Part 4
There is nothing new under the sun, said some venerable polyphonic pundit, in omphalic contemplation on the banks of the Ganges, and music amply illustrates this eld saying.
But to op. 76, Clavierstücke von Johannes Brahms. This opus is divided into eight numbers, capriccios and intermezzi; for the composer disliked excessively giving his music set names, although it seems to me that with his intense Teutonism he might have followed Schumann’s example and avoided the Italian nomenclature as much as possible.
Then again these little pieces are not always well named, for the rhapsodies are seldom rhapsodies in the conventional sense, and the intermezzi are, I suppose, intended to fill in, as the name indicates, some intermediate place; but as a matter of fact they do not, for they are often bunched together. It is to be supposed that Brahms attached some intellectual significance to these titles that is caviare to the general.
The first capriccio of op. 76 is in the key of F sharp minor, the brief, restless introductory suggesting, but rather faintly, Schumann. The principal melody is structurally in the style of Mendelssohn, but the harmonization and development of a sort that would have repelled the gentle Felix, who disliked anything bristling or forbidding. The mood-color is gloomy, even to despair. There is a ray of light in the diminished chord that preludes the return of the theme, which is treated in inversion--a characteristic trick of Brahms. Near the close the melody is sounded in quarter-noted chords and most resolutely, but soon melts away into vaporous figuration, the piece ending in the major, but without a ray of sunshine.
The second capriccio is the familiar one in B minor, played staccato throughout, and a piquant and almost agreeable piano composition. Do you know that I never hear it without being reminded of the fourth number in Schumann’s Die Davidsbündler, which is also in B minor. It is as if Brahms took that syncopated page and built over it his capriccio, with its capricious staccati and ingenious harmonic changes. Of course the resemblance vanishes after the third bar; it is really more spiritual than actual.
Interesting it is to follow the permutations of the composer. On page nine there is a refreshing and perfectly sane modulation from E major to F, and the return to the subject is cleverly managed. The frisky yet somewhat saturnine character is maintained to the end, and the doubling up on page twelve is very effective. A genuine piano piece is this B minor capriccio.
We now come to the lovely A flat intermezzo, which occasionally strays in an uneasy fashion on the concert stage. A few pianists play this tender wreath of moonbeams and love, but either too slow or too fast. To play Brahms sentimentally is to slay Brahms; yet this charming intermezzo in A flat must not be taken too slow. It exhales an odor of purity, of peace, that is not quite untroubled, and nothing sweeter can be imagined than the dolce on the first page that follows a ritenuto and introduces a break in the melody. Its two pages are the two pages of a masterpiece. They give us Brahms at his best and in his most lovable mood.
The next intermezzo is more shy and more diffident. Marked allegretto grazioso, its graciousness is veiled by a hesitating reserve which further on becomes almost painful. Mark where the double notes begin, mark the progression and its dark downward inflection. But it is a beautiful bit of writing, with some of the characteristics of a nocturne, but full of questionings, full of enigmatic pain. Brahms, too, suffered severely from Weltschmerz.
The second book of op. 76 is a distinct advance in mastery of material, in the expression and realization of moods almost too recondite and remote. The C sharp minor capriccio which begins the book is more lengthy and more ambitious than any in the work. It is an agitated, passionate composition, driving through darkness and storm without relief, until a silent poco tranquillo is reached; but the point of repose is soon abandoned and the turmoil begins anew and the ending is full of gloom and fierceness. I catch Schumann in spots; for example, near the end of the second line on the second page, when a rank modulation stares you in the face, but with the eyes of Robert the Fantastic. The tempest-like character of the capriccio is marked. It is a true soul-storm in which the spirit, buffeted and drenched by the wind and wave of adversity, is almost subdued; but the harsh and haughty coda shows indomitable courage at the last. It is a powerful companion picture for Schumann’s Aufschwung.
Then follow in the next intermezzo perfect calm, perfect repose of mind and body. In the slow moving triplets Brahms indicates those curves of quiet that enfold us when we are at one with ourselves, with nature. Indescribably lovely is the first page of this intermezzo. Even the section in F sharp minor is gracious and without a hint of the tragic. The piece ends in A major stillness.
The next number is also an intermezzo, and with my absurd feeling for similarities I hear in it an echo of Chopin’s F minor nocturne. The resemblance is not as rhythmic as it is melodic. For gray days this intermezzo was written; go play it when the sun is holding high and heated revelry in the heavens and you will feel, rather than see, a shadow cross your inner vision. It is our pessimistic Brahms again, and the mood for the moment is almost one of mild self-torture. A nocturne in gray, not too profound, too poignant, rather a note of melancholy is sounded, a thin edge of light that stipples the gloom with really more doubt than despair.
The eighth and last number of the opus is a capriccio, a genuine, whirling, fantastic capriccio. It is not easy to play; needing light, sure fingers and a light, gay spirit. In the second section we encounter a melody of the later Brahms type. It delights in seizing remote keys, or rather contiguous keys, that are widely disparate in relationship and forcing them to consort, the result being perversely novel and sometimes startling. Some of the modulatory work is very interesting, particularly the enharmonic progressions at the bottom of the second page. The capriccio fitly closes a volume of original and suggestive piano music, but music that is sealed to the amateur searching for showy or mere mellifluous effects. After you have played Bach and Beethoven, after you have exhausted--if such a thing is possible--Chopin and Schumann, you will perhaps grasp the involuted and poetical music contained in op. 76 of Brahms.
At last we reach op. 79, the two rhapsodies much talked of, much wrangled over and seldom played.
The first rhapsody is in B minor and is as unrhapsodic as you can well imagine. It is drastic, knotty, full of insoluble ideas, the melodic contour far from melting and indeed hardly plastic. The mood is sternly Dorian and darkling. It is the intellectual Brahms who confronts us with his supreme disdain for what we like or dislike; it is Brahms giving utterance to bitter truths, and only when he reaches the section in D minor does he relax and sing in smoother accents; but those common chords in B flat ruthlessly interrupt the Norse-like melody, and we are once again launched on the sea of troubled argument. This B minor rhapsody always sounds to me as if its composer were trying to prove something algebraic, all the while knitting his awful brows in the most logical manner. There is little rhapsody in it, but of intellectual acrimoniousness much. The second melody has an astringency that is very grateful to mental palates weary of the sweets of other composers.
This melody in B is another typical one of the sort referred to above. You could swear it is Brahms, even if heard in a dark room with your ears closed--to be very Irish! The merging of this theme into the first is characteristically accomplished, and the old dispute is renewed. As acrid as decaying bronze is this rhapsody, and yet its content is intellectual and lofty, the subsidiary melody in D minor being the one bit of relief throughout. There are scales in the piece, but surely not for display, and the regularly constructed coda is very interesting. This first rhapsody is for the head rather than the heart.
But the second in G minor is magnificent; more ballade-like than rhapsodic, yet a distinct narrative and one about which I love to drape all manner of subjective imaginings. The bold modulation of the theme, its swiftness, fervor and power are very fascinating. I love to think of my favorite, Browning’s Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came. With what mastery and economy of means are not the most dramatic effects compassed! Begin with the chord in E minor so rapidly translated into G minor, and thence onward. You can fairly revel in the exhibition of tragic force, in the free, firm, bold handling of a subject stripped of all musical verbiage and reduced to its lowest mathematical term. The working out is famous in its intensity, in its grip; never for a moment is the theme lost, never for a moment is subsidiary material introduced. There is no padding, and the great, gaunt skeleton of the structure would be exposed if it were not for the rush, the color, the dynamic density of the mass. A wonderful, glorious, bracing tone-picture in which Brahms, the philosopher, burns the boats of his old age and becomes for the time a youthful Faust in search of a sensation. A hurricane of emotion that is barely stilled at the end, this rhapsody reminds me of the bardic recital of some old border ballad. In it there is tragedy and the cry of bruised hearts; in it there is fierce action, suffocating passion and a letting loose of the elements of the soul. It is an epic for the keyboard, and before its cryptic tones we shudder and are amazed!
VI
Op. 116 is made up of two books of small pieces called Fantaisien and divided into capriccios and intermezzi, seven in all. A bold, restless capriccio, a presto in D minor, begins the set. Here is the later Brahms with a vengeance. Cross accents, harmonic cross-relations, and what Hadow calls organic unity in the emotional aspect with organic diversity in the choice of keys. Very daring, very difficult is this energetic composition. In the seventeenth bar we find the Hungarian creeping in, in the characteristic Brahms style, but it only peeps at you for a few bars and is lost in the hurly-burly of mixed rhythms and tonalities. The entire character of the piece is resolute, vigorous and powerful. It is finely developed both in the emotional and intellectual aspects.
The intermezzo in A minor which follows is lovely. In its native simplicity it is almost as noteworthy as the introduction to the Chopin Ballade in F major-A minor. Its sweet melancholy has the resigned quality that Maeterlinck speaks of when describing an old man who sits serenely in his chair and listens to the spiritual messages in the air; sits humbly, peacefully, with sweetly folded hands, and awaits--awaits what? The tranquillity of this nocturne is unbroken even in the second part, where a whispering figure in the treble enlaces the theme. It is another of those vaporish mysteries, those shadowy forms seen at dusk near the gray, thin edges of forests. Whether from caprice or logic Brahms makes a chromatic détour of an entire line before the coda. It is as interesting as it is unusual. This intermezzo is for pure, pious souls, and it is not very young music. It contains an unusual sequence of chords of the seventh in two parts, the fifths being omitted.
Of different calibre is the capriccio in G minor. No. 3 of the set. Passionate, agitated and intensely moving is the first theme, and the second in E flat major recalls to Mr. Fuller-Maitland the style of the early piano sonatas. But there is freer modulation and more economy of material. Brahms was not a young man when he wrote this opus, yet for the most part it is astonishingly youthful and elastic. There is fire and caprice in this composition that make it extremely effective for the concert stage.
More remote, but exquisitely tender and intimate, is the intermezzo which begins the second book of op. 116. It is my favorite number, and its caressing accents set you dreaming. In the entire range of piano literature I cannot recall a more individual and more beautiful piece of music, and I am fully conscious that I am writing these words and all they implicate.
Solemnly the triolen are sung in the bass, but the treble phrase that follows is purely feminine and questioning. So slender are the outlines of this piece that they seem to wave and weave in the air. The pianissimi are almost too spiritual to translate into tone; and yet throughout, despite the stillness of the music, its rich quiet, there is no hint of the sensuous. The luxuriance of color is purely of the spirit--the spirit that broods over the mystery and beauty of life. Brahms’ music is never sexless; but at times he seems to withdraw from the dust, the flesh-pots and the noise of life, and erects in his heart a temple wherein may be worshipped Beauty.
Of ineffable, haunting beauty is this intermezzo; and it is worth a wilderness of some sonatas and loudly trumpeted rhapsodies by men acclaimed of great reputation. The ending is benign.
The next intermezzo, in E minor, is, I confess, gnomic for me. It is marked andante con grazia ed intimissimo sentimento. It is in six-eight time, and built on phrases of two notes. Intimate, yes, but the intimacy is all on the side of the composer, for you must long pursue this cryptic bit of writing before you begin to unravel its complicated meanings. The composition is extremely original, extremely poetic; more like a sigh, a half-uttered complaint of a melancholy soul. To play it you must first be a poet, then a pianist.
The next intermezzo is really a minuet. It is in E, and finely differentiated from its companions of the volume.
A capriccio, also in D minor, closes this work. It is quite brilliant, and, oddly enough, contains a full-fledged bravoura passage, in the nature of a cadenza, and after the most approved modern manner. It, too, would be extremely effective in concert.
Op. 117, three intermezzi, leads off with a delicious cradle song, which I cannot quite agree with Max Vogrich, as being fit to lull to slumber a royal babe. Indeed, the child rocked to sleep by Brahms is not so aristocratic nor so delicate as the infant of the Chopin Berçeuse but it is just as precious, even if homelier. The character of the music is confessedly Scottish, and has for a motto Herder’s “Schlaf sanft, mein kind, schlaf sanft und schön!” The harmonies are thick, crowded, and the melody charmingly naïve and childlike. One might reasonably expect from Brahms the vision of some intellectual looking baby, its skull covered with metaphysical bumps and from its mouth issuing sounds of senile wisdom. But this is not the case, for it is a real lullaby we listen to, even if the second section is darker than one expects. The return of the subject with the octave in the upper voice is well managed, and the composition ends in cooing repose.
An intermezzo in B flat minor follows, and after playing and digesting it let me hear no more complaints about Brahms’ style being “unpianistic.” This number has been called Schumannish, but the comparison is a surface one. Its pages are truly Brahms, and very difficult it is to play in its insolent, airy ease.
The last intermezzo of the book in C sharp minor is of sterner stuff. Fuller-Maitland finds in it a suggestion of the finale of Brahms’ third symphony. For me it is most exotic, and has a flavor of the Asiatic in its naked, monophonic, ballad-like measures. There is an evident narrative of sorrowful mien, and you encounter a curious refrain in A, as if one expostulated at the closing of some gruesome statement. Of weighty import is this piece, and in it there is smothered irony and slightly veiled suffering, and in it there stalks an apparition of woe, of ennui. Page fourteen shows the hand of a master.
There are some who find this op. 117 a distinct gain over the previous work. I cannot truthfully say that I appreciate this criticism, for both volumes contain gems of the purest. Temperament has naturally its own preferences. I have broadly indicated my favorite numbers, and perhaps next year may discover new beauties in the compositions that now fail to make a strong personal appeal. Certain it is that no number should be slighted.
We now near the end, for only op. 118 and op. 119 remain to be considered. The first intermezzo in A minor of the former opus starts off in an exultant mood--a mood of joyful anticipation. In it you are glad to be alive, to breathe the tonic air, to be smothered in the sunshine. Tell me not in doleful numbers that Johannes Brahms cannot be optimistic, cannot hitch his wagon to a star, cannot fight fate. There is passionate intensity and swift motion in this intermezzo. While playing it you are billowed up by the consciousness of power and nobility of soul. The tonality is most diverting and varied.
The succeeding intermezzo is in F minor, and is andante. A very graciously pretty piano piece it is, and well within the grasp of a moderate technic. The melodic material is copious and rich, and the harmonies very grateful. For example, play the F sharp section and the following measures after the double bar in F sharp major; how genial, what resource in modulatory tactics, what appreciation of diversity in treatment!
A stirring and royal ballade in G minor follows. It is Brahms of the masculine gender, the warlike, impetuous recounter of brave deeds and harsh contest. Although the key coloring is gloomy, there is too much action, spirit and bravery in the ballade for gloom to perch long on the banners of the composer. A wonderful second subject in B interrupts the rush of the battle, which is soon resumed. Even its pauses are brilliant.
The fourth intermezzo in A flat has quite a savor of the rococo, with its gentle theme and response. Something of the Old World hovers in its rustling bars, the workmanship of which is very ingenious, especially in the management of the basses in the second part. There is a tiny current of agitation in this intermezzo, despite its delicacy of contour, its lightness of treatment.
No. 5 is a romance suffused with idyllic feeling. There is atmosphere and there is the heart quality, a quality lacking in most modern composers. A very grateful composition, simple and serene, is this romance.
E flat minor is the key of the last intermezzo of op. 118, and a trying composition it is, requiring nimble fingers, fleet fingers and a light, strong wrist. The idea reminds me of one of Brahms’ earlier pieces, a mere kernel of a figure, which is expanded, amplified, broadened, deepened by the composer at will. It is full of fantastic poetry, and there is sweep and vision in the composition, which has a ring of dolour and is full of the sombreness of a sad, strong soul.
Op. 119 ends the Brahms music for the piano. The daily studies were doubtlessly written before. But the four pieces that comprise op. 119 may be said to be practically the last music for the instrument he loved so faithfully. There is no falling off in inspiration or workmanship. The idea and its expression are woven in one strand; there is much polishing of phrase and no lack of robustness.
The opening number is in B minor, an intermezzo, an adagio, and full of reverent, sedate music. Since Beethoven no one can vie with Brahms in writing a slow, sober movement; one in which the man, moral, intellectual and physical, girds up his loins, conserves his forces and says his greatest and noblest. The sustained gravity, the profound feeling never mellows into the pathetic fallacy, and of the academic there is not a trace. This adagio is deeply moving.
The next intermezzo in E minor is of extreme loveliness; its poco agitato is the rustling of the leaves in the warm west wind, but they are flecked by the sunshine. A tremulous sensibility informs this andantino, and its bars are stamped by genius.
Fancy the gayest, blithest intermezzo, marked “joyfully” and you will hear the enchanting one in C. The theme is in the middle voice, and the elasticity, sweetness and freedom throughout are simply delightful. It is three pages of undefiled happiness, and only to be compared to that wonderful rhythmic study in A flat by Chopin, the supplementary study in the Fetis method. But Chopin is so sad and Brahms so merry, yet the general architectonic is not dissimilar.
A very Schumannish and vigorous rhapsodic in E flat closes the set, and is in all probability the last piano piece penned by the composer. In it Brahms returns to an early love, Schumann, and there are echoes of the march of the Davidsbündler in the beginning; no one but Brahms could have written the section in C minor or A flat. This rhapsodie is for me not as interesting as the one in G minor, but it is brilliant, and requires wrists of steel.
One who is better qualified to speak on the subject than myself, Mr. Max Vogrich, made the following suggestions as to the order in which these pieces may be played in concert. He writes:--
As the pianist cannot possibly play all twenty pieces in one concert, he must perforce undertake the painful task of selection. Every concert player knows that he can never win over his audience to sympathy, unless himself in fullest sympathy with the compositions which he performs. He will therefore play op. 116 through, and find in the very first number (Capriccio) an exquisite and highly effective piece, teeming with trying octave passages. If he will, he can sufficiently exhibit his technic--and his muscular fortitude--in this number. No. 2 (Intermezzo) and No. 3 (Capriccio) will strike him as less effective. But in No. 4 (Intermezzo) he will discover a gem of the first water, an adagio enchanting in its wondrous sonority--a study in tone. The two next following intermezzi, again, will afford less complete gratification by reason of their overcharged seriousness, also the Capriccio, conceived somewhat in the spirit of a study, and forming the close of op. 116. Quickly taking up op. 117 (Three Intermezzi), the player opens it at No. 1, a slumber song, but one excelling, in depth of feeling, delicacy and absorbedness of mood, anything ever produced in this class of poetry, Schumann’s Träumerei excepted. It was penned by a king, and only a king should play it to lull to slumber a royal babe.
Would anyone be moved to tears by pure music, let him listen to the two succeeding intermezzi, especially the last, which is fitted to bring sentimental souls to the verge of despair. Brahms must have experienced much evil in his life! Finally, our growingly enthusiastic pianist reaches op. 118 and op. 119. And now he cannot tear himself away from the piano. No further thought of concert or audience disturbs him now; nor can he devote a thought to careful selection.
He further remarks that:
Since the days of the Fantasiestücke, the Kinderscenen, the Kreisleriana and the Novelletten, that is, since more than half a century, the entire range of piano literature has had nothing to show which could be even remotely compared in intellectual import with these twenty pieces by Brahms.