 1 , 2 4 1 , 2 6 5 .
Batt le S ym ph o n y, 1 9 7
‘ ’
C m in o r, 1 4 6 , 2 5 5 , 2 6 5 , 3 1 7 . .
B flat m aj o r, 3 1 7 .
G m aj o r, 2 3 6 , 3 1 5 —2 0 , 3 2 2 , 3 26 . S e re n ade T rio , op . 8, 3 05 , 3 88 .
E flat m aj o r, 2 3 6 , 3 1 7 .
‘
D iab e lli , 2 0 , 3 4 8
’
fo r vio lin : .
— BERLI o z , H aro ld in I ta ly , 1 64
3 3 1 9. 2 1 4. 3 25 . 3 83 . .
— K ing L ear , 1 64
3 84 7 . . s9 s s9 3 .
F ide liO . 1 7 2 . 3 2 1 . 3 5 5 . 3 5 8 . Requiern. 3 7 7 . 3 9 0 .
L e on or e O ve rt ur e , 3 9 8—9 . R omé o e t f u lie tte , 4 09 .
M as s in D , 3 00 , 3 8 6 . BO CCHERI N I , Q
u in t e t in E m ajo r, 4 1 .
Q u art e t s fo r s t rin g s : BRAH M S , 2 2 0 7 0 -

.
op 1 8, NO 1 , 250 C o n ce rt o , fo r vio lin , 3 2 5 9 -
. . . .
op .
5 9 , NO 2, 1 27 , 1 4 9 . . Q u art e ts :
0p 7 4
.
41 fo r p ian o an d s t rin g s , o p . 2 6, 173 ,
0P 9 5 , I 4 9
~
3 06 .
OP 1 27 , fo r s t rin gs , o p . 60 , 3 03 .
4 4
0 I NDEX
‘
O ld H u n dre dt h ,
’
Th e , 1 77 , 1 7 9 . Q u in t e t fo r p ian o fo rt e an d s trin g s ,
1 24 5.
4. 25 12 3 2 r2 3
-
PALES TRI NA , p
S ym h o n y, N o IV , 3 09 . .
‘
S PO HR , H is t o ric al S ym
’
ony , 3 4 3 ph .
A ssump ta es t M aria , 2 06 .
Du m C omp leme n tar , S

S U LL I VAN , Th e L o s t C h o rd , 3 7 7
‘
E cce S acerdos M ag nus , 2 0 5
’
. .
S W EE LI NC K , Ps alm , Or sus , serviteu rs de

‘
Gicz fu chi m he b b e cara , 2 07
’
.
Papa e M ar celli, 2 04 .
,
1 6—
7 7, 71 2 —8 0 .
Ves tiva i C o lli , 2 07 . Dionysu s , The [ 1 7 0 e t

M o t e t , A ssu mp ta es t M aria , 2 06 . s e q ]. 3 5 3 6 0 -
PERGO LES I , S ero a Padrona , L a , 8 8 . VAN HAL , S ym p h o n ies , 6 7 , 6 8 .
PI CC I NN I I p hig enie en Ta uride , 8 9 . VERDI , F a ls tafi , 7 8 , 1 1 5 , 3 1 0 , 3 5 9 .
Ro la nd, 8 9 9 0 -
. Trov a tor e , I I, 8 2 .
PU RCE LL , Dido and A eneas , O tello , 7 8 , 3 5 9 .
K ing A r thu r, 2 1 7 , 3 3 7 .
Ttempes t. The . 2 1 7 . 3 3 7 WAGNER G6 tterdamme rtmg Die 218,

"
, , ,
‘
Th e y t h at g o do w n t o t h e se a in
s h ip s , 2 1 6
’
. L o he ngrin . 2 2 4 . 3 5 9
Tim on of A the ns 2 1 7 . M eis tersing er, Die , 2 3 2, 23 7 , 2 62 , 3 13 ,
3 5°
Parsifa l, 2 3 2 , 2 9 8 , 3 5 0 .
1 15 . Rh eing o ld, D as ,
ROSS I N I , B arbiere de S ivig lia , I I, 2 22 . Ring . Der. 1 7 7 . 1 8 5 . 2 2 3 4 . 2 3 2 . -
—1
3 5 9 . 3 9 1 . 3 95
S AL I ERI , F a ls tafi , 1 1 5 . S ieg fried, 3 5 3 .
S CHUBERT , 1 03 —3 3 , 1 3 4 —5 9 . Tann haus er , 8 7 , 2 2 4 , 3 5 0 , 4 00 .
Q u art e t s Tris tan an d I so lde , 1 6 9 , 1 7 1 , 1 7 3 , 1 8 4 ,

fo r s t rin gs , in D m in o r De ath an d 1 99 , 24 2 , 2 4 8 , 2 7 8 ,
an d t h e 3 83 .
3 53 3 59
Q u in t e ts : Wa lkiire . Die 2 4 2 . 3 9 7 8 . 3 5 3 . 3 9 5 -
f
fo r p ian o o rt e an d s t rin gs T ro u t WEB ER ,
OP 1 1 4 . 24 3 O p e ras
S o n gs E u rya n the , 7 8 , 3 5 9 .
A m M eer , 2 2 9 . Ob er on , 2 1 7 .
E r lké nig , 3 4 8 . I n vita tion d la D ans e , 3 9 3 .
H ag ar s K lag e , 1 7 8
’
. W EE LKES , Thr ee Virgin Nym hs ,
‘ ’
p
Wanderer Phan tasie , 2 4 7
-
. 2 0 8 —9 .
S CHU M ANN , Genoveva , 3 5 8 0 c are t h o u w ilt dis p at c h m e , 2 09

’
.
I m p m pt
ro u s , 0p . 5, 21
Y
.
Q tt f
u ar e or p ian o fo rt e an d s tr in gs , O NG E M usica
, Trans a lpina , 2 08 .
23 2 .
H ag ar K lag e , 8
’
Z U M S TEE G, s 10 .

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THE

C ollec ted, with an I n troduc tion ,

the title and L ec tures on

Prin ted in Great Britain by

S O M E A S PE CT S O F BEET H O VE N S ART F O RMS

DOH NANYI S C H A MB E R M USI C

PREFACE S TO C A D ENZ A S F O R C L A SS I CA L C O N C ERTO S

IT was one of my nai ve undergradu ate ambitions to m ake a cont ri

So wr it es Don ald Francis Tovey I n the lectu re printed o n pp 1 60 .

over so many y ears was indee d never written B ut despite t h e fact , , .

that on ly one of his bo oks was (so to say) dureheomponirt T o vey

w as in practice a vo lu m in ou s w riter He w rote when occasion calle d .

him an d in t hat bus y life of practic al music making of playing

c onducting an d le cturing oc cas ion called him ve ry frequently T h e

p h i lo soph y expre s sed in those sixteen volum e s that stand massivel y

of argue d re view but it is cons istent of the widest possible re fer

e II pre ss e d in a prose that it is a pleas u re t o rea d: fo r it s o w n art istry .

I n this volu m e a co m panio n to the ot her sixteen are gathe re d:the

g a r nere d in t o s he ave s C omplet e

attained Of the fe w deliberate omissions one ess ay ( a con tribu t ion

be en found, and i£ it were th e di fﬁculty would arise in re prin ting t he

lecture s that the y we re copiously illustrated at the piano For t he .

s ame re as on the bro adcast s cript s cannot be se nsibly reproduc e d

On ly those wh o kne w Tovey pers onall y are aw are of ho w readil y '

and continuously he illustrated his seemingly incessant ﬂ ow 013 talk

Margare t Hall on 4 J u ne 1 9 3 4 w hen h e gave the P hilip M aurice ,

Deneke Lect u re but I am as certain as if I w ere hearin g it no w that

win gs I venture to express th e opinion that he soars the morning

clo uds above at an altitude unattained b y contemporary writers on

A collection of scattered writings cannot avoid the dangers of the

the subject others that are severely technical and analytical I

repeat with warm agreement the words of Dr E rnest Walker in his .

preface to A M usician Talks

English nor s o far as I know in any other language Perhaps we

s e e the quint e ssence of hi s thought most completely in M usical

Here then are Tovey s scattered hundreds of pages collected

into o n e accessible volume Every word contained herein has been .

of t he periodical I t may thus be realized that Tovey himself read

represents more than what the author decided at that moment of

reviser would have desired ( even if he had not been allowed) t o

On p 1 68 et seq there occurs an interesting and pertinent refer

A N ote on O pera ( p 3 5 is the essay which he wrote to introduce

his opera The Bride of Dionysus They give u s a timely reminder of .

Tovey the composer t oo soon neglected and now almost forgotten, ,

The problem of indexing this allusive talkative prose style is no ,

easy one ; the indexer is racked with constant tortur es of indecision ,

of over fulness repentant excision and a nervous ﬁnal jump to

what he hopes is safe ground For the adoption of an entirely .

arbitrary plan I am solely respo n sible and wo uld apolo gize in

responsible t o o for the text as deﬁnitively printed But I record

indeed assisted me in the task o f gathering together the material :

Dr M ary Grierson Dr E rnest Walker and M r R C Trevely an

The debt to them cannot be paid .

It may be expecte d that no more w ords from Tovey s pen will ’

entertainingly Dr M ary G rierson s forthco ming biography will

wisdom with which in his letters Tovey regaled his friends

IN the history of music no chapter is more important than that

clo se of the s ixteenth century by the monodists who wrote the

e st rin a by the new art of supporting solo voices on iiiSt ru m e n t al

chords B ut w hereas the monodic revolution destroyed a great art

so effectively that there is a gap of a century between Palestrina and

H aydn has its only immature phases in unpretending tuneful efforts

not b y destruction but by reabsorption into his own new musical