Part 3
Looked at in the light of these considerations, contemporary music presents a scheme of light and shade somewhat different from that ordinarily accepted. If some high lights are overshadowed, others seem to shine more brightly. There is plenty of hopeful promise for the future. Leaving aside the sounder elements in Strauss and Debussy, in whom there is so much of the richness of decay, we shall find the chief centers of truly creative activity perhaps in three composers who in their differing ways and degrees carry on the great tradition: Rachmaninoff in Russia, Elgar in England, and d'Indy in France. Each of these men reaches back roots to the primal sources of musical life--Bach and Beethoven: Rachmaninoff through Tschaikowsky, the eclectic Elgar through Mendelssohn, Brahms, Wagner, and others, and d'Indy through Wagner and Franck. Each, as we see in such modern classics as "Toteninsel," the A flat Symphony, and "Istar," can create, in settings of modern opulence of color, nobly beautiful forms, melodies that live and soar in a spiritual heaven. All, too, though in varying degrees, move on as creators should toward the unknown. Here the Frenchman has perhaps, with his characteristic lucidity and logic, something the advantage of the more sensuous Slav and the more convention-beset Anglo-Saxon. Rachmaninoff, for all his warmth, does not always escape the vulgarity of Tschaikowsky, and Elgar cannot always forget the formulæ of oratorio. But in d'Indy, with his untrammeled experimental attitude toward all modern possibilities, we have an influence destined steadily to grow and already clearly suggesting an epoch combining the best of the old ways with new ones at which we can for the present only guess.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] See, for example, "The Great Society," by Graham Wallas, and "Work and Wealth," by J. A. Hobson.
[2] "Social Forces in England and America," by H. G. Wells, New York and London, 1914.
[3] In an article on Public-School Music, Atlantic Monthly, December, 1916.
[4] "Pages from an Unwritten Diary," C. V. Stanford.
II
RICHARD STRAUSS
II
RICHARD STRAUSS
I
The chronology of Richard Strauss's artistic life up to the present time arranges itself almost irresistibly in the traditional three periods, albeit in his case the philosophy of these periods has to be rather different from that, say, of Beethoven's. "Discipline, maturity, eccentricity," we say with sufficient accuracy in describing Beethoven's development. The same formula for Strauss will perhaps be tempting to those for whom the perverse element in the Salome-Elektra period is the most striking one; but it is safer to say simply: "Music, program music, and music drama." Born in 1864, he produced during his student years, up to 1886, a great quantity of well-made and to some extent personal music, obviously influenced by Mendelssohn, Schumann, and Brahms, and comprising sonatas, quartets, concertos, and a symphony. He himself has told how he then came under the influence of Alexander Ritter, and through him of Wagner, Berlioz, and Liszt; how this influence toward "the poetic, the expressive, in music" acted upon him "like a storm wind"; and how the "Aus Italien," written in 1886, is the connecting link between his earlier work and the series of symphonic poems that follows in the second period. The chief titles and dates of this remarkable series may be itemized here: "Macbeth," 1886-7; "Don Juan," 1888; "Tod und Verklärung," 1889; "Till Eulenspiegel" and "Also Sprach Zarathustra," 1894; "Don Quixote," 1897; "Ein Heldenleben," 1898; and the "Symphonia Domestica," 1903. The period of program music, containing also, of course, other works such as the operas "Guntram" and "Feuersnot," innumerable songs, and a violin sonata strayed from the first period, thus lasts from his twenty-second to his thirty-ninth year. Since then Strauss has devoted himself chiefly to works for the stage, comprising "Salome" (1906), "Elektra" (1908), "Der Rosenkavalier" (1911), "Ariadne auf Naxos," (1913), and "Josephs Legende" (1914). His latest work is again in the province of instrumental music--an "Alpine Symphony."
This rapid survey of Strauss's creative activity shows that the natural bent of his mind is toward the realistic and dramatic side of his art; it was only in his youth, before he had found himself, that he wrote self-sufficing music; and though lyrical power is shown in many of his songs and in passages of almost all the orchestral works, yet it is on the whole true to say that the essential Strauss is Strauss the dramatist. And if we ask ourselves what are the qualities of temperament requisite to a dramatist, we shall find in Strauss's possession of them in altogether unusual measure the key to his commanding position among the musico-dramatists of our day.
These qualities are the same for a dramatic artist who works in tones as for one who works in words. First of all he must be a man of keen observation, of penetrating intelligence, able to note all that passes about him and to interpret it with something of cold scientific precision. He must be able to seize human types and divine human motives quite different from his own, as they are objectively. He must resist distorting them by reading into them his own impulses and sentiments, as a man of more subjective temperament and less critical detachment always does. In short, he must be of the active rather than the contemplative type, and have a good measure of that faculty of impersonal intellectual curiosity which gives a Shakespeare his supreme power of objective observation.
But though he must not distort others by viewing them through himself, he must nevertheless interpret them through reference to his own feelings, since these are the only feelings with which he is directly acquainted. That is to say, he must be able to place himself, by sympathetic imagination, at the points of view of those he studies. Such sympathetic imagination is so very different a thing from subjective distortion that without it no real understanding of one's fellows is possible at all. The great dramatist needs, then, deep and rich emotion, quite as much as the lyric singer--but emotion ever guided by the sympathy which brings it into play. It is this emotion, guided by sympathetic imagination, that gives the very aspect of life, and its power to move us, to the creation that mere intellectual observation alone could never vitalize.
And finally, the dramatic artist, besides observing keenly and interpreting sympathetically, must view all that he sees with a certain magnanimous many-sidedness, a sort of sweet and mellow wisdom, which is hard to describe but unmistakable when encountered. We find it in all really great creative artists, who seem to view life not only keenly, not only sympathetically, but also wisely and as if from above, from that vantage point of a wider insight than that of any of their subjects, so that in their summing up of them they are able to set them in proper relation one to another, and by so doing to get a true and calm picture of human life as a whole. This power of philosophic or poetic vision, this magnanimity, we instinctively demand of the artist. It satisfies a fundamental human craving. The moral in the fable is a naïve embodiment of it; it comes even into the uncongenial atmosphere of the light comedy of manners in the rhymed epilogue; its musical incarnation we find in many of the quiet codas of Brahms, or in the thoughtful "Der Dichter spricht" at the end of Schumann's "Kinderscenen."
The object of the present essay is to show that Strauss has, in unequal but high degree, these qualities of the dramatist: observation, sympathy, and magnanimity. The first he has in almost unparalleled measure; the second somewhat fitfully, sometimes inhibited by his ironic cynicism; the third in his most genial moods, as for instance, in the epilogue to "Till Eulenspiegel," but not when misled by over-realistic aims. The evidence of his possession of these qualities that we shall especially look for will be not that afforded by his acts or his sayings, but rather the irrefragable testimony of his musical works themselves.
II
Since a man's temperament is what ultimately determines the peculiar combination of qualities making up his artistic individuality--his characteristic powers and shortcomings--the first questions we have to ask ourselves regarding any artist we propose to study will always be: "What is his temperament?" "To which of the two great types does it belong, the active or the contemplative?" "Does its power lie primarily in observation or in introspection?" "Does it impel him towards objective characterization or toward the utterance of subjective feeling?" Elsewhere, in studying these antitheses of temperament in particular cases, such as those of Mendelssohn and Schumann,[5] and of Saint-Saëns and Franck,[6] occasion has been taken to discuss in some detail the rationale of their musical expression. At present our interest is in finding in Strauss a rather extreme case of the active temperament, a man of positively explosive nervous energy.
It is only necessary to assemble a few of his characteristic melodic motives to see that this energy naturally translates itself, melodically, into wide erratic skips and incisive abrupt rhythms. Here are a few of them:
The chief theme of the arch mischief-maker, "Till Eulenspiegel," is necessarily capricious, but it is doubtful if even for him anyone but Strauss would have thought of those surprising jumps, landing each time on an unexpected note. In the main theme of "Don Juan" we have a good example of his rhythmic energy. Note the variety of the figures: the sixteenth notes in the first measure, swarming up to the high E; the still further ascending triplet; the even more incisive dotted group leading to the emphatic half notes. In similar general style is the chief theme of "Ein Heldenleben," depicting the hero, but less lithe, more burly and almost awkwardly powerful. The theme of "great longing" from "Also Sprach Zarathustra" conveys its impression through the wide jumps, covering almost three octaves in two vigorous dashes. The theme of "the Wife," from the "Symphonia Domestica," illustrates Strauss's love of turning the unexpected way. Notice the downward jump of a ninth, and the cadence transferred to a higher octave than we expect.
The same story of overflowing nervous energy is told by two other characteristics of Strauss's melody. Like all sanguine natures he has more rising than falling phrases. The buoyancy of (_b_), (_c_), and (_d_) in Figure I is irrepressible; (_a_) has a falling curve, somewhat coy; (_e_) begins in the same wheedling vein, but ends with a rise of self-confident energy. A canvass of all the motives in the symphonic poems would probably demonstrate that seventy-five per cent of them rise in pitch. The second peculiarity is more subtle but even more significant--a preference for "rising" or anacrustic rhythms, culminating in an accented final note after several unaccented ones, to "falling" or thetic rhythms beginning with the heavy part of the measure. The elasticity of the rising rhythm is clearly shown in all the excerpts of Figure I except that from "Ein Heldenleben"; that, naturally, begins doggedly on the down beat. Only a systematic study can show the extent of Strauss's addiction to the rising rhythm.
These considerations, to which might perhaps be added his preference for the major to the minor mode, and for the vigorous duple to the more subtle triple meter, afford us quite ample internal evidence of his belonging to the temperamental type of the actives, like Mendelssohn and Saint-Saëns (however he may differ from them musically) rather than to that of the contemplatives,--the Schumanns and the Francks. To these positive points we might add negative ones, dealing with his emotional shortcomings. This, indeed, we shall have to do later, in the interest of a just critical estimate; but for the present it will be better worth while to examine the positive results, in the way of keen observation and masterly characterization, of this active-minded interest of Strauss in what lies about him.
III
Strauss's characterization is consummate. Superlatives are dangerous, but probably no other musician has ever carried to such a point the power of music to depict, or at least, to suggest, varieties of character, both in human beings and in inanimate objects. Strauss's reported remark that music was becoming so definite that we should soon be able to portray a tablespoon so unmistakably that it could be told from the rest of the silverware is probably an instance of his sardonic delight in hoaxing the public; but if anyone is going to subject the art of tones to this curious test, we are all agreed, doubtless, that it should be Strauss himself. Meanwhile, failing a tablespoon, we have a sufficiently varied collection of portraits in his gallery, each sketched with a Sargent-like penetration.
We have seen, for example, in Figure I_a_, Till Eulenspiegel the arch mischief-maker, irrepressible, incorrigible. Here, on the other hand, is Till sentimental, making love to a village maiden, his original insolence tamed into a simpering persuasiveness, his theme, at first so galvanic, now languishing in its plaintive downward droopings (Figure II, page 57). Later we see him, repulsed by the maiden, storming in ungovernable fury.[7]
Here, again, belonging to a quite other world, is Don Quixote, "the knight of the sorrowful visage," aging and broken, yet full of chivalrous and idealistic notions, and thus at once inspiring and pathetic (Figure III, page 57). What a contrast is his rascal of a servant, Sancho Panza, good-natured and irresponsible, sauntering through life with a minimum of effort and a maximum of diversion:
We find a somewhat similar principle of contrast, though between very different types of character, in the themes of the husband and the wife in the "Symphonia Domestica." The latter has been cited at Figure I_e_. Its suggestion of coy graciousness and feminine charm is due in part to the tender downward inflections of the opening figure, and partly to the anacrustic rhythm (beginning with unaccented notes). The theme of the husband, with which the work opens, starts out with an "inversion" of this three-note figure of the wife: the motives complementary to each other, so to speak, as if Strauss had wished to suggest the reciprocal relation of marriage. Yet the rising inflection and the falling rhythm of the husband version give it a vigor that completely differentiates it from the other, even if we ignore for the moment the effect of the contrasting keys of F major and B major, a matter of which we shall have more to say presently.
The subtlety of the composer's use of rhythm for characterization can hardly be exaggerated. It almost justifies the extreme detail of his annotator's analyses, as for example of Mr. Wilhelm Klatte's diagnosis of the hero's character in "Ein Heldenleben." This reads like an old-fashioned phrenological chart. Mr. Klatte finds in his hero "a genial nature, emotional and vibratory" (measures 1-6 and 9-12 of the opening theme), a "haughty and firm step" (measures 6-8), and an "indomitable will" (measures 13-16). Furthermore the continuation in B major and A flat, Mr. Klatte tells us, shows that the paragon has "richness of fantasy, warmth and elasticity of feeling, allied with lightness of movement--whose tendency is always toward buoyancy and onward and upward effort, thus imparting an effect of inflexible and well-directed determination instead of low-spirited or sullen obstinacy." Mr. Klatte makes a considerable demand on our powers of credence. Yet we must be reluctant to place limits to a power of rhythmo-melodic suggestion that can give us such extremes of opposed character as the naïve innocence of the "Childhood" motive in "Tod und Verklärung," and the degenerate superstition and pathological fear of Herodias, with her eerie whole-tone scale, in "Salome."
Highly characteristic of Strauss, both in its subtle use of rhythmo-melodic characterization and in the rather malicious quality of its humor, is the "Science" section in "Also Sprach Zarathustra." This powerful if over-ambitious work deals with a matter that can hardly be put into music, even by Strauss: with the opposition, namely, between the Christian ideal of self-abnegation and Nietzsche's philosophy of self-fulfilment. In this particular section of it Strauss is trying to suggest the dustiness, mustiness, and inconclusiveness of "Science" from the standpoint of the passions; this he does by making a frightfully complicated fugue from his main theme. How slyly does he here satirize science! How to the life does his fugue theme, starting off boldly in C major and square-cut rhythm, and presently wandering into chromatic harmonies and indecisive triplets, symbolize the initial arrogance and final futility of scholastic systems!
In the use of harmony for characterization Strauss is no less skilful than in the more important matters of melody and rhythm. The essential quality of his harmony is perhaps less "ultra-modern" than is sometimes supposed. In spite of the sensational innovations of "Salome" and "Elektra," he is so intensely German in feeling and so well founded on the German classics that the nucleus of his harmonic system is the diatonic scale, simple and rugged. One thinks of such powerful themes as that of "Transfiguration" or the "Hero" as the essential Strauss. Even "Salome" has its Jochanaan, and the "Symphonia Domestica" is surprisingly diatonic. Strauss is more nearly related to the virile Wagner of "Die Meistersinger" than to that other more sensuous Wagner of "Tristan und Isolde." Of course, there are wondrously expressive chromatic passages in Strauss, as for instance the "Grablied" in "Zarathustra"; but on the whole his musical foundation is tonic-and-dominant, like Mozart's, Beethoven's, and Brahms's.
It is in the boldly imaginative and unconventional arrangement of simple material that Strauss gets his most striking harmonic effects. Plain "triads" and "dominant sevenths," the small musical change of hack composers, turn to gold in his hands. The touchingly expressive cadence of Don Quixote's theme will illustrate. The material is of the most ordinary, yet the effect is magical and its dramatic appropriateness surprising. In the words of Mr. Arthur Kahn,[8] "These confused harmonic windings through which the central chords of the previously established key are reached, characterize strikingly the well-known tendency of Don Quixote towards false conclusions. He goes carefully out of the way of natural sequences and palpable facts, in order not to demolish therewith his fancy structures."
Strauss has carried this principle of the close juxtaposition of chords more or less foreign to each other, and even of different keys, to greater and greater lengths in his more recent works, and to the effects of "queerness" which result when these foreign tonal groups quickly follow each other, and of more or less extreme dissonance when they occur simultaneously, he owes much of the violently adverse criticism to which he has been subjected. Indeed, nothing has more retarded his general acceptance than these abrupt transitions and unaccustomed discordancies. The matter is of sufficient importance to intelligent appreciation of him to justify a brief digression here. For any composer who conceives music as a number of melodies proceeding together in greater or less amity, but preserving the measure of independence that individuality and vigorous movement demand--and Strauss is to a peculiar degree such a polyphonic composer--a certain amount of physical harshness at moments when the melodies happen to clash is not only unavoidable but positively desirable, as tending to throw each into relief. According to the degree of his experience the listener follows the composer in this respect: that is, he accepts with something more than passive endurance, yes, with active pleasure, the physically disagreeable clashes (dissonances) which by setting off the differing contours of the melodies emphasize for him their mental and emotional appeal; but not--and the point is of prime importance to the would-be music-lover--not if he does not follow the melodies, that is, not if he cannot hear consecutively as well as moment by moment--for it is only by following the threads, so to speak, that we can untangle the knots. Accordingly most untrained listeners dislike, probably, music that contains many of these knots, the presence of which makes it so interesting and exciting to the experienced ear. The woman who confessed to her piano teacher that she did not like Bach's Two-part Inventions because they were so "ugly" was not less cultivated but only more frank than many who have not discovered that Bach has to be heard "horizontally" (to borrow a figure from musical notation) rather than "vertically."
This gift of horizontal hearing is peculiarly necessary to anyone who would disentangle the tonal knots in which Strauss delights, working as he does with many more than two voices and with the vast fund of harmonic possibilities accumulated since Bach's day to draw upon. And he is not the man to use his resources timidly, or to make any concessions to laziness or inexperience in his listeners. Here is a reduction of a passage from "Ein Heldenleben" to its essential elements.
The heavy brass gives the foundation harmonies; the strings and woodwind have an upward-moving melody, and the eight horns blare forth at the same time a slower-moving downward melody. If we read almost any single chord vertically, we shall find it has its measure of harshness, sometimes considerable. If we listen to the coherent voices, none of these dissonances will trouble us in the least. This is a very simple example of what Strauss is constantly doing in a far more complex way.[9]