Read Ebook: Descriptive Analyses of Piano Works For the Use of Teachers Players and Music Clubs by Perry Edward Baxter

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Musicians are many who see in their mistress But physical beauty of "color" and "form," Who hear in her voice but a sensuous sweetness, No thrill of the heart that is living and warm.

They judge of her worth by "perfection of outline," "Proportion of parts" as they blend in the whole, "Symmetrical structure," and "finish of detail"; They see but the body--ignoring the soul.

She speaks, but they seem not to master her meaning, They catch but the "rhythmical ring of the phrase." She sings, but they dream not a message is borne on The breath of the sigh, while its "cadence" they praise.

Her saddest laments are "melodious minors" To them, and her jests are but "notes marked staccato"; Her tenderest pleadings but "themes well developed," Her rage--but "a climax of chords animato."

Away with such worthless and sense-prompted service; Forgetting the goddess, to worship the shrine; Forgetting the bride, to admire her costume, Her garments that glitter, and jewels that shine:

And give us the artists of true inspiration, Whose insight is clear, and whose brains comprehend, To interpret the silver-tongued message of music That speaks to the heart, like the voice of a friend;

That wakens the soul to the joys that are higher And purer than all that the senses can give, That teaches the language of lofty endeavor, And hints of a life that 'twere worthy to live!

For music is Art, and all Art is expression, The "beauty of form" but embodies the thought, Imprisons one ray of that wisdom supernal Which Genius to sense-blinded mortals has brought.

Then give us the artist whose selfless devotion To Art and her service is earnest and true, To read us the mystical meaning of music; Musicians are many, but artists are few.

Sources of Information Concerning Musical Compositions

During my professional career I have received scores of letters from musical persons all over the country, asking for the name of the book or books from which I derive the information, anecdote, and poetic suggestion, concerning the compositions used in my Lecture Recitals, particularly the points bearing upon the descriptive and emotional significance of such compositions. All realize the importance and value of this phase of interpretative work, and many are anxious to introduce it in their teaching or public performances; but all alike, myself not excepted, find the sources of such information scanty and difficult of access.

First, let me say frankly that there is no such book, or collection of books. My own meager stock of available material in this line has been laboriously collected, without definite method, and at first without distinct purpose, during many years of extensive miscellaneous reading in English, French, and German; supplemented by a rather wide acquaintance among musicians and composers, and the life-long habit of seizing and magnifying the poetic or dramatic bearing and import of every scene, situation, and anecdote. If asked to enumerate the sources from which points of value concerning musical works can be derived, I should answer that they are three, not all equally promising, but from each of which I myself have obtained help, and all of which I should try before deserting the field. These are:

First, and perhaps the most important, reading. Second, a large acquaintance among musicians, and frequent conversations with them on musical subjects. Third, an intuitive perception, partly inborn and partly acquired, of the analogies between musical ideas, on the one hand, and the experiences of life and the emotions of the human soul, on the other. I will now elaborate each of these a little, to make my meaning more clear.

While there is no book in which information concerning the meaning of musical compositions is collected and classified for convenient reference, such information is scattered thinly and unevenly throughout all literatures,--a grain here, a nugget there, like gold through the secret veins of the earth,--and can be had only by much digging and careful sifting. Now and again you come upon a single volume, like a rich though limited pocket of precious ore, and rejoice with exceeding gladness at the discovery of a treasure. But unfortunately, there is usually nothing in the appearance or nature of such a book to indicate to the seeker before perusal that this treasure is within, or to distinguish it from scores of barren volumes. And the very item of which he may be in search is very likely not here to be found; so he must turn again to the quest, which is much like seeking a needle in a hay-mow, or a pearl somewhere at the bottom of the Indian Ocean.

Musical histories, biographies, and essays--what is usually termed distinctly musical literature--by no means exhibit the only productive soil, though they are certainly the most fruitful, and should be first turned to, because nearest at hand. Poetry, fiction, travels, personal reminiscences, in short every department of literature, from the philosophy of Schopenhauer to the novels of George Sand, must be made to contribute what it can to the stock of general and comprehensive knowledge, which is our ambition. I instance these two authors, because, while neither of them wrote a single work which would be found embraced in a catalogue of musical literature, the metaphysical speculations of Schopenhauer are known to have had great influence upon Wagner's personality, and through that, of course, upon his music; while in some of the characteristics of George Sand will be found the key to certain of Chopin's moods, and their musical expression. But even where no such relation between author and composer can be traced, I deem one could rarely read a good literary work, chosen at random, without chancing upon some item of interest or information, which would prove directly or indirectly of value to the professional musician in his life-work. And this is entirely apart from the general broadening, developing, and maturing influence of good reading upon the mind and imagination, which may be added to the more direct benefit sought, forming a background of esthetic suggestion and perception, against which the beauties of tone-pictures stand forth with enhanced power and heightened color.

I know of no better plan to suggest to those striving for an intelligent comprehension of the composer's meaning in his great works than much and careful reading of the best books in all departments, and the more varied and comprehensive their scope the better. In the search for enlightenment concerning any one particular composition, I should advise the student to begin with works, if such exist, from the pen of the composer himself, followed by biographies and all essays, criticisms, and dissertations upon his compositions which are in print. If these fail to give information, he should proceed to read as much as possible regarding the composer's country and contemporaries, and concerning any and all subjects in which he has become aware, by the study of his life, that the master was interested. The chances are that he will come upon something of aid or value before finishing this task. Still very often the quest will and must be in vain, because about many musical works there exists absolutely no information in print.

Now had I been as well informed as I recommend all my readers to be, I should have known at the outset of this Norwegian drama, and been at once upon the right track. But being only familiar with those prose dramas of Ibsen which have been translated into English, I was obliged to undertake all this extra labor, to ascertain a single fact; which only proves once again, that the more the musician's memory is stored with miscellaneous facts and ideas, even such as do not seem to have any connection with music, the lighter and more successful will be his labors in his profession.

The second main source of information concerning musical works is found among musicians themselves. There is a vast amount of tradition, suggestion, and knowledge appertaining to the masterpieces in this art, which has never got into print, and lives only by passing from mouth to mouth, much as the early legends of all countries were orally handed down among minstrels and skalds from generation to generation. Every great interpreter and every great composer becomes, with the passage of years of a long and active life, a vast and valuable storehouse of all sorts of hints, facts, and ideas on the subject of various compositions, which usually die with him, except such portions as have been orally transmitted to pupils and associates. In this respect the late Theodor Kullak was worth any three men I have ever known, and those of his pupils who had tastes and interests similar to his own, and were of retentive memory, have all derived from him no mean portion of their material. To cull from every musician and musically informed person all the odds and ends of information in his possession is a valuable, though perhaps selfish habit. And here let me emphasize to all students the importance of not allowing the memory to get into that very prevalent bad habit of refusing to retain anything which is not presented in print to the organ of vision. The ear is as good a road to the brain as the eye, and every one should possess the faculty of acquiring information from conversations, lessons, and lectures, as readily as from books.

The third resource of the seeker after truth of this nature is to be found within himself. The musician should early accustom himself to grasp clearly the essential essence, the vital principle, of an artistic moment, a dramatic situation. For some such moment, mood, or situation, however vague or veiled, underlies every true art work; and unless the performer can perceive and comprehend this inner germ of meaning clearly enough to express it intelligibly, though it may be crudely, in his own words, he will find that many a hint has been lost upon him, and many a bit of knowledge, that might have been his, has escaped him. This is not a musical faculty merely; it is a mental peculiarity. Every person, whatever his profession, should train himself to catch, as quickly and clearly as may be, the real drift of a book, of an argument, of a chain of circumstances, of a political situation, of history, of character, and to place his finger instinctively upon the germ upon which all else centers.

The power to feel instinctively the real mood and meaning of a musical composition is by no means confined to the musical profession; indeed, is often strongly marked in those ignorant of the very rudiments of the art. I remember once playing to a rough old trapper, of the early pioneer days in Wisconsin, who had drifted back to civilization to "die in camp," as he expressed it, the Revolutionary Etude of Chopin, Op. 10, No. 12, already cited in illustration, written on receipt of the knowledge that Warsaw had been taken and sacked by the Russians. "What does it mean?" I asked when it was finished. He sprang from his chair in great excitement. "Mean?" he said; "it means cyclone in the big woods! Indian onslaught! White men all killed, but die hard!" His interpretation, I need not say, was not historically correct, but for all artistic purposes it was just as good, though expressed in the rough backwoods imagery familiar to him. He caught the tone of rage and conflict, of desperate struggle and dark despair, which sounds in every line, and he had truly understood the composition, to the shame of many a well-educated musician, whose comment would probably have been, "How difficult that left hand part is! De Pachmann plays it much faster, and with such a beautiful pianissimo!"

This particular study is simply a vivid mood picture. It is not in any sense what is called descriptive or program music; yet it has a distinct meaning which can be more or less adequately expressed in words, for the aid of those who do not readily grasp its expression. I wish to reiterate here what I have before stated, that I would not be understood to hold that all music has or should have some story connected with it. I merely believe that every worthy composition is the musical setting of some scene, incident, mood, idea, or emotion. Long practice in perceiving and grasping what may be termed the "internal evidence" of the music itself will develop, in the musician, a susceptibility to such impressions, which will often lead him to a knowledge elsewhere sought in vain, and greatly lessen his labors in arriving at knowledge elsewhere to be found.

Traditional Beethoven Playing

How often of late years we hear this expression: Will some one who claims to know kindly tell us what it means? For one, I confess myself, after a decade of careful, thoughtful investigation, utterly unable to find out. We hear one pianist extolled as a wonderful Beethoven player, as a safe, legitimate, trustworthy champion of the good old classical traditions; and another equally eminent artist condemned as wholly unworthy to lift for the public the veil of awe and deep mystery enshrouding the sublimities of this grandest of tone-Titans. The late von B?low, for instance, was well-nigh universally conceded to be the representative Beethoven player of the age, for no better reasons, so far as I can discover, than that he was generally admitted to be a failure in the presentation of most works of the modern school, and that cold, calculating, cynical intellectuality was the predominant feature of his personality and his musical work, which made him the driest, most unideal, uninteresting pianist of his generation, in spite of his phenomenal technic, memory, and mental power.

On the other hand, Paderewski, with all his infinitely magnetic personality, his incomparable beauty of tone and coloring, his blended nobility and refinement of conception, is decried as a perverter of taste, a destroyer of traditions and precedents, because, forsooth, he plays Beethoven too warmly, too emotionally, too subjectively.

This question reminds one of the century-old dispute among scholars as to the propriety of the so-called English pronunciation of Latin, an absurdity on the face of it. Fancy talking of the English pronunciation of French or German! Of course, we do not know and have no means of learning exactly how the old Latins did pronounce their language in all the niceties of detail, but one thing we do know with absolute certainty, and that is that they did not Anglicize it, for the one good reason that our language did not come into existence until centuries after the Latin tongue was dead. Similarly, as there is no one now living who can remember and tell us just how Beethoven did play any given sonata, and as, unfortunately, the phonograph was not then invented to preserve for us the incalculably precious records of his interpretations, we have no means of ascertaining just what his conceptions were, even supposing they had been twice alike, which they probably were not. But this we may be sure of, beyond a question or a doubt: He did not play them according to von B?low. Furthermore, there is no ground for believing that his performances were at all such as the conservative sticklers for classic traditions insist that our renditions of Beethoven must be to-day. We know this from a study of the life and characteristics of the man, from the internal evidence of his works, and from the reports given us by his contemporaries of his manner of playing them and their effect upon the hearer.

Beethoven was pre?minently a romanticist, in the content, if not always in the form of his works; a man of pronounced, self-loyal individuality and intense subjectivity, who wrote, and consequently must have played, as he felt, and not in accordance with prescribed rules and formulas; a man who can reply without immodesty when criticized for breaking a pre?stablished law of harmony, "I do it," with the calm confidence in the divine right of genius to self-utterance in its own chosen way which always accompanies true greatness and has been the infallible compass of progress in all ages. The man who was the fearless, outspoken champion of artistic sincerity and profound earnestness, whose scorn of shallow, pedantic formulas was as uncompromising as it was irrepressible, whose watchword was universality of content, who believed that music could and should be made to express every phase of human emotion, who could venture on the unheard-of innovation of beginning a sonata with a pathetic adagio, and introducing a chorus into the last movement of a symphony, in open defiance of all established tradition, who was repeatedly accused by the critics of his day of being unable to write a correct fugue or sonata, and whose music was declared to be that of a madman by leading musicians even as late as the beginning of our century--this is surely not the man whose artistic personality can be fairly represented by a purely intellectual, stiffly precise, though never so scholarly reading of his printed scores. How is that better than the bloodless plaster casts of the living, breathing children of his genius? The printed symbols represent audible sounds and the sounds symbolize emotions. The mere sounds with the emotions left out are no more Beethoven's music than the printed notes if never made audible.

Of his own playing, we are told that it lacked finish and precision, but never warmth and intensity; that, like his nature, it was stormy, impetuous, impulsive, at times even almost brutal in its rough strength and fierce energy; that he often sacrificed tone quality and even accuracy in his complete abandonment to the torrent of his emotions, but never failed to stir to their profoundest depths the hearts of his hearers. Is this the man, this hero of musical democracy, this giant embodiment of the Titanic forces of primitive Nature, this shaggy-maned lion, with the great, warm, keenly sentient human heart, whose nearest prototype among modern players is Rubinstein; is this the man with whom originated the severely classical school, the cold, prim, stately interpretations which we are told to reverence as traditional, in which the head is everything, the heart nothing--form all-important, and feeling a deplorable weakness? It is impossible, incredible!

But if not with Beethoven himself, with whom did these so-called traditions originate? Was it with the first great public interpreters of his works, who introduced them to the world of concert-goers and so earned the right to have their readings respected? Who was the first, most enthusiastic, courageous, and efficient champion of Beethoven's piano works? Who did most to introduce them to the concert audiences of Europe, to force for them first a hearing, then a reluctant recognition? Who first and oftenest dared to present Beethoven's serious chamber music to the frivolous sensation-loving Parisians, and to risk his unprecedented popularity with them upon the venture? Who but Franz Liszt! For nearly two decades, during the whole of his phenomenal career as a virtuoso, the vast weight of his musical influence and example, the incalculable force of his fervid, magnetic personality, and his inexhaustible resources as an executant, were all brought to bear in behalf of his revered Beethoven, in the effort to render his best piano works familiar and popular with the European public. It is safe to say that during that period Liszt introduced more Beethoven sonatas to more people than all other pianists combined. He then established such traditions as there may be regarding the proper interpretation of these works; and surely no one who heard him play, no one who is even slightly familiar with his life, characteristics, and art ideals, will think for a moment of classing him with the conservative school, with the inflexible, puritanical adherents to cut-and-dried theories and the cold dead letter of the law as represented by the printed notes.

But we are told that precisely these printed notes and signs should be our only and all-sufficient guide. We are commanded to stick to the text and not to presume to take personal liberties with so sacred a thing as a Beethoven composition. I wonder if the advocates of this idea, which does so much credit to their bump of veneration and so little to their artistic insight, ever took the trouble to examine the text of these same Beethoven compositions in the earliest editions, as they came first from his own hand; and if so, whether they noticed the conspicuous absence of marks of expression. When they urge that Beethoven probably knew best how his works should be rendered and that we ought to follow exclusively and religiously his indications, do they know how very few and inadequate these were? So few, in fact, that if only those given by the composer are to be observed, even the most rigid of our sticklers for classical severity are guilty of the most flagrant breaches of their own rule. Are we then to suppose that Beethoven wished his music played without varying expression, on one dead monotonous level? Not at all; but simply to infer that, like many great composers, he felt such indications to be wholly unnecessary, and was far too impatient to stop for such mechanical details. To him his music was the vital utterance of the intense life within. The meaning and true delivery of each phrase were vividly, unmistakably self-evident, needing arbitrary marks of expression as little as a heart-felt declaration of love or outburst of grief. He rightly assumed that to be played at all as it should be, such music must first be felt, and that visible marks of expression would be as needless to the player with intuitive comprehension, as they would be useless to the player without it. Just as Chopin omitted the indication "tempo rubato" from all his later works, declaring that any one who had sense enough to play them at all would know that it was demanded without being told.

True, Beethoven's works have been edited well-nigh to death since his time, but of course without his sanction or revision; and as no two editions agree, who shall decide which is infallible? And why, I ask, is not the audible interpretation at the piano of a Liszt, a Rubinstein, or a Paderewski just as likely to be legitimate as the printed interpretation of a B?low or a Lebert? Has not one artist as good a right to his conception as another? And in heaven's name what possible reason is there for assuming, in regard to an intensely emotional composer and player like Beethoven, that the coldly, stiffly scholastic reading of his works is more in accordance with his original intention than a more warm and subjective one?

Moreover, even if there were a complete, corrected, authorized edition of Beethoven, carefully revised by the composer himself, any one who has ever written out, proof-read, and finally published the simplest original composition knows well by experience how utterly impossible it is to indicate definitely, with our imperfect system of marking, just how each strain should be rendered. A general outline of the whole effect desired can be given; but try as we may, all the more delicate shades, the finer details of accent and inflection, must always be left to the taste, insight, and temperament of the individual performer; just as the intelligent reading of a poem depends upon much besides an observance of the punctuation marks. It is not within the limits of human ability to edit a single period of eight measures so perfectly that no variations or mistakes in the interpretation are possible.

BEETHOVEN 1770 1827

Beethoven: The Moonlight Sonata, Op. 27, No. 2

According to strict requirements of the law of form it is, in reality, not a sonata at all, but a free fantasia, in three detached movements, of a very pronounced but widely diverse emotional character. There has been considerable questioning on the part of the public, and much discussion among musicians, as to the origin of its name, its relevancy to the music, and the true artistic significance of the work.

There is little, if any, suggestion of moonlight, or the mood usually associated with a moonlight scene, in any of the movements; but there are several more or less credited traditions concerning it afloat, legitimatizing the title and explaining its origin. Of these, the one that seems to the present writer most fully authenticated and best sustained by the content of the compositions as a whole is the following. It is given, not as a verified fact, but as a suggestive possibility, a legendary background in keeping with the work.

It is a well-known matter of history that, during his early struggles for existence in Vienna, while experiencing the inevitable period of probation, well named the "starvation epoch," common to the lot of every creative artist, and the equally inevitable heritage of great genius, born fifty years in advance of its time,--lack of appreciation and scathing abuse from the self-constituted, self-satisfied foes of all progressive art, called critics,--Beethoven had the additional misfortune to fall deeply, but hopelessly, in love with a beautiful and brilliantly accomplished, though shallow, young heiress, of noble birth and lofty social position, Julie Guicciardi by name, who was, for a short time, one of his pupils. She is said to have returned his affection, but the union was, of course, under the then prevailing conditions, utterly impossible; and even if it could have taken place, would doubtless have proved most incompatible and uncongenial. She was a countess, accustomed to luxury and splendor; he an obscure musician fighting for the bare necessities of life, hardly higher in the social scale than her father's valet and not so well paid. It was absurd; and blind Love had blundered once again in his marksmanship. Or was it an intentional, cruel shaft from the tricky little god? In any case, Beethoven was deeply smitten; and this unlucky passion darkened and saddened his life for many years, and is accountable for much of the somber tone which we find in his compositions of that period.

So much is fact. The story goes that one evening, when wandering in the outskirts of the city, on one of those long, solitary walks, which were his only relaxation, he chanced to pass an elegant suburban villa in which a gay social gathering was in progress. Some one was playing one of his recent compositions as he went by--a rare occurrence in those days. His attention was attracted and, half unconsciously, he stopped to listen--stopped, as luck would have it, in a full flood of moonlight, was recognized from within, and a laughing company of the guests, Julie among them, sallied out, surrounded and captured him, and fairly compelled him to come in and play for them. They insisted that he should improvise and should take for his theme the moonlight which had been the cause of his capture and their unexpected pleasure. The usually reticent, intractable, not to say morose, Beethoven at last consented--under who shall say what subtle spell of Julie's voice and eyes?--and seated himself at the piano.

But those who are at all familiar with his music know that Beethoven was, except in a few rare instances, an emotional, not a realistic writer; a subjective, not an objective artist; reproducing not the scenes and circumstances of his environment or fancied situations, but the emotional impressions which they produced upon his own inner being, colored by his own personality and the mental conditions of the moment, often just the reverse of what might naturally have been expected. What he most keenly felt on this particular occasion was not the soft splendor of the summer night, or the opulent luxury and careless, superficial gaiety about him, but the bitter and cutting contrast which they afforded to his own struggling, sorrow-darkened, care-laden existence, full of disappointments and humiliations, of petty, sordid, yet unavoidable anxieties, with those twin vultures ever at his heart--a hopeless love, an unappreciated genius. The result was moonlight music in which no gleam of moonlight was reflected; only its somber shadow lying heavily and depressingly upon the stream of his emotions, which poured themselves out through the harmonies of this composition with an unconscious power and truth and a pathetic grandeur which have justly made it world-famous.

The first movement expresses unmingled sadness, but without any weakness of vain complaint; a calm, candid, but hopeless recognition of the inevitable.

The second seems to be an attempt at a lighter, more cheerful strain, a fleeting recollection of his ostensible theme; but it is only partially successful and very brief, and is followed by a reaction into a mood far more intense and darkly fierce than the first.

The last movement is full of indignant protest, of passionate rebellion, with occasional bursts of fiery defiance. In it we see the strong soul, surging like the waves of a mighty sea against the rocky borders of fate, striving desperately to break through or over them, and returning again and again to the fruitless attempt, with a courage only equaled by its futility. It is the Titan Beethoven battling with the gods of destiny.

It is, of course, unlikely, even impossible, that this improvisation,--the tradition being true,--was precisely the music of the Moonlight Sonata in its present form. It could but furnish the themes, outlines, and moods of the various movements, subsequently developed into the composition so widely known and admired.

Beethoven: Sonata Path?tique, Op. 13

"More dark than a dead world's tomb, More high than the sheer dawn's gate, More deep than the wide sea's womb, Fate."

The first subject of the allegro movement is anything but pathetic. It is full of fire, energy, and restless striving; of fierce conflict and desperate endeavor; of the defiant pride of genius exulting in the unequal combat with the world's stony indifference, and the inimical conditions of life.

With the second movement comes a radical change of mood. The first impetuous vigor has been expended in the struggle; the first joy of combat and self-reliant consciousness of strength have ebbed away like a receding tide, leaving the soul exhausted, discouraged, but not despairing. There is a moment of truce in life's battle, a moment of calm, though sad reflection; a moment in which to contemplate the impassable gulf between the heaven-piercing heights of ambition and the petty levels of possible human achievement, in which to dream, not of victory and happiness,--those are among the unattainable ideals,--but of rest and sweet forgetfulness, and to say with Tennyson--

"What profit do we have to war with evil? Let us alone."

There is an occasional hint of the volcanic fires of passion, slumbering beneath this surface calm of a spirit sent to earth, but not broken, gathering its forces for a fresh uprising. But as a whole it is tranquilly thoughtful, gravely introspective, and should be rendered with great deliberation and profound earnestness.

The last movement is hardly up to the standard of the other two, either musically or emotionally. Still it is interesting, symmetrically made, and not devoid of depth and intensity. It is perhaps a logical conclusion to the work, if we regard the whole as a sort of tone-poem on life. With most of us in youth, our boundless courage and aspiration lead us to dare all things and believe in the possibility of all things; to hurl ourselves into the fight with destiny, with the limitless presumption of untried powers and unwarrantable hopes. Later comes a period of depression and discouragement, in which nothing seems worth effort, so far do realities fall below our expectations. Then, if we are reasonable, we learn, at last, to adapt ourselves in a measure to things as they are, to content ourselves in some wise with the flowers, since the stars are out of reach, and to measure achievement relatively, not by the standard of our first glorious, ever-to-be-regretted ambitions, but of the possible, the partial and imperfect, under the limitations of inflexible earthly conditions; and we quench our soul's thirst as best we may with the meager, mingled draught of bitter-sweet that life offers.

This movement is light, rapid, and would be cheerful but for its minor key and its undertone of plaintive sadness. It seems like an attempt to take a brighter view of life, but is still shadowed by past experiences,--a touching gaiety dimmed by the mist of recent tears,--and this is, perhaps unintentionally, the most nearly pathetic of the three movements. It should be given with life and warmth, and, despite the pedants, with a free use of the rubato, but not with extreme velocity.

Beethoven: Sonata in A Flat Major, Op. 26

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