A HISTORY OF THE PIANOFORTE AND PIANOFORTE PLAYERS




               [Frontispiece: Portrait of Franz Liszt.]




                                   A

                       HISTORY OF THE PIANOFORTE

                                  AND

                           PIANOFORTE PLAYERS

                         TRANSLATED AND REVISED
                           FROM THE GERMAN OF

                               OSCAR BIE


                                   BY

                          E. E. KELLETT, M.A.

                                  AND

                       E. W. NAYLOR, M.A., MUS.D.

         WITH NUMEROUS PORTRAITS, ILLUSTRATIONS, AND FACSIMILES

                        [Illustration: colophon]

                                 LONDON
                          J. M. DENT & COMPANY

                                NEW YORK
                         E. P. DUTTON & COMPANY

                               MDCCCXCIX




                         _All rights reserved_




                               Dedicated

                                  TO

                            EUGENE D’ALBERT




                            Editors’ Preface


This work does not profess to be so much a literal translation as a
somewhat free version of Dr Bie’s “Das Klavier.” The author, writing as
he does for a German public, naturally uses a more philosophic style
than would be generally intelligible in England. Availing themselves,
therefore, of Dr Bie’s kind permission, the Editors, with a view to
making the book more acceptable to English readers, have allowed
themselves considerable liberty both in omission and in addition. For
all portions of the text which are enclosed in square brackets they
hold themselves responsible. The footnotes, except a few which are
specially marked, have been added by Dr Naylor.

                                                      E. W. N.
                                                      E. E. K.




                                Contents

CHAP.                                                             PAGE

I. OLD ENGLAND--A PRELUDE                                            1

     The Domestic Character of the Piano, p. 2. Queen Elizabeth
     at the Spinet, p. 3. Shakespeare and Music, p. 5. Mediæval
     Church Music, p. 7. Ecclesiastical use of Folk Songs, p.
     8. Popular Contrapuntal Music, p. 9. The Folk Song and
     the Instrument, p. 10. The Organ and the Lute, p. 11. The
     Clavier and Secular Music, p. 12. Italian influence in
     England, p. 13. Cultivation of Music in England, p. 15.
     First Books of Clavier Music, p. 16. Classes of old English
     Pieces, p. 17. The Virginal, p. 18. History of the Clavier,
     p. 19. The Clavichord, p. 21. The Clavicymbal, p. 23.
     Virginal Pieces, p. 26. Thomas Tallis, p. 27. William Bird,
     p. 28. John Bull, p. 32. Other Composers, p. 38.

II. OLD FRENCH DANCE PIECES                                         40

     England and France, p. 41. The Dance, p. 43. The Dance and
     Common Life, p. 43. The Dance and the Stage, p. 45. The
     _Danseuses_, p. 45. Allusions in Dance Names, p. 48. Old
     Programme-Music, p. 49. The Titles, p. 51. Chambonnières,
     p. 52. Couperin, p. 53. Rameau and others, p. 65.

III. SCARLATTI                                                      68

     A Preface by Scarlatti, p. 68. His Life, p. 70. His Style
     and the Italian Musical Emotion, p. 71. Technique, p. 73.
     Love of Adventure, p. 74. The Opera, p. 75. The position
     of Music, p. 77. Chamber Music, p. 78. Clavier Pieces, p.
     79. Frescobaldi and Pasquini, p. 80. Corelli, p. 82. The
     Da Capo Style, p. 84. Scarlatti’s Sonatas, p. 86. Other
     Italians, p. 89.

IV. BACH                                                            91

     German Music, p. 91. Kuhnau, p. 92. Bach and Musical
     History, p. 93. Bach’s Life, p. 94. His Formal Principle,
     p. 95. The Inventions and Symphonies, p. 97. The Toccatas,
     p. 98. The Fugues, p. 100. The _Wohltemperiertes Klavier_,
     p. 101. The Original Editions, p. 102. The Suites, p. 104.
     The Fantasias, p. 109. Bach’s Forms, p. 111. Technique,
     p. 116. The Hammer Clavier, p. 121. Bach and the Modern
     Pianoforte, p. 112.

V. THE “GALANTEN”                                                  126

     The Change of Taste, p. 127. The “Professional Musician,”
     p. 129. Spread of Clavier Music, p. 131. Musical
     Periodicals, p. 131. Pianoforte Factories, p. 133. Stein
     and Streicher, p. 134. Handel, p. 137. Philip Emanuel Bach,
     p. 138. Haydn, p. 149. Mozart, p. 151.

VI. BEETHOVEN                                                      157

     Beethoven Contrasted with the old Composers of the Empire,
     p. 159. Cosmopolitan Life of the Pianist, p. 161. Viennese
     Pianists, p. 160. Public Contests of Pianists, p. 161.
     Dussek, p. 164. The Sonata of the Time, p. 165. Beethoven’s
     Nature, p. 167. Music as a _Speech_, 167. The “Development”
     of Motives, p. 171. Rise of the Tragic Sonata, p. 172.
     The Sportive Beethoven, p. 173. His Forms, p. 175. His
     Archaism, p. 177. His tendency to the “Galant” style, p.
     179. His Last Works, p. 181.

VII. THE VIRTUOSOS                                                 183

     Beethoven’s Technique, p. 183. The Clavier Schools of this
     period, p. 185. The groups of Technicians, p. 189. The Life
     of the Virtuoso, p. 192. Concerts and Improvisations, p.
     196. Compositions, p. 197. Piano and Opera, p. 201. The
     Étude, p. 203. Clementi, p. 208. Cramer, p. 210. Hummel, p.
     211. Czerny, p. 216. Kalkbrenner, p. 218. Weber, p. 218.
     Moscheles, p. 221.

VIII. THE ROMANTICS                                                224

     Romance, p. 224. Franz Schubert, p. 225. Robert Schumann,
     p. 231. Early Works, p. 231. Jean Paul, p. 232.
     “Davidsbund,” p. 235. Private Life, p. 237. The “Neue
     Zeitschrift für Musik,” p. 238. “Davidsbündler Tänze,” p.
     238. “Carnival,” p. 240. F sharp minor Sonata, p. 241.
     “Fantasie Stücke,” p. 242. “Études Symphoniques,” p. 242.
     Bach and E. T. A. Hoffmann, p. 244. Kreisleriana, p. 245.
     Op. 17, p. 246. “Novellettes,” p. 248. Mendelssohn, p. 249.
     “Faschings-schwank,” and later Works, p. 254. Chopin, p.
     255. His Art, p. 257. His Life, p. 258. George Sand, p.
     259. Works, p. 261. Style of Playing, p. 264. Field, p.
     265. Chopin’s Method, p. 266. [Sterndale Bennett], p. 268.

IX. LISZT AND THE PRESENT TIME                                     271

     Liszt and the three Types of Artists, p. 272. Life, p.
     274. Liszt and Thalberg, p. 277. A Pianist’s Creed, p.
     281. Paganini and Liszt, p. 282. Liszt’s Concerts, p. 286.
     Piano Works, p. 287. The Interpreters p. 292. Virtuosos
     of Older Style, p. 293. Rubinstein and Bülow, p. 294.
     Virtuoso and Teacher, p. 299. Tausig and d’Albert, p. 301.
     Modern Virtuosos, p. 301. Risler, p. 301. The Pianist’s
     Profession, p. 302. The Piano as a Social Factor, p. 303.
     Piano Instruction, p. 305. The Practical and Theoretical
     Schools, p. 306. The Common or “C major” keyboard compared
     with the “Janko,” p. 308. Present-day Piano Factories, p.
     310. Steinway and Bechstein, p. 311. The Piano as a piece
     of Furniture, p. 313. Pianos _de luxe_, p. 315. The Market
     for Piano Literature, p. 316. Modern Piano Works, p. 317.
     Alkan, p. 317. The Post-Romantics, p. 318. The French
     School, p. 319. The Russians, p. 320. The Scandinavians,
     p. 321. The English and Americans, p. 322. The Germans, p.
     322. Jensen, p. 322. Brahms, p. 322. Raff, p. 323. Living
     Germans, p. 324. Conclusion, p. 326.

AUTHOR’S POSTSCRIPT: AND ERRATA                                    328

INDEX                                                              329

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS                                              334




[Illustration: Guido of Arezzo and his protector, Bishop Theodal,
playing on a Monochord. Vienna Hofbibliothek.]




                         Old England: a Prelude

[The drift of the remarks immediately following, which the author
entitles a “Prelude,” is, that Music is at the present time flourishing
more at home than in public; that the playing of chamber compositions
is more popular than the representation of huge operas; and that
therefore it is a suitable time to consider the history and scope of
the instrument which, more than all others, has made possible this
cultivation of domestic music. He begins then by contrasting the huge
performances of Wagnerian drama at Bayreuth with what he calls the
“intimate” character of a private pianoforte recital at home.]


Those were great days in which the foundation-stone was laid at
Bayreuth. Days in which the creative philosopher of the stage threw his
sceptre over the Ninth Symphony; days when choice spirits met together,
who tremblingly passed through the moment in which they saw something
never heard of become reality; days of a joyous intoxication when
Liszt and Wagner embraced each other with tears; days that Nietzsche
calls the happiest he had ever spent, when something brooded in the
air that he could trace nowhere else--something ineffable but full of
hope--those days, alas! return no more. In those days music, that music
which the million greet with cheers of rapture, stood enthroned on the
Stage, which gives to art its public hold upon the world. The living,
new-creating music has to-day once more fled to the concert hall, to
the haughty and more select rows of aristocratic amateurs who listen to
the symphonic poems of Richard Strauss. These are tender and delicate
creations beside the dramas of Wagner. They are elves, they elude us,
and there are those, who see them not. We have been driven to them as
the highest musical expressions of our time.

Since the trumpet-notes of Bayreuth died away we have conducted our
musical devotions on a smaller, more intimate scale. Already, beyond
the concert hall, we see opening the private chamber, holiest of all,
and the chamber music, which is to the music of the stage what etching
is to painting. It is the old ebb and flow. As we passed from the
single instrument to the orchestra, from Beethoven’s orchestra with its
travail for expression to Wagner’s stage with its world-embracing aims,
so we are now passing back from the stage to undiluted music first
before thousands of listeners, then before hundreds only.

And now, if I had my way, I would bring the pianoforte before a small
audience, say of ten persons, not in the concert hall but in the
home, where the artist may give his little concerts, in the fitting
hour of twilight, playing to a company every one of whom he knows.
Under such circumstances, indeed, one can implicitly trust himself to
the _intimate_ character of the pianoforte. Then stream from it the
sweet tones of the harp, then, like strings of pearls, come chains of
roses from its notes, or Titanic forces seem to escape from it, and
my soul lies wholly in the player’s finger-tips. Is it then that the
piano is a contemptible instrument compared with the violin or the
string-quartet? Do I then remember how it sings so hoarsely, and how
its scales are so broken, and how the soul of its melody is so dead
without the breath of the rising and falling tone?

Of course, if it expresses itself in the piano-concerto, on the podium
of the orchestra, or even if it trusts itself, in trio or quartet,
to the company of strings or wind, then it moves my compassion. A
foreign atmosphere envelops it even if Beethoven’s concerto in E flat
major is resounding; and a weakness haunts it, if in chamber music it
alternates with the dominating melody of the singing violin. But when
once the clang of the violin and of the Cor Anglais[1] has faded from
our ears, and all comparison has been laid aside, then, and then only,
the soul of the pianoforte rises before us. Every good thing must be
considered _per se_ apart from all comparison. Is it no good thing to
have the whole material of tone before one’s ten fingers, to penetrate
it, _truly_ to penetrate it; to feel beneath one’s nerves all the
subtleties of all music--the song, the dance, whispering, shrieking,
weeping, laughter?--all, I mean, voiced in the tone of the pianoforte,
the epic tone of this modern Cithara, which, in its own kind, embraces
the lyrical nature of the violin and the dramatic nature of the
orchestra? In such all-embracing power the piano is in the twilight
chamber a strange and dear tale-teller, a _Rhapsode_ for the _intimate_
spirit, which can express itself in it by improvisation, and an archive
for the historian to whom it unrolls the whole life of modern music in
its universal speech from a point of view which gives us the whole in
the average. Then only do I love the piano--then is it faithful, then
noble, genuine, unique.

       *       *       *       *       *

Queen Elizabeth of England is sitting in the afternoon at her spinet.
She is thinking of the conversation which she has had this forenoon
with Sir James Melville--a conversation which the latter has preserved
for us in writing. He was in 1564 ambassador from Mary Stuart to
Elizabeth. Elizabeth had asked him what was Mary’s style of dress, the
colour of her hair, her figure, her way of life. “When Mary returns
from the hunt,” he answered, “she gives herself up to historical
reading or to music, for she is at home with lute and virginal.” “Does
she play well?” asked Elizabeth. “For a queen, very well,” was the
answer. And so, this afternoon, Elizabeth is sitting at the spinet, and
playing Bird’s or Dr Bull’s Variations on popular airs. She plays from
the very (or a similar) copy which to-day is marked in the Fitzwilliam
Museum at Cambridge as Queen Elizabeth’s Virginal Book. She does not
notice that Sir James and Lord Hunsdon are secretly listening. When
suddenly she sees them standing behind her she stops playing. “I am not
used,” she says, “to play before men; but when I am solitary, to shun
melancholy.”

Fifty years before, Albert Dürer had given an illustration of
Melancholy in his famous engraving. Melancholy, as dignified
Depression, is sitting in the open air, surrounded by the implements
for Manual Labour, Art and Science. It expressed the anticipated pain
of the misfortune which lurks in the good fortune of knowledge and
intelligence; the pain of the dawning Age of Wisdom, for which Erasmus,
in his Praise of Folly, had already shown a just contempt. In his St
Jerome, Dürer represents the deliverance from Melancholy. St Jerome,
in the contemporary engraving, is sitting quietly and contentedly at
home, while the sun shines through the circular panes,[2] the papers,
books and cushions being so neatly disposed around, and the lion
so wonderfully sleeping beside him. But--in the corner stands his
house-organ or spinet!

Something of the spirit of the St Jerome breathes through the
Elizabethan music--a tone of the Volkslied, or of that intimate
world-sense, alongside of the decaying mediæval counterpoint (decaying
as the Gothic architecture was decaying) like scenes of popular life
or of lyrical beauty, which display themselves chiefly in the drama,
in the midst of scenes of historic ceremonial. Everyone has observed
what a subtle sense for soft musical tones is revealed throughout
Shakespeare’s plays. The Duke in Twelfth Night loves the Volkslied, the
old song, “old and plain,” which “the spinsters and the knitters in the
sun, and the free maids that weave their thread with bones, do use to
chant: it is silly sooth, and dallies with the innocence of love like
the old age.” He heard it last night; he will hear it again to-day:
“Methought it did relieve my passion much, More than light airs and
recollected terms Of these most brisk and giddy-pacèd times.” And it is
the fool who sings it to him--that typical figure of the love-thoughts
and of the love-business of the people: the fool, who in every play
has the largest store of old popular songs, and who in this very drama
empties a very cornucopia of them. But Shakespeare’s holiest encomium
on music is sung at night, in that idyllic scene at the close of the
Merchant of Venice, between Lorenzo and Jessica. The moonlight sleeps
upon the bank; the lovers sit in silence before Portia’s house and let
the music steal upon their ears. “Soft stillness and the night become
the touches of sweet harmony.” Lorenzo endeavours to cheer Jessica with
the music. We can well believe that his impassioned words express the
feelings of the poet himself, who has marked his Shylock, his Cassius,
his Othello,[3] his Caliban, with the stain of a heedlessness of
music:--

    “The man that hath no music in himself,
    Nor is not moved with concord of sweet sounds,
    Is fit for treasons, stratagems, and spoils.”

Portia enters the moonlit garden and hears the gentle tones, not
knowing whence they come. She feels keenly the eternal magic of
invisible music which lies pillowed in silence and night. The whole
scene is a hymn on the infelt soul of musical self-centredness, wherein
man finds his best self.

So too, perhaps, stood Shakespeare by the spinet of his beloved, and
to his musical sense the tones and the love are blended together, his
loved one becoming transfigured into music:--

         “How oft when thou, my music, music playest,
         Upon that blessed wood whose motion sounds
         With thy sweet fingers, when thou gently swayest
         The wiry concord that mine ear confounds,
         Do I envy those jacks[4] that nimble leap
         To kiss the tender inward of thy hand,
         Whilst my poor lips, that should that harvest reap,
         At the wood’s boldness by thee blushing stand.
         To be so tickled, they would change their state
         And situation with those dancing chips,
         O’er whom thy fingers walk with gentle gait,
         Making dead wood more blessed than living lips.
             Since saucy jacks[4] so happy are in this,
             Give them thy fingers, me thy lips to kiss.”

 It is in the Elizabethan age that the clavier begins for the first
 time to play a part in the world. In the English clavier-music, as in
 all English music at that time, there is a ravishing bloom, which
 vanished just as quickly from the popular concerts, never to appear
 again. Circumstances combined to favour it. A certain repose, a
 dependence upon art came upon the London society of that day, and at
 such times art penetrates easily into the privacy of the home. For
 centuries had the Low Countries held the sway of music; but the art
 of tone, which had made its way thither under the stars of Dufay,
 Okeghem, and Josquin des Près, remained in the service of the Church.
 It represented the rapid development of contrapuntal vocal harmony,
 as it had slowly developed itself into music _per se_ from the
 figurations, which at the end of the tenth century began to found
 themselves on the _canto fermo_ of the Gregorian material. Around the
 Gregorian pillars there had arisen a mathematical system of rules and
 proportions; of musical vaultings, symmetries, and mouldings, in
 which the ordering world-spirit seemed to have realised itself. As
 yet, however, there was no melody whose contour was unifying; no
 harmony whose development was to be foreseen; no singing voice
 resting on the support of an accompaniment. The voices ran according
 to the laws of their _tempi_, all equally important from soprano to
 bass; and their harmony only aided in reducing them to an average.
 The _instrument_ of this great sacred music was the human voice, at
 first only the bearer of the tone, but then gradually here and there
 betraying a greater depth of feeling: and yet this great function of
 the voice had a value for expression which is not to be underrated.
 Even in this mathematical tone-system there lay the power of
 exhibiting nature as she is.

[Illustration: Orlando Gibbons. After Grignon’s engraving in Hawkins.]

 If art was to escape from these rudiments into more intimate circles,
 the appropriate social surroundings must be provided. _The home_ must
 develop.

 The public art of the Middle Ages had divided its favours between
 church and hall; it was in the church that counterpoint found its
 development; it was in the hall that the old popular song, without
 making special advance, maintained itself. The popular song ranged
 itself over against counterpoint, for it was pure melody, as we
 understand melody to-day, and it was well arranged as to rhythm in
 four or eight-bar “strains.”[5] In two ways, however, counterpoint
 and popular song might meet: the first might absorb the second, or
 _vice versa_. It is well known what took place when counterpoint
 absorbed the popular song: throughout the later Middle Ages popular
 songs, even the vulgarest, are taken up in masses or motets as
 motives for figures; nay, more, when they alternate, while the
 Gregorian _cantus_ holds its own alongside, church hymns are named
 after popular songs, and we stumble everywhere upon masses named
 after their underlying melody,[6] “L’homme armé,” “Malheur me bat,”
 “O Venus,” and the like. But, as might be expected, these are taken
 up utterly into the framework of the voice-mathematic; their peculiar
 aroma disappears; they are thrown into contrapuntal form. Far from
 betraying a worldly element, such as Ambrose conveyed under
 allegorical paintings of old landscape in religious pictures, they
 betray on the contrary a total absence of the secular sense. To them
 the content of the melody is so indifferent that they never once
 display it.

 [Illustration: Young Scholar and his Wife. Painting by Gonzales
 Coques (1614-1684), in the Royal Gallery at Cassel.]
 
 Secondly, the popular song on its own side stands apart from
 counterpoint. Since counterpoint is the recognised style of the time,
 popular song has no choice but to appropriate that means of
 expression. Hence arises the Madrigal, the most festive form of this
 appropriation, which sets popular themes to many parts, but with the
 utmost art. It exhausts all the requirements of better taste in
 secular music in the sixteenth century. Societies like the
 Arcadeltian[7] have resulted in an extraordinary growth of published
 material, and it is no mere accident that this process has continued
 in England, thanks to the exertions of a Madrigal Society, down to
 our own time. Yet the popular song was too opposed to the choral
 setting to feel itself at home in this form long and universally. It
 tended to unison or to the total absence of words; in the latter case
 it could still remain contrapuntal and became simply a tone-piece;[8]
 in the former the counterpoint existed, so to speak, simply at the
 pleasure of the melody, as it did in hundreds of old melodies
 throughout the world. These old popular songs, of remarkable origin
 in their plain melodious orderliness, became finally the precursors
 of modern music. While they marked the monodic principle, and gave to
 the expression the full value which it had in all early music, they
 accustomed the ears to the pleasure of the fully-outlined melody, and
 compelled the combination with this of an equally well-outlined
 harmony. Thus the way was prepared for the great discovery of the
 monodic opera, which arose in Florence about 1600.

 But in that wonderful drama, which the emancipation of the secular or
 popular principle in the music of the sixteenth century presents, the
 instrument appears as the second agent, with its greater freedom as
 contrasted with the human voice. Choral counterpoint penetrates into
 the music of the future in the two ways of the one-part song and of
 the instrumental polyphony, which form a quite natural whole. In
 proportion as vocal music became more individual and more full of
 soul, the absolute instrumental music gained in meaning. But we must
 mark two impulses which necessarily condition each other. As the
 one-part song was, so to speak, a victory of the logic of expression
 over the metaphysic of many-parts, so the latter also was a
 transference of counterpoint to the instrument.

 [In the late sixteenth century, counterpoint can scarcely be said to
 survive in any popular shape except that of the Catch or (endless)
 canon, the performance of which, when the complete melody is once
 learnt, is merely mechanical, and requires no great intelligence or
 attention from the singer. But to perform continuous contrapuntal
 music requires very great intelligence, and such concentrated
 attention as is seldom found in its perfection amongst mere singers.
 Instrumentalists therefore, as being superior in these indispensable
 qualities, were naturally called upon, first to assist, and then to
 displace the singers, who had allowed themselves to rest on their
 physical gifts rather than on the accomplishments of the
 intellect.][9] Thus it is the instrument which opens to the popular
 song and to the dance of the same kind, within the contrapuntal
 style, new paths of promise; and this principle of popular music,
 after it had held itself for a century in the almost neglected plain
 melody under the wintry covering of ecclesiastical counterpoint,
 becomes, in a moment, conscious of its immeasurable powers. Still,
 further, here there was the ground on which the popular song, so long
 differenced from counterpoint, gradually overcame it and was able to
 develop its principle freshly and clearly. In the opera we see it
 suddenly break with counterpoint; but this kind of art suffered by
 this suddenness, since it swung uneasily to and fro from the heights
 of the stage-reformation to the depths of virtuosity. Instrumental
 music escaped this sudden break, took up into itself counterpoint,
 transformed it out of itself, and passed on to meet a development far
 more regular and advancing with giant strides. What instrument, then,
 was best for the reproduction of the contrapuntal play of the voices?
 Next to choral song stood the organ, with its power of holding on its
 tones. Slowly, therefore, as we might expect, the organ steps into
 the contest with the church-choir. At first more clumsily, then more
 gently, its voices contrast and work into counterpoint. The organ
 also offers, as exchange for the sung chorus, direct transferences
 from motets of Josquin and Orlando Lasso. But so soon as the organ
 recollects that it is not vocal but an instrument, it begins--shall
 we say?--to run off into flourishes. All kinds of adornments and
 grace-notes start up, and finally the organist prides himself on
 departing utterly from the composer’s or author’s intention, and
 embroidering the theme at pleasure. A Prelude and a Fugue in this
 style appeared to the men of that time dreadful enough to linger
 over; as Hermann Finck writes, “they run sometimes by the half-hour,
 up and down over the key-board, trusting thus, with God’s help, to
 attain the highest, never asking where Dan Time, or Dan Accent, or
 Dan Tone, or Bona Fantasia, are staying in the meanwhile.” Further,
 when the organ had purified itself in the great epoch of German
 church-music, it had perforce to remain in the service of the Church.
 It felt the influence of the audience, which was brought into rhythm
 and harmony by the secular principle of music--that influence which,
 in the Protestant Choral and in the creations of Bach, made itself
 felt as a brilliant reaction of the secular musical sense on the
 church tradition.

 Alongside of the organ came the lute, which for so long had been the
 chief instrument of the home. Yet the lute, with its tones drawn from
 so few strings, was unable to show itself very productive. It had
 provided the accompaniment of songs, and music in many parts had very
 early been arranged for it.[10] At all times, therefore, the lute had
 imitated the contrapuntal style, though in simple fashion, and
 occasionally certain passages had been accented with chords thrown in
 arpeggio-wise. Whether the lute accompanied a voice, or whether it
 took up the popular melody into itself to produce “absolute” music,
 it exhibited a style of its own, conditioned by its own limitations,
 even as, alongside of the organ, it had its own note-script.[11] It
 was not convenient accurately to retain on the lute every separate
 voice. An instrumental style was formed; men became accustomed to the
 sufficiency of this simplicity of tone; dances were written for the
 lute, as Hans Judenkunig in his lute-book offers a “Court-dance,
 Panana[12] alla Veneziana, Rossina ein welscher Dantz” and the like.
 As time went on, all well-known pieces were arranged for the lute, as
 they are to-day for the piano. Encyclopædias appear--as for example
 in 1603 the “Thesaurus” in ten volumes of “Besardus nec non
 praestantissimorum musicorum, qui hoc seculo in diversis orbis
 partibus excellunt, selectissima omnis generis cantus in testudine
 (the lute) modulamina continens.” Graceful figurations arise, which
 in France and Italy receive fine names, while the German lute-player
 sets himself strongly against these complicated “battements,”
 “tremblements,” or “flattements,” against this or that “passagio
 largo,” “stretto,” “raddopiato.” But, on the whole, much as the lute
 achieved, it could not suffice to compel the complete admission of
 the whole musical material into the home.

 The heavy _churchiness_ of the organ and the light secularity of the
 lute were thus constrained to unite themselves in an instrument which
 was sufficiently flexible to effect the representation of all the
 voice parts at once yet more easily than in the choir, and which
 could embrace the whole tonic scale so completely as to expand the
 limits of the voice both above and below. It must be a light,
 moveable instrument, a miniature of the organ. The clavier offered
 itself for this end; and in it organ and lute met in fruitful
 wedlock.

 Such is the position and the meaning of the clavier in the great
 struggle for freedom of the secular music-principle which fills the
 sixteenth century. With this begins the history of the clavier, and
 simultaneously the history of the orchestra. The orchestra flourishes
 where the clavier flourishes, and _vice versa_. The combination of
 single instruments in a body, and that _one_ instrument which alone
 can represent that combination, are manifestations of the same
 movement, namely, of the transference of the church choral
 tone-practice into the sphere of the secular, where in place of the
 counterpoint which ran on by the hour, an interlaced system of
 harmonies, a strict organisation of melodies, gradually assumed the
 mastery. The orchestra occupied itself with public representations;
 the clavier with the advance of the new music in the home. Already,
 in Venice, had instruments taken their share with the singers in the
 church; now chamber-music also began to flourish. Later, in France,
 the court-orchestra gained a special significance, and very shortly
 the clavier also made its importance felt. In Naples the orchestra
 appears simultaneously with the Italian opera, and shortly afterwards
 arises Scarlatti with his clavier-pieces. In Old England the
 orchestra was regarded with a special affection; and thus it is that
 in England the clavier first flourishes.

 The early development of instrumental music in Venice cannot have
 been without its influence upon London, which not only cast an eye on
 the social and topographical aspect of the city of the lagoons, but
 also allowed itself to be consciously influenced by Italian culture.
 So early as 1512 we hear of Italian masques performed in the Palace
 at Greenwich; and when, in 1561, a tragedy by Lord Buckhurst[13] was
 performed with introductory pantomimes and orchestral music, we
 recognise the Venetian touch in the individual character of the
 instruments. In Act I. the violin, in Act II. horns, in Act III.
 flutes, in Act IV. oboes, in Act V. drums and pipes are set down.[14]
 The orchestra of Queen Elizabeth exhibits strong features of the
 mediæval physiognomy: there are sixteen trumpets (about equal to the
 number of the singers in the associated chorus) and three
 kettle-drums stand in close relation to them. It is the old official
 festival music once more. Eight violins, one lute, one harp, one
 bagpipe, two flutes, and three virginals are the relatively weaker
 supplanters of the more intimate orchestral type. The respective
 costliness appears from the account: the lute, £60; the violin, £20;
 the bagpipes, £12. The Italian operatic orchestra started on the
 opposite path, gradually getting rid of the stringed instruments and
 adopting wind. It was, however, very thin, and even in France the
 orchestra of the sixteenth century appears hardly more elaborate than
 a Papal orchestra of the fifteenth. It is the English orchestra that
 at this time stands at the head, not even the thirty instrumentalists
 of Munich being equal to it. Above all there seems to be growing a
 division of labour between orchestra and chamber-music, so much so
 that Prätorius, when in his great musical work (1618), he mentions
 such combinations of lute-choirs, calls this style of chamber-music
 especially English. “Die Engelländer nennens gar apposite à consortio
 ein consort,[15] wenn etliche Personen mit allerley Instrumenten, als
 Klavicymbel und Gross-spinett, grosse Lyra, Doppelharff, Lauten,
 Theorben, Bandorn, Penorcon, Zittern, Viol de Gamba, einer kleinen
 Diskant-Geig, einer Quer-Flöt oder Bock-Flöt, bisweilen auch einer
 stillen Posaun oder Racket zusammen in einer Compagny und
 Gesellschaft gar still, sanfft und lieblich accordiren, und in
 anmuthiger Symphonia mit einander zusammen stimmen.” Hence it appears
 that the orchestra and the chamber-music of old England were the
 chief things. In the former the wind prevailed, in the latter the
 strings; but the clavier had its place in both kinds. For the
 clavier, during many years, even when it had made good its position
 as a solo instrument, still took its part in orchestral combinations.
 Even in Hasse’s time the _Kapellmeister_ at Dresden sat at the
 clavier.

 Under such circumstances it is no wonder that the old English clavier
 should have flourished, or that it was in England that it first
 recognised its mission. The influence of this was great enough to
 bring about a speedy development on the continent. The cultivation of
 music was not only wide-spread, but also very ancient; so much so
 that the old musical writer Tinctor (1434-1520) expressly ascribes
 the origin of all contrapuntal music to England. The compositions of
 the thirteenth century were, in grace of melody, simplicity of
 rhythm, and modernity of harmony, far in advance of their age.
 (Compare the canon in six parts,[16] “Sumer is icumen in” of the Monk
 of Reading, before 1226.) It is noteworthy that the English possessed
 of old a popular, simple, melodious tendency in music which reminds
 us of Mendelssohn. This has made English music great and also small.
 Great, for at a time when the whole musical world struggled with the
 contrapuntal want of system in harmony and melody, the English were
 capable of preparing the way, in systematic, plastic form, for the
 new conquering secular principle. Small, because so soon as this
 principle became universally recognised, they laid themselves to
 sleep in the luxurious enjoyment of their tradition, and set up
 foreign ideals, such as Mendelssohn and Handel,[17] who were endowed
 with the like gifts.

 [Illustration: Lady at the Clavier. Painting by Dirk Hals (?1656), in
 the Rijksmuseum at Amsterdam.]

 Madrigals of Elizabeth’s time are so familiar to us that Dr Ambros, of
 Prague, could produce them in Prague with great success, drawing from
 J. J. Maier’s German collection. That free geniality of the English
 in its ancient dress, which conceals all triviality, overcomes us
 even to-day. With the clavier-pieces it is the same. We are charmed
 with the extreme simplicity of their musical form, and we love them
 because they come before us in an archaic dress. They exhale an aroma
 whose popular sweetness mingles beautifully with the slight harshness
 of their naïve style. Allowing ourselves a touch of triviality, we
 find ourselves wondering that these works seem to be quite outside
 their own time, and in the modernness of their spirit surpass even the
 renowned contemporary performances of Gabrieli and the other Venetians.

 In this London, the imitator and rival of Venice, we fall upon
 the first clavier-books that, as such, were ever collected in the
 world. Strictly speaking, they are not the absolute first. We
 read on the title-page of a collection of Chansons, Madrigals and
 Dances, issued at Lyons in 1560 by S. Gorlier: “Premier Livre de
 tablature d’Espinette.” We learn from Prätorius that the inscription,
 “For an Instrument,” which appears so often on old works, is not
 to be understood universally, but to be confined to the clavier.
 Nevertheless, it is in England that we first find in any numbers
 collections of expressly-marked clavier-pieces, springing from a
 special impulse of musical enthusiasm. First in interest stands the
 so-called Queen Elizabeth’s Virginal Book, one of the chief treasures
 of the Fitzwilliam Museum, lately transcribed into our own script for
 Breitkopf and Härtel. Granting that it may have been written after
 the time of Elizabeth, it yet, with its three hundred pieces, goes
 back to the earliest names of this school--Tallis, Bird, Farnaby,
 Bull. Next, in the library of the late Rimbault, an important English
 historian of music, we find, in manuscript, a Virginal Book of the
 Earl of Leicester, and another of Lady Nevill. Doubtless great lords
 and ladies had many manuscript collections of this kind, including
 copies of the favourite pieces of the day. But soon manuscript gave
 way to print. In 1611 appeared the first copper-engraved set of pieces
 ever seen in England. This was “Parthenia, or the Maydenhead of the
 first Musicke that ever was printed for the Virginalls. Composed by
 three famous masters: William Byrd, Dr John Bull, and Orl. Gibbons,
 Gentilmen of His Majestie’s most illustrious Chappell.” A modern
 edition of this collection was issued in 1847 by the indefatigable
 London Musical Antiquarian Society. From the materials collected by
 this Society Ernst Pauer, whose contributions to the history of the
 clavier have achieved a great repute, formed his collected edition of
 Old English Composers, which presents, in modernised form, special
 pieces by Bird, Bull, Gibbons, Blow, Purcell, and even Arne, who,
 though later, is not uninteresting.

 [Illustration: Title-page of the first English engraved Clavier Music,
 1611.]

 The pieces in these collections are of three kinds. First, free
 fantasias,[18] such as were also composed for organ and lute under
 the name of prelude, preamble, or even toccata (here denoting simply
 piece). In their essence fugal they are broken and intersected by
 florid passages. In the second class, a canto fermo was taken from
 a church melody, and developed after the approved fashion in fugal or
 figured style. Or, finally--and this is the most usual case, and the
 style most appropriate to the clavier--a number of variations, or even
 groups of variations, if the theme has several sections, are formed
 into a series. The theme itself is a popular song or dance. Popular
 songs, as they swept uncounted through England and Scotland, are
 inexhaustible. Even to-day they retain their freshness. To the whole
 piece they impart their tense and melodious rhythm. The dances--in
 common time called Pavans, in triple, Galliards--are frequently named
 after noblemen,[19] and are in their variations adorned with the same
 encomiastic flourishes as the songs.

 The clavier, for which these English musicians wrote their pieces, was
 of the kind called a virginal. The virginal was a peculiarly handy
 kind of spinet. It is not to be assumed that, after the quibbling and
 flattering fashion of the time, it was so called in compliment to the
 Maiden Queen. The name is older. Possibly it is due to the fact that
 the small size of the instrument made it specially suitable for young
 girls. We find scarcely any pictures of _men_ sitting at the clavier.
 In Italy the same name was in vogue; but we are not here concerned
 with the whole history of the nomenclature of old keyed instruments.
 We are only so far interested in the history of the instrument as
 it forms the basis for the rise of the _literature_, i.e. _style of
 composition_, which concerns us in its human aspect. The histories
 of the clavier, those of Rimbault, Oskar Paul, and others, place
 the history of the instrument in the foreground. Even Weitzmann has
 appended to the last edition of his “History of Clavier-Playing and
 Clavier-Literature,” a comprehensive chapter on this subject. But the
 history of the clavier is a very complicated matter if we are tedious
 on it, and a very simple matter if, without becoming inexact, we are
 brief upon it.

 It is a union of the harp with the mechanism of key-action. Harps, in
 which the strings are plucked with the plectrum, are in some form or
 other as old as music itself, and appear in the most various shapes in
 the first dawn of civilisation. The mechanism of the keyboard, which
 by means of an easy leverage adapted to the human fingers, gives the
 player control over the sounds of pipes or strings, is not quite so
 ancient, since it presumes a certain inventive capacity; but it is
 old enough to be equally beyond our chronological powers. In Europe
 we find keyed organs as early as the first centuries after Christ.
 The application of this action to stringed instruments was completed
 in the monochord. The monochord, an instrument well-known to the
 earliest theoretical musicians, was a board with a string stretched
 across it on which the intervals could be clearly marked and sounded
 by mathematical division: the half marking the octave above the pitch
 of the whole length of the string; the third part of it giving a fifth
 above that octave; the quarter part giving a fourth above that fifth,
 namely a note two octaves above the pitch of the whole string; the
 fifth part sounding a major third above the last named note, viz., a
 seventeenth above the pitch of the whole length; and so on.

 The simple monochord developed itself after the tenth century in
 two directions, the musical and the technical. Its development was
 musical, inasmuch as three or four strings took the place of the _one_
 in order to produce a chord instead of a simple arpeggio; an aim
 which the church music attained by the multiplication of instruments
 sounding only one note each at a time. It was technical, inasmuch as,
 in place of the constant alteration of the “bridge” which divided the
 string, _keys_ were introduced, which not only divided the string
 at the desired spot, by a flat metal pin (called “tangent” from its
 action in simply “touching” against the wire), but also caused it
 to sound. With twenty keys and only a few strings, of course it was
 necessary for several keys to divide the same string, and to sound
 it at different points in its length; whereby the simultaneous
 sounding of several notes was brought into the proper limits. Though
 thus really many-stringed, the instrument still retained its name of
 _mono_chord. Gradually the number of keys increased, and in increasing
 proportion the number of strings, which still remained of equal
 length. About the year 1450, probably, the clavier attained this, its
 earliest form of the monochord. It served an educational purpose.
 Virdung, Abbot of Amberg, who in 1511 published his German “Music with
 Illustrations,” is our authority for the development of the monochord
 up to the first true clavier-form--that of the _clavichord_--which is
 nothing more nor less than the many-stringed many-keyed “monochord”
 which we have just described. The self-contradictory “mono” was
 rejected, and ‘_clavi_’ substituted (Lat. _clavis_, a key). The
 _clavis_ is the key which in the organ admits the wind to the pipes,
 in the clavier sets the strings in motion.

 [Illustration: From the Weimar “Wunderbuch,” a Clavichord of about
 1440. One of the oldest representations.]

 [Illustration: From the Weimar “Wunderbuch,” Primitive Spinet, of
 about 1440. One of the oldest representations.]

 The clavichord introduced a new means of “expression,” viz., the
 “Bebung” (trembling, shivering), which could be applied to any of the
 notes by a gentle after-pressure of the key, a mournful, soul-moving
 _vibrato_, which was only possible with the peculiar mechanism of
 the clavichord, where a “tangent” both divided the string and at the
 same moment instantaneously created the sound. A slight relaxation
 of this pressure on the key caused a slight lowering of pitch; a
 slight renewal of pressure a corresponding heightening. The German
 players of the eighteenth century could scarcely find it in their
 hearts to resign this delicate effect, even for the advantages of the
 modern pianoforte. Here for the first time the keyboard mechanism
 had succeeded in producing a modification of the tones by “touch”
 alone, and the keyed instrument had gained its soul. How confined were
 the old eight keys of the Hurdygurdy,[20] the favourite instrument
 till the rise of the lute, where the strings were strained against a
 rosined wheel turned by a crank (a sort of everlasting fiddle-bow),
 while the keys divided the strings into notes--an antiquated
 compromise between clavier and violin! How clumsy was the treatment of
 the organ-keys so late as the fourteenth century, in which, according
 to Prätorius, the keys were struck with the fist! But from this time
 the art of mechanics develops quickly, and the rapid increase of the
 number of keys in the clavichord shows us how speedily its supremacy
 was attained. The fall of the key was shallow, the quick-sounding
 tone encouraged ornamental flourishes, which were more easily played
 on the clavichord than on our heavy-touched pianoforte. Yet it was
 long before the number of strings became equal to that of the keys.
 Not till the eighteenth century (about 1725) do we find clavichords
 with a string to every key. (These are called _free_ instruments, in
 contra-distinction to the old _tied_.)[21] It is obvious that the
 “tied” clavichords did not admit of _all_ chords; but those which were
 impossible were discords, avoided on other grounds by the older music.
 To sound C and D flat together was impossible; but no one complained,
 for no one, for reasons of style, wished to try it. But, on very
 old clavichords, C and E are also incapable of being simultaneously
 sounded--a fact which gives us many a hint for the criticism of the
 oldest pieces.

 In the form of a simple case, fit to be laid on the table, and later
 when fitted with its own stand, frequently painted on top and sides,
 or with its keys set in ivory and metal, the clavichord continues to
 the beginning of the nineteenth century. Although the strings were
 then duplicated, although it was possible to attain in the touch
 stronger or weaker, louder or softer, expression, yet it could not,
 with its far too great simplicity of tone, hold its place in the
 rapidly hurrying development of music. It had taken one thousand years
 to improve the monochord, five hundred more to produce a clavichord,
 two hundred and fifty more were required to bring the clavicymbal[22]
 form to its perfection; and yet a hundred and fifty for the
 clavicymbal to emerge into a Steinway or a Bechstein.

 The _clavicymbal_ represents a second form of the clavier, which
 begins its career about 1400. Its invention is directly due to
 the influence of the organ. When the clavier began to replace the
 organ in the home, a desire was felt for the stronger notes of the
 great wind-instrument. The clavichord was unequal to the task. A
 new technique was required. The strings, instead of being touched
 and divided, were plucked with quills, which stood out at the side
 from the jacks, at the end of the key-lever. For this purpose it was
 necessary of course that the strings should be tuned each to its
 proper note, and therefore have each its due length. The mechanism of
 plucking, and the measurement of the strings, give to the clavicymbal
 its character as distinct from the clavichord. The tone becomes
 rippling, metallically glittering, firm and yet rattling; nay, it
 might be called romantic, if it could sustain its poetical air, which
 it gains for us in the first instance by its strange character. But
 it was a defect that the tone was unsuitable for _nuances_; for,
 unlike the clavichord, it was unable to produce _forte_, _piano_,
 or the “Bebung.” Here a hint was taken from the organ. Stops, as
 with the organ, were added; these, as they were drawn out or pushed
 in, made it possible to use either one, two, or three strings on
 any single key, thus offering three gradations from piano to forte.
 Or, by the same means of a stop, a damper of leather or cloth was
 put on the strings, and thus an imitation of the lute was effected.
 Or, thirdly, both these appliances were united by providing two
 keyboards placed one over the other, on which at will the player
 could play loud or soft. Hence arose dozens of combinations. Strings
 were coupled in unison or octave, registers were made either for hand
 or foot, keyboards were made to shift, the shapes of the cases were
 either rectangular or in the “flügel” form (like our grand pianos)
 to accommodate the gradual shortening of the strings as they reached
 the higher octaves, the cases were either small, or larger, and
 furnished with magnificent stands, such as were brought out by the
 first famous clavier-manufactory, that of the Ruckers at Antwerp, who
 flourished at the end of the sixteenth century; there were almost as
 many names as shapes. Those with smaller cases were called Virginals,
 those in the shape of a swine’s head were called Spinets (“Spinet”
 referring to the plectrum of quill); while the larger instruments
 were “Clavi-cymbals” (cembalo, a “dulcimer”; though the clavicymbal
 was a _harp-with-keys_, not by any means a dulcimer, which is the
 progenitor of the pianoforte, a very different matter), or in Italy
 “Gravicymbels,” in England “Harpsichords,” in France “Clavecins.”
 The keyboard, at first incomplete in the lower “short” octave,[23]
 gradually spread itself over three or even five octaves. The fulness
 of tone was greater, but the touch necessarily heavier than of old.
 The new instrument was unsuited for the quick development of a natural
 system of “fingering.”

 [Illustration: A Concerted Performance. Engraved by H. Goltzius
 (1558-1617).]

 The technique of clavier-playing advanced but slowly from the mere
 tapping of the finger-ends to the dexterity of to-day, which lays
 under contribution the whole arm as far as the elbow. In the first
 clavier and organ “school,” which was published by Girolamo Diruta in
 Venice about 1600, and which bears the title, “Il Transilvano, sopra
 il vero modo di sonare organi e stromenti di Penna,” are already to
 be found rules for the use of the fingers, for the holding of the
 hands, and as to the differences of organ and clavier-playing; but
 fifty years later, according to Weitzmann, Lorenzo Penna,[24] in his
 “Albori musicali,” knows no other rules than that the hand should be
 raised high, and that, as the right ascends the scale and the left
 descends, the third and fourth fingers should be alternately used,
 and _vice versa_ with the third and second. Old pictures confirm this
 statement. In England we meet notable examples of the influence of
 this Italian fingering. The thumb, as the finger that passes under the
 others, is still for a long time an _enfant terrible_. The technique
 is still that of the zither, simply transferred to keys. It is not
 till the time of Bach that the special technique of percussion springs
 into existence.

 It is astonishing to see what feats were attempted by the old English
 masters of the virginal in spite of their scanty means. We feel
 how they love this instrument, which, in spite of itself, pointed
 out to them the way to the Promised Land of music, namely, to the
 stiff rhythm and arrangement of the secular music. For example, we
 actually find in the virginal books pieces by the famous Amsterdam
 organist, Sweelinck, and arrangements of compositions by Orlando
 Lasso, as well as all kinds of transcriptions of Italian works; but
 the gems are the variations on popular songs and the dances. In the
 contemporary virginal music of Venice this relation is reversed. There
 the Ricercari (pieces for lute, organ, or harpsichord, displaying the
 tricks of counterpoint), the Toccatas, the Preambles, are overlaid by
 the heavy, clumsy harmonies of the Middle Ages; they stagger about in
 uncertain syncopations, dabbling with 5/4 time, and confused with the
 most intricate figurations. It is only towards the end[25] that they
 yield a clear formal idea. Not until the younger Gabrieli do we see
 rhythm more clearly defined.

 In England, however, the fruitful songs and dances admit none of
 these flabby harmonies; all the ornamentation of the variations is
 accommodated to the simple fabric of the piece; the clear melody is
 allied with an equally clear harmony; and they are woven, by the quick
 and light tone of the virginal, into a musical movement which, in
 order to live, must include a thousand delicately elaborated _nuances_
 of thought.

 Compared with the lute dances, which necessarily retained the
 stiffness of their fabric, there is here a blossoming field, a
 veritable new world. The organ gives the voice parts their character,
 the lute supplies their tone-colour, but the child of these two
 parents has its own standing and its own future.

 About 1500 we meet with the first Old English clavier-pieces, as well
 as Aston’s Hornpipe, a variation on a popular song. A manuscript
 collection in the British Museum, known as the “Mulliner Book”
 (Mulliner was a master in St Paul’s School), offers us the earliest
 specimens of clavier-works of this kind, by various masters, from
 the middle of the sixteenth century. Many of the pieces by Thomas
 Tallis, the old master of this school, are exceedingly rhythmical.
 He was organist under four reigns--those of Henry VIII., Edward VI.,
 Mary and Elizabeth. There is a canon in two parts, in lines which
 can be grasped at a glance, and which makes full use of sequential
 repetitions--a sure sign, from the early times of church music, of
 the advancing rhythmical consciousness. Gradually there is added to
 the canon a running bass, which at first sounds twice, and finally
 rolls forth quite unhindered, rendering the whole picture easily
 grasped by the eye. The unaided eye indeed, in these old pieces, is a
 good judge. Without being preoccupied by the archaism, which perhaps
 wearies the ear, it detects the intellectual art of the composer, as
 it were, at a certain distance. It observes the great and small curves
 of the voice-contours, sees the succession of the canonic themes,
 notices the parentheses in which long passages are confined, and the
 delight of the composer in the clearness of the pattern. It is indeed
 as a finely-sewn, carefully-fashioned pattern that we see an exercise
 of this kind, simply worked out, but richly adorned with broken
 chords--such, for example, as the figuration of the “Felix namque”
 which Tallis has as the third piece in the Fitzwilliam Virginal-Book.
 The _nuances_ of the accompaniment rejoice in their ornamental
 existence.

 William Bird, the pupil of Tallis, whose life reaches from 1538 or
 1546 to 1623, would be reckoned as the father of modern piano-music,
 if only this English school had exerted some influence on art, and did
 not stand so isolated in musical history. We shall call him the first
 of the clavier-masters. Both organist and singer in the Royal Chapel,
 where both services were alternately demanded from all the adult
 musicians, he had a considerable interest in the monopoly of music
 printing and of the music paper duty which was granted by Elizabeth
 first to Tallis and then to him. A happy man he was not; he appears
 to have suffered more than most in the religious persecutions of the
 time. We have hardly a word in the authorities as to the hours of work
 of these old musicians; but indirectly we learn from the Act against
 Rogues and Vagabonds that private instruction was a not unusual
 _parergon_ of the musicians.

 [Illustration: Page from “Parthenia,” the first English engraved
 Clavier Music, 1611.]

 Prosniz, the collector of all clavier-literature, in his “Handbuch
 der Klavierlitteratur”--a work not to be implicitly relied on--calls
 Bird’s music coarse and tasteless. Weitzmann agrees, saying that it
 is composed with intelligence and art, but heavy and without soul.
 But this is the fate of all transition styles. If we observe, from
 the standpoint of modern music, the traces of the old style, as for
 instance the change of time and the “flabbiness” of the harmony
 in the Fantasia, which comes eighth in the Virginal Book, or the
 cross-passages in the interesting Piece 60, they are indeed coarse
 and tasteless. But we must endeavour in such things to put aside the
 modern point of view. Mediæval music is not a preliminary step to
 the modern, but something quite different. It is pictorial, as the
 other is plastic. If we would hear their “molluscous” harmonies, and
 their indistinctness of rhythmical arrangement, we must lay aside
 the rhythmical canons of modern music; we must accept the molluscous
 nature and want of distinctness as something purposed, and we must
 follow without preoccupation this web of voices, enjoying it note by
 note. The piece is so delicate, so quite in colour, that the last
 note is a shock to us. In fact, the conclusion of these pieces, with
 its formal clash, under which the harmonies and voices assemble
 themselves in a stiff group, is a contradiction to their inmost being,
 a desertion of the pictorial principle and--in a word--the germ of
 the coming style. In a greater degree than we can bring ourselves
 to believe, the ultra-modern expression-music is allied to this
 conception of the art of tone.

 It is true that we justly judge Bird chiefly from the modern point
 of view, since we are investigating the progress of history, and
 therefore work for the new, the developing, rather than for the old.
 But it is precisely from this point of view that he presents such
 surprises that we are not at first able to form a decisive opinion
 about him. I find a quiet pleasure in observing his harmonies, which
 are felt rather than calculated, as, for example, the sudden D major
 chord in the famous song, “John, come kiss me now” (Virginal Book,
 No. 10), and in studying the delicate parallel legato passages,
 the gradual change of melody, the growing complexity, the unusual
 variations, the alternation of hands, the rhythmical developments. In
 the ninth variation there run together plain quavers, dotted quavers,
 and the melody above all.

 New suggestions, aroused by the clavier, are constantly being
 introduced. Prelude xxiv. has a stiff structure. The Passamezzo-Pavan
 and Galliard (Nos. 56 and 57) present broken chords as a genuine
 clavier-motif, and the most delicate canonic repetitions by means of
 a thematic modulation from the key of F to that of G. Very neat is
 the descending D C A in the seventh galliard-variation alternating
 with E D B. Bird is particularly fond of writing a passage based on a
 chord of F, and immediately followed by another based on G. This is
 akin to the practice of the drone in bagpipes, and has analogy with
 the ancient “Pes,” or “pedal” two-part vocal accompaniment in “Sumer
 is icumen in.” The similarity to the bagpipe drone is rather striking
 in “The woods so wild” (Fitzwilliam Virginal Book, No. 67) or in “The
 Bells,” where the lower bell voices repeat themselves in a way that
 reminds us of the pedal bass of Chopin’s Berceuse.

 The rich technique of “Fortune” (No. 65), the wealth of figures in “O
 Mistress Mine” (No. 66), the harmonies of the Passamezzo dances (Nos.
 56 and 57), cling to the memory. But chief are his two most modern
 clavier-pieces--the variations on “The Carman’s Whistle” (No. 58) and
 “Sellinger’s Round” (No. 64, where the piece is complete, not abridged
 as in Pauer’s edition). These have often been issued in popular form,
 and in Pauer’s collection are provided with modern execution marks.

 “The Carman’s Whistle” is a perfected popular melody, one of those
 tunes which will linger for days in our ears. At the beginning of the
 third and fourth bars Bird sets the first and second bars in canon,
 in the simplest and most straightforward style. Next come harmonies
 worthy of a Rameau, with the most delicate passing notes. In the
 variations certain figures are inserted which are easily worked into
 the canonic form, now legato with the charm of the introduction of
 related notes, now diatonic scales most gracefully introduced, now
 staccato passages which draw the melody along with them like the
 singing of a bird. Finally fuller chords appear, gently changing the
 direction of the theme. From first to last there is not a turn foreign
 to the modern ear.

 The “Sellinger’s Round” is more stirring. Its theme is in a swinging
 6/8 rhythm, running easily through the harmonies of the tonic, the
 super-dominant and the sub-dominant. It strikes one like an old
 legend, as in the first part of Chopin’s Ballade in F major, of which
 this piece is a prototype. The first variation retains the rhythm and
 only breaks the harmonies. Its gentle fugalisation is more distinctly
 marked in the third variation, which at the conclusion adopts
 running semiquavers, after Bird’s favourite manner, anticipating
 at the conclusion of the one variation the motive of the next. The
 semiquavers go up and down in thirds, or are interwoven by both hands,
 while melody and accompaniment continue their dotted 6/8, in a fashion
 reminding us of Schumann. In the later variations the quaver movement
 is again taken up, but more florid and more varied with runs which
 pursue each other in canon. This piece, perhaps the first perfect
 clavier-piece on record, which had left its time far behind, was
 written in 1580.

 Alongside of William Bird stands Dr John Bull (1563-1628). These two
 represent the two types which run through the whole history of the
 clavier. Bird, the more intimate, delicate, spiritual intellect; Bull,
 the untamed genius, the flashing executant, the restless madcap,
 the rougher artist. It is noticeable how these two types stand thus
 together on the very threshold of the clavier-art.

 John Bull, at nineteen, became organist of Hereford Cathedral, and
 at twenty-two a member of the Royal Chapel. In the following year
 he becomes Bachelor of Music of Oxford, three years later Doctor of
 Music of both Oxford and Cambridge. When, in 1596, Sir Thomas Gresham
 founded his College in London, he was made Professor in Music, and
 that without (as the statute demanded) lecturing in Latin. But he
 held this post no more than five years. We find him, “on grounds of
 health,” travelling in foreign countries. His playing created the
 greatest enthusiasm. The French, the Spanish, and the Austrian courts
 were in a furore. Like all later executants, he is the subject of
 myths. There is an anecdote that a kapellmeister of St Omer showed
 him, as an extraordinary curiosity, a piece in forty parts.[26] Bull,
 nothing daunted, added another forty parts to it. The kapellmeister
 stares, and takes him for the devil himself. After an absence of six
 years he returned to England, where, like his satanic prototype, he
 resists all authority. He resigned all academic positions, threw up
 his post in the Royal Chapel, and in 1613 again set out, without
 permission, for the Continent. Four years later he emerges as organist
 of Notre Dame in Antwerp, where he died in 1628.

 [Illustration: John Bull, at the age of 26, after Caldwall’s engraving
 in Hawkins.]

 From these few biographical notices we figure him as a restless
 ambitious spirit. As the peaceful life of a mediæval painter is to
 the splendid existence of the seventeenth century artists, so is
 the relation of Bird to Bull. And Bull’s works exhibit many of the
 lineaments of an elegant _faiseur_.[27] He is not so fond as Bird
 of the primeval freshness of the popular songs and dances, nor does
 he work out his pieces with Bird’s virgin purity. The side-issue is
 often with him the main object; the figuration is often licentious,
 and both hands vie in the performance of the closest and most
 difficult passages. Often, indeed, his pieces assume a grotesque
 appearance, hard and antiquated harmonies, in which the leading note
 is conspicuous by its absence, being crossed with runs in semiquavers,
 dotted rhythms, rapidly intruded chords, four-fold imitations,
 syncopated grace-notes, mingled two and three-time passages in wild
 and bewildering confusion. The eye looks as it were on a specimen
 of Indian ornamentation, in which, among the confused lines, a pure
 human feature is almost indistinguishable. From the first piece of
 the Fitzwilliam Virginal Book, Bull’s thirty “Walsingham” Variations,
 which later Bird treats so much more simply, the executant shines out
 in his whole personality. There are thirty studies on figure motives
 which in Bird are reduced to a dozen. The semiquavers run like will
 of the wisps in their most unsubstantial courses, resembling endless
 chains, which are here and there interrupted with leaps of a sixth
 or seventh, to knit them together in the self-same run higher up or
 lower down. The ornamentation is richer than with Bird, melting in
 its _sfumato_[28] the lines of the voice almost after the manner of
 Couperin. The clavier, even more than the organ, lent itself, with its
 isolated tones, to such trills, slurs, and mordents,[29] which give to
 the sound an apparently longer existence. It is these that, down to
 the time of the German classical music, give the stamp to the special
 physiognomy of the clavier-piece. I called them just now _sfumato_.
 As in painting the sharp outline of the body gradually gives way
 to greater truth to nature, and in Lionardo is replaced by the
 specifically pictorial obliteration of the _sfumato_, by which, so to
 speak, we see round the corners; so the ornamentation in these pieces,
 in which the clavier is seeking its own means of expression, assumes
 the habit of obliterating its thin outlines until finally the figures
 thus obtained regulate the lines of the melody as a fixed motif, or
 even become an end in themselves. It takes an inner effort before we
 can transplant ourselves into this old world of ornamentation. We must
 learn to feel it as it would be played by the old masters: we must,
 if possible, play it ourselves on old and lightly-responding spinets.
 Our heavy and serious pianos are unsuitable to them; they sound too
 forcibly and harshly. The average pianist cannot play them; and hence,
 in his new edition, Pauer has for the most part cut them out.

 Doctor Bull’s flying fingers, utterly altering as they did many a
 church-tune and many a dance, were constantly making discoveries among
 the clavier-figures, just as the worst of executants has since done.
 Thus, in Bull’s somewhat bewildering forest, we find many a germ of
 future wealth: broken triads, which even in the contrary motion of
 both hands delight us in the midst of all kinds of consecutive fifths;
 broken octaves, of which Beethoven was so fond, a greater frequency
 of the crossing of the hands, by which the voice-part gained a wider
 field, and finally endless repetitions of the same note, either singly
 or in the middle of a passage,--this last a genuine clavier-device,
 for which later the new repeating mechanism was invented. Also, in
 harmonic relation, Bull seeks out many novelties, boldly bending the
 voice-part to his will; as he does in the truly stupendous Prelude
 No. 43, in the Virginal Book, or in the bold enharmonic modulation
 in Piece 51, an exercise in DO, RE, MI, FA, SOL, LA, a theme which
 appears a tone higher at each repetition, starting from G, in the
 midst of close figuration, until the C sharp simply changes to D flat.

 There is a Lute Book of Bull’s in Vienna which gives us pieces like
 the following: “Miserere Mei,” “Galliard,” “La chasse du Roy,” “Salve
 Regina,” “Canon perpetuus, carens scriptura, notulis in systemati
 positis scriptus,” and so on. Let us not think too badly of them.
 The Virginal Book also has a variegated collection. In the time of
 variations, “variatio delectat,” there are collections for household
 use, which are not necessarily an indication of a want, on the part of
 the originator, of the sense of the characteristic in an instrument.
 At this epoch the instrument delivers men from the mediæval love of
 grouping instruments. And I even find that Bull in certain pieces has
 shown a noteworthy sense for characteristic. He has once a simple
 bag-pipe melody e f e d e f d c, called “Les Buffons,” with a series
 of variations in humorous style. There are at first chords with simple
 broken accompaniment, then hopping semiquaver figures, then a popular
 canon, then slurred sixths, and similarly right on to the conclusion,
 which is as usual fully harmonised, in the turns of which, of course,
 his want of plasticity, as contrasted with Bird, is clearly shown.
 More striking still is the working out of his best-known piece, the
 variations on the fresh delightful song, the “King’s Hunt,” giving
 us a romantic reminiscence of horns and trumpets. Something of this
 romance runs through his figures. He uses the horn-motive of the
 second part specially for a longer variation, which is simple and full
 of character. The flourish of runs in quavers, which he also uses in
 Galliard No. 17 of the Virginal Book, and the systematic answering of
 right-hand chords by the left hand, which appears also in Galliard 11,
 are here specially characteristic. We seem to see tramping horses and
 waving flags delineated in ancient technique. He was specially good
 in such hunting pieces. On the musical side, as his somewhat awkward
 variations on the fine “Jewel,” though among his best pieces, clearly
 show, he cannot be compared to the magical Bird; but his sense for
 characteristic and for technique has aided the advance of the clavier.
 Both of these superiorities are parts of his nature, which expressed
 itself most completely in this style. The clavier needed both types.

 [Illustration: Henry Purcell, 1658-1695.]

 The most characteristic and notable piece of this school is the third
 in the Virginal Book, a Fantasia by John Munday, which represents no
 less a phenomenon than the changes of the weather. Over its sections,
 which have no thematic connection, but have various distinctions
 of rhythm--_e.g._, quietly moving semibreves and minims; jerky
 dotted quavers interspersed with semiquaver rests; extensive runs in
 semiquavers, etc.--he writes in this succession four times each, “Fine
 Weather,” “Lightning,” and “Thunder.” Instead of “fine” appears once
 “warm” weather; and a slow passage, marked “a clear day,” forms the
 conclusion. The characterisation is of course extremely superficial,
 and the last time the lightning rolls just like the thunder. But this
 novelty, as a symptom, ought not to be overlooked. It reveals to us
 the consciousness of characteristic, and the increasingly intimate
 character of the clavier. Technically, Bull inaugurated a school.
 Of the various authors of the Virginal Book, Ferdinand Richardson
 (who exhibits pure part-writing), Giles Farnaby, Orlando Gibbons,
 Peter Philips, to a large extent follow his footsteps. Farnaby thus
 early writes pieces for two virginals; he darts, in the midst of
 his technique, through a graceful “Spagnioletta,” and often lights
 on interesting modern passing chords, as, for example, running
 upwards, b, f sharp, d, a, where a follows b and c d. In the use of
 chords Peter Philips (who arranges many pieces of Orlando Lassus
 in the Virginal Book) stands in the first rank. In the Pavan (No.
 76), which is dated 1592, he has in the conclusion[30] unheard-of
 simple alternating triads; in the Galliard he deals with the most
 beautiful suspended chords; and in the “Galiarda Dolorosa” (No. 81) he
 introduces chromatic colouring.[31] We can perceive how much he must
 have learnt on his Italian and Dutch travels from the flourishing art
 of the Continent. The spirit of Bird does not exert so powerful or so
 enduring an influence as that of Bull. The anonymous Piece 14 of the
 Virginal Book is a famous Alman (German dance), which in the severity
 of its subject reminds us of Bird, and its working-out is done by
 means of single-note passages of melodious motive.

 [Illustration: The so-called “Hand” of Guido of Arezzo, with an early
 and extensively used diagram of the scale-notation.]

 In their clearness of arrangement and harmonious development, so far
 as they do not deal with dance or song, the majority of the pieces
 of the Virginal Book are marked by the spirit of the Toccata of the
 great Dutchman Sweelinck, which appears as Piece 96. Here the spirit
 of Bach is seen before its time. Gradually the distinctive edges of
 individuality fade away. A piece by Thomas Morley on the theme, “Goe
 from my window,” whose melody he himself partially employs again in
 his “Nancie,” appears again almost unaltered in the same Virginal
 Book, and is then ascribed to John Munday. With John Blow, Henry
 Purcell, Thomas Augustine Arne, in the following generations,[32]
 English clavier music blends with the general Continental stream,
 till it is absorbed and must seek its nourishment from without.


     [1] The Cor Anglais is mentioned here as expressing a
     tone-colour which is entirely foreign to the pianoforte.
     This instrument is the alto hautboy. Its name is a curious
     instance of a “ghost” word, viz.: in its original meaning,
     “Cor anglé,” a bent or “angled” tube, German “Krummhorn,”
     it was misunderstood and explained as Cor Angl_ais_, Corno
     Inglese, English Horn.

     [2] Readers who do not know the picture must not be misled
     by this expression. St Jerome’s window-frames are filled
     with numberless little rounds of bottle-glass.

     [3] The bagpipers play before Othello’s house, and the
     clown reproves their nasal tone. Othello himself gave them
     money to go away, which argues rather in his favour. As for
     Caliban, he was a true musician, except when drunk. Even
     then he liked howling catches. See especially Tempest, Act
     iii. 2, 136.

     [4] This passage is the only one in Shakespeare where the
     slightest inaccuracy or looseness in the use of a technical
     word is to be noticed. The word “jacks” is here used
     carelessly, meaning the “keys,” over which of course the
     fingers walk, and which leap up to kiss the inward of the
     hand. The actual “jacks” are _inside_ the instrument.

     [5] _Cf._ Shakespeare on “eight-bar strains.” See
     “Shakespeare and Music” (Dent), by E. W. Naylor.

     [6] Readers to whom this ancient method of composition
     is new will find in Mendelssohn’s “St Paul,” an easily
     accessible example, viz.: the chorus “But our God abideth
     in Heaven,” where the second trebles sing in long notes the
     old melody of the Apostles’ Creed. No one could recognise
     it in the midst of the counterpoint of the other vocal
     parts, and this is the point in question; namely, that the
     mediæval writers used secular tunes in the same way, and
     were held blameless.

     [7] Named after Jacques Arcadelt, of the early sixteenth
     century, one of the many natives of Flanders who so
     distinguished that period of Madrigal composition; a
     first-rate man.

     [8] Doubtless the author refers to the tendency in
     the sixteenth century for voice parts to be made
     interchangeable with instrumental parts. Many instances
     might be given both in Italy and England, _e.g._ if a
     tenor voice were absent, the part was played by a tenor
     instrument, viol, cornetto, trombone, or what not. This
     was the more easily made habitual since instrumental
     accompaniment merely consisted in doubling the vocal parts.

     [9] This paragraph replaces some rather obscure sentences
     in the original, and aims at conveying their general sense.

     [10] An excellent book, which ought to be known widely,
     containing many examples of early lute music, is W. G. v.
     Wasielewski’s History of sixteenth century instrumental
     music. Berlin, 1878.

     [11] Meaning the “Tablature,” a system of writing music
     for the lute which has nothing in common with our “staff”
     notation. A set of six horizontal lines (representing six
     strings), was used, and letters (_a_, _b_, _c_, etc.) on
     these indicated the semitones, reckoning _a_ as the “open
     string,” _b_ as the semitone above that, and so on, for
     each separate string.

     [12] Another spelling for Pavana, or Pavan, slow dance in
     square time.

     [13] The play was _Gorboduc_, otherwise _Ferrex and
     Porrex_. The author is better known as Thomas Sackville.

     [14] See “Shakespeare and Music,” pp. 169-171, for other
     English examples.

     [15] “The English call it quite appositely by the name
     ‘Consort’ (from Latin consortium) when several persons with
     various instruments, such as ... etc. ... play together in
     sweet concord with one another.”

     [16] It is misleading to say “in six parts.” There are six
     voices, but the canon proper only takes four. The other two
     sing, independently of the canon, a “bussing bass,” founded
     alternately on Do and Re.

     [17] In the early seventeenth century it was matter of
     complaint in England that “French songs” and instrumental
     music “in the Italian manner” were more popular than
     necessary.

     [18] These were also called by the plain English name
     “fancies.”

     [19] When Sir Toby says to the caper-cutting Sir Andrew: “I
     did think, by the excellent constitution of thy leg, it was
     formed _under the star_ of a galliard,” may he not refer to
     one of these dedications of dances to noblemen?

     [20] _Drehleier._ The instrument referred to is of the
     ninth century.

     [21] _Bundfrei_ and _gebunden_, the former only was capable
     of striking any combination of notes at once--_e.g._, four
     or five adjacent semitones.

     [22] One of the many names of what we know best as
     “harpsichord.”

     [23] What were known as “short octaves” were to be seen
     almost in our own time in certain old organs. For three
     centuries the following or a similar arrangement was
     practised. Supposing the lowest notes of the keyboard ran
     thus: E, F, F sharp, G, G sharp, the first E being that
     under the bass staff. But when the E key was put down, the
     note _sounded_ was the C a third below; when the F sharp
     key was played, the resulting note was the D below; the G
     sharp key produced the low E, which should have had its
     own key to itself. Thus the keyboard, which apparently
     stopped at E under the bass staff, really had D and C
     below, arranged to sound on two other keys. So to produce a
     diatonic scale beginning from the low C of the violoncello,
     the keys actually played had to be: E, F sharp, G sharp, F,
     G, etc., which would produce C, D, E, F, G, etc.

     [24] Penna’s name should not be connected with the word
     “Penna” in the title of Diruta’s book, where it merely
     means “quill,” and “stromenti di Penna” = “harpsichords.”

     [25] This is also the case with the English variations. The
     last one is commonly the most valuable and convincing.

     [26] It is right to mention here that Thomas Tallis
     actually did write a motet in forty parts, “Spem in alium
     non habui,” which, thanks to the enthusiasm of Dr Mann of
     Cambridge, has been published (1888), and performed in
     public on more than one occasion during the last few years.

     [27] Meaning a “manufacturer” of show pieces.

     [28] _Sfumato_ means “smoky,” and refers, in painting, to
     the blurring of the outlines.

     [29] The mordent is a grace where the main note is
     alternated rapidly with the note below.

     [30] This is a really fine passage, and (by the way) bears
     every mark of the madrigal for double chorus.

     [31] The passage has four times over a chromatic scale
     of six notes, _every note_ properly harmonised. Neither
     Purcell (a century later) nor Bach (later still) could have
     done it better.

     [32] The author here makes a startling leap of a century
     or so in his chronicle of English composers. From Munday,
     who was a grown man in 1586, he suddenly goes to Blow and
     Purcell, who flourished in 1690, and even mentions Arne in
     the same breath, who died in 1778.

     The “isolation” of the early English clavier school is
     fairly explained by the immense amount of attention
     that was now given, from 1600-1695, in England, to the
     development of the dramatic scena or cantata, for one
     or two voices, to the song, and to the cultivation of
     concerted music for strings and keyed instruments. It is
     only to prevent any one from supposing that there was _no_
     “secular” music in England between the days of Elizabeth
     and the coming of Purcell that I give a few names, all of
     which have a real claim to remembrance. Songs--Campion
     (flourished 1600), Johnson (1600), Cæsar (early 17th
     cent.), Cooper (1612), Laneare (1620), H. Lawes (1630),
     Wilson (1640). Cantatas or “Scenas”--H. Lawes (1630), C.
     Colman (1640). Instrumental music--Gregorie (mid. 17th
     cent.), Jenkins (1630), W. Lawes (1630), Lock (1650),
     Sympson (1660).




 [Illustration: D’Anglebert, Chamber Musician to Louis XIV., after
 Mignard.]




                         Old French Dance-Pieces


 The independent musical fame of England--omitting Purcell, the
 evening star--rests solely on this early period. Hence we have been
 led to trace the musical history of England further back than that
 of countries where the stream spread over a wider area. Old English
 music, indeed, had no influence worthy of the name. It stands, like
 a half-mediæval prelude, before the actual history of the piano. It
 is true that it shows the forces which are to work in the future;
 but they are not yet brought into the line which they are constantly
 and exclusively to follow. This process begins rather in France; it
 unites itself later with a second movement which comes from Italy,
 and follows a broader and more lively path through Germany until it
 reaches our own times.

 Oskar Fleischer, the founder of the splendid Berlin collection of
 old musical instruments, has endeavoured, in his book on Gaultier,
 the great French lute-player, to describe English and French
 relations in the seventeenth century. But the hints which, in his
 view, the elder Gaultier[33] gained in England, are only matters of
 execution. Flourishes which in England were marked, without precise
 discrimination, with / or //, found a more exact representation among
 French lutenists. I do not mean that every performer did not put his
 own interpretation upon them. Every lutenist or clavier-player issues
 a new code of these _agréments_; but the basis remains essentially
 the same, and it is possible that the flourishes were adopted, by
 an impulse derived from England, into lute-music and thence into
 clavier-music. Thence they soon spread themselves over the whole
 musical field. But it is a mistake to imagine that these _agréments_,
 which infest old French compositions like locusts, were a peculiarity
 of the country, the “style galant” of France. The peculiarity lies
 elsewhere, in the form, in the dance.

 English clavier-music had attached itself to the song. From the
 song it derived its stiffness of form and the grace of its melodic
 outline--two important aids in the advance of music. But its treatment
 of these pieces was conducted in a manner which reminds us of the
 middle ages of music. The form, a continuous succession of variations,
 sprang from the idea of figuration, which constituted the essence
 of mediæval music; and the voice parts were worked out in general
 on the fugal principle or in canonic imitation, both factors of the
 mediæval music. The early ripening of English music, and its close
 connection with the old Dutch vocal or organ composition, brought it
 about that the _form_ rested still partly on tradition, while the
 _content_ already pointed towards the future. Even dances were worked
 out in this manner, which belonged especially to the time. In France
 the system was the exact opposite. There, the form of the variation,
 and the absolutely fugal clavier-exercise, are as seldom found as the
 simply-harmonised song.

 The emancipation in France was due to the attainment of a point of
 departure which was as distant as possible from anything vocal. The
 dance--although of course there were some sung dances--had early
 allied itself with the purely instrumental exercise. It has never been
 treated so entirely “à plaisir des gorges,”[34] as Gargantua expresses
 it. It had a stiff arrangement in common with a stiff harmony. It
 never showed much affinity with the contrapuntal twists and turns of
 the voice, to which song associates itself so easily from its close
 connection with choral music. If we compare the earliest instrumental
 dances of the sixteenth century with the dances, in several parts, of
 the old song-books--the “Rat’s-Tail,” the “Crane-Bill,” “Fox-Tail,”
 “Cat’s-Paw,” “Peacock’s-Tail,” and the like, we see how rapidly the
 influence of the instrument over a clear and light vocal current was
 increased in France. Here especially does the dance, from the very
 earliest times, enjoy great popularity. It is very early set to the
 lute or the clavier, other instruments being but rarely employed. Men
 grew accustomed to pieces in a condensed musical style, harmonised
 simply and melodiously, contracted in form. These were regarded on
 their own merits, and not as subjects for variations and figurations.
 It was for this reason that the French clavier-piece was more
 fruitful, more musical, and more capable of development than the
 English.

 The dance then is the darling conception of French music; and
 French dances are the nucleus of all instrumental music. So early
 as 1530--for we can go back a great distance--the Paris printer,
 Attaignant, the oldest of French note-engravers, published all
 kinds of musical volumes “reduict de musique en la tablature du jeu
 d’Orgues, Espinettes, Manicordions,”[35] etc. We wonder to-day how M.
 Attaignant could transcribe his pieces “out of music” into the script
 of organs, spinets and monochords. But by “music” he meant nothing
 more nor less than song, and song, down to his day, was nothing more
 nor less than music. A few years after the German music-publisher
 Agricola[36] wrote:--

        “Drumb lern singen du kneblein klein
         Itzund inn den jungen jarn dein,
         Recht nach musicalischer art
         Las aber keinen vleis gespart.”

        “Thou little boy, come learn to sing,
         Now, ere thy youth has taken wing.
         Let all be done with art refined,
         And give thereto thy heart and mind.”
                                        [E. E. K.]

 For music, he had once before said, is the foundation on which
 all instruments rest. Attaignant was one of the first to make
 transcripts of this “music” for keyed instruments. Nay, more; as far
 as our knowledge goes, he was the first who in general printed for
 such instruments. On his title-pages stand for the first time the
 words spinet and clavichord, although the claims of the organ are
 allowed. And it is noteworthy that the dances play the principal
 part in his books. Here the Frenchman already peeps out. Galliards,
 Basse-dances,[37] Branles, Pavans, are brought into a clear and
 relatively good harmonic form, without much complication of the
 instrumental parts. They are often, as for example in a charming
 Galliard in F major, of entrancing _naiveté_. Not too many runs in the
 treble, not too much harmony in the bass, and all exquisitely adapted
 for the instrument.[38]

 A hundred years after, the dance still rules French music, and not
 merely French music, but French life. The forms of social intercourse,
 as they were fashioned for the universal use of Europe at the court
 of the Parisian princes, were modelled on the broad rhythms of
 the dance. Going and coming, bowing and sitting, complimenting
 and smiling--all the pleasure in the formal beauty of hollow
 conventionalities, all this is nothing but the light and yet regulated
 step, the theatrical and yet sympathetic essence of the dance. The
 French people, having resolved to live their life, determined to do it
 prettily; and therefore to put even their ordinary motions and common
 gestures under the mild rule of the dancing master. Even in rough and
 ready England, traces of this are extant; witness the would-be grace
 of the formula of “introduction.”

 In lute-music the dance takes the form of ceaseless corantos
 and sarabands; on the stage it supplies the framework for the
 love-representations of the time. In 1671 appeared _Pomona_, Perrin
 and Cambert’s first French public opera. In it, cattle drivers and
 agricultural labourers ply their dances. The great Lully, most fertile
 composer of the nobly tedious French national operas, is inconceivable
 apart from the school of the dance. His tunes, at every possible
 opportunity, run off into the beloved dances of three or four strains,
 now inserted in airs and prologues, now as episodic dances. By this
 means the flexibility of the voice parts increases year by year;
 and since Lully is a composer for the clavier, many of his dances
 easily adapt themselves to clavier-arrangements, to which indeed they
 are very early subjected. Lully is the most vigorous teacher in the
 rehearsal of opera-dances. The style and the school of dances reach
 such a height in Paris, that they give the law to the whole world just
 as their social etiquette does. “France,” writes Mattheson, “is and
 remains the true school of dancing.”

 After the time of Lully, who had done so much for the development of
 the characteristic dance, the art advances with rapid strides. The
 Pantomime was invented by the Duchess of Maine: it was in 1708, at her
 famous festivals, “les Nuits de Sceaux,” that the last scene of the
 fourth act of Corneille’s “Horace,” was pantomimically represented
 with musical accompaniment.

 [Illustration: Le Maître de Musique. Painting by Jan Steen
 (1626-1679), in the National Gallery, London.]

 Of old the parts of women in the dance had been taken by men. Lully
 ventured to introduce female dancers. Here begins the epoch of famous
 “danseuses” who, in accordance with a natural law, become the centre
 of public interest. We owe to Castil Blaze a list of those _grandes
 dames_ who took up the profession. Henceforward the art of song and
 that of dancing divided equally the popular affection, for the two
 were not always separate callings. La Prévost was the first to essay
 a solo dance, which she set to a violin solo of Rebel. La Pélissier
 inaugurated costume-dances. She had purchased the whole wardrobe of
 Adrienne Lecouvreur, lately deceased, and was thus able to appear in
 the ballet “Le Carneval et la Folie,” in the characters of Jocasta,
 Mariamne, Zenobia, Chimène, Roxana, Paulina, Célimène, Agatha, and
 Elvira. Next we see rising the star of La Camargo, who from her début
 in the ballet “Caractères de la Danse,” was the amazement of the
 world, the discoverer of operatic airs set to the dance, the glass of
 fashion, the arbitress of mode, against whose decisions there was no
 appeal. But, as Castil Blaze tells us in his history of the French
 theatre, all were surpassed by La Sallé, with her noble figure, her
 lovely form, her perfect grace, her dancing so full of expression and
 voluptuous languor. Not only does she dance; she writes dances. She
 invents a Pygmalion, in which the divine statue assumes life, and
 engages in a long pantomime with the sculptor, who teaches her to
 assume her humanity by means of the measured motions of the dance. La
 Sallé brought this ballet on the stage in London first and then in
 Paris; and the London correspondent of the _Mercure de France_ writes
 to his paper of the extraordinary furore created by the new art. For
 Sallé had at last rejected the lingering relics of the old ballet--the
 anachronisms of costume--in order to be able to give full expression
 to the spirit of the dance. “She ventured,” says the correspondent,
 “to appear without skirt or bodice, with loose hair, and absolutely
 unadorned. Over corset and undergarments she had only a simple muslin
 dress, and seemed the very image of a Greek statue.” Sallé appears
 to have practised her dances without virtuosity, as a mere artistic
 representation. She essayed no acrobatic leaps, no _entrechats_, no
 pirouettes. Contrasting her with Camargo, Voltaire exclaimed:--

    “Ah, Camargo, que vous êtes brillante!
    Mais que Sallé, grands dieux, est ravissante!
    Que vos pas sont légers, et que les siens sont doux!
      Elle est inimitable, et vous êtes nouvelle:
    Les Nymphes sautent comme vous,
      Et les Graces dansent comme elle.”

 The victories of the dance were universal. Even public ceremonies were
 taken up in its advance. The “Messe des Révérences” was altered into
 the “Ballet des Écrevisses.” In their first delight of dominion, love
 and the pleasure of life revel in the light and magical rhythms of the
 dance. The great and flourishing masked balls of the opera, acquiring
 a new rapture, lead on to new dances--the Calotins, the Farandoule,
 the Rats, Jeanne qui saute, Liron Lirette, le Poivre, la Fürstemberg,
 le Cotillon qui va toujours, la Monaco--old songs of universal popular
 origin; or, like wines and laws, named after towns and races, and now,
 as dances, naturalised on the parquet. How ancient is this connection
 between song and dance, in which the name of the song remains attached
 to the dance! This is a process which is of daily occurrence in our
 music-halls.

 Famous _danseuses_ received characteristic nicknames. The elder
 Duval du Tillet was called “La Constitution,” because her father
 was an eminent clerical constitutionalist; the younger was
 affectionately dubbed “Church Calendar.” La Mariette was called
 “the Princess,” on more private grounds. It was the same with their
 male companions. The three brothers Malter were called “the Bird,”
 “the Devil,” and “Knickerbockers.” I stay to refer to this as this
 French nickname-mania explains the bizarre inscriptions of so many
 clavier-pieces. An amusing story is told of a certain Cléron, who, in
 the demi-mondaine circles from which her beauty and seductive arts
 had brought her to the opera, was known as “Frisky” (Frétillon). In
 the opera she greeted her new friends very affectionately, but added,
 “I shall do my best to be agreeable to you; but if any one calls me
 Frisky, let him know I will give him the best box on the ear he
 ever had in his life.” Mademoiselle Cléron was no boaster, adds the
 narrator, and was pretty likely to keep her word.

 The due understanding of old French clavier-music then, must start
 from the knowledge of the dance. Almost all its pieces are dances,
 whether they declare themselves as such or not. They take up the
 numerous existing dance-forms and develop them in the ways already
 described. But in addition to this formal principle we must notice a
 second, the symbolic. The pieces _mean_ something, and mean more and
 more the further the century advances. As if to console themselves for
 the want of content which belongs to the dance in itself, composers
 are fond of indicating in their titles and dedications all kinds of
 relations which give to their pieces a more marked physiognomy or a
 more comprehensible expressiveness. For this purpose they had not only
 at their disposal the old song-names which clung to the dances, but
 a hundred other associations. They loved the dance, but they loved
 associations also. Nicknames and allusions flew from the smiling lips,
 and men had the fairest inducements to take the abstract in a concrete
 sense. The chief inducement was the stage with its representative
 music, the stage, so passionately loved by the French in the middle
 ages that even from the thirteenth century we have dramatic lyrical
 plays with the most delicate songs by the trouvère Adam de la Hale.
 These stand like flowers in the midst of their time, and penetrated
 so deeply into the life of the people that the little song of Marion
 “Robin m’aime” is still, they say, sung in the Hennegau. The fairies,
 which had already played their part in the works of this mediæval
 opera-composer and writer, had in the later French opera their rich
 harvest of beings of symbolic meaning. In Lully’s works there is quite
 a swarm of abstract figures, gods, demi-gods, personifications, which
 in small scenes or great airs bring out this characterising function
 of music to the utmost degree possible. But what such things as the
 good and bad Dreams, or the nymphs and Corybantes in the “Atys,”
 entering as chorus, performed in characteristic music was as nothing
 to what was done by the great ballets which drew heaven and hell
 into the circle of their representations. “Le Triomphe des Sens,”
 “Les Voyages d’Amour,” “Les Génies,” “Le Triomphe de l’Harmonie,”
 “L’Ecole des Amants”--all these are titles of operas and ballets of
 those times which had as their aim to represent musical things as
 symbols of sensuous incidents. From the lists of ballets and operas
 performed from Lully’s time right into the eighteenth century the
 application of fêtes, rococo-amusements, love-pictures by Watteau, or
 idyllic porcelain-ornamentation, to stage purposes, speaks with no
 uncertain sound. In such an environment, recollecting the renowned
 fantastic art of the contemporary Callot, we are led to understand the
 unusual preference for the direct association of clavier-pieces with
 particular persons or things.

 But here we must speak specially of programme-music.

 A Pavan called “La Bataille,” full of vigorous trumpet-signals and
 horn-echoes, was inserted by Tielman Sufato in his collection of 1551.
 Shortly before that date a Zürich lute book included dance-songs,
 “mitsampt dem Vogelgesang und einer Feldschlacht.” The song of birds,
 the imitation of animals, and all kinds of confused shrieking--a
 comic counterpoint--offers rich material to the programme-music of
 the sixteenth century. Even before an Italian had written the famous
 fugal chorus, in which the scholars, with a comical employment of the
 dismembered canonic voice-exercise, declined _qui_, _quæ_, _quod_, in
 the ears of the raging schoolmaster--even before this, contrapuntal
 janglings were well known. Jannequin, the Frenchman, depicted in
 _chansons_ with many parts the battle of Marignano, the capture of
 Boulogne, war, jealousy, women’s gossip, the hare and hounds; or, on
 the other hand, the song of birds, the lark or the nightingale. We
 hear in the music of this time the thirds of the cuckoo, the clucking
 dactyls of the hen, the chromatic mewings of the cat, the trills of
 song-birds. The boldest of these pieces--an earlier Howleglass--was
 perhaps Eckard’s representation of the turmoil in St Mark’s Place at
 Venice (1589), in which noblemen, beggars, hawkers, soldiers, appear
 with all the artistic counterpoint appropriate to their respective
 classes. Thus programme-music, in the sixteenth century, enjoyed
 an international repute. It must not, however, be regarded as an
 achievement of modern music, but rather as something as old as music
 itself. The tempest which the Greek Timotheus represented on the
 kithara, and the fight of Apollo with the Python, which Timosthenes
 depicted on the flute and kithara, in all its stages--the challenge,
 the struggle, the hissing, the victory--had a renown in very ancient
 times. Programme-music belongs to all ages of musical development,
 and appears always as a natural phenomenon, never as a revolutionary
 movement. It marks the _ne plus ultra_ of the need of musical
 expression, which cannot find satisfaction in pure musical forms, and
 seeks to justify itself by extra-musical titles. Thus on the extreme
 limit of ancient hymn-music stood a Timosthenes, on that of mediæval
 choral-music a Jannequin, on that of modern instrumental music a
 Berlioz.

 We can trace the psychology of this programme-music with great ease
 in the French instrumental art of the seventeenth and eighteenth
 centuries. From the first definite orchestral programme-piece--the
 storm in Marais’ opera Alcyone--to the volume of François Dandrieu,
 “contenant plusieurs Divertissements dont les principaux sont les
 caractères de la guerre, ceux de la chasse, et la fête de Village”;
 from the lute-dances of Gaultier to the clavier-pieces of Rameau, we
 see nothing but an endeavour of the developed dance-form to enter
 into relations with actual life--an endeavour which leads to the
 manifold names of the pieces. Formerly the dances had taken their
 names from the songs. Now, as definite pieces, they are so full of
 special significance, so rich in all kinds of characteristic figures
 and harmonies, that the composer feels his mind insensibly drawn to
 incidents of life, of persons, of characters, humours, landscapes,
 and calls upon all his fertility in association to fashion decorative
 titles out of them. Music, which has arrived at the limits of
 the traditional dance-forms, passes over from the formal to the
 characteristic. As Berlioz’ Queen Mab is nothing but a further
 development of Beethoven’s Scherzos, and not a heaven-descended music,
 discovered in Shakespeare, so the pieces of the great clavierist
 Couperin, whether they have descriptions of humours or personal names
 for titles, are merely the developments of dances, which, so fertile
 were they, reminded the composer of life itself. Couperin himself
 declares that he gives in his pieces portraits, which appear to give
 to others also, before whom they are performed, the actual features
 of the models. But it is obvious that he could hold himself as a
 portrait-painter, only so far as his music was rich enough, by its
 definite relations to actual life, to give clearer definition and
 a distinct picture to its stream as it flowed in a thousand forms.
 Like all programme-musicians, he is such, not from poverty in musical
 invention, but from wealth. The French are a people that revel in the
 fulness of forms, and find their very life in the special magic of the
 formal presentation of all things, whether social or artistic. Thus in
 their hands all musical forms, melodious, harmonic, rhythmic, grew so
 luxuriantly, that at all times, from Jannequin to St Saens, in order
 to live they have necessarily turned to programme-music.

 Yet the titles of the clavier-pieces are not fully explained by
 this reference to the value of programme-music for the French mind.
 We must take into consideration also an old decorative tradition.
 Let us open the magnificent volume of lute-pieces by the famous
 Denis Gaultier,[39] which came into the Berlin Museum of Engravings
 along with the Hamilton collection. It is fantastically called “La
 Rhetorique des Dieux,” because only gods could speak so movingly by
 music, and equally fantastically he introduces all kinds of titles for
 the pieces, such as “Phaethon struck by lightning,” “le Panégyrique,”
 Minerva, Ulysses, Andromeda, Diana, “la Coquette virtuosa,” and
 the like, besides several “Tombeaux,” by which term dedications to
 deceased persons were generally indicated.[40] If we compared these
 sixteenth century pieces with their names, a certain nimble fancy
 is required to find actual programme-music in them. Of a genuine
 representation of the content there is no pretence. Minerva, Echo,
 and the Coquette would seem to have more in common than they ever
 suspected. The titles are nothing but decorative stamps, resembling
 those medallions of Aphrodite which are so often engraved over a
 love-poem. The interpretation is always in the widest spirit possible.
 It is amusing to see how the editor of the collection labours to
 explain the names while confining himself exclusively to the vaguest
 generalities. On “l’Homicide,” or The Fair Murderess, as it is also
 named, he writes: “This fair creature deals death to every one who
 sees and hears her; but this death is so unlike the usual death that
 it is the beginning of a life, not its end.” It could not easily
 be more plainly indicated that there is no clear representation of
 anything to be seen in the piece, and that the title is a piece of
 self-flattery in the dress of the fantastic. Already had the elder
 Gaultier, the founder of this lute-school, recognised, or perhaps
 even invented, these decorative titles, such as “le canon,” “la
 conquérante,” “les larmes du Boset,” or “la volte,” “l’immortelle,”
 “le loup.” This last, it is certain, is no ordinary wolf, but howls so
 musically that it is really a man.

 The custom of adding decorative titles was made universal by the
 lute-players, but the tone-painting must always have been of the
 slightest. Otherwise the old historian of the lute, Baron, could
 not have been so irritated at them as to write, some decades later,
 “Gallot has given such strange names to his pieces that we have need
 of close study to see their relation with the subject. For example,
 when he wishes to express thunder and lightning on the lute, it is
 a pity he has never added a note to tell us _when_ it lightens and
 _when_ it thunders.” (We are reminded of the old English clavier-piece
 on the same theme.) “We shall seldom,” he adds, “light on a French
 piece but the name of some noble dame is attached to it, after whom,
 if she so pleases, the piece is named.”

 The clavier-players adopted this custom all the more willingly as
 their instrument, so full of resource and so capable of expressing
 shades of meaning, allowed them to raise these titles from their
 decorative and shadowy existence into genuine programme-inscriptions.
 We see this remarkable process clearly exhibited in Chambonnières, a
 clavier-player who towers in solitary grandeur, and marks an epoch by
 his introduction of the clavier _suite_, by the clear adaptation of
 his dances to the clavier, by the first realistic use of these titles,
 and by the establishment of a precise character in the clavier-piece,
 which holds its ground even to-day. He is not, like William Bird, the
 original of modern clavier-music, but its actual father, from whom a
 straight unbroken line stretches down to the present day.

 Jacques Champion de Chambonnières sprang from an old family of
 organists, and was born at the beginning of the seventeenth century.
 The year of his death seems to be fixed as 1670. Titon des Tilliers,
 who in 1732 wrote his “Parnasse Français,” a work of great antiquarian
 research, says of Chambonnières that he played the organ very well,
 but the clavier with special genius, and that his pieces as well
 as his execution gained a considerable renown. His fame increased
 until Louis XIV. appointed him his chief clavier-master; and his
 compositions appeared in two volumes. In Titon’s times these pieces
 were still admired. Copies of these works are very rarely to be found
 to-day; but the great French historian, Farrenc, had the good luck to
 get possession of one of them, and he has freshly edited it in his
 famous collection of old clavier-music, “Le Trésor des Pianistes.”
 While Attaignant still bound his dances together according to their
 classes, there are here mixed sets of dance-pieces after the example
 of the lutenists, in simple setting, but with the adornments of the
 time. The succession is not yet so elaborate as in later _suites_, and
 _courantes_ stand often one on top of another. The construction of the
 melodies has still a certain gentle, unforced charm, which gains our
 attention though its influence is scarcely irresistible. The canonic
 element appears strongly only in the Gigues, three-time dances with a
 lively movement. Every piece has its dance-inscription, and some have
 in addition their special titles, as La Dunkerque, La Verdinguette,
 la Toute Belle, Iris; or more distinct indications as the Slider,
 the Barricades, the Young Zephyrs, the Peasant Girl. A Pavan with
 slow conclusion in three sections is called “The Conversation of the
 Gods.” Here the sliding, the zephyr, and the peasant, are easily to
 be recognised in the music. Nevertheless, complete liberation from
 the merely decorative framework of the fantastic title was not yet
 attained.

 The man to accomplish the great work was François Couperin, called
 by his time “the Great.” The piano-player of to-day hardly knows
 his name; and yet it is only two hundred years since men spoke of
 him in the same breath with Molière and Watteau. A genial, smiling,
 clean-shaven man--so the somewhat unsatisfactory portraits depict
 him--with half-length peruke, polite and yet slightly subtle, with a
 certain priestly sobriety of demeanour, his light fingers run over
 the hundred adornments of his spinet-pieces. He seems half astonished
 at his fame, and wholly ignorant that a whole art is one day to
 rear itself on his shoulders. It was only with difficulty that the
 pressure of his friends induced him to print his dances, which he
 wrote for himself in memory of his experiences, or the preludes which
 he wrote as exercises for his numerous pupils, or the concertos which
 he composed for Louis XIV.’s Sunday musical evenings. He watched
 with painful anxiety the tedious process of engraving. As we to-day
 inspect these prints, we are struck by the joyous _naïveté_ of the
 art, by the graphic awkwardness with which the notes overflow the
 five-lined limits of the clef, and by the soul which breathes from
 the delicately-engraved prefaces. He thinks that his portraits are
 accurate pictures, and thankfully acknowledges his indebtedness to the
 intimate character of his instrument. His notes as to execution, his
 “gaiement,” “tendrement,” and “sans lenteur” (he is always warning the
 performer against slowness) and all the other guides to interpretation
 which he inserts, he excuses by saying that the pieces seemed to
 express something which could not be embraced in accurate language.
 In spite of all this pedantry of teaching he appeals to the sensitive
 musical appreciation which will find the right way of interpretation;
 and in spite of all this reference to the spiritual momentum of music
 he is a stern disciplinarian in form and technique. In the midst of
 the utmost freedom of movement we discern a strong feeling for style,
 just as in the contemporary architecture the most playful license
 of the rococo is strangely mingled with the most sober attention to
 classical rules.

 [Illustration: François Couperin, “Le Grand.”]

 The Couperins, like the Chambonnières, were a widely spread musical
 family. It was old Chambonnières who, in a noteworthy fashion, had
 discovered Louis Couperin, the uncle of François. One morning the
 father of François and his two brothers who lived in the neighbourhood
 of the old master, brought a serenade for his inspection.
 Chambonnières was struck with it, asked after the composer, brought
 him to Paris, and thus laid the foundation of the fame of the family
 from which the great perfecter of his work was to spring. François was
 born in 1668. He lost his father when he was ten years old, but in
 Tomelin, the organist of St Jacques-la-Boucherie, he found a teacher
 and a second father. His life, as its details have come down to us,
 was simple and uneventful. He became organist of St Gervais and
 chamber-clavierist to the king, and died in 1733. But the dedications
 of his works enable us to conceive him more definitely. He appears
 in them as the professional artist and man of the world, pampered by
 noble ladies, and kissing their hands with graceful flatteries. We
 see him as he moves in the salons of Paris, which were then beginning
 to realise their mission. He is the admired artist of the court
 which he charms with his chamber-music; the intimate of the Duke of
 Burgundy and of the Dauphin, of Anne and Louis of Bourbon, giving his
 lessons and receiving pensions of a thousand francs. A true lady’s
 man, he thinks the hands of women better adapted to the clavier than
 those of men. He is the first to sanction ladies in his own family
 as clavier-players. His daughter Marguerite Antoinette, and his
 cousin Louise, played at court. Marguerite even became the teacher
 of the Princesses, and was official royal clavier-player--in France
 certainly, and probably in the world, the first woman to hold such a
 post.

 The music of Couperin has something of this feminine quality. It
 is more truly “virginal” music than that which Queen Elizabeth
 once played in her quiet chamber. But its grace is not hidden;
 it is coquettish and conscious of itself. It is the high style
 of grace which belongs to the French culture of the eighteenth
 century. A spinet stands on a smooth parquet, and the ladies sit
 around with their roguish eyes and tip-tilted noses, smiling at all
 the well-recognised allusions, as the then flourishing pastel-art
 has fixed them for us in light colours. It is light, entertaining
 music, in which the thoughts of their own accord run on bright and
 resplendent paths. Short pieces; _courantes_ with their lively,
 scarcely broken triple-rhythms; _allemandes_ in their decorous and
 interwoven quadruple time; _minuets_ with their pretty, melodious
 triple rhythm; _chaconnes_ and _passacaglie_ rearing their piquant
 erections on slow-moving basses; _sarabands_ in their triple movements
 and interesting national colouring; _gavottes_ with their graceful
 movement in soft two-time, the hurrying fugal _gigues_, and all
 the many other unnamed dances--all these give the ear, without
 exertion, a subtle delight. The rondo-form takes a supreme rank; it
 is constantly growing from a simple round-dance with refrain into a
 genuine clavier-composition, seeming to forebode the sonata which
 still remains unborn within it. Its theme, like a Ritornel, recurs
 among the “couplets” or episodical passages; but it is only seldom
 that the couplets set themselves in conscious opposition to the theme.
 Usually they adopt its rhythm or the character of its melody, and play
 with it until, neatly and gracefully, they glide back into the theme
 itself. There is no iron rigidity of thematic handling. A delicate
 colour-sense holds the parts together. Couperin does not regulate
 his pieces according to any definite scheme of dance-successions; he
 binds the dance and the non-dance, the piece in one or more sections,
 together into one bouquet which he offers to his lady-friends, often
 with a polite dedication appended, under the general title of “Ordre.”
 Twenty-seven such “Ordres,” in four volumes, were published by him
 between 1713 and 1730.

 [Illustration: Concert. Painting by Gerard Terborch (1617-1681), in
 the Royal Museum at Berlin.]

 The music of Couperin is as simple as possible. But we must not judge
 its sound by the somewhat heavy pianofortes of our time, which,
 even in the playfulness of a rapid passage, seem conscious of an
 _arrière pensée_. No; the spinet, which, even at its saddest, had a
 joyous exhilaration--this was the instrument of this playful music.
 The passages glide on, usually in two voices, of which the one is
 played by the right hand, the other by the left; and whether these
 voices are tied in chords or chord passages, or whether--as occurs
 more rarely--full chords, usually arpeggio, stand between, in either
 case there is a delicacy which recalls to us the origin of French
 clavier-music in the sweet-toned lute. But Couperin advanced yet
 further. In his last “Ordres” his compositions increase in depth; the
 more luxuriant conceptions and deeper feelings of a lesser Beethoven
 show themselves; the playful and ornamental element recedes into
 the background, and the compositions become those of a master who
 has summed up whole centuries of music in himself. From the insipid
 melodies of Lully’s time Couperin has fashioned more graceful and
 charming turns of expression; not only roguishly dancing-melodies,
 in which the vigorous popular songs seem to live again, but also
 melodies of the intellect, in which the soul of Mozart might seem to
 dwell. He prefers to advance in the diatonic scale; and the sense for
 the general outline of the composition, which is so often wanting
 in the older generation, is in him so unerring that he permits, with
 inimitable skill, the semiquavers of his “papillons” to sway up and
 down through entire bars. Yet occasionally his melodies seem ashamed
 of their nakedness, and, as in the “Sailor’s Song,” draw the flowery
 robe of adornments so closely round them that we can scarcely trace
 their limbs. There are the well-known short and long grace-notes,
 upper or lower, the _pincés_, _ports de voix_, _tremblements_, and the
 whole apparatus of ornamentation, which was then larger than it is
 now, and which, in spite of the stern admonitions of the composer’s
 marks, was frequently at the mercy of the performer. Like almost all
 composers of that day, Couperin gives in his first volume the table of
 his ornamentations, but he insists strongly on their exact carrying
 out. To players of to-day his _agréments_ are anything but pleasant.
 They seem to destroy our sense for the pure run of the voices, and
 are painful in their superabundance. But we must play them with
 _historical_ fingers, and seek to understand the psychology of their
 expression. They give to the quick clavier-tone a significance of its
 own; they are, so to speak, running drills, cutting the tones deeper
 into the relief of the piece, some more, some less, until they bring
 out the light and shade which serve to aid expression in the material
 of the clavier. Could we hear Couperin play, we should certainly
 hear the pure voice more distinctly than we imagine, enfolded as
 it would be here and there by deeper or brighter shadows of the
 ornamentations which bring out its form in plastic manner. His was a
 technique which was lost to us with the thorough comprehension of this
 music. Couperin took pains to bring it to the highest perfection. At
 times he introduced a slight tempo rubato; he took from the note at
 the conclusion something of its length, and gave to another at the
 beginning a short pause for breath, inventing for the former the mark
 of aspiration, for the latter that of suspension. Here the endeavour
 was the same as with Prall-triller[41] and grace-notes. Instead
 of the ornamentation, the short pause, like the white mounting of
 a picture, raises the important note, giving to it its meaning and
 with the meaning the due expression. But later, in the last “Ordres,”
 Couperin must have felt the inadequacy of these marks. The aspirations
 and suspensions retreat into the background, while the sign ) becomes
 more prominent. This sign simply marks off an independent musical
 phrase in order to resign its due interpretation to the sympathetic
 feeling of the player. Such is the trouble he takes with the
 traditional style of ornamentation and its spiritual expression.

 But the remaining musical peculiarities of his composition follow the
 simplest lines of development. Freedom of motive increases. Tremolo
 accompaniments, interesting sequences, a playful counterpoint--this
 latter especially in the pieces for two claviers, or in the “Pièces
 croisées” for clavier with two manuals--in fact an inexhaustible
 array of new forms arises. Thus the harmonisation simplifies itself
 along with the advance of the entire musical development. Couperin
 modulates, into the dominant or sub-dominant, by means of their
 related notes, in major and minor keys. By his turn for repetitions
 of short figures on changing basses--a truly modern motive--or
 by bold passages of passing notes--for instance, in the saraband
 “La Majestueuse,” we find once e flat, d, f sharp, g, a, one over
 another--he gives us interesting harmonies, which appear, especially
 in the _allemandes_, as full, heavy chords, already anticipating Bach.

 The theatre of Couperin is rich and varied. The representations
 which we see in this theatre under the innumerable titles of the
 pieces, range over the whole world. Some of the characters are
 also not strange to us; others we soon learn to know; a few remain
 unintelligible to us since the relations they betoken are too
 subjective. But all lend to the pieces a personal value and an
 intimate charm, as Goya’s editions present them to us; and it is from
 them that the clavier derives its great significance as interpreter of
 this intimate personal art.

 “Nanette” greets us with her pleasant quavering melody; “Fleurie” is
 more subtle, and sways delightfully in richly-adorned 6/8 time; the
 “Florentine” blooms in graceful, gentle play of quick triolet-figures;
 but the “Garnier” has the dress of the confined fantastic time,
 having not yet cast off her heavy folds. “Babet” is “nonchalamment”
 contented; “Mimi” has a temperament which the many slurs and points of
 the ornamentation can scarcely fully exhibit. “Conti” (or “les Graces
 incomparables”) works lullingly out her counterpoint; “Forqueray”
 (or la Superbe) has a physiognomy of almost academic severity. Many
 ladies pass by us in these pastel-portraits. We are amused with the
 divine Babiche (Les amours badins) and the beautiful Javotte (or
 the “Infanta”); but the most beautiful in melody is Sœur Monique,
 an intellectually delicate creation, and the most beautiful in
 construction is “La Couperin” (perhaps the musician’s cousin Louise)
 who poses before us in a masterly, stately, and slightly fugal
 movement.

 Then follow the troops of nameless ones. First the nuns--the blondes
 in the minor and the brunettes in the major section. Then the
 charming and melodious representatives of landscapes: Ausonian,
 Bourbon, Charlerois, Basque. Then the “Enchantress,” who of course
 in process of time suffered much from her magic. Then the “Working
 Woman,” who finishes her course, but is surpassed in it nevertheless
 by the “Diligent One.” The “Flatterer” and the “Voluptuous Woman”
 are a relatively quiet pair. The “Gloomy One” is sharply defined,
 with her dismal, jerky passages, and the heavy full chords. The “Sad
 One” exhibits the light sentimentality of all archaic melodies. The
 “Spectre” sweeps past in slurred thirds. Close behind come the “Gray
 Women” with their ponderous sad march. The “Fox-Tail” has tripping
 broken chords; the “Lonely One” shows her caprices in the rapid
 successions of grave and gay. Then follow, in endless succession, the
 “Princesse d’Esprit,” “l’Insinuante,” “l’Intime,” “la Galante,” “la
 Douce et Piquante,” faithful ones, _risqué_ ones, bold, visionary,
 mysterious ones, with their chromatic descents. “Le Turbulent” is one
 of the few men in the list.

 His more general portraits are the most satisfying. They depict
 emotions, characters, animals, plants, landscapes, occupations,
 bits from all kinds of life, which are often inscribed with the
 favourite antique titles. Thus “Diana” with her broken chords leads
 us into the forest, and shortly after in the second part we hear her
 horns sounding; while in the “Hunt” a more romantic note is struck.
 In a broad violoncello-like “Romance” the wood gods are singing
 and the satyrs dance a very melodious and attractive Bourrée. The
 Amazon rushes on in thirds, which bear a striking likeness to the
 _leit-motif_ of Die Walküren; and Atalanta runs past in rapid figures.
 Hymen and Amor sing a marriage-song, the former in the first part more
 firmly, the latter in the second more delicately and tenderly. The
 Bells of Cythera sound to us from the holy island, rising and falling
 alternately, enlivened by glissando-passages. This motive Couperin
 adopted a second time in “Les Timbres.”

 The Bees hum and revolve round one point; the Butterflies flutter past
 in ravishing triplets; the Fly buzzes and dances round her own melody;
 the retiring Linnet hurries through restless triplets; the complaining
 Grasshopper chirps in endless imitative short grace-notes; the Eel
 twists itself now tightly, now loosely; the Amphibian creeps along
 in legato notes, winding itself through bar-sections of Schubertian
 length; the Nightingale in Love sings her piercing plaintive accents
 in quick and ever quicker trills, or as Victor chants more joyfully
 and triumphantly. Or, again, blooming lilies rise before us in
 delicate self-enfolding figures with petal-like ornamentations; the
 sedge rustles eternally to its melody; the poppy spreads abroad a
 wonderful secret mysterious tune, with many slow arpeggio thirds; and
 garlands twine themselves in festal guise on a canonic trelliswork.

 Life unfolds itself in its entire wealth. Here we have the rolling
 play of the waves, there the purling and rippling of the brooks, and
 the twittering of the birds--a foretaste of the slow movement of
 the Pastoral Symphony. Then again, under the name of “Bontemps ou
 l’étincelante,” an appeal is made to the emotions of springtide or
 fair weather; we live as it were in a small forest of enchantment.
 In the second part--Les Grâces Naturelles--one of Couperin’s most
 intellectual melodies breaks forth, showing all the chaste delicacy
 of Mozart. There rises the blooming landscape of St Germain en Laye;
 farther off we catch a sight of teeming orchards from which the music
 of bagpipes sounds forth. The reapers draw nigh with cheerful song;
 the buffoons--males in minor and female in major--stir their happy
 limbs; the jugglers appear and ply their tricks;--we can hardly
 distinguish the trick and its solution, or the rapid intermingling
 of left and right hand--the knitters lace their rolling semiquavers
 together right to the “falling meshes” at the end; the click-clack
 of the lace-makers--tic, toc, choc, tic, toc, choc--beats joyfully
 hither and thither in the broken chords of a _pièce croisée_. Even
 the milk-maids of Bagnolet have their appropriate pieces. There the
 gossipping wife--a reminiscence of Jannequin--beats her rapid bubbling
 motive; there the short rolling courses of the famous little windmills
 play their humorous part; here hobbles a cheery lame man along; there
 staggers a _bizarre_, syncopated, now swift, now slow Chinese. “The
 Man with the queer Body” makes his springs, in scattered notes, and
 close by stands the idyll of “Dodo,” or “Love in the Cradle,” the
 bass of which rocks itself to and fro in a _pièce croisée_. “Wavering
 shadows” glide ghost-like in sadly-sounding movements throughout this
 play of life.

 The “Sentiments,” full of feeling, with their beautiful “anticipation”
 notes, the long legato-movement of the “Idées Heureuses,” the
 “Regrets” and “Amusements” musically darting to and fro, the
 syncopated tender “L’Ame en Peine,” the wonderful “Langueurs Tendres,”
 the somewhat lengthy “Charmes,” the “Agréments” with _their_
 agréments, the free diatonic of the various morning melodies,[42]
 the gentle toying of the “Bagatelles,” of the “Petit Rien,” of the
 “Brimborions,” the rapture-like “Saillie”--these are inward reflexes
 which have not quite the clear sensuousness and realism of the outer
 experiences. The following are the most elaborately worked out, and
 are presented in “cycle” form.

 The “Earlier Ages” appear in four figures--the first exercise gives
 the syncopated “Muse naissante,” the second the rocking “Enfantine,”
 the third the rioting “Adolescente,” the fourth the “Délices” in
 violoncello style, which is Couperin’s favourite for the attainment of
 the most delightful effects.

 Or the great “Shepherds’ Feast” with the twanging musettes of Taverni
 or Choisy, and the lightly rocking rhythms.

 Or the five-act Ballet of the “Pomp of the great and ancient
 Menestrandise.”[43] Act I., the pompous entry of the Notables and
 sworn probationers. Act II., a bag-pipe song of the hurdy-gurdy-men
 and beggars. Act III., a joyous dance of the jugglers, clog-dancers,
 and Merry-Andrews with bears and monkeys. Act IV., a duet of the
 crazy and the lame. Act V., breaking up of the whole troop by the
 animals--furious étude in semiquavers.

 Next, the cycle of the old and young men; the former sober, the latter
 happy.

 [Illustration]

 But, before all, that original of Schumann’s Carnival, “Les Folies
 françaises ou les Dominos.” Maidenhood in invisible colours, Shame
 in rose, Impetuosity in red, Hope in green, Faithfulness in blue,
 Perseverance in gray, Longing in violet, Coquetry in a domino of
 many colours, the old gallants in purple and gold, the cuckolds in
 brown, silent Jealousy in dark gray, Rage and Desperation in black.
 Externally the form is that of a great ballet of the time; internally
 it is the variation of collected pieces on a single harmonic
 succession, its contents are the allusions easily comprehended at the
 time; the characterisation is carried through with great skill; but
 its musical setting is even shorter than is usually the case with
 Couperin’s clavier-pieces.

 The Preludes, which Couperin appended to his “Art de Toucher
 le clavecin,” he named, in accordance with their _ad libitum_
 performance, the Prose of clavier-literature. These dances and
 pictures were to him the poetry, rhymed and rhythmical. And it was
 precisely their formal completion which was of importance for the
 future of clavier-literature. We see the forms developing. In his best
 pieces the Sonata is already foreshadowed. The fulness of motives,
 as they occur to him in his two best compositions, the splendid
 “Favorite” and the stupendous “Passacaille,” is elsewhere thematically
 limited. In the recapitulation of the main theme at the beginning of
 the second part of the pieces, in the rhythmic similarity between the
 rondo-motive and its “couplets,” in many a thematic working-out, shown
 for example in “La Trophée” with its wonderfully modern sonata-style,
 lies the promise of thematically-developed music of succeeding
 generations. To the same purpose is his increasing sense for the
 association of several pieces. The many slow second pieces, or the
 popular dances such as the Polonaise, the Sezile, the Musette, which
 form the concluding parts of a group, the repetition of the first
 part after the second, the divisions into slow movement, slower, and
 lighter, which are specially visible in “La Triomphante,” and “Les
 Bacchanales”--all these are as much the germ of the future sonata
 arrangement, as the severer thematic was the germ of sonata-playing.
 The charm for us lies in observing, in the springtime of art, the
 natural uprising of these forms which appear to us almost laws of
 nature.

 His “Art de toucher le clavecin,” the first school-book specially
 devoted to the clavier, was published in 1717 and dedicated to the
 king. This was a noteworthy advance. There was to be no longer a
 teaching of mere notation, but a teaching of technique and execution.
 “The method which I here propose,” says Couperin, “is unique, and
 has nothing to do with the tablature, which is only a counting of
 numbers. I deal here chiefly with all that belongs to good playing. I
 believe that my observations are clear enough to please connoisseurs
 and to help those who are willing to be helped. As there is a great
 difference between grammatical and rhetorical rules, so there is an
 infinite distance between tablature and the art of good playing.” Such
 a general musical “fabrication” and grammar, in spite of many advanced
 ideas, had been the work of St Lambert, which appeared from 1702 to
 1707, and which in its first part (called “Principes du Clavecin”)
 devotes only a few lines to actual clavecin playing, and extends the
 second part (called “De l’accompagnement”) also to the organ, and
 other instruments. It is painful to him that his experience is treated
 lightly and turned into a “school.” The parents of the pupils, he says
 later, ought to place the most implicit reliance on the teacher, and
 yield him the completest powers. The teacher even takes the key of the
 instrument with him, and no playing should be attempted without his
 supervision. The scholar sits with his fore-arm horizontal before the
 clavier, elbows, hand and fingers in a line--the fingers thus lying
 quite flat on the keys. He has his body turned very slightly to the
 right, and the right foot a little stretched out. In order to prevent
 grimacing while playing, he often places a mirror in front in which
 he can watch his motions. A bar over the hands occasionally regulates
 the equality of their height; for the holding of the hands high makes
 the tone necessarily hard. Looking about of any kind is forbidden,
 and above all, coquetting with the public as if the playing were no
 trouble at all. And although, finally, everything in the performance
 depends on experience, taste, and feeling, yet rules are given for
 performance to which the player must conform. Couperin frequently
 disregards the fingering of his predecessors, and to the examples
 which he gives of his new art he adds confidently in a side-note that
 he is convinced that few persons in Paris have the old rules in their
 heads--Paris being the centre of all good. Step by step we have harder
 and harder studies developed from a single figure, and directions
 for finger exercises fill the rest of the volume. The change of
 fingers on one note, the avoidance of the same finger twice in scale
 passages, the first application of the thumb in passing under are his
 characteristic points. These are all symptoms of the endeavour to
 form a legato style suitable to the clavier; they are the external
 indications of the suppression of the lute. Couperin’s abhorrence of a
 vacuum runs through his whole teaching of the clavier. The adornments,
 the avoidance of too long note-values, the legato finger-exercise--all
 are the systematic development of the powers which arise from the
 necessity of _short_ tones in the clavier. He once introduces a
 charming short fugal _allemande_, in which both voice-parts work in
 contrary motion in most flowing style in order to show what “sounds
 well” on the clavier, and opposes to it the one-sided broken chords
 of the Italian sonatas of whose light style he has on other grounds
 the highest opinion. “The clavier has its peculiarities as the violin
 has _its_. If its note cannot swell, if the repetitions of one tone
 by striking do not suit it, it has advantages on the other side,
 precision, neatness, brilliancy, and width of compass.” Perhaps
 Couperin was the first who had an absolutely good ear for the clavier.

 In comparison with him his elder and younger contemporaries must give
 place. Dumont, le Begue, D’Anglebert, Loeilly, Marchand, Dandrieu,
 and even the brilliant Rameau, composer of operas and founder of
 modern musical theory, are his inferiors. It is now demonstrated
 that Rameau published his first clavier-compositions in 1706, seven
 years before those of Couperin. But these pieces had just as little
 meaning and result as those of Marchand which appeared the year
 previously. They must have differed little from the style of the
 old school of Chambonnières. Rameau in later years is much freer
 and more developed, like Couperin, whose work he continued with the
 happiest results. He is no pioneer, but an improver of the ways. How
 powerful are his _allemandes_, how dainty his _gigues_, how brilliant
 the conduct of the thematic in his Cyclopes and his Trois Mains!
 What a depth of invention appears in his variations on Gavottes, in
 his Gigues, and in his splendid Niais de Sologne! How wonderfully
 melodious is his “L’Enharmonique,” what a realism is there in his
 “Hen” and in the “Call of the Birds”! How clear, how penetrating, how
 rich in promise is his technique! In him there are musical conceptions
 of extreme penetration and melodious harmonic turns which live for
 ever in the ear. From the “twenties” to the “sixties” all kinds of new
 editions of his works were produced, so popular were they, as they
 would still be, if the public knew these enchanting little works.

 [Illustration]

 Thus the fame of the clavier is fixed in the Paris of the beginning
 of the eighteenth century, and its future assured. It is a kind of
 symbol of history that from the guild of violinists, founded by a
 king of violin-players, which reigned throughout the seventeenth
 century, should have proceeded, first the dance-masters, for reasons
 of independence, and then the organists and clavierists, who actually
 maintained that a musician was he only who played an instrument with
 full harmony. The orchestra went its own way, the “grande bande des
 violons” and the “petits violons” of Lully’s time having laid the
 foundation. The clavier was again the opponent of the orchestra, and
 concentrated the whole body of tone in its keys. An intimate, personal
 interpreter of musical emotions, it chooses to perform its functions
 in itself. Its consciousness of its own importance grows to a height.
 No longer will a clavecin-player when accompanist be the Cinderella
 among a company of proud sisters. “The clavierist,” cried Couperin
 indignantly, “is the last to be praised for his share in a concerto.
 What injustice! His accompaniment is the foundation of a building
 which supports the whole, and of which no one ever speaks!”

 [Illustration: Rameau, out walking. Old engraving from the
 Nicolas-Manskopf collection, Frankfort.]


     [33] Gaultier “the Elder” was a French lute-player,
     who also published (in collaboration with his cousin
     Pierre Gaultier) a collection of pieces for lute, with
     instructions for playing. He flourished _temp._ Charles I.
     References to him may be found _inter alia_, in Herrick,
     who calls him Gotiere or Gotire.

     [34] _Anglicé_, “for the sheer fun of howling.”

     [35] M_a_nicordion = M_o_nocordion = a clavichord in which
     _one_ string had still to provide several notes. See full
     explanation elsewhere in this book.

     [36] Agricola. Pupil of J. S. Bach.

     [37] Galliard, in triple time, with a “leap” in every other
     bar (second beat); Basse-dance also in triple time, but
     “sans sauter,” all solemn sliding.

     [38] For examples of these pieces, Wasielewski’s book on
     sixteenth century instrumental music is invaluable. Also
     see Arbeau’s “Orchésographie,” and my “Shakespeare and
     Music.”

     [39] This is yet a _third_ musician of the name, according
     to Hawkins.

     [40] Called a “knell” in England. See Shakespeare, Henry
     viii., iv. ii. 77.

     [41] _Prall_ means rebounding quickly, or springing back.
     The Prall-triller consists of the main note, the note
     _above_, and the main note again, and should be executed
     _fast_.

     [42] _Aubade_, English “morning music” or “hunts-up.”

     [43] The “Pomp” is the “Masque,” as it would be called in
     England. The “great and ancient Menestrandise” is the old
     association or guild of Minstrels. The Charter of the King
     of the Minstrels, granted by John of Gaunt, King of Castile
     and Leon, and Duke of Lancaster, dated 1381, may be seen in
     Hawkins’s History of Music. An old verse in “Robin Hood’s
     Garland” alludes to the festive sports of the Minstrels in
     these words, which almost reproduce the above description
     of Couperin’s piece:--

         “This battle was fought near Tutbury town
         When the bag-pipers baited the bull,
         I am king of the fiddlers, and swear ’tis a truth,
         And call him that doubts it a gull;
         For I saw them fighting, and fiddled the while,
         And Clorinda sung Hey derry down:
         The bumpkins are beaten, put up thy sword, Bob,
         And now let’s dance into the town.
         Before we came to it we heard a great shouting,
         And all that were in it look’d madly;
         For some were a’ bull-back, some dancing a morrice,
         And some singing Arthur a Bradley.”




 [Illustration:

 Old engraving after Wagniger’s design. The true musician is climbing
 up the Ladder of Contrapuntal Art ever higher and higher (see in the
 engraving the words _plus ultra_) to the Concert of Angels (legitime
 certantibus). From the “Basis and Fundamental Tone” the musical notes
 are being carried to the Gold-furnace (various flames in which are
 labelled, _e.g._ motet, canzonet, canon, etc.). The enemies are seen
 up above breaking the tritone, the false fifth, and the ninth; arrows
 are being shot at the Artist on the left as he writes (volenti nil
 difficile, “nothing is difficult to the willing mind”), but they
 are shattered on the Shield of Minerva, on which is represented the
 Austrian Eagle. ]




                                Scarlatti


 Domenico Scarlatti, perhaps the greatest clavier-player that Italy
 ever had, prefaces a collection of thirty sonatas, which appeared
 at Amsterdam,[44] with the following words: “Amateur or professor,
 whoever thou art, seek not in these compositions for any deep feeling.
 They are only a frolic of art, intended to increase thy confidence
 on the clavier. I had no ambition to make a sensation; I was simply
 requested to publish the pieces. Should they be not utterly unpleasing
 to thee, I shall all the more willingly undertake other commissions,
 in order to rejoice thee in a lighter and more varied style. Take
 then these pieces rather as man than as critic; so only shalt thou
 increase thine own content. To speak of the use of the two hands--D
 denotes _dritta_, the right, and M _manca_, the left. Farewell!” It
 is noticeable how here in a few words the whole essence of Italian
 clavier-music is summed up--the fresh, cheerful disposition of the
 artist; the respect for the amateur; the pleasure in mere sound and in
 musical construction; the thorough working-out of intellectual motives
 (in the manner of the Étude); and the stress laid upon the equal
 participation of both hands as essential factors in the “concert,”
 [using this word in its older sense as expressing the association of
 two or more vocal or instrumental “parts”]. The word “concert” was
 well understood in these early days to mean the combination of two
 viols; and music of such a kind was, in form and in content, the true
 precursor of clavier-music, in which the right and left hand “parts”
 are strictly on an equality both in difficulty and importance.

 These are the distinguishing marks of Italian clavier-art, and within
 these limits it works.

 But Scarlatti is especially remarkable to us in the present day, in
 that he occupies the position of an early writer whose pieces still
 play a part, though a small one, in modern public concerts. Liszt,
 for example, was partial to him, and arranged his “Cat’s Fugue”;
 while Bülow edited a representative selection from his pieces.
 Czerny published (through Haslinger) two hundred of his so-called
 Sonatas--though, by the way, the last of these pieces belongs really
 to the father, Alessandro Scarlatti. Before that time the remains of
 the master had formed no inconsiderable part of private manuscript
 collections, such as those of the Abbé Santini in Rome, and others.[45]

 Domenico Scarlatti, the famous son of the not less famous Alessandro,
 who was a composer of operas and chief of the Neapolitan School,
 exhibits in old portraits a serious, severe, even pedagogic
 countenance. There is also much of the pedagogue in his pieces; yet I
 think him fresher, gayer, more happy in life and mind than this face
 would lead one to suppose. His “Exercises” move with vigorous strides,
 and are far too full of esprit to be pedantic. His life was that of
 an artist universally honoured, and rejoicing in his fame, a type of
 which his contemporary Handel is the model; and his biography reveals
 no less activity than his works. A pupil of his renowned father, in
 the midst of the volatile, melody-loving, easily-stirred Neapolitan
 world, he set out early for Rome, in order to become the scholar of
 the great theorist Gasparini and of the organist and clavier-player
 Pasquini. In 1709, at the age of twenty-six, he made the acquaintance
 of Handel at Venice, and in sheer admiration, followed him to Rome.
 There he remained ten years, and became kapellmeister of St Peter’s,
 gaining a reputation by the works of his genius. In 1720 we suddenly
 find him in London as clavicymbalist of the Italian opera. Here his
 “Narcissus” was performed. A year later again he was in Lisbon, where
 the King of Portugal made efforts to detain him, and where for a time
 he gave lessons to the Princess. At this time the fame of his playing
 and of his compositions reached the farthest bounds of Europe, and he
 ranked thenceforward as the first executant of the age. He returned
 again to Italy, and from Italy to Spain. He remained in Madrid from
 1729 to his death in 1757. Here all kinds of honours were showered
 upon him; he was Knight of St James, and chamber-player to the Queen,
 who still retained a grateful memory of the lessons he had given her
 at Lisbon when she was Princess of Asturias. To her he dedicated his
 first-published pieces, prefixing to them the lively preface above
 quoted.

 Italian music has to French the relation which Bull has to Bird, or
 the virtuoso to the poet. In Scarlatti we seek in vain for any inner
 motive, nor do we feel any need of an emotional rendering on the part
 of the performer; his short pieces aim only at _sound_ effects, and
 are written merely from the love of brilliant clavier-passages, or to
 embody delicate technical devices. They are not denizens of Paradise,
 who wander, unconscious of their naked beauty, under over-arching
 bowers; they are athletes, simply rejoicing in their physical
 strength, and raising gymnastic to a high, self-sufficient art. We
 admire them, as we admire an acrobatic troupe of strong and stout
 character; we admire them--not too much, yet with a certain eager
 anticipation of the next interesting and unusual feat of skill. We
 wonder at their mastery of technique, and the systematic development
 of their characteristic methods; we rejoice that they never, in their
 desire to please, abandon the standpoint of the sober artists; but
 our heart remains cold. There is an icy, virgin purity in this first
 off-shoot[46] of absolute virtuosity, which kindles our sense for the
 art of beautiful mechanism, for the art of technique _per se_--an art
 which, after all, the historian of the clavier must not depreciate by
 comparing it with that of the _inner_ music.

 [Illustration: Adrian Willaert, of Venice, after the engraving
 published in 1559 by Antonio Gardano, Venice.]

 The Scarlatti style is a genuine product of the Italian musical
 emotion. The Italian is not born for heavy, contrapuntal, “vain
 ticklings of the ears”; nor, on the other hand, for too intimate
 effusions or symbolic mysteries. He is sensuous through and through;
 delight in playing and in sound is the very life of his music, as
 delight in outline and in colour is the very life of his painting. The
 intoxication of absolute tone runs through the masses of his churches,
 the operas of his theatre, the chamber-music of his salons. Delight
 in sound gave the impulse to every Italian musician in his bid for
 fame. It created virtuosity, which loves playing for its own sake; it
 created the dramatic choruses, with which the Venetian school began
 its career; it created the melody predominating over the harmony,
 with the discovery of which in the Florentine opera the greatest blow
 was struck for the new principles of “secular” musicianship. From
 love of sound the Venetians cast the instruments free from their
 old corporate unity, and gave them an individual meaning and value.
 From love of sound Frescobaldi led the organ, Corelli the violin,
 Scarlatti the clavier, to undreamt-of technical creations. And the
 _bel canto_ of the human voice almost attained the capacity of an
 instrument; so small was the influence of the mere words. They were
 enamoured of melody, which, unlike the ecclesiastical counterpoint,
 sought its new objective not in the manifold transformation, but in
 the natural development of a motive: they were captivated with the
 “da capo” repetition of concerted pieces or arias, a habit grounded
 on the psychological law of the higher effectiveness of all repeated
 passages. They rioted in the multitude of forms, in which they found
 a place for every kind of music, for every “tempo,” every rhythm, and
 for all kinds of expression. Throughout all this was to be perceived
 the sensuous Italian love for music, which expressed in this
 manifoldness its freedom of artistic activity, and in that freedom the
 unity of thematic construction and consequently the unity of formal
 repetition.

 [Illustration: Frescobaldi.]

 Technical ability was appreciated in Venice earlier than elsewhere.
 The registers of organists at St Mark’s go back to 1318. In Venice
 not the office only, but the art, was honoured. The musician was not,
 as he was much later at Florence, interrupted by the ringing of a
 bell, if he continued his performance too long. The emancipation of
 artists, which in our own century we have seen carried out in the
 person of the orchestral conductor, was in Venice effected by the
 instrumental musician; and as to-day the orchestra has grown in repute
 by the agency of the conductor, so in those days the prestige of
 instrumental music advanced alongside that of the performer. At the
 beginning of the seventeenth century a Frescobaldi could already gain
 so important a position as player of the organ and clavier, that it
 was said that no clavier-player was respected who did not play after
 his new fashion. When he gave his first recital in St Peter’s, thirty
 thousand persons were there to hear him. What Frescobaldi was in the
 first half of the seventeenth century, that was Pasquini in the second
 half. In Italy, Austria, and France he was treated like a prince; and
 his tombstone bears the proud inscription, “Organist of the Senate and
 People of Rome.” With Scarlatti the art of clavier-playing reaches its
 height, and begins to decline. It is not clavierists but violinists,
 the wordless rivals of the singers, who have carried the type of
 Italian virtuosity into our own times--Corelli, Vivaldi, Locatelli,
 Tartini, Paganini.

 This sensuous devotion to music apart from inner meaning, this passion
 for poetic beauty, the Italians have not yet, even under Wagnerian
 influences, wholly forgotten. The victorious rule of absolute tone,
 while it constituted their greatness, carried with it the germ of
 their decay. Virtuosity is the mark of their art and of their life.
 We must take them as they are, in the whole light-hearted temperament
 of their existence. This Bohemian type of the Italian musician of
 the time may profitably be compared with the similar French type.
 What a seductive brilliancy there is in the adventurous career of
 a Bononcini! His operas are received at Vienna with unparalleled
 enthusiasm. Queen Sophia Charlotte is the clavier-player at the
 production of his “Polifemo” in Berlin. In London he enters upon a
 contest with Handel, in which social intrigues are involved with high
 political aims. Next, he appears in a lawsuit, and is unmasked as a
 common plagiary[47] of a madrigal of Lotti’s; shortly after he is away
 to Paris with an alchemist, who swindles him of all his property,
 and leaves him to make his living by the sweat of his brow to his
 ninetieth year. Stradella’s fate is well known--how he ran away with
 the mistress of a Venetian before the first performance of his own
 opera;[48] was more than once attacked with a dagger, and finally
 actually murdered.[49] What, compared with this, is the story of
 Rameau’s youthful love and its punishment, and of his tardy attainment
 of the haven of fortune, or what the anecdotes of Marchand, with his
 love affairs, his expulsion from Paris, and his smiling return? The
 dangerous glitter of this Italian Bohemianism is the fitting framework
 of that sensuous, lively, irresponsible music.

 It was inevitable that the Italians should invent the opera--the
 opera, in which every thing tends rapidly to the spectacular; singers,
 scene painters, musicians, and the public. Apart from its relation
 to opera all Italian music is unintelligible, and it is no accident
 that for centuries the Italians stood in the forefront of opera.
 Those lucky misunderstandings are well-known, which led, about the
 year 1600, to the rise of this form of art. A circle of Platonic
 dreamers (led by Giovanni Bardi, Count of Vernio) in Florence,
 anxious to revive the ancient tragedy, engaged certain musicians
 to compose monodic songs with accompaniment. They merely meant by
 this to be antique; but as a matter of fact they were unconsciously
 acting along the line of the most modern of needs, which had long
 tended towards isolated melody. The dainty and delicate songs,
 which took their origin in this, the Venetians, and afterwards the
 Neapolitans, accepted eagerly as a material on which to construct
 forms of ravishing virtuosity, until a Jomelli, with his dashing
 bravura passages on the most solemn words, finally arrives at that
 very “laceramento della poesia”[50] which the Florentine reformer
 Caccini had once fanatically combated as a madness of the ancient song
 in several parts. In a very short time the opera runs through the
 whole gamut of the joys and sorrows of virtuosity. The sweet charm of
 sound, exhibited by a voice which bears the melody, so suited to the
 narrow outlines of poetry, is found in the old vestal airs of Caccini
 and Peri. The delight in a multitude of forms, in an alternation of
 different rhythms in short portions of the aria, lived in the songs
 of the Venetian Cavalli, in which we are reminded of the alternating
 tempi of the old instrumental pieces[51]--the toccatas, fantasias,
 and canzoni. Yet empty vanity shows itself all too soon. The original
 simplicity was overlaid by various corrupt accretions, first by
 songs, introduced in loose dependence on the action, then by complete
 concerted pieces, which are indicated in the libretto--together with
 directions to tailors, architects, and decorators, and alongside of
 the titles and orders of the performers. In Naples, worse still,
 the music gradually declines into a stiff and wearisome form and
 sweet playful nothingness. The well-defined outline of the aria
 appears, now regularly written “da capo”; it alternates to a tiresome
 degree with the accompanied recitative; the chorus recedes into
 the background before the soloists. It is the old typical form,
 skilfully adapted to virtuosity, precisely as a sonata of Scarlatti is
 differentiated from a toccata of Frescobaldi or Pasquini. Originality
 is vanquished; elegance has created a set of formalities in which
 technique can freely exercise itself. The substantive style, so to
 speak, has given way to the adjective, and matter is conquered by
 form. This Neapolitan class of opera, which thus exalts the virtuoso,
 begins with Alessandro Scarlatti. He is the father of that species
 of art which is afterwards included in the name of Italian opera,
 in which we see a contempt for the words, a love of vocal bravura,
 the supremacy of the aria, and a delight in the human voice as an
 instrument. In the forms of his ornamentations we discover again in
 antitype the passages of Domenico; in his love of the _da capo_ and
 instrumental repetitions of vocal phrases we see once more in antitype
 Domenico’s repetitions of shorter or longer groups of bars. In the
 “Alessandro nelle Indie” of the Neapolitan Leonardo Vinci the hero
 sings arias full of slurred “divisions,” syncopations, unprepared
 sevenths, which to a man acquainted with Scarlatti’s sonatas appear
 to bear a strong family resemblance to Scarlatti. Old rubbish bears
 germs of new creations; released from the heavy burden of the words,
 the light play of the voices in the clavier-pieces introduces a fresh,
 youthful life that is full of promise for the future.

 The isolation of the voice and of the instrument, the sensuous delight
 in sound, demands a chamber-music and a chamber-style. Chamber-music
 demands the Maecenas of the great house, and the wealthy amateur, who
 is so powerful a factor in every advance of art. Roman musical life,
 for instance, draws its strength from the practical encouragement
 of the Pope’s, or from the concerts and operas performed in
 aristocratic houses. A Venetian nobleman, Benedetto Marcello, became a
 distinguished and favourite composer, a poet and a satirist. A Roman
 nobleman, Emilio dei Cavalieri, became the founder of the modern
 oratorio, an opera-composer of the advanced school, perhaps even the
 very earliest composer of vocal monody. Vincenzo Galilei, the father
 of the astronomer, became known by his monodies in that circle of
 Florentine Platonists, to whose worthy amateurism is due the origin of
 the opera; and he wrote a work on the technique and fingering of all
 instruments.

 Music in the home is in Italy not too intimate, but proud, splendid,
 mere pastime. Like the opera of the virtuosos, like the secularised
 church-music, it tends to rely upon effect, and lives on applause.
 It depends chiefly on the performer, and knows little of the mutual
 intelligence of souls. A subtle aristocratic love of music runs
 through the Italy of the Middle Ages. Many are the names of high-born
 men and women who had mastered the art of the lute by ear--for a
 notation was as yet unknown.[52] In the Decameron (1350), alongside of
 the novel-telling, it is song, lute-playing, viol-playing, dance and
 choral refrain, with which that pleasant company loves most to kill
 the time.

 The music of dances, songs, and instrumental pieces, which was soon
 to find its proper home in the clavier, is a child of the world,
 and, in the view of a serious theoretician like Pietro Bembo, it is
 exposed to all the dangers of emptiness and vanity. In 1529 he writes
 to his daughter Helena, who like many of the women in her position,
 intended to receive instruction on the clavier in her convent: “As to
 your request to be allowed to learn the monochord,[53] I answer that
 you cannot yet, on account of your youth, understand that playing is
 only suited for idle and volatile ladies; whereas I desired you to be
 the most pure and loveable maiden in the world. Also, it would bring
 you but little pleasure or renown if you should play badly; while to
 play well you would have to devote ten or twelve years to practice,
 without being able to think of anything else. Consider a moment
 whether _this_ would become you. And if your friends wish you to learn
 to play in order to give them pleasure, reply that you do not wish to
 make yourself ridiculous in their eyes; and content yourself with the
 sciences and domestic occupations.”

 A hundred years later chamber-music is at its zenith. The great
 Carissimi (d. 1674) put the flourishing chamber cantata[54]--that
 half-dramatic, half-lyric song of the seventeenth century--by the
 side of the monodic church-songs of Viadana; and Steffani added
 his renowned chamber-duets. The case was precisely similar with
 instrumental music; by the side of the “sonata da chiesa,” with its
 free and independent style, came the “sonata da camera,” as a suite
 of favourite dance forms;[55] and the “concerti,” with their several
 instruments playing to a small accompanying orchestra. Above all, the
 possibility is now realised of suitably accompanying monodies and
 concerted works on the clavier, from the figured bass; and this in
 its turn contributes not a little to the victorious advance of the
 melodic song. But as a solo-instrument, the clavier suns itself in the
 light of the chamber-style, in which brilliancy, dexterity of hand,
 and elasticity of form are not less admired than the many small and
 spirited caprices, which in the “grand” style of music have perhaps
 not yet been attempted.

 [Illustration: A Clavier Lesson. Painting by an unknown Dutch Master,
 17th century, in the Royal Gallery at Dresden.]

 Among all the instruments of tone which achieve an independent
 existence in Italy, the clavier naturally takes its stand last.
 From its first movement towards this independence, in Venice in the
 sixteenth century, to the full liberty of a Scarlatti, stretches an
 interval of a hundred and fifty years. It was in fact partly too much
 occupied in the orchestra, and partly too dependent on the technique
 of the organ. We find it already in the orchestra in the first
 operas of Peri; under Monteverde, the first of all great orchestral
 geniuses, there were two claviers, on the right and left of the stage.
 They serve to accompany solo singing, or, along with small organs, to
 fill up the harmony of the orchestral body. As a rule the operatic
 composer writes only the figured bass, but occasionally adds some of
 the melodic voice-parts; the conductor completes the score, leaving to
 the several players, however, a certain freedom of improvisation in
 colouring, a freedom which a well-trained musician would not abuse to
 the detriment of the _tout ensemble_.

 But clavier-pieces pure and simple had a characteristically
 _dependent_ existence. Even in that Venetian circle where Willaert
 (1490-1563) Gabrieli,[56] and Merulo moved, in which instruments
 were first emancipated, in which they were boldly introduced into
 church-music, and solo-pieces were written for orchestral or for keyed
 instruments, even here the soul of the clavier lay still fettered. It
 is the organ that indicates colour and takes the lead. In the pieces
 of the two Gabrielis, or of Merulo, the old contrapuntal, pictorial
 fashion lives still almost untouched by external disturbances; and the
 picture seldom allows us to anticipate that stiff adherence to the
 theme, and that well-wrought harmony which, in the England of the same
 age, we found so full of promise. Down to the time of Frescobaldi,
 organist at St Peter’s in 1615, who stands as a landmark in this
 development, the Italian sense for absolute music is far too strong
 for an “applied” music to be able, as it did in France and England, to
 _modernise_ the instrumental pieces by their necessary dependence on
 song and dance. Canzoni[57] are treated in a light fugal style; the
 so-called Ricercari[58] represent another and freer fugal form; the
 toccatas, capriccios and fantasias are variegated attempts to unite
 all tempi and all kinds of playing in one piece. The composers are
 aiming at typical forms, and only attain an unrestrained formlessness
 which all these pieces with their trifling differences alike exhibit.
 The juxtaposition of chords, successions of canonic imitations, free
 alternations of tempo, piquant applications of the newly-discovered
 chromatic possibilities--all these interest these writers much more
 than character or expression. All these ricercari, canzoni, fantasias,
 toccatas, are alike “sonatas”--pieces which exist for the sake of
 their _tones_ and technique, and, as Couperin says, not in the least
 for the sake of their soul or content. Dance-suites and variations
 on songs, which as time went on gained in popularity, sharpened,
 here as elsewhere, the sense for form; but these never became the
 predominant class. The free form of the fantasia always ranked as the
 principal species of the higher clavier-pieces. In Frescobaldi we
 already see the process of crystallisation. His canzoni and fugues not
 only exhibit for the first time the good fugal style familiar to us,
 but also betray the modern sense for arrangement and method in their
 frequent division[59] into three movements, and in their progressive
 quickening of tempo. He it is also who reduces under a distinct law of
 arrangement the various movements of the whole instrumental fantasia.

 With Pasquini in the second half of the seventeenth century, we meet
 the visible line of demarcation between organ and clavier. Hitherto
 the organ had been in everything the predominant partner. The whole
 aspect of the clavier-pieces was that of the organ. The old Venetians
 had frequently written for it in three or four parts and brought
 the instrument into popularity. But even Frescobaldi had written no
 piece for clavier alone. Diruta, organist at Chioggia, the pupil of
 Merulo, wrote a dialogue between 1597 and 1609 on the best method of
 playing organ and clavier, and had of course drawn attention to the
 characteristic features of clavier-playing; but all his observations
 on holding the hands horizontal,[60] on the good and bad fingers
 (the second and fourth are the “good,” and fall on the strong accents
 of the bar), or on the ornamentations and their execution, are in
 the first instance written with reference to the organ. Indeed, he
 actually begins his book with a panegyric on that instrument. As
 a matter of fact the true emancipator of the Italian clavier was
 Pasquini. He wrote for the clavicymbal alone; in his figures and
 style of play he thus early showed a genuine sense for the clavier;
 he abandoned the practice of setting chord passages and runs in close
 juxtaposition, but elaborated out of the two the proper clavier style;
 he brought into strong connection with a theme the quicker and slower
 parts of his sonatas, and set them clearly over against each other;
 and he attempts, as in his Capriccio on the motive of the cuckoo’s
 song, to draw from the clavier all kinds of characteristic effects,
 still wild and confused, but full of the freshness of spring.

 [Illustration: Virginal in shape of a work-box.]

 [Illustration: The same opened, showing the instrument within, which
 can be taken out.]

 [Illustration: The instrument taken out. Constructed in 1631 by
 Valerius Perius Romanus. De Wit collection, Leipsic.]

 So far is the early Italian clavier (when the violin begins its
 victorious career) from assuming a leading position, that the
 cembalo can do nothing better than make use of the experiences of
 the violin. For we must give up the legend of the genius of Michel
 Angelo Rossi. This story is one of the most amusing freaks of musical
 history. We find in many popular collections of old music an andante
 and allegro in G major by this man, who is tolerably well known as
 an operatic composer and violinist. He was a pupil of Frescobaldi
 and died in 1660. This piece is so captivating in its melody, so
 decided in its form, so restrained in its arrangement, that it would
 have done honour to Mozart. Had these pieces truly sprung from the
 _intavolatura_ of Michel Angelo Rossi, the modernity of their form
 and melody would give such a shock to musical history that it would
 be shivered into fragments. Yet a man like Pauer, who published them,
 could actually believe that this music was possible before 1660.[61]
 A later historian, Rolland, in his “Histoire de l’Opéra avant Lully
 et Scarlatti,” led astray by the same mistake, fancies he detects
 in the choruses of Rossi’s opera of Hermione anticipations of the
 Zauberflöte.[62] Parry alone, the author of the brilliant article on
 the sonata in Grove’s Dictionary of Music, has boggled at this pseudo
 Rossi. Heaven knows to whom the pretty little pieces really belong. It
 is not unlikely that Scarlatti wrote them in his old age.

 [Illustration:

 Italian cembalo, from a monastery, of the 18th century. Made of
 cypress wood. The pictures on the lid represent a concert of monks and
 a landscape. On the sides of the case are Cupids and garlands. De Wit
 collection, Leipsic. ]

 The thematically precise sonatas and concertos of Corelli, the old
 violin master; the pieces of Vivaldi, so wonderfully rich in melody;
 the intellectual suites of Locatelli; it is in these violin works
 that the form of the Italian instrumental piece first appears,
 deriving itself from the joint experiences of the free toccata and
 of the fettered dance. Corelli, who died so early as 1713, was one
 of those strange phenomena in the history of art, which reach the
 utmost heights of an epoch, without freezing into an icy classicism.
 His pieces are even to-day of a ravishing sensuousness, and must be
 produced in the flowery dress of an improvised _coloratura_.[63] They
 mark the highest point in the monodic style of the virginal Italian
 music. From the point of view of melody they are the freshest dances
 and arias written about 1700, full of unparalleled invention and of a
 rhythmical freedom which anticipates the scherzi of Beethoven. They
 are indeed the works of a genius in form. But they never stiffen into
 one shape, like the operatic overtures.[64] In Corelli the sonata
 still stands in the full bloom of its manifold forms. Among his
 numerous pieces there are not many which exhibit precisely the same
 arrangement of the movements and of their tempi, or of the various
 dances. Even the number of these movements varies, so that one can
 lay down no precise rule. Slow movements begin, or stand in the
 middle, or come at the end; or even, with a modernised reminiscence
 of old times, introduce themselves for a few bars[65] between the
 allegros and the vivaces. This is, from the point of view of form, the
 same rhythmic freedom which Beethoven, on deeper material grounds,
 reintroduced in his latest sonatas and quartets. All is held together
 by an ornamental, delicate, and thematic filigree-work. More rarely,
 as in the fourth Sonata da chiesa and in the fifth Sonata da camera,
 a certain thematic relation between the several movements is to be
 detected; but within the movement the thematic conception is so worked
 out that it is treated with natural modulations and appropriate
 intermediate passages. The movement falls into two parts which are
 repeated as a matter of course; the second part begins with the
 modulated main motive of the first. Occasionally, as in the allemande
 of the tenth concerto and in the allegro of the twelfth, we find an
 exact return to the first theme. This combination of the da capo
 system with the modulation of the theme; and in the midst of this
 the miniature da capo system of the concerted violins imitating each
 other; and especially the favourite concluding repetitions of bars,
 alternating from forte to piano,--all these became the groundwork of
 the Scarlattian style.

 The da capo is in fact the scaffolding of this formal music. To our
 modern minds it appears pointless; but in those days it was natural
 enough. Some day the history of musical repetition ought to be
 written; it would be indeed the history of quite half of music. Even
 in Greek writings we meet melodic repetitions; it is on the principle
 of imitation that the contrapuntal style of the Middle Ages[66] is
 built; from the repetition of parts, or the rearrangement of the
 themes, musical sentences become capable of new effects; and further,
 there was the germ of progress in the thematic conception of whole
 bars, whole groups of bars and whole movements, which finally,
 whether arias or sonatas, were taken da capo. This is the last step
 of thematic music which has shaken off the contrapuntal forms.
 To-day we are in a period of repetition which, for want of a better
 word, we may call “Thematic.” In dependence on the old beginnings of
 programme-music, which were greatly developed by Beethoven, the new
 _subjective_ repetition takes the place of the older. This new form
 works chiefly in the _idée fixe_, in the Leit-motiv, which is subtly
 treated and varied according to the situations represented. Founded
 deep in the essence of music, the principle of repetition has at all
 times been an ever-changing, ever re-incarnating characteristic of the
 condition of the tonic art.

 [Illustration:

 Old engraving representing Scarlatti playing a Harpsichord with
 two rows of keys; and certain well-known contemporaries of his. A
 satire on the unheard-of successes of the famous Italian Soprano,
 Cafarelli. From the Nicolas-Manskopf collection, Frankfort-on-Main.
 Cafarelli’s cat is sitting in the foreground singing an Italian
 parody. The persons represented are named on the right. The two verses
 are as follows: “The concert of these great Italian masters would be
 beautiful, if the cat did not join in. Just in the same way, the sweet
 harmony of two souls joined by the god of Love is constantly being
 interrupted by some animal or other.” ]

 It gave to the Italian sonata of its time the same character of unity
 which the rhythm of the dance gave to the French clavier-piece.
 But, before the separate movements could reach their full formal
 development, the emancipation of the thematic subjects from
 counterpoint, and their absolute self-dependence, must be completed.
 The Italian ear, from its mere pleasure in motive and its development,
 released the subject from obligatory contrapuntal treatment. From the
 old thin forms of toccata and capriccio sprang fugal exercises with
 poor and limited themes, to which, so early as 1611, the old Francesco
 Turini gives the sounding title of sonatas. They are full of the
 passages associated with solo-instruments; they sound with flexible
 melodies; they run off in the measured steps of the dance, and circle
 round with repetitions of motives, groups, and movements. The point
 which a Rameau, in his “Cyclopes,” attains by an extension of the
 rondo-form--perhaps under the gentle influence of the sonata--is
 reached by the Italian by formalising the free fantasia, under the
 influence of the dance. It is _form_ at which everything on all sides
 aims.
 
 [Illustration]

 In Scarlatti’s sonatas we have very rarely more than one movement;
 the two-movement groups of the sonatas, numbered by Czerny 122 and
 123, are exceptions. The pieces might be combined into sonatas on the
 Corellian model but for the lack of slow movements, which Scarlatti
 did not willingly write for the brilliant and spirited clavier. The
 structure of the movements displays that perfect freedom which still
 reigned in that springtime of the age of musical form. If we are
 so inclined, we may often detect, as in the prototype, a[67] first
 and a second theme; but the signs of this later form of the typical
 sonata are still so hidden that in many pieces we might, with equal
 justification, detect five or six themes in the more melodious or
 decorative passages. All is in transition, but the thematic conception
 is never left utterly in the background. The motives come out in
 apparently reckless profusion, but scarcely one remains without its
 adequate treatment. We observe all possible arrangements. Sonata
 110 has a perfectly incongruous middle movement; in Sonata 111 a
 moderato alternates with a presto, and both are repeated in fuller
 elaboration. On the other hand some sonatas preserve throughout the
 same rhythmical movement. As a rule the second part of a movement
 concludes like the first, but in a different key, just as it began
 like the first, but again in a different key; or sometimes Part II.
 begins with some different motive from that of Part I., or even with
 one absolutely new. Usually the beginnings of both parts are somewhat
 stiff in their thematic, while their later course is usually more
 free. The development of a main motive--which in later times begins
 the second division of a movement in sonata form--is as yet confined
 to no definite part. Not rarely it is despatched in the first part,
 as in Sonata 169, where the dactylic-trochaic motive is so taken up,
 more or less decidedly, in the first part, that only the very briefest
 reminiscence is left for the second. The general construction is well
 illustrated in the eighth sonata--runs of five semiquavers (_sic_) in
 A minor[68]--a fugal movement proceeding in crotchets, diatonically
 rising and chromatically descending--groups of diminished sevenths
 descending to C--conclusion, the semiquaver motive again. Part II.:
 the latter motive modulating from C, through G minor to D minor, with
 an insertion of the former figure in crotchets, developed as in the
 conclusion of Part I., and returning from D minor to A minor.

 Formal structure is the be-all and end-all of the Italian sonata.
 Technique is its very life. An inexhaustible brilliancy and exclusive
 adaptation to the clavier is the characteristic of Scarlatti. He
 has in his eye the thousand possibilities of clavier-technique,
 and throughout his pieces there breathes a glow of enthusiasm which
 draws us easily from beginning to end with the sweet grace of an
 irresistible rhythm. The successive retardations, as in the arias of
 his father Alessandro’s Rosaura, the changes of hands, the rivalry
 of concerted violins, the delight in passages of quavers with thirds
 and sixths as their harmonic accompaniment, such as is seen in the
 pieces of Corelli, long-sustained notes with sudden leaps which seem
 to be derived from the violin--all this is yet treated from the point
 of view of the clavier, and, so to speak, new-born from it. There is
 little song in Scarlatti, and a singing phrase is preferably repeated
 with brilliant decorations; for the _leggiero_ is much better adapted
 to the spinet than the _arioso_. As a rule, both hands roll on in a
 two-voiced exercise in pure and simple movement without any additional
 encumbrance of heavy harmonies. It is a spectacle of fireworks. Deep
 bass-tones are suddenly introduced; high thirds fly off; thirds and
 sixths are darted in; close arpeggios swell into monstrous bundles
 as they are filled in with all possible passing-notes; octaves are
 vigorously introduced; the hands steer in contrary motion, to one
 another, away from one another; they are tied into chains of chords;
 they release themselves alternately from the same chords, the same
 groups, the same tones; unison passages in the meanwhile run up
 and down; chromatic tone-ladders dart through, then slowly moving
 phrases or still-standing isolated treble notes are seen confusedly
 dotted over the changing bass as it runs up and down, in a kind
 of upper pedal point; harsh sevenths one after another; repeated
 notes, syncopated effects, parallel runs of semiquavers with leaping
 side-notes, such as we know so well in Bach; sudden interchanges from
 major to minor, a device of which the Neapolitan operas are so fond;
 bold characterisation by means of sudden pauses; startling modulations
 by means of chromatic passages; embellishments rarely introduced; a
 delicate arrangement of tones from the severest fugues to the most
 unrestrained bourrées, pastorales, or fanfares--such is the world
 of Scarlatti’s clavier-music. The “plucked” clavier (clavichord)[69]
 as yet does not admit of the delicacies of touch[70] which delight
 us in the pianoforte; and its technique, too, will have to consider
 the three main problems--how to arrange the musical conception in
 the light and lively style suitable to the clavier, how effectively
 to combine the two hands, and how to use the opportunities which
 spring from the divided movements of the single hand. These three
 problems--what the fingers can do, what the hands can do, and what
 the clavier can do--are solved by Scarlatti with all the readiness
 of his Italian temperament. His style luxuriates in the liveliest
 crossings of the hands--a practice he is said to have diminished as
 years increased his bodily dimensions; and his ideas blossom out
 into a captivating, often eccentric freshness, as, for example, in
 his fugal theme G, B♭, E flat, F sharp, B♭, C sharp [D] (ascending),
 which he has taken as the foundation of his best known and perhaps
 most splendid composition, the Cat’s Fugue. Legend indeed asserts that
 these boldly combined tones were suggested to him by a cat gliding
 along the keyboard.

 The most distinguished names of those who have laboured with success
 at the Italian clavier are those of Alberti,[71] whose preference
 for the skilfully broken chord-accompaniment has given rise to
 the title “Alberti Bass”; Durante, who was dry, calculating, and
 destitute of emotion; Galuppi, the graceful and courtly; the somewhat
 superficial Porpora; the subtle Paradies; and Turini, who is by far
 the most brilliant of all the Italian inheritors of the mantle of
 Scarlatti. They take two or three movements for a work; they combine
 dance-pieces and sonata-pieces; they pursue new melodic and rhythmic
 graces; but they all group themselves around or after their hero,
 Domenico Scarlatti, who, as first and greatest, has ushered in the
 pure Italian delight in sound as voiced by the clavier.[72]

 [Illustration: An Octave Spinet (tuned an octave higher than usual).
 18th century. De Wit collection.]


     [44] Before 1746. Burney says they were printed in Venice.

     [45] The engraving and printing of music was rare, even in
     the case of popular masters, till late in the eighteenth
     century. In most cases short and simple clavier pieces
     were copied privately. This method of spreading works
     about in our own time when printing has made everything
     democratic is not lost, but made aristocratic. When Wagner
     copies the Ninth Symphony, or when a scholar copies an old,
     unpublished work, we have an instance of the personal love
     of manual labour in a dilettante or scholar--the work of
     the hand in an age of machinery.--[Author’s Note.]

     [46] A far earlier exponent of pure virtuosity is found in
     England in Dr John Bull, whose pieces, written a century
     and a half before Dom. Scarlatti’s, bear every mark of
     devotion to “pianistic,” as Bülow would call it. The author
     seems to recognise this a few lines back.

     [47] Plagiarism of the most thorough-going character was
     common in the eighteenth century, and can hardly have been
     accounted disgraceful, considering how frequently Handel
     himself practised it, appropriating subjects of fugues,
     long passages, and whole movements, from Stradella, Kerl,
     Urio, Steffani, and others.

     [48] A “spiritual” opera, or oratorio.

     [49] A doubtful story. S. died _circa_ 1681, probably in
     his bed.

     [50] “Tearing the passion to tatters.”

     [51] For instance, in the numerous seventeenth century
     English “cantatas” for solo voice, and the contemporary
     instrumental fantasias, where it is common to find short
     sections in triple time breaking the continuity of the more
     ordinary quadruple time.

     [52] A notation for the lute was published as early as 1512.

     [53] “Monochord” is synonymous with “Clavichord” here. The
     word was often used for the keyed instrument, probably
     because the “German” clavichord had tangents at the ends
     of the levers, which cut off the right length of the
     string, just as the moveable “bridge” of the acoustician’s
     monochord of one single string does.

     [54] Our modern notion of a “cantata” includes the free use
     of a chorus; whereas the seventeenth century “cantata” was
     for a solo voice with accompaniment of a single instrument,
     harpsichord, lute, or viol da gamba.

     [55] For instance, Corelli’s trios, two books (out of four)
     of which are “suonate da camera,” chamber music, the rest
     being “da chiesa,” for church.

     [56] Two Gabrielis, uncle and nephew; the former, Andrea,
     dating 1510-1586, the latter, Giovanni, 1557-1612. Andrea
     was a pupil of Willaert and he succeeded Merulo as “second”
     organist of St Mark’s, Venice, in 1566.

     [57] “Canzone,” a sixteenth and seventeenth century term
     for a sort of vocal madrigal.

     [58] “Ricercari” (compare French “recherché”), the name of
     a class of pieces for organ or cembalo in which the object
     was to include as many ingenuities of counterpoint as
     possible.

     [59] Compare Byrd’s Cantiones Sacræ, 1575, where the pieces
     are divided in this way, _e.g._, Pars Prima, Pars Secunda.

     [60] Meaning that the fingers were held straight out,
     and consequently only the first, second, and third (in
     so-called “German” notation, 2, 3 and 4) would be in common
     use, the ends being nearly of a length.

     [61] It is difficult to set the limits of what is possible
     in such matters; _e.g._--John Jenkins wrote a “Fancy” for
     three viols, before 1667, which modulates from F major
     through the whole set of flat keys, up to G flat, whence he
     coolly turns a rather sharp corner home to F. No one would
     have dared to suppose this possible.

     [62] This might well be. Compare the first phrase of the
     Recitative, which precedes Dido’s dying song in Purcell’s
     “Dido and Æneas,” with the first phrase of Wolfram’s
     recitative before the “Star” song in “Tannhäuser.”

     [63] This _coloratura_ means the elaborate ornamentation
     with which Corelli used to overlay the plain written violin
     part. Joachim’s edition gives Corelli’s own version of the
     sonatas as he himself used to play them.

     [64] These in France were usually arranged adagio, allegro,
     adagio; in Italy, allegro, adagio, allegro, but in both
     countries they had found very early a stereotyped form for
     the succession of their movements.--[Author’s Note.]

     [65] Such things are found as late as Mozart; cf. overture
     to Zauberflöte.

     [66] The true origin of imitative counterpoint is almost
     certainly the _Rota_, what is nowadays called a Round.
     This sort of infinite canon was already perfect in the
     thirteenth century in England. No doubt the _Rota_ itself
     was invented by an accident.

     [67] The “first” and “second” subjects are often very
     clearly distinct in the binary form of Scarlatti. The
     “second subject” is not a mere continuation of the “first”
     in the subordinate key, as more generally it is in J. S.
     Bach, but it is another melody altogether.

     [68] The movement here described is apparently the “Presto”
     on page 25 of the first volume of Mr Thomas Roseingrave’s
     edition of Scarlatti. The groups, so-called, of “five
     semiquavers,” are of four descending semiquavers, followed
     by a crotchet, making five notes altogether.

     [69] The action of all these keyed instruments, whether
     called virginal, spinet, clavecin, clavichord, harpsichord,
     cembalo, is the same, namely, a “plucking” of the string
     by a projection of quill or leather. The exception is
     the _German_ clavichord, which was not a keyed harp, but
     a keyed “monochord,” with key levers in connection with
     “tangents” of metal, which sounded the string and cut off
     the right length of it at the same time.

     [70] The _German_ clavichord referred to in the note was
     able to produce a most delicate effect of tremolo or
     repetition, called _Bebung_. This was possible simply on
     account of the “tangential” action of the German instrument.

     [71] Alberti rather deserves the title of an early
     “decadent.” His broken-chord formula is mainly a way of
     avoiding trouble in writing real passages.

     [72] Pieces by Durante, Galuppi, Porpora, Paradies, and
     Ferdinando Turini (1749-1812), also the disputed movements
     mentioned on p. 82, which bear Rossi’s name, may be found
     in Litolff’s publication “Les Maîtres du Clavecin.”




 [Illustration: German Clavichord, 17th century, “gebunden” (explained
 on page 22). De Wit collection.]




                                  Bach


 In 1717, when Scarlatti as yet dreamed not of his Spanish renown,
 and shortly after Couperin’s first little pieces had appeared, the
 Parisian clavecinist Marchand made a journey to Germany. At the Polish
 court of Dresden he created a furore by his playing, and a famous
 contest was the result, got up, as it appears, by intrigue, between
 Marchand and an organist of Weimar, Johann Sebastian Bach. The King
 was present in person. Marchand began by improvising variations on a
 French song, and was loudly applauded. Bach then took the same theme,
 but varied it twelve times over so marvellously that without further
 contest he carried off the palm from his famous adversary, who, when
 Bach proposed a competition on the organ, incontinently fled from
 Dresden.

 Who was this Bach, and what was this sudden development of German
 music? Hitherto not much had been heard of it in foreign countries,
 and on looking at the German tablatures[73] of the older time one
 could only recognise an honourable but somewhat clumsy struggle. In
 the sixteenth century, perhaps when, in wider circles, some mention
 was made of the great vocal compositions of Isaac and Senfl, a certain
 Nürnberger, Hasler by name, proposed himself to Gabrieli in Venice as
 a pupil, and later his renown was heard at the courts of Vienna and
 Dresden. In the next century another German, Johann Jakob Froberger,
 was associated with Frescobaldi in Rome, and his fame also was
 afterwards heard at the Viennese court. He cannot have been unpopular,
 for a number of anecdotes clustered round his name. Froberger, and
 with him Pachelbel of Nürnberg, began the emancipation of the clavier
 in Germany. In the Hanse Towns of the north were good organists, such
 as Buxtehude in Lübeck and Reincke in Hamburg; but no one in Italy or
 France troubled himself with them.

 The fame of Italian sonatas and French suites was such a matter of
 course, that the Leipzig organist, Kuhnau, when he in 1700 published
 his collections of genuinely German clavier-pieces, plumed himself
 mightily, in his chatty prefaces, on the fact that now at last, even
 in Germany, good music was to be had, which could take its place by
 the side of the foreign. “Even in Germany,” he exclaimed, “oranges
 and citrons at last bloom!” The excellent Kuhnau ventured to give
 the title of sonata to a piece on the model of the Italian sonata da
 camera, although it was written not for violin but for clavier. Hence
 it is often said that he was the creator of the clavier-sonata. But
 this piece has nothing in common with the later popular composition
 of that name; it was a cento of several movements in various tempi,
 as the suite was a cento of several dances. Nay, the Cyclopes of
 Rameau stands nearer to the later type than this. The suites and
 sonatas of Kuhnau are pure clavier-pieces, somewhat marred by the
 usual failings of youth, and running every theme to death, but clear,
 vigorous, and adapted to the fingers, smooth in feeling and modern
 in technique. But the most curious work of Kuhnau is his “Biblical
 Histories.” Here he illustrates on the clavier all kinds of Scriptural
 stories, like the death of Goliath, the cure of Saul, the marriage of
 Jacob, Hezekiah’s recovery, the life of Gideon, and Jacob’s death, in
 sonata-form, on the model of the programme-music[74] of the time, and
 with the assistance of verbal elucidations. Yet Kuhnau is as little as
 Froberger or anyone else a forerunner of Bach, who so overshadows the
 work of his predecessors that one may almost say he is independent of
 them.

 It is indeed hard to compare Bach even with the other wonders of the
 history of art. For there is scarcely one who is so identical with
 his art as is Bach with music. A Michel Angelo does not include a
 Rembrandt, nor a Rembrandt a Monet; but in Bach there is a Beethoven,
 a Schumann, a Wagner. I believe that if the Almighty had wished to
 offer to men in sensible form what at that time was called music,
 he would then have given them the work of Bach. In it there are the
 deepest secrets of musical polyphony, as well as the most intense
 degrees of decadent expression; the mysticism of the Middle Ages is
 there no less than the perspective of the future. But content and form
 are not dissociated as they are in history; they are identical, they
 are one and the same, as they are in the philosophic concept of music.
 Once, and perhaps once only, in this world has the “Thing in Itself”
 been realised, and the difference between concept and actuality been
 reduced to nothing. The history of music can be written with almost
 exclusive reference to Bach. We might show how it has converged
 towards him and again diverged from him in search of its special
 partialities. We might point out how it revolves round him, comes to
 him, and goes from him in the course of the centuries, just as in the
 case of the imitative arts we show that they come from Nature and go
 to her.

 Bach’s life was the most uneventful conceivable. He made no journeys
 to Rome and Paris; he learned musical literature by studying and
 copying. A true “Old Master,” he sits with his serious, almost severe
 countenance, in the midst of his large family of twenty children,
 all musical, and composes for instruction or for his own pleasure,
 without seeing many of his compositions printed. His renown had no
 wide extent;[75] his bold extravagances aroused only that hostility
 which does not bring honour, and in his successive posts at Arnstadt,
 Weimar, Köthen, and Leipzig, he had little opportunity for sunning
 himself in the rays of princely favour. A single moment of his life
 perhaps stands out prominently, when Frederick the Great at one of his
 concerts received the list of strangers in Potsdam, and interrupted
 the playing to say to his officers, “Gentlemen, old Bach has arrived.”
 He was instantly summoned, and, in his travelling dress as he was,
 improvised on a theme of the King’s, which, when completed and
 published, he dedicated to the King as “Musikalisches Opfer.” When two
 great men meet, the whole world feels the electric shock.

 With the appearance of Bach the whole history of music turns to
 Germany. And clavier-music, so far as it has a particular meaning, is
 henceforth German. England, France, and Italy, sink either gradually
 or suddenly into the background.

 Bach’s clavier-music is a complete world, a mirror of his music as a
 whole. As Nature is her whole self in every leaf, so in every piece
 or group of pieces Bach is the whole Bach. Thus for the first time it
 came about that the clavier became capable of interpreting the whole
 nature of a great man. With the early Englishmen it was the embodiment
 of the whole tone-poet; with Couperin the whole man, indeed, but a man
 who was nothing but a dancer; with Scarlatti a whole clavier-player;
 but with Bach the whole nature of a man of whom it is impossible to
 say whether the musician or the intellect in him was the greater. This
 was the first outstanding peak attained by the clavier.

 The natural creative principle from which Bach works, that which gives
 unity to his being, is the conception of counterpoint. Music can
 be written in which every single voice is treated as an independent
 line, and in which the art of combining these lines reaches the
 highest possible development, as in a picture of Holbein--and this is
 counterpoint. Or music could be written, in which an upper melody,
 clearly illuminated, runs on an advancing basis of accompanying
 harmony without much attention to purity of voice, as in a work of
 Ribera--and this is the style resting on “accompaniment.” Bach’s
 essence lies in the contrapuntal method. He conceives the voices _over
 against_ one another; and at the very moment in which he interjects a
 motive, there is a second or third motive introduced, embracing the
 other in contrapuntal wise.

 [Illustration: Konrad Pau(l)mann, the first German writer for keyed
 instruments, blind. Died 1473. After a modern drawing by Wintter.]

 Yet he has taken the accompaniment-style also into himself. Just as
 little as he can ever be censured for defect in melody, so little
 has he ever neglected the newer “secular” harmony--rather, he has
 carried on his counterpoint in accordance with its laws. He has of
 course as little respect as any other first class musician for the
 common Italian accompaniment with its singing melody alone. If he
 adopts it, it is in very discreet fashion; the richly decorated arioso
 soaring above the vigorously moving _basso continuo_ in such delicate
 arrangement that we think rather of an ornamented contrapuntal
 passage than of a light singing voice accompanied by the cembalo with
 _figured_ bass.

 In this secularisation of counterpoint by means of the contrasting
 features of an arioso, the foundation of a bass, and the modern system
 of a network of harmony, he exhibits the characters of both musical
 styles in one, and gives us the unification of two epochs, which
 necessarily opened a boundless prospect into the future.

 Two or more voices running alongside are treated in their relation to
 one another. Here the simple contrapuntal exercise, which sets them
 neatly together, and enfolds their rhythms into each other, will soon
 cease to satisfy. The best-sounding contrapuntal relations are those
 in which the voices show some slight traces of imitation. From the
 lighter imitations rises the stricter canon,[76] and at last the exact
 and regular succession of canonic repetitions is reached. The ideal is
 then an exercise in which every note of every voice has its imitative
 relations, and in which the whole is so interconnected that not a
 stone can be removed without bringing about the fall of the whole
 structure.

 We see Bach himself at this work. He works more lightly and elegantly,
 or more heavily and massively, not by arbitrary choice, but according
 to his subject. He begins with a Prelude, in which a gentle
 interlacing of voices answers to his mood; imitations, arising as if
 of their own accord, are inserted here and there. Then there is the
 final gigue of a suite, in which a rapid 6/8 theme has to be treated,
 in spite of its rapidity, with a certain canonic severity, which gives
 solidity to the conclusion of the whole suite. Then again we have a
 slow movement of intertwining voices, such as is found after the first
 preluding bars of the F sharp minor and C minor Toccatas; the voices
 alternately take up the mournful themes, with no strict regularity of
 exact succession, wonderfully floating, according to a fixed purpose,
 and gently swimming in their harmonies, with no recognisable support,
 almost a fairy-like echo of mediæval counterpoint. Or, finally, there
 is a regular fugue, which stands there like a monument, with hardly
 a superfluous note; in regular succession the voices present the
 theme in single or double counterpoint, always alternately imitating
 at the fourth or fifth, with a never-failing reference to the tonic
 key; and near the close, where still greater closeness of imitation
 is demanded, proudly and stiffly vaulted over with diminutions or
 augmentations of the theme.

 Bach has left us clavier-works in which we see perfected the simplest
 form which the contrapuntal conception could assume in his hands.
 These are the fifteen “Inventions” and the fifteen “Symphonies,”
 which in the manuscript appear with the inscription, “Straightforward
 directions, by which the amateur of the clavier, but especially the
 one anxious to learn, is shown a plain method, not only of playing
 properly in two parts, but also, on further progress, to undertake
 three obbligato parts; at the same time also not only gaining good
 inventions, but also personally performing them, and, above all,
 attaining a cantabile style in playing, as well as a good foretaste of
 composition.” This curious preface ends, “Verfertiget von Joh. Seb.
 Bach, hochf. Anhalt-Cöthenischen Capell-meister, Anno Christi 1723.”

 The simple homeliness of the time speaks in this title-page; and it is
 well to appropriate to-day as much of this as possible, in order to
 lose nothing in the enjoyment of these fifteen two-voiced Inventions
 and these fifteen three-voiced Symphonies. Even to-day Bach demands
 the desire of learning in amateurs, who should feed their pleasure
 with diligence, and enter into the feelings of the composer. One who
 sits at the clavier with a zeal worthy of Bach’s compositions, will
 find in these thirty simple contrapuntal pieces a small storehouse of
 treasures. He will be captivated by the elegance of this canonic music
 as soon as his fingers are able to play in parts; but he will never be
 released from the influence of the many-coloured glittering character
 of these compositions. They are the drawings of a master, which in
 a few strokes depict great objects; sketches of a great artist, so
 full of scholarship that they cover the whole of life. The solemn
 Invention in F minor, the eccentric one in B flat major, the Symphony
 which sounds so mournfully in E flat major, or the chromatically
 gloomy F minor, the sprightly staccato G minor, the graceful A major
 whose traces are to be found in so many works of a later time, and
 the rhythmical, freely-singing B minor, with its harp-like strokes,
 in which Beethoven and Chopin, yet unborn, seem to meet--these pieces
 were then unique in literature, and still remain so.

 [Illustration: Skull of Sebastian Bach, with Seffner’s modelling of
 his features.]

 In these fantasy-pieces the fugal conception is dealt with on a small
 scale; in the Toccatas on a large scale. The clavier-toccatas of Bach
 are free pieces of that wonderful many-sidedness of construction
 which a music might still possess that had not yet stiffened into
 conventionalism. When we sit down to play the Inventions and
 Symphonies, we point our fingers as if for miniature work. But when we
 sit down to the Toccatas, we dispose our arms and hands, as would have
 been said in Bach’s time, “in einer gewissenen grossartigen Freyheit,”
 with a certain large freedom. These Toccatas will be eternal
 favourites, because of their air of improvisation which develops the
 fughetta out of the preludic movement, and scatters the playful,
 pleasant technique in the midst of the severities of imitation.
 Inexhaustible in the apparent formlessness of their form, they stand
 on the threshold of modern literature as the great models of that true
 clavier-style which will always have a touch of the extempore as one
 of its characteristic features.

 In the Toccatas it can be seen how Bach permits his fugal conceptions
 organically to grow. It is in them that we see the psychology of
 the fugue more purely than in the strictest formal fugal movements.
 Take, for example, the F sharp minor Toccata. Here the fingers
 preludise over the keyboard, gradually growing slower, the passages
 differentiate themselves into motives, which gently imitate each
 other, until at length they come to rest on a solid bass. This is the
 moment of lyric inspiration; and the soul sighs itself out in a slow
 movement, which weaves itself in fugal style, speedily sweeping forth
 in its own free, harmonious woven-work. A staccato-motive breaks in;
 rolling semiquavers soon crystallise around it; it grows and swells in
 a three-voiced fugue; loosens itself, becomes lighter, and passes off
 into an operatic joyousness, circling round in repetitions, which to
 us seem almost too wide for the narrow significance of this motive.
 A pause, and in the new-won freshness emerges the first chromatic
 adagio-motive as a lively floating fugue, soon breaking forth into
 four voices, and ending in a stirring finale.

 Take the D major Toccata. Here there is a joyous prelude of ascending
 scales, running off in chords and tremoli. An insertion of a fresh
 capriccioso motive follows, which pursues its course mingled with
 playful figures. A pause in adagio; mournfully moving melodies, freely
 accompanied by tremoli; softly passing over into a quiet three-voice
 fugue, which again leads to preluding passages, speaking recitatives,
 broken chords, till the great wild hunt of triplets surges in its
 fugal power. This D major piece is in content and technique Schumann
 all over.

 Similarly, one easily recognises the development of soul in the
 solemn C minor Toccata, which is dominated almost throughout by
 a charmingly-constructed fugue; or in the D minor Toccata, with
 its stirring and beautiful adagio-movement; the G minor with its
 bacchanalian finale; the rapid G major; and the never-to-be-forgotten
 E minor with its clearness and restraint. They are all built up on an
 inner meaning, and show a grandeur in their intimate nature such as
 only Beethoven has dared to express on the clavier, and a soulfulness
 never surpassed by a programme-musician in our century in his own
 style. But the fugue has in them become the indwelling soul, and the
 whole speech of music has absolutely ascended into their form. We see
 it come, grow, and depart.

 One who has investigated the psychology of Bach’s fugue in the
 Toccatas, will no longer fail to recognise it in his pure and absolute
 fugues. A fugue of Bach--this sounds to the _lay_ musical ear as the
 very sum of all that is academic. But in reality never were fugues
 written which were developed less academically, or which flow so
 entirely from the soul. Only take the fugal form not as the end in
 itself, and not as a mere example of musical architecture--only
 take pains to discover the spirit of its unfolding--and we shall be
 astounded at the endless variety of the inward musical life which is
 profusely showered into this form. The essence of a fugue of Bach
 is just this freedom from all architecture, this suppression of all
 calculation in favour of the spiritual development. The fugal form,
 that well-known series of enlargements and arrangements of the pure
 canon, is to him a prime _datum_, from which, nevertheless, he has
 formed no unbending principle. But he works with this material in such
 a way that he keeps the development of a piece always subordinate to
 the character which the fugal theme imposes on him. The theme is the
 title, the piece the contents.

 His genius reveals itself in perception of the thousand possibilities
 of unfolding which lie in his themes--some advancing diatonically,
 some studded over with pauses, some with sudden stops on sevenths,
 some marching on in massive choral style, some humorously staccato,
 especially those with startling false accents, others drawn in large
 outlines which excite curiosity and scarcely stand forth in their
 clear rhythm till the ninth or tenth bar, and which he was so fond of
 because they gave the strongest stimulus to the coming development.

 [Illustration: J. S. Bach.

 Bust by Carl Seffner. Modelled on the actual skull. After His, J. S.
 Bach (Vogel, Leipsic).]

 Let the “layman” accustom himself not to be frightened by fugues. The
 fugue in the grand style of Bach, constructed with that unparalleled
 art which the first C major fugue in the “Wohltemperiertes Klavier”
 displays, or which is shown in the C sharp minor fugue, with its three
 themes gradually stratified one above the other, or rolling themselves
 off with that extraordinary ease which we daily admire in the famous
 A minor--this kind of fugue is a necessary speech of music: it is
 melody, it is a natural language which can never disappear. To grasp
 it, to assimilate it, until the many voices or even many themes of its
 development stand clearly before our eyes in their full characteristic
 value, is a feast for the musical epicure to which hardly anything
 else can be compared. Bach’s fugues are _playable_. They are not too
 easy; but they are so in the spirit of the clavier that the fingers
 soon lose their timidity, and the work is as a mirror in which they
 speedily recognise the necessary nature of their motion. And there is
 an eternally fresh animation in this activity, in which no deception,
 no dilettantism, no superfluity can exist for a moment.

 The great artist, to whom the “Fantasy” is a presupposition, does
 not work on it, however much it may seem to the crowd a chief aim;
 he works on the form which requires this kind of work. We see Bach,
 through his whole life, labouring at the fugue; and the encyclopædic
 work, in the midst of which he died, “The Art of Fugue,” shows us
 heights of power in this form which make us dizzy. Besides certain
 scattered fugues, he has made a collection of different periods in
 the two volumes of the “Wohltemperiertes Klavier.” Here every major
 and minor mode of every semitone is doubly treated, with a prelude
 and fugue--a comprehensiveness of arrangement which was partly due
 to the taste of the time,[77] and partly can be referred to the
 secondary aim of the work, which was the introduction of a system of
 clavier-tuning which should be sufficient for practical purposes, in
 which no acoustic solecisms should be committed to suit convenience,
 and in which all the keys should be used indifferently and in their
 completeness by pupils. It is not hard to detect that the unity of
 these two volumes is not very complete. Even Spitta, a meritorious but
 somewhat tasteless biographer, who seeks to find the “higher” unity
 in all Bach’s works, is compelled to grant that there are varieties
 of style and intrusions of alien matter in the “Wohltemperiertes
 Klavier.” But that is no loss. The brilliant many-sidedness of its
 contents can support even this discontinuity of style (which, by
 the way, is but a slight discontinuity) and this artistic fusion of
 certain preludes and fugues, which originally were not composed with
 a view to each other. No one will fail to perceive how wonderfully
 the preludes combine with each other and with many of the fugues. The
 whole, perhaps, gains something of the character of the old composite
 epics, such as Homer or the Bible. Bach’s autograph of the first part
 bears the date 1722; there is no complete autograph of the second
 part, and this Bible of clavier-playing was first printed in 1800, two
 or three generations after its production.[78]

 If we look at the original editions of the six works which were
 printed in Bach’s time, they speak in no uncertain tone of the taste
 of the age. From 1726 to 1730 appeared the “Klavierübung”--the first
 part, with the suites which are known as “Partiten.” In 1735 we have
 the second part of the Klavierübung, containing the Italian Concerto
 and the “Ouverture nach französischer Art” (also a suite). In 1739
 appeared the third part, in which are found organ chorales along
 with four duets for two claviers. In these the distinction between
 organ and clavier is as feebly marked as it always was before the
 invention of the pianoforte. The fourth part, which appeared in 1742,
 contains the great Variations for clavicymbal with two keyboards.
 Besides these, in 1747 appeared the “Musikalisches Opfer,” in which
 the theme of Frederick the Great is elaborated; and, in 1752, two
 years after Bach’s death, was published the “Kunst der Fuge.” He could
 only venture on the printing of the “Kunst” in his later years, when
 the Bach fugue had made some way in the world. The “Musikalisches
 Opfer” came out under the protection of the King; all the other
 clavier-pieces which seemed to him likely to pay for the printing are
 of a lighter kind--suites and concertos “for the delight of amateurs,”
 as it stands on the title-page. The three types of the great Bach
 counterpoint--the miniature Invention, the free Toccata, and the
 absolute Fugue--then, as now, appealed to too select a circle to
 attain the popularity of dances and concertos.

 If Bach’s greatness is in the former works stupendous, in the latter
 it is loveable. Here we learn to know his other side. It is his “other
 manner.” Here, instead of the severe canonic development of a theme,
 attention is paid to the voices as parts of a harmonious whole; he
 steps down from the cothurnus, and moves familiarly in pleasant
 comedy. Still, the contrapuntal conception is the basis of the
 structure; but simply harmonised floriations of melody are interwoven,
 so that the clavier almost rivals the arioso of a violin. Between
 the extremes of the first movement of the “Chromatic Fantasia,”
 with its free rhythms, arpeggios, recitatives, and song-passages,
 and of the second movement, the regular fugue--extremes which mark
 the two limits of Bach’s style--there is an endless abundance of
 methods of treatment, in which now the contrapuntal element and now
 the arioso takes the lead. We see Bach in this second group of his
 clavier-works, the suites and concertos, pass over into the enchanting
 fields of Italian sensuous music. But it is remarkable how he never
 loses for a single moment his unique depth and his insatiable delight
 in form. There is a very abyss between a suite of Bach, founded on
 the Eternities, and one of Handel’s, owing its popularity to the
 transitory charms of dexterous trivialities.

 There are three great groups of Bach’s clavier-suites: the so-called
 Partiten, which appeared in print in his own life-time, the “English
 Suites,” and the “French Suites.” The Partiten, which were first
 published separately, must, as the earliest work of this author known
 to the public, have struck the whole world with bewilderment. It was
 the first bound of a unique genius, the elevation of a traditional
 form of art into quite unparalleled shapes, a storm of intellectual
 lightning in a region long regarded as exclusively owned by Frenchmen
 and Italians. Even to-day the Partiten belong to the most select class
 of clavier-literature; and I cannot for a moment conceive how they
 are not to be regarded as superior by many degrees to the English
 and French suites. In no book is the future of music more clearly
 foretold. To see in the B flat major corrente, Chopin; in the B flat
 major gigue, Schumann; in the C minor sinfonia, Beethoven; in the C
 minor Rondo and Capriccioso, Mendelssohn; in the A minor Scherzo,
 Mozart, is no mere enthusiastic fancy.

 [Illustration: The Fifteenth Sinfonia of John Sebastian Bach, from the
 Royal Musikbibliothek, Berlin.]

 The Partiten outgrew the ordinary scheme of the suites (allemande,
 corrente, saraband, gigue) as Beethoven’s sonatas outgrew the old
 scheme of sonatas. They have given a new life and a new spirit to
 a traditional form. The suite, which at the end of the seventeenth
 century has become merely conventional, is so elevated by the spirit
 of Bach that it thenceforward stands in the world of actuality.
 Even Schumann selects a similar form for the expression of modern
 emotions. The suite having been thus despatched, the sonata is in
 similar fashion put into precise and regular form, to be transfigured
 later by Beethoven with the same modern spirit. Bach had the fortune
 and the genius to relegate the traditional suite into the past, and
 to see the conventional sonata dawning in the future. Thus with him
 the dance-piece and the free piece remained fresh and lively. Suite
 and sonata were only different external ways for reducing several
 pieces to unity. There, men took their stand on the old familiar
 series of dance-tunes, without ever thinking of the dances themselves;
 here, they found for the first movement a practical form, and, in
 the event, ranged the adagio, scherzo, and rondo together, just as
 their predecessors had used the saraband, minuet, and gigue. On this
 tendency to unity on the part of the clavier-pieces, from the first
 English variations, through Couperin’s Ordres, to Bach’s suites,
 Italian sonatas and German sonatas, Chopin’s Albums, Schumann’s
 Scenes, Liszt’s Epics, too much stress need not be laid. Even more
 than the orchestra, the clavier leans to short pieces, but the
 intellect demands some excuse for binding them together.

 If we take a striking liveliness as the characteristic of the
 Partiten, we indeed find a feature in which they are distinguished
 from the French Suites, but which is far from exhausting their
 qualities. Solid melodies, humorous capriccios, enchanting dances,
 tuneful airs, everything is included in these works. In their pages
 we realise how the spirit of Bach strives to utter the very utmost of
 which it feels itself capable. And in these introductory preludes,
 toccatas, or symphonies, in these flowing allemandes, gliding
 correntes, heavy sarabands, filigree-worked gigues, in those numerous
 intermezzo movements, such as burlesques, rondos, airs, minuets, and
 passepieds, there are turns of genius, the form of which is impressed
 for ever on the mind. I think of the sweet running movements of the
 astonishing B flat major Gigue; of the brilliant structure of the C
 minor Capriccio, which concludes the Partita in place of a Gigue; of
 the D major aria, in which breathes the whole grace of the eighteenth
 century; of the bold and rhapsodical Saraband in D major; of the
 rich colouring of the introductory E minor Toccata; the rocking
 melody of the allemande, the sombre glow of the saraband, the wayward
 syncopations of the gigue.

 The six English Suites, which we may certainly assume to have been
 put into juxtaposition by Bach himself, stand between the six
 printed Partiten and the six French Suites, whose combination was
 only probably, not certainly, due to Bach. They would seem to have
 been called “English” suites, because they were arranged for some
 Englishman; the original title was apparently “suites avec prélude.”
 For the English suites, like the Partiten, have each a fairly long
 introduction, fugal in style, but not conforming to the strictest laws
 of the fugue. The intermezzi, also, are as numerous as in the case
 of the Partiten. But that extreme intellectual severity is wanting;
 they are more graceful and polite. This character is especially
 noticeable in the introductory fugal movements and the intermediate
 dance pieces; and one who seeks rather a play of tone than grandeur
 of soul will perhaps find here a richer yield than in the Partiten.
 Neat, volkslied-like sarabands, ravishing bourrées, rococo gavottes,
 ornamental minuets, the exquisitely delicate passepied in E
 minor--these all lie so thick one on another, that one cannot recall
 a more sparkling album of dainty dances in the whole eighteenth
 century. It is true that in the Vienna school (as in the case of the
 younger[79] Muffat and others) there is in this class of dances a
 gentle soothing quality, which gives us the first hint of the coming
 beautiful Viennese dance-music; but they are, like those of Handel,
 too short in duration and too featureless for us to be able to return
 to them with the extraordinary affection with which we return to those
 of Bach. These are so rich in invention that they cannot in many
 centuries lose their flavour. The dancing underpart of the D major
 gavotte in the D minor suite, the multiform air of the D minor, E
 minor, and A minor sarabands, the filigree-counterpoint of the E minor
 Passepied, the extreme daring of the A minor bourrée, the transport of
 the A minor prelude, which even grows into a roundelay,--what a depth
 of originality is there in all these pieces, in which the repetitions
 so wonderfully satisfy the laws of the mind without becoming
 mechanical!

 How the French Suites came by their name is hard to say. More French
 than the English suites they are certainly not, for they are quite
 as Bach-like as the latter. Without Preludes and without too many
 Intermezzi or “Doubles” (repetitions with variations), they are of
 astonishing variety. The Allemandes especially, as first movements in
 every suite, display such a manifoldness of form, that in fact nothing
 is left in common to them but the four-time beat. The song in the
 Saraband and the dance in the Intermezzi appear to the same effect
 as in the English suites, and a light tone runs through the whole.
 But the tone is lightest of all in the E major suite, which with its
 rolling allemande and courante, its singing saraband, its stiff and
 formal gavotte, its characteristic polonaise, its tricksy bourrée,
 and its cheerful gigue, is a perfect paradise of dainty devices.
 The flowing courante in it strikes our fancy; for it is precisely
 in the courantes of these suites with their heavy old-fashioned
 movements that we shall most often hit on the rare occasions on which
 we must regard Bach as already obsolete. The ornamentations tend to
 appear less befitting to us, scattered so profusely as they are in
 these movements. But to Bach, little as he could as yet succeed in
 emancipating himself from ornamentations, they were no longer such a
 matter of course as with the old French clavecinists. If we compare
 the different manuscripts of his works, we see the uncertainties and
 alterations. Bischoff, in his excellent critical edition of Bach’s
 clavier-music (Steingräber) has therefore only engraved large those
 ornamentations which were without doubt always played by Bach. Taste
 will fill them in in certain places on grounds of symmetry and
 “thematic”; but they are no longer bewildering in their profusion.

 Among the suites which do not belong to these collections, we
 recollect with great pleasure the dainty dances and intermezzi--for
 example in the E flat major suite, and especially that in B minor
 with overture in French style (Largo--Fuga--Largo) which appeared in
 the second part of the Klavierübung as a piece for two manuals. It
 presents, among the many intermezzi, a gavotte in the style of the
 orchestral Partiten, which links itself with the choicest dances, in
 graceful style, of the preceding century. From the clavier-suites we
 pass to the clavier-sonatas, which, still in the style of Italian
 art, mingled with dances, offer free combinations of different
 movements. The melodious andante of the D minor sonata, and its
 final allegro-movement rattling off almost in one part, are perfect
 pearls. A step further we reach the fantasias with fugues; especially
 the polyphonic one in A minor, the recitatival “Chromatische” and
 the concerto-like C minor, fugally treated, but still not a fugue.
 These three fantasia-pieces were Bach’s direct bequests to the
 future. In the polyphony of the brilliantly rushing fantasia in A
 minor, rising with endlessly delicate melody, we are reminded of the
 “Meistersinger”; in the chromatic fantasia, with its broad narration
 and grandiose concluding pedal point, the clavier seems to us to speak
 with the freedom of a drama; in the significantly constructed C minor
 fantasia rests the whole formal talent of the instrumental composers
 of the expiring eighteenth century.

 The three “brilliant” fantasias incline naturally to the concerto
 style, which partly abandoned counterpoint in favour of a mere
 accompaniment, and partly subordinated it to the careful elaboration
 of a single voice-part. The problem of committing a whole concerto
 to the clavier alone, Bach has solved in his famous “Italian
 Concerto”--Italian in the conception of the style of execution
 proper to concertos, which in Italy developed itself specially on
 the violin--Italian in the form of a slow movement enclosed by two
 quicker movements, which had emerged as the most practical method
 for the violin (half in rivalry with the Tutti, half in the interest
 of solo virtuosity). Bach has in the Italian concerto perfectly
 attained the object of writing in several movements a clavier piece
 fit for execution. The grand sonatas of a later time have been able
 to add nothing essential to it. The first movement is an ingenious
 combination of pregnant motives, which reminds us of tutti-effects,
 of running semiquaver figures, and melodious passages on moving
 quaver accompaniment, which correspond to the second lyrical theme
 of sonatas. The slow movement is a great recitative song with a
 berceuse-like accompaniment, of a structure so delicate that we are
 irresistibly reminded of the contours of old primitive pictures.
 It has the dainty grace of archaic outline, just like that in the
 two-part interwoven arioso[80] of the B minor Prelude, or in the crisp
 melody of the E flat Prelude (Wohltemperiertes Klavier I.). The third
 movement, which is quicker, unravels the whole into the cheerful
 linked play of floating parts, unsurpassed in elegant construction by
 any of the great formalists. Floating passages run up and down among
 chords, falling like drops of rain, and the voices combine in pleasant
 unity.

 [Illustration: Facsimile of Title-page of Bach’s Manuscript of the
 Wohltemperiertes Klavier. In the Royal Musikbibliothek, Berlin.]

 The entire multiformity of music at the beginning of the eighteenth
 century is expressed in the clavier-works of Bach. As yet the
 sonata-form with its two themes, and its “free” section in the middle
 of the movement, has not become the consecrated scheme;[81] and
 all the forces which had gradually worked towards this form exert
 themselves unfettered, in order to make themselves effective now in
 this, now in that combination of movements and parts of movements.
 “Thematic” is not neglected. To a series of suite-movements similar
 commencing motives are given, and the motives of earlier parts are
 taken up in the later. But this tendency to unity does not act as
 a restraint upon form, and does not reduce everything to one stiff
 mould. There is a fugue with a prelude, by Bach, that in E flat major
 (Wohltemp. Kl. i.), which offers perhaps the most delicate example of
 this unrestrained unity of motive. The Prelude, which is much longer
 than the fugue, begins with semiquaver figures, whose characteristic
 is melodious sustained passages advancing by sixths and sevenths;
 after this introduction, begins in toccata-fashion a kind of slow
 fugue, which unfolds the just heard motive in a terser form; and
 finally, in a third part, mingles itself with the former semiquaver
 figure. The fourth part is so to speak moulded in the fugue form,
 which in its “subject” makes use of the characteristic leap of a
 seventh, found in the Prelude, as a main feature, and brings the play
 to a conclusion in a busy and lively manner. The relations of motive
 are only to be _felt_, not seen; but they are _there_, and give to
 the formal freedom of this piece a vigour of its own. Thus, in many
 of Bach’s pieces, apart from the direct thematic motives, we shall
 find this indirect assonance, which, springing from a general feeling
 of unity, is, in fact, a more dainty framework for the piece than any
 unity that could be impressed on it from outside.

 So also is it with the construction of the pieces. We find everywhere
 traces of the later sonata-style; and not less in the dance-forms
 than in free movements. It was too natural to repeat the beginning of
 the piece at the end, then to transpose a second theme into the main
 key, and in the centre to work out the main motive in a kind of free
 fantasia. But so long as the author held fast to the binary form of
 the piece, and to the Da capo of each half, as was the case at this
 time, so long did the parts of the “developments” and repetitions fail
 to concentrate themselves so completely as not to leave a rich field
 of varied forms in which fancy could move at ease. Bach’s imagination
 was keen enough to give to every one of these forms, as they developed
 themselves each moment, a natural and elemental strength. A toccata by
 him, although they are all very various in form, or a fantasia, like
 the C minor, which is of sonata-character, is built up so firmly and
 self-evidently that the later uniformity of the sonata seems rather to
 betray a weakening than a strengthening of style.

 [That the severe forms of Prelude and Fugue are abundantly capable of
 expressing poetical ideas is easily shown. Turn only to the D minor
 Prelude and Fugue in the second part of the Wohltemperiertes Klavier.
 Although the casual reader perceives in the one movement merely an
 exercise in two parts, in the other, one in three parts, it requires
 only a slight exercise of imagination to see that the work really
 pictures some such feelings as the following: In the Prelude, a man
 suddenly realises himself in the true “out-of-doors” of this life,
 with the rain and hail of difficulties and troubles sensibly battering
 him. Bravely, but ineffectually, he tries to push through the tempest,
 and sinks wearily into half-sleep, is awakened by a renewed riot of
 the elements around, tries harder than before, and longer too, to
 impress himself on his circumstances, and be master of things, and
 succeeds in a sorrowful kind of way, for the storm passes, sighs
 itself out, and he at last can rest. In the Fugue, he tries to begin
 his work in the world. His efforts are strong in their intention, but
 die down as weakly as the devil himself could wish, one after another.
 But though these messengers of his will return to him empty again and
 again, he still goes on. “It is the best I can do, and something may
 come of it in the end,” he seems to say. And there is in the final
 bars, where the subject occurs for the last time, a certain expression
 of savage pleasure at the thought of not having given in, mingled with
 the abiding knowledge of an abundant measure of continual failure,
 such as is no imagination to any man who cares about his work, and has
 arrived at the sorrowful conviction that most of his walking must be
 done in the dark.][82]

 Perhaps the Bach Preludes show this freedom on the most liberal scale.
 For the Prelude is not so much a kind of form, like the Toccata, but
 a mere Piece before a Piece; it lays down the lines to be followed,
 but in itself is uncertain, unfixed in form. The Prelude may be a
 Toccata or a Sonata, a Symphony or an Invention; it can let its upper
 part, in arioso style, wander over the continuo, or it may burst forth
 in fullest polyphony. It may have the rhythm and regularity of beat
 of the dances, or may speak with the freedom of recitative without
 thought of a repetition. The abundance of possibilities which Bach
 found at his disposal in the working out of themes, construction,
 and style, are mirrored in the Preludes, from the real fugue to the
 playful method of the court-musicians.[83] Anyone who undertakes
 the pleasant task of simply running through the Preludes of the
 “Wohltemperiertes Klavier” (vol. ii.), will be able to appreciate
 the full spring-like freshness in which the free music of this time,
 so rich in promise for the future, lived out its life. And, like the
 discriminating observer of nature, he will admire, in just these yet
 unspoilt forms, the great harmony and natural unity which is exhibited
 by the young life of the creation. The Prelude in E major will always
 seem to me a blossom of this spring-time (“Wohlt. Kl.” i.)--one of
 the daintiest pieces ever written for the clavier. In an easy 12/8
 time the poem begins with an allegretto theme, ingeniously invented,
 and playful in style. It is supported by two voices; but they soon
 take part canonically in the delightful movement. We have, in the
 play of cheerful thought, come to the dominant of the dominant[84]
 (F sharp), and from this F sharp we rest, in a humorous change, a
 moment on D, and even G, till, just as rapidly, we emerge through
 a chromatic maze at B natural once more (Bar 8). The repose of the
 succeeding dominant passage is gently stirred by ravishing transient
 modulations, on which the very spirit of happiness seems to rest. A
 beautiful chain of syncopations leads us through F sharp minor, and a
 jubilant run of semiquavers, built on a dominant chord on E, brings us
 to the recapitulation of the opening subject in the key of A (Bar 15),
 starting from which the movement repeats itself accurately (for eight
 bars) in its eternal cheerfulness, the piece closing with a couple
 of bars in Schumann’s ingenious manner, still sweetly suggesting the
 spring-song of its earlier strains.

 We find, then, that nothing essentially new in “form” has been used
 by later artists, of which the germ did not already exist in Bach.
 Nay, even in programme-music (supposed by many to be an invention of
 modern times) for the clavier, which Kuhnau so quaintly worked out
 in his Biblical Stories,[85] Bach has entered the field in a youthful
 composition. He is singing the departure of his brother. The first
 adagio movement in anapæstic rhythms represents the flattery of the
 friends, who are trying to dissuade the traveller from his journey. It
 is time for the fugue, and this is the picture of various misfortunes
 which may befall him in foreign parts. A mournful arioso passage on
 a ground bass,[86] chromatic in character, is a universal lament
 of his friends. In a full-chorded Intermezzo they come and bid him
 good-bye, seeing that it cannot be otherwise. Now the postillion sings
 his air, broken with octave passages, representing the smacks of his
 whip; and since a fugue is the end of all good things, we hear one in
 four parts raise itself above the post-horn, with whip episodes to
 increase the realism. The young Bach did not go as far as Frohberger,
 who represented the assaults of robbers, crossings of the Rhine, and
 even forcible ejectments with violence, on the clavier; or as Kuhnau,
 who had given the cheating of Laban in “deceptive” cadences,[87] and
 Hezekiah’s doubtings in the rehearsal of a choral; yet this kind of
 programme-music declined in the eighteenth century precisely as it has
 grown up again in the nineteenth.

 If we believe Spitta, Bach also left behind him one of those
 anagram-pieces which were so in the taste of his time--the fugue
 on the letters B A C H. But the composition seems too leathern and
 insipid for us to be able to express a decided opinion. There is in
 literary criticism a well-known false method--the wish utterly to deny
 insipidity to the great. But since Bach’s authorship of the “B A C H”
 fugue is not vouched for, and since he never elsewhere put together
 so many dull pages, we are not compelled to load his memory with its
 weight.

 [Illustration: John Mattheson, at the age of 37.]

 As we find in Bach the possibilities of all the great forms of the
 succeeding centuries, so we find in him also all the germs of future
 expression, rhythm, harmony, and melody. Nothing is more perverse than
 to regard this music as academic and expressionless. Expression is
 never absent from counterpoint except when it sacrifices impressionism
 to the mere display of technical mastery. We shall even to-day seek
 in vain for piano compositions more full of expression than some
 of the preludes contained in the Wohltemperiertes Klavier. In the
 remarkably decadent C sharp minor, in the B minor, so full of gentle
 mournfulness, in the E flat minor with its grandiose solemnity, in
 the B flat minor with its organ-like seriousness, or in the F major
 with its Meister-singer melody[88] (in Part II. Wohlt. Kl.), there
 is an unsurpassed depth of expression. Nowhere is there a greater
 variety of characters than would be presented by a comparison of the
 fugal themes in this work. Merely to turn over a few of its pages is
 to see before us an abundance of content which no other music-book
 would easily conceal in so narrow a space. It is in the service of
 expression that the motives for the architecture of the fugues are
 unfolded; in the service of expression the rhythms are developed,
 whose skilful planning is only clearly seen in a piece like the G
 major Prelude (Wohlt. Kl. i.); in the service of expression are formed
 the harmonies, from their simple successions, as in the C major
 Prelude (W. Kl. i.) or of the C sharp major Prelude (W. Kl. ii.)
 to the complicated retardations and tied notes of the B flat minor
 Prelude (Wohl. Kl. i.), or in the B minor fugue (W. Kl. i.) on a theme
 so wonderfully sad that no bolder chords can be found in the days of
 the most furious chords of the seventh. In Bach, says Marpurg, the
 different talents of a hundred other musicians were united.

 Bach played very quietly. In his time technique began to change its
 principles. The hand was no longer to be held out flat, but curved, so
 as to provide a series of hammers rather than levers. The passing of
 the fingers over each other, as practised by Mattheson, a player of
 distinction almost equal to Bach and Handel, gave way to a systematic
 _under_-passing; and the thumb, which Bach had seen applied by former
 generations only to wide stretches, began its important part as the
 “linking” finger. The remains of Bach’s finger-exercises, and the
 directions which stand in the lesson-book of his son Philip Emanuel,
 have been usefully compared[89] by Spitta, who has drawn a picture
 of the technique of John Sebastian, which in its grandeur well fits
 with his work. “It was a system of under-moving fingers, worked out by
 unparalleled practice and talent, applying not merely to the thumb
 but to the middle fingers, and usually so arranged that only a longer
 finger can pass over a shorter.[90] This produced a technique which,
 like Bach’s work, united past and future in one classic method. Our
 thumb-technique, which in essentials goes back to Philip Emanuel, is a
 mere fragment of Bach’s method, just as the whole succeeding art was,
 compared with Bach, but a fragment on a large scale.” But it is hard
 to be clear on these matters. Before the time of “schools” technique
 was a matter of personality; and reconstruction to us of a later age
 is utterly out of the question.

 Should a diligent scholar try to reconstruct from Bach’s pieces his
 technique, so far as it had influenced musical form, he would soon be
 brought to a pause. For when we examine this literature, we see that
 to the master everything was possible, and that he never gave form
 to a conception for the sake of technique. He is a stupendous genius
 who does not write for everybody, and therefore his compositions are
 often difficult; but the difficulties are never against the genius of
 the clavier, and can be conquered by anything but idleness. He has,
 again, written some taking show-pieces, like the Prelude and Fugues
 in A minor (Steingräber, vii. 29), which, as “paying” salon pieces,
 sound much harder than they are; and, alongside of these again, are
 pieces which spring from the very joy in the abundance of possible
 techniques and of new conceptions. To this class belongs, if genuine,
 the Fantasia in A minor (Steingräber, vii. 8), in which pure technical
 fireworks are let off, of short scale passages for both hands,
 swinging chords and octaves, running motives with astonishing passage
 effects, passages of sixths with over and under accompaniments, and
 melodious phrases with embellishing harmonies. But here the first rank
 is taken by the famous “Goldberg” variations, already printed by Bach,
 partly set for two manuals, an album of thirty technical conceptions,
 in which everything possible in tone-material is contained, from
 arioso to canon, from _grave_ to _presto_; everything, in fact, which
 Bach ever adopted for the setting of his ideas. The twenty-ninth
 variation, which can also be played on one manual, brings before us
 chords and passages of interwoven beauty which prepare beforehand the
 way for Liszt. Even in technique, then, the genius of Bach stretches
 over centuries.

 It cannot be exactly maintained that Bach treated the clavier wholly
 individually, but he nevertheless has helped to individualise it.
 At the beginning of last century, when the clavier was still for
 the most part an accompanying instrument, when it sustained in the
 orchestra the foundation-harmonies, even if at the same time another
 clavier entered in concerto-wise, genius itself could not release the
 instrument from this corporate conception without running against
 the whole spirit of the time. It is remarkable how Bach left it the
 character of a thorough-bass instrument, and yet allowed it so much
 independence. It has at one time the divided nature of the unifying
 organ, as organ-pieces were then regarded still as practically ready
 for the clavier; at another the pizzicato and running character of
 the lute. Bach could entitle his formally interesting E flat major
 piece, Prelude, Fugue, and Allegro (Steingräber, vii. 30) as Prélude
 pour le luth _ò çembal_.[91] From the traditions of the lute and organ
 the peculiar nature of the clavier comes into existence, and it was
 in the maintenance of the _via media_ between these less delicately
 expressive extremes that its future lay. How _individually_ Bach
 regarded the clavier is seen in the pieces in which it is combined
 with flute and viol da gamba or violin, or in the concertos with
 one, two, three, or even four claviers. Among these the C major and
 D minor concertos with three claviers, now combined, now isolated,
 represent the highest points of this older form of the concerto, as
 yet not adapted for solo-virtuosity. But yet plainer is his insight
 in the direct transcriptions which he has made of violin pieces for
 the clavier. He interpolates in the freest fashion middle voices,
 which are kept together by “pedals;” ornamentations which draw out
 the air of the melody in clavier-style; or rapid vibrating over-parts
 which make up for the loss of the long-drawn violin tones. And by
 this insight into the peculiar character of the clavier, he makes
 it more capable not only of speaking with its own voice, but also
 of spreading over wider circles the literature of other instruments
 by means of suitable and self-intelligible transcriptions. Bach’s
 extreme love of this instrument, which so often gave him the means of
 expression for his musical conceptions, contributed not the least to
 such an interpretative mission. Slowly the world accustomed itself to
 understand music, not _per chorum_, but _per instrumentum_.

 It is at this point that the great need is felt. A mechanical advance
 is required to bring the expressive capacity of the clavier into a
 line with the demands of genius upon it. The rivalry between the
 clavicymbal and the clavichord[92] was not yet quite decided. In
 Romance lands the former was the favourite; in Germany the latter.
 On the former great effects could be better produced; on the latter
 the more soulful tone, and the unique embellishment called “Bebung.”
 Bach wrote much, including the Wohltemperiertes Klavier, for the
 clavichord, which even his son Philip Emanuel still preferred to
 the clavicymbal. But he was so unable to disguise from himself the
 counter advantages of the fuller and broader quill-instrument, that
 he published pieces for “Kiel-flügel”[93], with two manuals and
 registers for forte and piano. These registers were the only means
 for giving light and shade to the monotonous note of the “cymbal”;
 to give light and shade by turns, as in the organ, so that on the
 upper manual a melody could be played loud, and on the lower the
 accompaniment could be played soft. In Kuhnau we see the forte and
 piano, which he aimed at by simply striking on the clavichord, used
 as a means of expression. In the Biblical Stories Jacob has just
 been cheated by Laban, in receiving Leah for Rachel. “The bridegroom
 is contented,” as a minuet shows us; but “his heart prophesies
 misfortune,” and the measure rushes on, becomes piano and più-piano;
 suddenly Jacob takes heart again--forte; after a bar or two he goes to
 sleep--piano; he wakes--forte; falls into deep slumber--piano. In his
 “Italian Concerto” Bach had made a much more specialised use of this
 by the register. He had mingled loud and soft parts, and each hand
 alternately is marked forte or piano. In these, and similarly in the
 echo-movement of the suite with “Ouverture à la manière française,”
 we are led to think of a splendid clavicymbal, such as the one
 preserved ostensibly as Bach’s in the Berlin Museum of Instruments.
 In that, every one of the combinations of four strings can be altered
 by pulling a register: the manuals admit of coupling, and a soft
 lute-stop is provided.

 [Illustration:

 Pedal-clavichord. Consisting of two manual clavichords, with
 two strings to each note, of (8 ft. and) 4 ft. tone, and a
 pedal-clavichord with four strings to each note, two 16 ft. and two 8
 ft. Inscribed “Johann David Herstenberg, Organ-builder at Geringswald,
 made us, 1760.” De Wit collection. ]

 We know of a hundred attempts to improve the sound of the clavier,
 and make it more expressive. Here, too, the eighteenth century is the
 experimental preparation for the happy successes of the nineteenth.
 Now the string-choruses were tuned in octaves, now pedals were added
 for low notes, now the sound-boards were strengthened, now the lower
 strings were made of copper, and the higher of steel; and throughout
 a rich experience was acquired as to the best way of constructing the
 separate parts. Leather plectrums appear everywhere in order to make
 the tone softer and less metallic. The clavier, in fact, was made to
 imitate all possible orchestral instruments, and even such natural
 phenomena as thunder and lightning, by means of register-stops. Or,
 the forte and piano stops were combined, ever more artistically, into
 as many as two hundred and fifty permutations, so that an endless
 number of shades was possible.

 The solution of the problem was the modern hammer-clavier or
 pianoforte, in which the strings are no longer plucked but struck with
 hammers, so that every _nuance_ of touch depends on the fingers. The
 story of the pianoforte is the usual Story of Inventions. While people
 were labouring to solve the problem by theoretical calculation, it
 had long lain solved in an unsuspected fashion before them, and those
 who were slowly working at the practical realisation were personally
 forgotten, until a positively sufficient experience made the new
 invention popular. The beginnings of the pianoforte are therefore,
 as usual, obscure. The striking of the strings with hammers had long
 been the method employed in the dulcimer. At the beginning of the last
 century an artist named Pantaleon Hebenstreit was much talked of, who
 played the dulcimer so perfectly, that everyone was astounded at the
 new sound-effects. It is possible that his success gave the impulse:
 in any case, in the year 1711 there emerges in Italy an instrument
 called the pianoforte--because it could be played piano as well as
 forte--elaborated by a certain Bartolommeo Cristofori, who was soon
 forgotten. This instrument is clearly pictured in writings recently
 recovered as a hammer-clavier; Cristofori, as curator to Ferdinand
 de’ Medici, had a splendid collection of Belgian, French, and Italian
 Flügel-instruments to look after, the study of which, without doubt,
 aided him in his invention. His pianoforte, which at first shows a
 still more primitive technique, gradually draws sensibly nearer to the
 modern system; yet, on account of its unaccustomed tone and touch, it
 was unable to gain any appreciable results in the following decades.
 Cristofori could not have dreamt that an Italian society of our time
 would build a monument to him as inventor of the world-charming
 pianoforte, in the national sanctuary, the Santa Croce of Florence.

 Whether Hebenstreit built on Cristofori, Cristofori on the French, or
 the French on the Germans, is unknown. Possibly the pianoforte was
 invented thrice over, in Italy, France, and Germany. In France appears
 Marius in the year 1716 as the inventor; in Germany it would seem that
 a certain Schröter, incited by the success of Hebenstreit, invented it
 in 1717; at least he himself says so in a writing first published in
 Freiberg in 1763, ten years after the death of the instrument-maker,
 Silbermann. But Silbermann had in any case the merit of having, at a
 more fortunate time than Cristofori, worked so hard at the perfecting
 of the pianoforte, that from him its increasing spread and the gradual
 displacement of the clavicymbal and clavichord may be dated. Yet this
 very Gottlieb Silbermann had constructed a “cimbal d’amour,” which by
 a cleverly devised mechanism heightened the tone of the clavichord--so
 “lonesome, melancholy, and inexpressibly sweet.” But his later renown
 rests on his exquisitely manipulated pianoforte. He had a good master
 in this difficult work--John Sebastian Bach. When he brought his first
 model to Bach the latter found it too weak in the treble and too hard
 to play. Silbermann was first vexed, then stimulated by this censure.
 He then sold no more, and went on making improvements in it until the
 old Bach, as Agricola[94] says, gave him unmixed commendation.

 If we play Bach to-day on our extremely refined pianofortes, we are
 inclined to imagine that his fine effects are solely due to the
 perfection of the instrument. And this opinion is not wholly false.
 Though in the cembalo there sounded in his ear something of the
 accustomed solemnity of the organ, there is yet in his music a cry for
 a subtle and expressive instrument which he as little possessed as
 Beethoven possessed an orchestra suited to his ideas. In every great
 tone-creator lives a superabundance of imaginative form which the
 instruments of the time cannot embody, and to which the instruments
 instantly strive to become equal. Because Berlioz was, the modern
 orchestra is. Because Bach was, the pianoforte is, which knows how
 to express with justice the subtleties of his soul-music. I think
 for example of the never-to-be-forgotten theme of the C sharp minor
 prelude in the first volume of the Wohltemperiertes Klavier. The
 clavichord could only give this theme in a thin lament; the spinet in
 a rigid and unmanageable form. But what features does not the motive
 show as the piece runs on! Now it has the slow-breathing rhythm of a
 noble aspiration, now the opening eyes of an expectant Cecilia, now
 the heavy oppression of a martyr soul, now the holy rage of a last
 noble complaint, now the sweet weariness of Christian humility. And
 with these various tints the piece builds itself up into a broad
 picture, which leads from renunciations through pain to renunciations;
 with these tints every line, every note of the theme is given an
 active life, as it pursues its course. Composition like this demanded
 an instrument which should be capable of a new expression in every
 touch. All that Bach dreamed of, the pianoforte gave, awakening the
 gentle soul of the clavichord to an unthought-of fulness of existence,
 and changing the mechanical force of the clavicymbal to a sudden
 consciousness of personality. The voices of a fugue-passage would
 now be personally separated from each other; every line in the great
 lacework could be brought out at the moment according to the feelings
 of the performer. What, under the sacred laws of Bach’s music,
 slumbered in the depth of the breast, found in the new instrument its
 unreserved interpretation.

 [95]It seems at first sight almost tragic that Bach himself can never
 have realised these effects, which are so familiar to us in connection
 with his music as it is nowadays interpreted on the pianoforte. But
 perhaps it is the wisdom of Fate to ordain that the cup of the artist
 should ever be dashed by a certain bitterness, the conscious falling
 short of attainment as it appears in complete idea before his mind.

 [Illustration: “Bundfrei” Clavichord (_i.e._ with a separate string to
 each key), by Chr. G. Hubert, Bayreuth, 1772. De Wit collection.]

 When an artistic form reaches perfection, its active life is over, and
 it is a subject of contemplation, no longer a tool to be used.

 And just so, when the instrument necessary to the full interpretation
 of Bach’s clavier-music, the pianoforte, had arrived within measurable
 distance of perfection, then did Bach’s own Art reach its highest
 formal expression, then once more did the fashion of things suffer a
 change, and his work began to take its place as a colossal monument
 pointing on the road towards the House Beautiful.

 Bach is, as it were, the priest of modern music. His congregation
 sit at his feet daily. Wherever a pianoforte is found, there is his
 temple. But though the priest cannot utterly control the worship of
 his hearers (nay, many will bow the knee to Rimmon in the house of the
 God), still his voice is strong, his words are true, and they may hear
 if they will.] This is the significance of Bach, and the longer we
 live, the more we shall believe it.


     [73] The word “Intavolata” was used about 1600 to describe
     the “arrangement” of a many-voiced madrigal for the
     keyed instrument. Hence “intavolatura” comes to mean a
     “copy” presenting all the parts at one view, and such
     “arrangements” for clavier were common and popular.

     [74] More than a century before Kuhnau, an English
     clavier composer, John Munday, composed a piece of
     “programme-music,” with the various sections labelled,
     _e.g._--Faire Wether, Lightening, Thunder, Calme Wether,
     A Cleare Day. It is the third piece in the Fitzwilliam
     Virginal Book.

     [75] Bach died in 1750. Hawkins published his great History
     of Music in 1776, and in spite of the fact that he had his
     information direct from Bach’s son, John Christian Bach,
     then living in London, he appears quite ignorant of any of
     his works but the Clavierübung (1731-42), from which he
     prints three short harpsichord pieces.

     [76] This is certainly not so, historically speaking.
     The strict canon is far older than what we understand by
     “imitation.”

     [77] Long before Bach was born, we find an English composer
     anticipating this comprehensive treatment of the scales.
     Before 1667, John Jenkins wrote a series of “Fancies” on
     each degree of the alphabetical scale, three movements to
     the set. The keys actually used are C, D, E, F, G, A, B
     flat, all minor except F and B flat. But, as is mentioned
     in a previous note, in one of the three movements in F,
     Jenkins modulates nearly through all the flat keys, at
     any rate as far as D flat, thus showing that already
     in the middle of the seventeenth century an Englishman
     contemplated Bach’s accomplished work of using the scale
     on every semitone. And this by no means fixes the ultimate
     limit. Bull’s fantasia on Ut, Re, Mi, Fa, Sol, La--piece
     number 51 in the Fitzwilliam book--modulates into all the
     twelve keys. Though this does not _prove_ that instruments
     were as yet tuned with an equal temperament, it does prove
     that Bach was in no sense the originator of the idea,
     and the probability is very great that the system was in
     practical use in England in Elizabethan times. Bull was
     flourishing in 1590.

     [78] The date of the first edition of the “Forty-eight” is
     uncertain, namely, 1799 or 1800, London. (Author’s note.)

     [79] August Gottlieb Muffat, of Vienna, 1690-1770, son of
     Georg Muffat, organist of Strassburg Cathedral.

     [80] This movement is in three parts, and the allusion
     is to the two upper voices, which maintain a duet in
     _cantabile_ on a gently moving quaver bass.

     [81] The idea of the two subjects, and of the “free”
     section after the central double bar, was already realised
     incompletely. In the shortest “binary” movements the scheme
     of _keys_ is found to be P, Q. (double bar) || Q, various,
     P.

     [82] This paragraph is suggested by a corresponding one in
     the author’s German edition.

     [83] The author means such composers as Rameau, Galuppi,
     Couperin, who wrote for their audience to a great extent.

     [84] This expression may be misunderstood unless reference
     is made to the music. The passage arrives at the key of B
     (the “dominant” key), but the F sharp mentioned is merely
     the bass note.

     [85] See above, p. 92.

     [86] A “ground” bass is a short passage repeated an
     indefinite number of times through an extensive movement.
     In this case it consists of four bars, and is not repeated
     so strictly as usual, though its general figure is kept up
     throughout.

     [87] This expression, “deceptive” cadence, is a translation
     of _cadenza d’inganno_, one of the several cadences or
     closes which had names given to them by the old theorists.
     The “inganno” cadence was something like the “interrupted”
     cadence, but was supposed to lead into _another key_, hence
     the “deception.”

     [88] The author possibly refers to the flowing freedom of
     the counterpoint in the quintet in Wagner’s opera. But
     there is no need nowadays to demonstrate that the Bayreuth
     master is as necessarily a contrapuntist as he of Weimar.

     [89] Meaning, of course, that the fingering methods of
     the father and son are by no means identical. The former
     employed the crossing of the fingers over one another
     freely; whereas Philip Emanuel’s notions of fingering
     are practically ours. See his “Exempel nebst achtzehn
     Probe-Stücken, etc.,” date 1780.

     [90] This method is still commonly practised. Chopin,
     Liszt, and others, supply innumerable examples,
     particularly of the passing of 4 over 5.

     [91] That is, “for the lute _or_ clavier.”

     [92] It is necessary once more to remind the reader of the
     _essential_ difference in “action,” power of expression,
     and strength of tone, between these two instruments; and of
     the unfortunate ambiguity which exists in the use of the
     name “clavichord.” _Vide supra_, pp. 21 and 89, note.

     [93] Kiel = quill, flügel = wing, _i.e._ a keyed instrument
     with a plucking “action” of _quill_ plectrums, with a case
     made in the shape of a bird’s _wing_. Grand pianofortes
     are still made in this shape, and therefore are still
     called “flügel” in Germany. Kiel-flügel is synonymous with
     clavicymbal (hence “cembalo”), and means “harpsichord.”

     [94] Agricola was a pupil of John Sebastian Bach, and in
     1754 helped Bach’s son Emanuel to write a biography of his
     father.

     [95] Suggested by corresponding paragraphs.




 [Illustration: Philip Emanuel Bach, as he was in his Hamburg period.]




                           The “Galant” School


 When Bach died, the musical centre of gravity tended to Germany; but
 it was doubtful what precise line would be followed. On Bach anything
 could be built. A great period of counterpoint might rise in which
 voices might go through a new series of harmonic complexities, similar
 to, and yet so different from those of the Middle Ages. Or there
 might come a period of great suites in which the simple dance-forms
 might grow in many-sided development. A high pathetic style might be
 introduced, or the details of expression might attract the attention
 of the amateur. The forms of the various compositions might alter in
 either direction, of new freedom or new restraint. Counterpoint might
 be deserted, concerted playing might be improved in the direction of
 increased grace.

 For all or any of these possibilities Bach laid a foundation, and it
 only remained for the taste of the time to decide on the choice that
 should be made.

 The taste of the time, leaving on one side both the pathetic and the
 scholarly, went off into the domain of the graceful. The experience
 of music was similar to that of architecture, which had already
 gone through the epoch of the “baroque” and “rococo,”[96] by which
 designers had sought to give variety to the lines of their work.
 Compared with the energy and manly swing of the Italian Concerto, a
 sonata of Philip Emanuel Bach is fairly characterised as “rococo.”
 In place of the sober delight in bold outline appears the “galant”
 appreciation of eccentricities and wayward curvings. Passion is
 ashamed of confessing itself openly, and offers the amusing spectacle
 of a natural emotion wilfully covering itself with an incongruous
 vesture of conventional form.

 The newly formed tendency towards simple sensuousness does not obtrude
 itself; it merely smiles in the graceful oscillations of subtle
 harmonies.

 Caprice is the true ruler, and in improvised outpourings, speaking
 pauses, piquant leaps, stupefying enharmonic changes, purposed
 perverseness of motive, she places the same material under the hands
 of the fair performers, which, a short time before, had taken such a
 scholarly form.

 Where strict canons of the voices used to be carried honestly through,
 we now observe a pleasant trifling with imitation which becomes
 coquettish, and the pedantic old Dux and Comes[97] put up very well
 with the change in their conditions of service. Counterpoint turns
 into mere accompaniment, and daintiness with humorous ornament is the
 object of the composer.

 The new auditor is the delicate dilettante who listens no longer so
 much to the inner parts, the ancient severity of which vanishes
 and is replaced by chord music. Now we listen to the melody, to the
 over-part, and we unfold its whole charm, revealing a hundred secrets
 of melodic pleasure, and disentangling them at ease. And in all this
 capricious enlivening of music there remains the same delightful
 contradiction as in the paintings and buildings of the time--the
 contradiction between inner freedom and the aim at a fixed form. The
 external form is to replace what was offered by the inner; and yet,
 from these new free figures, the intention is primarily to gain this
 form. The aim is not at collections of suites, but at the type of the
 free movement, of the piece, of the sonata. It is the same spectacle
 as when we see Hogarth and Greuze expressing a definite moral lesson
 in their pictures, or architectural principles conveyed in the play
 of childhood. In music, however, that exclusive predominance of form,
 which the French Revolution caused to prevail in the representative
 art, has never been quite attained. It is important to notice that
 this was only possible since music had emancipated itself from French
 influence. It was only in Germany that a Beethoven could arise.

 The distinction between “professional” and “amateur” is one to
 which our attention is always more and more drawn. “Tablatures” and
 apparatus for the scholar vanish gradually, and titles meant to
 attract the amateur become more frequent. Bach’s inscription--“for the
 delight of amateurs”--over suites and concertos, appears on more than
 one title-page. We read “Cecilia playing on the clavier and satisfying
 the hearing,” or “Manipulus musices, a Handful of Pastime at the
 Clavier,” or again, “the Busy Muse Clio,” or even “Clavier-practice
 for the delight of mind and ear, in six easy _galanterie parties_
 adapted to modern taste, composed chiefly for young ladies.” A certain
 Tischer has put it very shortly on some suites--“The Contented
 Ear and the Quickened Soul.” As the most complete refiner of this
 taste, relying on the public at large, appears Philip Emanuel Bach,
 who inscribes his sonatas “easy” or “for ladies,” and thus openly
 confessed, much as he was censured therefor by the pedants, that he
 had systematically introduced the light _genre_ as a music for the
 future.

 [Illustration: F. W. Marpurg, Theoretician and Clavier Teacher.
 1718-1795.]

 Like the princes in the seventeenth century, or the middle classes in
 the nineteenth, it was the nobles in the eighteenth who played the
 part of Maecenas; and under their patronage appears, for the first
 time, a precisely marked musical society. Here too, in music, the
 nobility became an invaluable link between the artistic court and
 that public interest in art which, it would seem, is the necessary
 condition of all future advance. Even in the didactic musical romance
 which old Kuhnau wrote in 1700 under the title of “The Musical
 Quack,” we miss the type of the amateur Maecenas. In the background,
 invisible, stands the prince who keeps the chapel; in the foreground
 there are only musicians and quacks. The amateur who is not a quack,
 the genuine dilettante, first attains importance in the beginning of
 the century; but very shortly the concerts which are given in the
 salons of the Fürnbergs, Esterhazys, and Schwarzenbergs, do more for
 the beneficial advancement of art than even the devotion of a keenly
 musical court such as that of Frederick the Great at first was. The
 greater courts, like Dresden and Munich, begin somewhat to decline,
 while the smaller advance, and in England, Italy, and elsewhere, the
 nobility, who are not unlike small sovereign princes, aid the spread
 and development of music. The nobility are soon followed by the
 gentry; but it was not till the Revolution had shattered the nobles
 that the bourgeois Maecenas steps upon the scene. In this displacement
 of old relations it was inevitable that the clavier should play its
 important part; in accordance with its social nature it advanced more
 and more from an accompanying or supplementary instrument into an
 independent centre of drawing-room existence, as well as of bourgeois
 evening parties. Thus, in the attractive and successful pieces of the
 generation from 1750 to 1800, its popularity was for the first time
 established. Old Bach had as yet been the most serious professional
 musician who had yielded to “galant” impulses; and his concessions
 to the popular taste were only by the way. The distinction between
 public improvisation on set themes, and public interpretation of
 written works, was not yet sharply defined. The player was at his
 highest when he extemporised variations or fugues on a given subject.
 Such had been the improvisations of Sebastian Bach; but the spirit
 of improvisation, as it lives in the works of Philip Emanuel, is
 something quite different. In him the hand directly follows the inner
 feeling, constructs easily and simply, and plays for the sake of the
 playing, not for the sake of the art. Before the clavier had become
 a social instrument, this division of labour between composers and
 players had become imperative; reproduction was bound to diverge into
 a separate branch. The amateur, on whom more and more the art depends,
 is incapable of composing, but he will, on his clavier, hear the works
 of the masters, which are now so numerous, or even play them himself.
 He desires to have acts of operas, arrangements of concertos, or many
 dainty short pieces. The old clavier-books, which we can trace from
 the Elizabethan Virginal Book to the volumes of Bach’s children, now
 gradually disappear. Instead of copying with its personal character,
 the press is more and more in requisition, and the musical treasury
 is more and more thrown open to the public. The engraving of notes,
 during the eighteenth century, rapidly improves, and the clefs and
 types become more simple. The ornamental devices become constantly
 more fixed, and the player has less and less liberty in his use
 of them. And whereas, in earlier times, the instruction-books did
 not always distinguish between composition and playing, now, since
 Couperin’s time, the instruction-book of pure playing became
 constantly more common; while Philip Emanuel, to whom, perhaps with
 justice, we trace the systematisation of the principles of modern
 clavier-playing, wrote a book on playing, and then waited eight years
 before publishing a second part on the thorough bass.

 The extension of musical interest led further to such a multitude of
 musical magazines as even to-day is not to be found. For the most part
 they disappear after a few years, but we have, as a matter of fact,
 in a year’s issue of such a paper, a very fair picture of musical
 tendencies. I have before me a volume of the last of these, published
 in 1762, by George Ludewig Winter, in Berlin. It is well printed,
 with dainty rococo borders. Very amusing and characteristic is the
 sanguine Preface, in which also is to be discerned the inability of
 the German tongue to restrain itself while talking of our classics.
 “Music,” says the publisher, “serves either to delight with its mere
 art the professor, whether he be such by nature or by cultivation--as
 a well-built house, or a well-laid out garden, satisfies the
 connoisseur; or, on the other hand, it is the language of emotion.
 Then roar forth tones teeming with revenge, sorrow glides over the
 strings, passion frantically beats the air, joy revels in the blue
 æther, friendship and love sigh forth on the delicate notes, praise
 and thankfulness well from a full heart on the vigorous melody, or
 rise, cleaving the clouds on the tongues of men, to the very throne of
 the Almighty.”

 The good man, with his fearful fluency, declares that he is going
 to bring forward much of the lighter kind--meaning what we call the
 dilettante class of music. The numbers appeared week by week, and the
 continuation was always postponed for the next, often at the most
 thrilling passages--in the approved style of the clever magazine. The
 authors’ names are only given when they are very well known. Among
 these distinguished men are many whose names have not remained in the
 memory of history--fashionable composers, such as every epoch has
 in plenty. But there are also Philip Emanuel Bach, Kirnberger, and
 many others of the great Bach School. Most of it is clavier-music.
 Operatic airs, which occasionally appear, are so arranged that the
 voice part, under which the words are printed, is played by the
 right hand, and the completing orchestral notes are written small
 in the upper staves. There are also popular songs in abundance. A
 French spirit breathes through these pages; a fashionable spirit of
 enjoyment. The short character-pieces, which the French loved so
 dearly to introduce with significant titles, are mingled plentifully
 with sonatas and rondos, arranged in the Italian manner. Under the
 character-pieces, in the appropriate places, as in the biblical
 stories of Kuhnau, the explanatory programme-text is printed. Thus
 in a piece called “La Spinoza,”[98] the developments are marked as
 being philosophic reflections on a certain theme. Two pieces, called
 “Wonderment” and “Youthful Joy,” easily explain themselves. In one
 piece entitled, “Two friends grumbling over their wine,” by the
 arrangement and form of the two voices, in right and left hands, is
 represented how they converse, console each other, gain courage,
 and wait for a friendly glance of fortune. The most humorous is a
 short clavier-piece, “A Compliment,” which, usually in two voices,
 exhibits the following spirited contents: “If you are well, I am
 charmed.” “Rather I am glad that I see you so well” (Repeated). “I
 have heard that you have been poorly: I am sorry to hear it.” “Heaven
 be praised I am recovered.” “But I am ashamed”--“allow me”----They
 quarrel who shall bring the chair, and finally sit down. “I recommend
 myself”--“and _I_ recommend _myself_”--“to your friendship.”

 It was precisely at this period, when the clavier first became
 truly popular, that its construction was rapidly and constantly
 improved. It was then that the separation of the two systems of
 mechanism--the so-called English, and the Viennese--took place. The
 names mean nothing, for both systems alike arose in Germany proper.
 The distinction lies in the fact that in the English the hammer rests
 on a separate bracket from which the key strikes it, while in the
 Viennese the hammer rests directly, though loose, on the end of the
 key-lever.[99]

 Although Germany was so partial to the clavichord with its intimate
 intellectuality--a quality which even to-day we can only reproduce
 in its fulness by reproducing the clavichord--yet it was the German
 pianoforte which for a long time took the lead. It was one of the
 first triumphs of German manufacture, and perhaps precisely because so
 little manufacture lay in it. In Italy the invention of Cristofori had
 vanished without leaving a trace. So utterly indeed was it forgotten,
 that when Italy decided, though very tardily, to replace the
 Gravicembalo by the pianoforte, instruments of this construction were
 preferably brought out there with the notice, “built in the Prussian
 manner.” Alongside of the Silbermann pianofortes, those of Friederici
 of Gera--which were known as “Fort Bien” and were still built largely
 on the clavichord model--and those of Spath of Regensburg, enjoyed
 a great renown in the second half of the century. But soon, chiefly
 through emigration, the best manufactories were transported to foreign
 parts, and it is only in the latest advance of German industry,
 especially by the labours of Bechstein and Blüthner, that pianos built
 in Germany itself have again achieved a world-wide repute.

 The great French, English, American, and Austrian piano-factories can
 almost all be traced back to Germans. The three great Parisian houses,
 those of Erard, Pleyel, and Pape, were founded by Germans. Steinway
 emigrated from Brunswick to build in America those pianos which are
 to-day regarded as the best. Johann Zumpe carried the hammer-clavier
 to England,[100] where it was played by German executants, and brought
 into repute. It was, however, English houses, with that of Broadwood
 at their head, that effected the improvements which have resulted
 in the appropriation of the name “English” to the mechanism of
 Silbermann.

 Factories alone, however, would never have brought about the final
 victory of the piano if there had been no virtuosos to play them.
 Clementi in England, Mozart in Germany and Austria, were the workers
 who won the decisive triumph of the piano. Even Philip Emanuel Bach
 had much preferred the clavichord to the newer instrument. But
 Mozart, the first world-virtuoso, the idol of the concert hall,
 thinking solely of sound-effects in the great halls, never hesitated
 for a moment between clavicymbal and piano. In 1777, at the age of
 twenty-one, he made, at Augsburg, the acquaintance of Silbermann’s
 disciple, Stein, the inventor of the Viennese mechanism. This received
 the name of “Viennese” when Stein’s children came to Vienna, and
 there, along with Streicher, the well-known friend of Schiller,
 established the world-renowned business. Here in this family for the
 first time appears a new phenomenon in musical society. Round the king
 of clavier-builders and his musical wife, young Streicher and Nanette
 Stein, there moves a brisk circle of musical spirits. It is a type
 which in our time has further gained in importance. With the greater
 popularity of the art, the social standing of the piano manufacturer
 has risen; and nothing contributed more to the introduction of the
 piano into middle-class houses than the reputation of this much-envied
 Viennese coterie.

 Old Stein and young Streicher are two clearly-marked types. The latter
 is a romantic spirit, raves over the just-played “Robbers” of his
 school-fellow Schiller, forms the plan of going to Hamburg to perfect
 himself in clavier-playing under Philip Emanuel Bach, but never gets
 there, since he spends all his time running from town to town with the
 restless Schiller. Then he gives music lessons; next he meets Nanette
 Stein, marries her, goes to Vienna, becomes manager of the factory,
 and makes the invention associated with his name, in which the hammers
 strike from above. Finally, he becomes a centre of Viennese musical
 life. What a contrast is this modern industrial prince to the old
 Stein, working like a mediæval crafts-master there in Augsburg at his
 claviers, and giving equal devotion to every single part! He has been
 sketched by Mozart in a well-known letter; and I reprint this picture
 of the last of the old patriarchal clavier-builders, because it is not
 less interesting as showing the type than as showing the condition of
 technique at that time.

 [Illustration: Streicher’s Pianoforte and Concert Saloon. After the
 lithograph of Lahn-Sandmann.]

 “I must now,” writes Mozart, “begin at once with Stein’s pianoforte.
 Before I saw anything of Stein’s work I liked Spath’s best; but now
 I must give the preference to Stein’s, for they damp much better
 than the Regensburg instruments. If I strike hard, whether I let the
 fingers lie on the keys or lift them up, the sound is over and done
 with the very instant I lift my hand. I may come down on the keys
 as I like, the tone will always be the same; it never hangs fire;
 it doesn’t get weaker, or grow stronger, or stay on; it’s just all
 _one_. It’s true you can’t get a pianoforte like that under three
 hundred florins, but the trouble and diligence he shows is not to be
 repaid. His instruments have this point that makes them better than
 others: they are made with an escapement which there isn’t a man in
 a thousand knows anything of; and without this it is just impossible
 for a pianoforte to help blocking or sounding again. His hammers,
 when the piano is played, fall back again the very moment they touch
 the strings, whether you hold the key down or let it go. When he has
 finished a piano, so he says, he sits down to it and tests all kinds
 of passages, runs and leaps, and works and scrapes until the piano’ll
 do anything; for he works only for the good of music, and not his own
 merely, or he would be done long before. He often says: ‘If I myself
 didn’t love music so passionately, or couldn’t do a little on the
 piano, I should long ago have lost all patience in my work; but I’m
 just a lover of instruments which don’t try the player and will last.’
 His pianos _do_ last, too. He guarantees that the sounding-board won’t
 warp or break. When he has got a sounding-board ready for a piano, he
 puts it in the air, rain, snow, sun, or any beastly thing, to warp it,
 and then he glues crossbars in until it is strong and firm. He’s quite
 glad when it warps, for you’re about certain nothing more can happen
 to it. He often cuts into it himself, and glues it again, and so makes
 it strong. He has three of these pianos ready, and I have played
 to-day on them for the first time.

 “The machine which you move with the knee is also made better by him
 than by others. I scarcely touch it, when off it goes; and as soon
 as I take my knee the least bit away, you can’t hear the slightest
 after-sound.”

 [Illustration: George Frederick Handel. Engraved by Thomson.]

 We see from this letter of Mozart’s that in 1777 the “escapement,”
 which lets the hammers fall back immediately after the strings
 are struck, was as yet by no means universal, but that the pedal,
 which was pressed at the side by the knee and raised the dampers,
 was already a usual feature. What numberless small modifications
 and improvements must have been introduced before the developed
 mechanism exhibited by the key-levers, the hammers, the dampers, the
 escapements, the pedals, the sounding-boards, could have advanced
 to the self-evident simplicity which made possible the meteoric
 splendours of piano-technique about the middle of this century! Prices
 for pianos were still fairly high. The younger Ruckers obtained three
 thousand francs for a clavier, but it had painted on it those rich
 pictures with which the spinet, when it began to take its place among
 household furniture, was so captivatingly adorned. We hear also that
 the Parisian pianos with leather-plectrums (jeu de buffle) fetched,
 in their finest specimens, as much as three thousand francs. A Wagner
 clavicymbal from Dresden, which was a so-called _Deckenclavier_,
 in which the tone could be softened or strengthened by fan-shaped
 dislocations of the inner lid, fetched six hundred and sixty thalers;
 and Frederick the Great actually gave seven hundred thalers to
 Silbermann for the first hammer-claviers. If Stein, with his three
 hundred florins, seems to fall off from this price, we must remember
 the difference in the purchasing power of money. But, to-day, two
 thousand marks for a good pianoforte is cheap in comparison with the
 prices of those days. It is only through the growth of popularity
 that the greater demand and the lower price have become possible.

 I turn to the works themselves. Our step falls very heavy, and our
 judgment may easily be unduly harsh, when we have just parted with
 old Bach. This meeting with genius, which we celebrate in every
 bar--this earnest greatness which meets us at every turn, has made
 us very exacting in our demands for the higher beauty. In the first
 moment the “Galant” School seems to us a school of pigmies, until the
 sight has again adjusted itself, and the vision has again become awake
 to the miniature beauties of this smaller art. A good transition is
 provided by Handel, for, against Handel, Philip Emanuel Bach appears an
 astonishing genius.

 The tendency of the public, to group celebrities in pairs, has
 brought not merely Goethe and Schiller, but Bach and Handel, into
 juxtaposition. How little the scholarly hermit had in common with the
 grandiose world-musician--who first followed the wise prescription,
 glory in Italy, gain in England--would be seen from a comparison of
 their clavier-writings, which are a fair average of their general
 work. Handel is the negation of the classic. He gets his results
 from materials close at hand; brings them into plastic clearness,
 and writes from the point of view of the vulgar herd; he is never
 troubled by an exacting inward conception, or overwhelmed by his own
 imagination, as are all true classic artists.[101]

 Handel’s clavier-pieces are written in an extravagantly popular
 style. His suites, which moreover embrace not dance-forms only; his
 capriccios, variations and fantasias, flow like futile “water-music.”
 They are brilliant without being difficult, and entertaining
 without being suggestive. There is no colour on the sky of their
 landscapes; no tempest lashes their trees. We roll in our coaches
 on well-macadamised roads, the melody of the wheels reminding us
 meanwhile of this or that well-worn turn in the operas or oratorios.
 Seldom is a halt necessary in order to look at the view. Perhaps
 we may stop a moment longer than usual at those frequent singing
 sarabands in the popular style, at the charming salon-gigues
 (especially the long one in G minor), the genuine virtuoso’s
 Tarantella, or at the better F sharp minor suite with its short
 free prelude, staccato largo, insinuating fugue and dramatic gigue.
 Perhaps, also, the fugue with its _three beats_ from the E minor
 Prelude may please us; but there is a something which the whole fails
 to give us. It is an acquaintance--not a personal intimacy.

 Quite other is the impression produced by the “galant” music of Philip
 Emanuel Bach. While his elder brother Friedemann stands somewhat
 nearer to Sebastian in kind, and actually wrote pieces, like the C
 minor fugue, of which the old man need not have been ashamed, Philip
 Emanuel, with greater decision and also with greater significance,
 pursued a different path. It is as if fate had marked out this
 difference. Sebastian Bach held Friedemann as the cleverer musician;
 but he frittered his life away. Philip was first set to study
 jurisprudence, and out of the painstaking lawyer grew the sober and
 energetic composer. The life of Philip was as simple as his father’s.
 In 1740, at the age of twenty-six, he went to the court of Frederick
 the Great, where he worked as royal cembalist and accompanist. In 1767
 he went to Hamburg, and died there in 1788. He does not seem to have
 been able to agree with the King; and it is likely enough that he felt
 and worked more freely in Hamburg. Berlin was always having trouble
 with its people. Had Philip Emanuel stayed there, Berlin would have
 been the greatest centre of piano-playing in Germany, and its walls
 would have been associated with lasting memories of the ancestors of
 modern musical forms. Had Mozart, in later years, accepted the offer
 of Frederick William II. of a position as chief Kapellmeister with the
 extraordinary salary of three thousand thalers, Berlin would have been
 enabled to absorb a little of the musical life of Vienna. Or, later
 still, if the Academy of Singing had been given to Mendelssohn (who
 was a candidate), rather than to Rungenhagen, the intoxicating glory
 of Leipzig, which lasted for a time, would have been transferred to
 the banks of the Spree. But the spirit of Zelter remained over Berlin.

 In 1753 Philip Emanuel published at his own expense his “Essay on the
 true Method of playing the Clavier.” This was the most copious work on
 clavier technique that had yet appeared. It was at the same time the
 sufficient apology for the technique of the thumb, which has become
 the ground-work of our fingering. When the extreme importance of the
 thumb had at last been recognised, it was not hard to investigate
 systematically the places of its application. The main rules were
 necessarily that, in ascending, the thumb of the right hand is put
 _after_ one or more black keys, and the thumb of the left hand in
 descending, and _vice versa_. The setting of the thumb on the black
 keys themselves must be avoided, and the passing over of one finger by
 another, which earlier had been the main feature in scale passages,
 was now abandoned. The whole art was built on the thumb, which passed
 under in the right place. This work of Philip Emanuel, which gives
 special attention to the legato, may be called a panegyric on the
 thumb. In this clear insight, as well as in the arrangement of his
 exercises, which begin with scales and chords, preferring the unison
 practice of the two hands, and advancing slowly to easy pieces, his
 work is still one of our most modern exercise-books. We might guess
 that in this diligent application of his thumb-technique to scales
 and broken chords, Philip Emanuel places in the forefront of his
 exercises certain scale figures which to-day could not correspond to
 the most pressing necessities of the piano-player. We should expect
 them to be a mere training of the hand, and no preparation for the
 real difficulties which appear in actual literature. A glance at the
 works of any great master will show us, however, that such is not the
 case. These very scales, chain-passages, and broken chords, which are
 the material of teaching, are also the figures of free composition.
 Some fashionable composers may have employed them extravagantly,
 because they were at the fingers’ ends of the players, but the most
 independent writers must use them, because they are, from the very
 nature of the clavier, the most fruitful in effect and most harmonious
 in sound. The old disruption of musical material into short passages
 of four or five notes was now antiquated. Performers practised the
 whole scale and the chord. And since Philip Emanuel carried through
 this natural training with methodical clearness, his teaching has been
 fruitful, and has not run merely _alongside_ of the literature. In
 his book we can clearly see how the clavier has contributed not least
 to the formation of modern secular musical perception. In this its
 equal temperament, which was so urgently necessary, and its complete
 presentation of the tone-material, which so to speak we have only to
 read off, have largely aided.

 The case is dissimilar with his treatment of the “manieren.”[102]
 On their employment he writes as follows: “No man, assuredly, hath
 doubted concerning the necessity of ‘manieren.’ We can observe
 it herefrom, that we meet them everywhere in great abundance.
 Everywhere are they indispensable, if one considers their use.
 They hang the notes together, and give them life; they give them,
 if it be necessary, a particular energy and weight; they make them
 pleasing and therefore awaken a peculiar attention; they assist to
 make clear what is their meaning, which may be sorrowful or glad or
 otherwise disposed, as it pleaseth, yet do they contribute of their
 own thereto; they give a notable part of opportunity and material to
 the true execution; a moderate composition can by them be aided, as
 without them the best air is empty and monotonous, and the plainest
 meaning must appear throughout obscure.” This is a judgment which
 surprises us in a man so intelligent and advanced as Philip Emanuel.
 He has not yet perceived that ornamentations were in his time only
 the relics of an earlier style. An appoggiatura, which takes away
 half or two-thirds of its note, and thus becomes a mere melodious
 retardation, or a double-shake which completely disintegrates its
 note, and requires to be expressed by an antiquated stenographic mark,
 is already a mere fossil in a period which gives such independence to
 the melody. It is not the notes which then appear which are fossil,
 but their arrangement as decorations. What had originally been truly
 decoration, in the heyday of figuration, had, in the course of the
 eighteenth century, long become an emancipated melodic phrase. The
 idea of the retardation, which earlier veiled itself under the name
 of appoggiatura with suspended main-note, was not allowed to step
 in openly; and the doppelschlag[103] or the trill could say plainly
 what they were, without masquerading as modest satellites of some
 main-note or other. Had Philip Emanuel but had the courage to discard
 the old signs, and to hear the customary ornamentations as independent
 music, he would have been able to spare himself much dead weight, to
 avoid much confusion, and to get rid of the trammels of many dead
 traditions, which have come down even to our day. He has in his book
 exhibited a stirring knowledge and an individual treatment of the
 “manners”; yet he was forced to maintain an arbitrary distinction
 between the “manners” and the other figurations, although between
 the turn and any other melodious line-curve there is no longer any
 essential difference whatever. He has not been able to introduce any
 system into the relation of the appoggiatura with its note; and,
 because he saw that the effect of the appoggiatura could be produced
 equally well without the little note, he has been obliged to take
 refuge in the sentence: “The appoggiaturas are partly written like
 other notes and thrown into the bar, and partly specially indicated
 by small notes; while the larger ones keep their full value to the
 eye, although in practice they lose something of it.” At this point he
 should have been able to see that a system of “manieren” as such was
 no longer possible.

 From indications given by Philip Emanuel, it would seem that in
 these matters he was deliberately behind his time. He bemoans that
 the well-known marks in clavier-pieces were already beginning to be
 strange, and points to the careful way in which the French had always
 put in their marks. He delights as a rule in setting up the French as
 the masters of the clavier-exercise, and is vexed that people had an
 “evil prejudice” against their pieces, “which yet,” he says, “have
 always been a good school for clavier-players, forasmuch as this
 nation, by the smoothness and neatness of its playing, hath marked
 itself off specially from others.” Philip Emanuel’s love for the
 French is a very important point to keep in mind in appraising his
 works. Not only did he find in them the only great precedents for his
 “galant” style; he has also expressly continued the method of Couperin
 and Rameau by transcriptions, in the French manner and the French
 language. Nay, his endeavour, in his sonatas and rondos, to construct
 stiffer forms with _reprises_, appears as a mere continuation of the
 French rondo; and, however Italian the musical form may be, in more
 than one of his pieces, we inevitably think of the “Cyclopes” of
 Rameau. Possibly his whole book was suggested by Couperin’s “L’Art
 de toucher le clavecin,” and respect for this French tradition has
 hindered him from revolutionising the “manieren,” which still had
 their justification in France, so thoroughly as he did revolutionise
 the finger-exercise. It is thus very amusing to see how he himself
 challenges comparison with Couperin. He calls him “a teacher formerly
 so profound,” referring of course to the “manieren.” The “formerly,”
 of course, implies that Couperin had not yet learnt the thumb method,
 and had been too fond of changing the fingers on one note. In point
 of ornamentation it was _he_ that was conventional; and in point of
 fingering--why, old Sebastian, lately dead, stood between him and
 Couperin.

 “Fantasia-making without strict tempo,” says Philip Emanuel in one
 place of the Essay, “seems in the main to be specially adapted for the
 expression of the emotions, because every kind of barring brings with
 it a certain constraint.” In this verdict and in its application lies
 for us to-day, viewed externally, the greatest surprise which Philip
 Emanuel offers us. He has, as a matter of fact, written many fantasias
 which are almost designed without bars, and thus very logically give
 expression to the character of improvisation which they bear. They are
 great recitatives full of reflective melodies, of linked staccati, of
 sounding broken chords, which the player, when moved, knows how to
 unfold. They were the last free specimens of the unfettered forms of
 the older time.

 Not only in these fantasias, but as a rule in his whole creative
 energy, especially in the Hamburg period, Philip Emanuel exhibits
 that extempore humour and freedom, which has at all times given to
 clavier-pieces their greatest charm. He has sufficient invention to
 be rarely at a loss; and the pieces from his earlier “Württemberger
 Sonaten,” which are still more contrapuntal than the later, or from
 the later six volumes “Für Kenner und Liebhaber,”[104] have all that
 variety and multiplicity in unity which was also a feature of the
 collections of John Sebastian. But the desire for caprice works in
 him more strongly than the fulness of invention. He is untiring in
 pulling a melody humorously to pieces, in surprises of pause or in
 remarkable transitions. Occasionally his language positively dances,
 and it is hard to be certain whether it is intentional distortion--a
 cloak for poverty--or the genuine caprice of the moment which leads
 him after the charms of eccentricity. In any case he belongs to those
 rare and subtle natures which in a moment give us the genuine artistic
 touch of brotherhood.

 Even in his harmonies his freedom is clearly noticeable. He does not
 object to write separate movements in different keys, which he often
 connects by direct transitions. The third Sonata in the “Kenner und
 Liebhaber” stands in the first movement in B minor, in the second in G
 minor, and in the third in B minor once more. The fifth Sonata, which
 is set in F major, begins quietly with a phrase in C minor. In the
 first Rondo of volume V. we find the chord of the seventh (G, E, B, C
 sharp), set at the key-deciding place, _in B minor_; a chord at which
 some of our best memories of Wagner are revived. For such things he
 was severely censured by his comrades in the profession.

 As to his melody, it is as delightful as is to be expected from
 “galant” music, and from that only. At one time it shows a charming
 sentimentalism, in which the stronger use of retardations has its
 share, now it is frisky and playful, toying with itself; in both
 cases anticipating Mozart. Specially characteristic of the author are
 numerous melodic phrases, the like of which have played an important
 part down to our own time. Philip Emanuel used them with the greatest
 depth and penetration in the F sharp minor movement of the A major
 sonata (No. IV. in Kenner und Liebhaber, vol. i). In all these points
 he manifests his independence; and in spite of his study of the
 French, it is but seldom that, as in the “Siciliana” of one of his
 sonatas in the “Musikalisches Allerley,” we catch an echo of a phrase
 from Couperin.

 Like all the “galants,” he wrote much. A considerable number of his
 works were printed in his own time in the magazines or separately.
 Among these the sonatas to Frederick the Great to Charles Eugene of
 Württemberg, to Amalie of Prussia, and the “Kenner und Liebhaber,”
 take the first place. But yet more remained unprinted. Prosniz has
 counted four hundred and twenty of his clavier pieces, of which two
 hundred and fifty were printed. There is no modern comprehensive
 edition of his works, but the “Kenner und Liebhaber” has been very
 beautifully reissued by Krebs in the Berlin Academy collection of
 original editions. Apart from the first volume these are written
 exclusively for pianoforte.

 The name of Philip Emanuel generally rises to our lips when we speak
 of the origins of the modern forms of chamber-music and symphony.
 This is correct enough if we are content to establish his claims as
 an agent in the crystallisation of the two main forms of classical
 composition--the Sonata and the Rondo. But the creator of these forms
 he was not; he found them very far advanced in France and Italy, and
 on the other hand he handles them so freely that their regulation
 cannot be said to have been completed till the days of Haydn and
 Mozart. Thus he is in these points also but an intermediary.

 The strict sonata introduces first a main subject, then in an allied
 key an allied subject; next the middle section[105] in which these
 subjects are developed and completed; and lastly it repeats the
 exposition, transposing the subordinate subject, however, with a view
 to the finale, into the main key.

 In the Rondo, on the contrary, there is _one_ main theme and many
 subordinate motives. The main theme is chiefly melodious; the
 by-themes alternate in all kinds of forms among the repetitions of the
 melodic strophe.

 To the Sonata and the Rondo all older dance and fantasia forms
 gradually gravitated. The Sonata is the more dramatic, the Rondo the
 more lyrical. The Rondo, considered as to logical content, is the
 more organic; but advance and climax are wanting to it. The Sonata
 on the other hand, is, because of its _reprises_, less intellectual
 than architectural; but it has the sobriety of greatness. Usually, in
 thinking of the forms of this musical age, our thoughts dwell on the
 Sonata--in which form as a rule the first movement was cast. But the
 Rondo was equally important, and is equally often used in the second
 or last movement. Purer dance-forms were always in use as intermezzos
 between the movements.

 [Illustration: Mary Coswey with the Orphica, a portable clavier, which
 at the beginning of this century had a certain vogue.]

 In Philip Emanuel, then, we see a preference for the types of the
 sonata and the rondo which prepares the way for their sole supremacy.
 He only needed to proceed eclectically. Not only the French Rondo but
 the Italian Sonata had led to the _reprise_ form. Philip Emanuel did
 not advance far beyond these models. A second theme is not universal
 in his works; and only the modulation of the keys within the first
 half, to the dominant or relative major, is strongly stamped on them.
 The Sonata movement with him still admits of all _tempi_. In the
 third of the “Kenner und Liebhaber” Sonatas the peculiar sonata-form
 is not on the whole adhered to, but allegretto, andante, cantabile,
 follow each other in free fashion. On the other hand, in the following
 piece, the first and the last movements both show the sonata-form; but
 in the first of the “Württembergers” only the last movement has the
 stricter sonata-style. The third sonata of Volume II. of the “Kenner
 und Liebhaber” is actually written in a single movement. On the other
 hand the second Württemberger begins with a genuine sonata with double
 subject; and in the Kenner und Liebhaber, Vol. III. No. 2, the type of
 the modern sonata appears in full development. We see then from these
 examples that while Philip Emanuel uses the _reprise_ of the first
 part almost universally, he is yet far removed from the classical
 model of the sonata. In a word, we shall find in him nothing that is
 not already to be found in Rameau, Scarlatti, or above all, his great
 father.

 The Rondo was more in accordance with his genius. Here, where he had
 fully developed French models, it cannot be denied that with all
 his freedom in detail he has brought the form appreciably nearer
 to the classic type. Even Beethoven was often unable to improve on
 his alternations of intermediate movements, or the grace with which
 he returns to the air and makes his theme gently rock to and fro.
 He loves those simple popular rondo airs, which, as we listen, we
 all seem to have heard before. As couplets[106] he prefers to use
 technically brilliant figures, which in their turn offer a good
 contrast to the air. He is untiring in toying with the theme. He
 makes it now break off in the middle, now become sentimental; now it
 becomes questioning. As time goes on he develops his whole power of
 expression, so that he is far removed from a stiff alternation of
 theme with couplet. In a fantasia (K. and L. v.; last piece), which
 is perhaps his most charming composition, he blends the rondo-form
 most skilfully with the free style of an improvisation, and thus
 shows himself on his best side. Hardly less delightful is the last
 piece in Volume VI., a Fantasia-Rondo whose main theme is a kind
 of hunting-call. In this movement the hunt is interrupted by a
 beautiful romantic _andante_, then by emotional reveries in _larghetto
 sostenuto_, and in the conclusion the reflective style gains the upper
 hand.

 The Rondo was so attractive to him because by its means he was able
 the more easily to bring his beloved “affettuoso” into expression.
 And his inner genius was not so much formal as lyrical. In his music
 there is even to-day a strong spiritual charm, to which the slight
 archaism adds a pleasant flavour. In his Rondos he comes very near
 to us, and not less in those little characteristic pieces which,
 written in dance-form, followed French models in the very style of
 the inscriptions. He uses for titles proper names, such as Hermann,
 Buchholz, Böhmer, Stahl; and such more general appellations as La
 Xenophone, La Sibylle, La Complaisante, La Capricieuse, L’Irrésolue,
 La Journalière, and Les Langueurs Tendres--names, it will be
 remembered, used also by Couperin. La Sibylle has a wonderfully
 beautiful melody; and Les Langueurs Tendres is such an unsurpassable
 air in two mournful voices, that it bears endless repetition. Nothing
 has ever been written to surpass this tender clavichord-sadness.

 The great counterpoint of Bach is now forgotten with extraordinary
 rapidity. The ancestor of the following generation is Philip Emanuel.
 Wherever we look, to the London Bach, Johann Christian, to the
 Austrians--anywhere--we find the work influenced by his style. “He is
 the father and we the boys,” said Mozart.

 [Illustration: Joseph Haydn. Engraved by Quenedey.]

 Haydn knew well what he owed to Philip Emanuel, and was as little
 chary to acknowledge it as Mozart. In actual essentials Haydn made
 no advance in clavier-music. The stream is perhaps a little clouded,
 and it is not till Mozart’s time that it again becomes clear. Haydn’s
 genius lay in composing for the orchestra, not for the piano. He
 has of course written clavier sonatas--they number thirty-five--and
 other pieces in which the clavier takes part; as numerous and light
 as the works of all these “galant” musicians. But his trios are to
 be preferred to the sonatas for piano only; there is more depth in
 them; and the ideas are lit up more brightly by the instrumental
 combination. Only in the sonatas after 1790, as in the first in E flat
 major (Br. and H.) does something more noteworthy emerge--but by that
 time Haydn had studied Mozart.

 Still further, in his pieces, Haydn is no great virtuoso. In his
 Trios he knows well how to make the most of the character of the
 clavier, by contrasting it with the strings, by means of arpeggios,
 all kinds of passages, full chords, and the beloved octave-melodies.
 But a more interesting virtuoso performance, such as that in the F
 minor variations, appears very rarely. The ornamental work is still
 extensive, but within limits; and much of it is written out in full,
 just as the cadenzas, which used to appear in small notes, are now
 preferably printed in the usual type. At the end of the century
 everything was taken away from the caprice of the player, except the
 great cadenzas at the conclusion of the concerto-movements. Philip
 Emanuel had taken a last important step, when, in his Sonata dedicated
 to the Prussian Princess Amalie, he wrote out exactly for the second
 time the ornamentations and alterations in the frequent repetitions of
 musical phrases of a few bars, instead of leaving them to the pleasure
 of the players. To judge by his preface, caprice in these matters
 must have flourished like a green bay-tree; and he takes great credit
 to himself for having been the first to offer accurately formulated
 “alternative _reprises_,” which run no risk of spoiling the whole aim
 and meaning of the piece. His point of view is interesting. It is, he
 says, not possible to avoid altering a musical phrase in repeating it.
 This conception is endorsed by all his contemporaries and successors
 in style, in their works: Haydn and Mozart cannot be conceived apart
 from this mannerism of altering a musical idea in repetition by
 slight turns and adornments. This method is the fixed law of movement
 of their musical ideas, and dictates their progress through long
 stretches in advance. Deep founded in the general delight in variation
 so characteristic of the time, it enables us to understand that
 great development which forms a whole branch of musical history--the
 development, namely, of improvised “manieren” into strict and firm
 melodies.

 As far as _form_ is concerned, the work already begun is continued
 by Haydn. The Sonata-form tends to limit itself more and more to
 the first movement; more and more clearly does the “second theme”
 crystallise itself; slow-drawn movements are preferred more and
 more in the second place, and graceful rondo-like movements in the
 third--without, however, any appearance of compulsion. The only relic
 of the traditional “suite” of dances, which Haydn retains in his
 sonatas or symphonies, is the “Minuet” which he is so fond of using as
 an intermezzo.[107] The old dance-forms, _as_ dances, were so speedily
 forgotten, that in a certain trio a delicate slow waltz is marked as
 “allemande”--whereas the old allemande is not even written in the time
 of a waltz, apart from the difference in style.[108]

 [Illustration: W. A. Mozart. Engraved in 1793 by C. Kohl (1754-1807).]

 Haydn received more from the clavier than he gave to it. He
 transferred to the orchestra the clavier-forms of the time, and thus
 pointed out to it the path to the symphony. Without doubt the modern
 symphony, in the first instance, is to be traced to the clavier
 pieces of Philip Emanuel Bach; and Haydn, to whom fell the task of
 the intermediary, was the first to put the rich development of this
 chamber-music to practical use. Clavier and orchestra always advance
 in mutual rivalry, treading on each other’s heels. In Haydn it was
 the clavier that aided the orchestra; in Beethoven the orchestra aided
 the clavier; Mozart, standing between, gives to each its own.

 Thus it is that Mozart has given much, and much of its special
 character, to the clavier. This equilibrium--and Mozart is always
 the very personification of equilibrium--is most striking in his
 piano-concertos, which justly enjoy the renown of having created an
 epoch in this class. Especially remarkable is the C minor concerto,
 in which the piano experienced one of its chief emancipations. On one
 side stood the orchestra, on the other the instrument, and yet neither
 of these two great rivals loses anything of its essential nature;
 rather, they owe to this very rivalry many of their best effects.
 When clavier and orchestra address and answer each other; when the
 clavier intertwines itself with the strings and the wood, and they in
 turn blend with the clavier; when in the running strife each sounds
 in its own style and gives birth to a natural variation of phrases
 and to delicate alterations of the constituent forms; all proceeds in
 accordance with that self-evident logic which, at such critical points
 in artistic history, naturally dispenses with internal laws.

 Mozart is the great virtuoso who, even as a boy, was the astonishment
 of Europe. It is not to be expected that he should content himself
 with the intimate reflectiveness of the pianoforte; he drags it out
 into the great world; he needs the concerto-form just as he needs
 great concert halls. The new pianoforte, with its fuller and more
 subtly expressive tones, is precisely adapted to his aims, and he
 is the first to launch the pianoforte on its decisive career. With
 his triumphal progresses the popularity of the new instrument was
 not likely to decline. The great enchanter leaves the tiny victories
 of the spinet far behind; his public recitals in hired halls, which
 henceforward become more and more popular, demand new feats. He has to
 work on bold lines; he has to bring into use the special features of
 the instrument he adopted; the rippling scale-passage, the variety of
 tone, the _forte_, the _pianissimo_, the hundred gradations between
 these extremes, the altogether new possibilities of sentimental
 expression which were now at the disposal of the public performer. But
 amid all the intoxication of the concert hall, the virtuoso remains
 an artist; the idol of the hour retains his deeper feeling. As he was
 only truly himself when, after the furore of publicity, he touched the
 notes in solitude or before a few friends, so in his concertos, behind
 the external glitter, a romantic soul lies hidden. In the beautiful
 Romance in the D minor Concerto, for example, the soul looks out on us
 with a wonderful and never-to-be-forgotten intensity.

 In almost all his pieces Mozart composes according to the bidding
 of the moment. He is an “occasional” composer. In the concertos the
 occasion was his own appearance on the stage. In the duets and double
 pianoforte pieces he found the occasion in his association with
 his sister. From this species of performance he drew new effects.
 The D major sonata for two pianos stands alone in the skilful and
 effective blending of the two instruments. His four-handed sonatas are
 astonishingly successful in the individualisation of the hands, and
 started a numerous class of clavier-pieces which have been too often
 misused. We shall not appreciate such duets, if we take the clavier as
 a diminutive orchestra.[109] But here again Mozart has been unwilling
 utterly to sacrifice combined effects to individual demands.

 [Illustration: Beginning of Mozart’s A minor Sonata. Royal
 Musikbibliothek, Berlin.]

 Through the ravishing chamber-music in which, especially in the
 quintett for oboe, clarinet, horn, fagotto and pianoforte, the
 splendid treatment of the pianoforte with regard to the wind deserves
 notice; through all the melodious pieces for piano and violin, the
 trios, the quartetts; to the numerous smaller clavier-pieces, the
 fashionable variations, the relics of the suites, the scattered
 fugues, the fantasies so rich in variety; we follow Mozart to the
 eighteen pure piano sonatas, which are the very miniature mirror of
 his unfailing musical invention. We shall treat them in chronological
 order, for here for the first time we perceive a distinct development
 which renders such treatment the most natural and advantageous.

 At first we meet the daring harmonies and enharmonic changes by
 which every innovator makes himself notorious, and which draw on him
 the first severe criticisms. But there is not yet the concentration
 of later works. A light counterpoint runs through the whole, a
 conscientious treatment of the themes, which bears witness to sound
 training. A striking feature is the unforced inventiveness in motives,
 which succeed one another in unfailing profusion. Intellectual themes,
 as for example in the B flat major, remind us of Philip Emanuel.
 The form becomes more distinct, the rules of sonata-arrangement
 more rigid. But it is not till we reach the A minor (1778) that the
 full brilliancy of form is seen. This piece has all that wonderful
 proportion and balance even in the smallest parts, which was, and
 remained, Mozart’s most peculiar characteristic. Proportion in the
 well-balanced opposition of themes in all three divisions, in the
 liveliness of the piquant semiquaver runs, which already leave
 Scarlatti far behind, in the brilliant and yet simple execution of the
 last movement--proportion, indeed, is everywhere.

 After 1778 our impressions deepen. The D major is the creation of
 Mozart’s indestructible caprice. The motives become ever more tuneful,
 more _speaking_: in the C major we hear the phrases as though sung; we
 seem to hear words with pauses for breath, as from a distant exquisite
 opera. The melodies run after each other, and--what is so typical a
 feature of Mozart--it is by this that our attention is held rather
 than by any inner development of the themes.

 [Illustration: Mozart at the age of seven, with his Father and Sister.

 Engraved 1764, by J. B. Delafosse (b. 1721) after L. C. de Carmontelle
 (? about 1790).]

 The A major sonata is an excellent example of this melodic regularity.
 Its contours are of an unimagined loveliness, and its airs of a
 magic delicacy. The Turkish March stands out in variegated national
 colours, far removed from every triviality--if only we give to the
 Janissary rhythm its full due.

 The airs become broader, the piquancies more daring, until the
 allegretto of the B flat major with its jubilant sevenths stands
 before us as a new peak of Philip Emanuel’s Rondo forms. Here is that
 bright laughter, which from Mozart’s lips has the most delightful of
 sounds.

 This was in 1779. In 1784 Mozart has entered upon the second half of
 his life, the unhappy half, and the C minor sonata appears. New tones
 now strike upon our ear, harsh, strong, broad, intense. But all is
 still in proportion. The hand is freer, rushing more boldly from the
 heights of the piano to its depths; bolder also are the episodes which
 are the pivots of the thoughts. In all is the sweet intoxication in
 the bewildering sound of the pianoforte, and the air so full of soul,
 growing richer in retardations, and more and more taking the lines
 which Mozart decisively fixed for the beautifully-formed melody. A
 strange reserve, the reserve of maturity, characterises the last
 movement, otherwise so flowing; its expressive raggedness forbodes
 new things, the victory of matter over form--in a word, Beethoven;
 and then, in this period of Figaro and Don Giovanni, we meet the F
 major, the most sombre in content of all his writings (1788). With
 its two movements we are accustomed, not improperly, to connect the
 Rondo written in 1786. Counterpoint has slowly advanced to its old
 position--the sign of the mature man, who is seeking his fixed abode.
 This it is which stiffens the weft into what at times is a solidity
 worthy of Bach. The dominion over the world of tone is now absolute,
 the melodies sing heavenward, as for example in the theme of this
 andante, which came spontaneously from his soul.

 We have reached the limit of the “galant,” over whose fields dark
 clouds are already gathering. But we are also at its highest point.
 In Mozart the ideal of popular music was more fully realised than
 its father, Philip Emanuel, could ever have dreamed. Mozart’s
 well-balanced nature preserved the clavier from superficiality; and
 he himself was saved by an early death from sacrificing this balance
 to the sombre thought of a new time. His sense for form brought the
 sonata into more typical shape, but the endless melody and the free
 intelligence of his music took all sharpness from the forms. No music
 can be less easily described in words than his; and therefore, as a
 great beautiful sound, it was the best content which the forms of the
 galant popular epoch could find. It is not till we have left youth
 behind that we see proportion and equilibrium in this repose; and it
 is then, as Otto Jahn says, that we are amazed at the wonderful wealth
 of this art and at ourselves for being so slow to feel it.

 [Illustration: Upright Hammer-clavier (pianoforte), about 1800, called
 the “Giraffe.” Mahogany and bronze, with open work in green moiré.
 Three pedals, _forte_, _piano_, and “fagotto.” By Joseph Wachtl,
 Vienna. De Wit collection.]


     [96] Both these adjectives apply to decorative ornament.
     The general idea of “baroque” is “odd” or “outrageous.”
     “Rococo” implies an elaborate want of good taste.

     [97] “Dux,” the _leader_, _i.e._ the “subject” of the
     fugue; “Comes,” the _attendant_, _i.e._ the “answer.” So
     called because the one follows the other as a matter of
     course, like master and servant.

     [98] Meaning “The Philosophy of Spinoza,” _i.e._ an
     illustration of Spinoza’s method, given in musical notes.

     [99] It is impossible to describe this action in words. See
     the diagrams in Grove’s “Dictionary of Music,” vol. ii. pp.
     716 and 718.

     [100] I possess a Zumpe pianoforte, date 1766, which is
     apparently the earliest surviving made by him in England.
     E. W. N.

     [101] Such a judgment of Handel, which would be ungracious
     in the mouth of an Englishman, is not unfitting in a
     German. England alone, apparently, knows and cares about
     Handel, the athlete in _choral_ music.

     [102] _i.e._ the ornamentations, turns, appoggiaturas, etc.

     [103] The doppelschlag was the “turn,” beginning with the
     _note above_.

     [104] “For professors and amateurs.”

     [105] Various names have been used for this “middle
     section” of the “sonata form,” _e.g._--“Development,”
     “Fantasia,” “Free part,” “_Durchführung_, carrying
     through,” “Working-out.”

     [106] The word “couplet” is here used as in Couperin, and
     other old French composers. It means the subsidiary themes
     or sections which alternate with the main subject in these
     ancient rondos. Call the main theme A, the subsidiary ones
     B, C, D, etc. Then the course of the movement is--A, B, A,
     C, A, D, A, etc., and B, C, D, etc., are called “couplets.”

     [107] See, for instance, Haydn’s earliest string quartets,
     where he commonly has _two_ minuets, one on each side of
     the “slow” movement.

     [108] Does not “allemande” here simply mean “German” waltz?

     [109] It is a great pity, and a great loss in every
     way, that the careful _artistic_ playing of duets on
     one pianoforte has largely ceased. What Moscheles and
     Mendelssohn were not ashamed to do in public, surely is not
     an unworthy employment. It should be revived, if only to
     popularise Schubert’s beautiful works for four hands, the
     widespread ignorance of which is a simple disgrace to us
     all.




 [Illustration: Beethoven at age of 31.]




                                Beethoven


 When a great scheme was started in Berlin for a common monument to
 Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven, it was plain to see that the artists
 felt themselves in the presence of a very mixed task; but it was not
 so clear where the incongruity lay. They stood under the influence of
 the popular opinion, which binds these three heroes under a single
 yoke, and they were the victims of this influence. Nations have an
 instinct of symmetry in the classification of their great men. The
 ancients had their seven sages; to-day we are content with two or
 three; but even so the combinations are none the less strained. The
 false ideas due to the pairing of Bach and Handel, or of Goethe and
 Schiller, are hardly to be numbered. The triumvirate of Haydn, Mozart,
 and Beethoven, is the very acme of perversity. Haydn and Mozart,
 though two fundamentally different natures, have yet in common the
 similar features of the age. But Beethoven is as little like them as
 Goethe is like Racine. We have only to glance round a salon in the
 Vienna of the last century. The old Haydn and the old Salieri sit
 smiling and friendly on a sofa; they move in the stilted fashion of
 the eighteenth century; they retain in their carriage all the features
 of the “Zopf und Schopf”[110] period; and in every judgment, in every
 gesture, they show their antagonism to unrestrained emotion. Over
 against them a young man is leaning on the piano. His demeanour is
 modish though untidy, and smacks of the Rhine; his movements natural
 but wooden; his hair is loose and disordered; his compliments are few;
 he accepts strangers only on compulsion; his playing is perhaps too
 vigorous, too full of feeling; and the ideas which he incorporates in
 his works are in their originality half revolutionary, half romantic.
 This new-comer is Beethoven, a man so different from the settled type,
 from the old “composers of the Empire,” as he himself calls them, that
 it is easy to anticipate the future which he himself is conjuring up.
 He is the first of the Titans, the first of the great fragmentary
 natures, the first tone-artist who breaks the forms of music to
 pieces on the iron of his emotions. A strange Providence closes his
 outward ears, and thus gaining a clearer vision, he receives from
 Nature herself unheard-of inspirations. How this strange new man, this
 romantic raver, could be coupled with Haydn and Mozart is a wonder;
 but popular opinion accounts for it. Beethoven came to Vienna just as
 Mozart began to be missed. The world gave him the honour of attaching
 him to the classic school. But it is a mere blunder to treat him as
 the end of an epoch--he is the beginning of a new one.

 It must be observed at this point that the world had meanwhile become
 really musical--or perhaps less truly musical than music-loving. Nay,
 more; political events, as formerly church ceremonies, could now be
 celebrated in music. The famous concerto which Beethoven gave in
 honour of the Vienna Congress was perhaps the first great occasion on
 which music lent itself in festal manner to the adornment of public
 events. It was now no longer a mere incident in a commemorative
 display, but to a great extent pure music; and the rapid and vigorous
 education of men to instrumental music by the classical masters
 was the necessary precedent condition of the attainment of this
 point. In these matters the clavier played its important part as an
 intermediary and a teacher; it made the innovations into current coin,
 scattered them among people in their homes, and accustomed their ears
 to understand better and better the absolute language of music, as
 it dealt in wider and wider abstractions. The publishers were more
 active, the issues more frequent, the popular settings more numerous
 and artistic. Even the great men themselves take a share in the work.
 A frequent phenomenon in the music-trade is that composers like
 Clementi, Dussek, and Pleyel, themselves open publishing houses--and
 secure the advertisement of their wares, oftener perhaps than was
 really necessary.

 International exchange became more active year by year. If we look
 to London, we see Johann Christian Bach at work, helping to give
 form to the Sonata; we observe Haydn and Pleyel in vigorous rivalry
 for the favour of the public; we see the virtuoso Clementi from
 Italy setting up a clavier-school. In Petersburg meanwhile lives the
 Englishman, Field, one of the chief nocturne-romancists, and Klengel
 and Berger, the Germans, all three brought out by Clementi. Next we
 see there also J. W. Hässler, the ex-hatter, who has left behind such
 agreeable works that Bülow regarded him as a good intermediary between
 Mozart and Beethoven. In Paris the opera is the favourite agent of
 musical pleasure. With Gluck the old quarrel between the Italian
 and the northern manner is renewed. Chamber-music retreats into the
 back-ground. Schobert and Eckard, decorative musicians, are hardly
 known beyond the border; and Adam and Kalkbrenner, who restore the
 fame of French clavier-technique, leave productive art on one side.

 In Vienna there is a swarm of prominent figures. Gradually the city
 is preparing itself for the state of things which in 1820 W. C.
 Müller thus describes in one of his “Letters to German Friends”: “It
 is incredible how far the enthusiasm for music, and especially for
 skill on the piano, is now being carried. Every house has a good
 instrument. The banker Gaymüller has five by different makers; and the
 girls especially play a great deal.” Indeed, a glance at the society
 of Vienna at that time shows us innumerable ladies, ranging from the
 merest amateurs to the maturest artistic performers, thronging round
 the great and the mediocre alike. Even Beethoven, the misanthrope,
 sees himself surrounded by them; he cannot keep from them, nay,
 he often does not choose to do so. The Baroness Ertmann, Julia
 Guicciardi, Nanette Streicher, are some of the actual persons of the
 fair sex, who, amid innumerable legendary beings, hovered about the
 Master. As usual where social life forms the basis of culture, the
 ladies come to the front. Invitations fly in bewildering profusion;
 the great houses exchange their guests; new compositions are made
 known in the salons before they find a publisher; and when they
 are published, old acquaintances become subscribers. This narrow
 circle gives a great opportunity for the advance of chamber-music.
 An accurate observer will notice how the modern international
 musical public slowly develops itself from this old-fashioned, close
 corporation.

 The names of the best teachers are in every mouth. Czerny, who was
 destined to raise Vienna technique to its height, and to become the
 teacher of a Liszt, tells us in his Memoirs who were known as the
 best teachers in Vienna at the commencement of the century: “Wölffl,
 distinguished by his bravura-playing; Gelinek, universally popular for
 his brilliant and elegant execution; Lipawsky, a great sight-player,
 renowned for his performance of Bach’s fugues. I still remember how
 Gelinek once told my father that he was invited out for an evening to
 break a lance with a foreign player. ‘We mean to hew him in pieces,’
 said Gelinek. Next day my father asked Gelinek how the fight of
 yesterday had gone. ‘Oh,’ said he, ‘I shall remember yesterday’s
 fight. The young man has a devil. I never heard such playing. He
 improvised fantasias on an air I gave him, as I never heard even
 Mozart improvise. Then he played compositions of his own, which are
 in the highest degree wonderful and grand, and he brings out of the
 piano effects the like of which we never heard of!’ ‘Ah,’ said my
 father, astonished, ‘what is this man called?’ ‘He is,’ said Gelinek,
 ‘a little, gloomy, dark, and stubborn-looking young fellow, and he is
 called Beethoven.’”

 Beethoven was discontented. He knew what lay within him, and yet
 could not help seeing how the crowd preferred to shout itself hoarse
 over the brilliant exponents of technique, then beginning to swarm
 over Vienna. He was brought into a contest not only with Gelinek,
 but with Wölffl, who was renowned for his abnormally long fingers.
 Such contests are a mark of the times. As yet the division of labour
 between composers and interpreters had not been introduced. Playing
 and invention had a more intimate association. The following is
 the programme of the “Academy,” which Mozart performed in 1770 at
 Mantua: “First, a symphony of his own composition; secondly, a
 pianoforte concerto, which he will play at sight; thirdly, a sonata
 just placed before him, which he will provide with variations and
 afterwards repeat in another key. Then he will compose an aria
 to words given to him, sing it himself, and accompany it on the
 clavier. Next, a sonata for the cembalo on a motive supplied him by
 the first violin[111]; a strict fugue on a theme to be selected,
 which he will improvise on the piano; a trio, in which he will take
 the violin part _all’improviso_; and, finally, the last symphony
 of his own composition.” No sharper contrast can be conceived than
 this performance offers to the modern concert. Almost all is here
 arranged for sight-playing and improvisation, or for the instantaneous
 exertion of inventive or executant skill. There is in this still a
 good deal of the earlier notion of music, in which the conception and
 visible development of a theme was preferred to the performance of a
 completed work. Later, the demand for such instantaneous performances
 gradually disappears. In Mozart the cadenza at the conclusion of the
 concerto-movements remained as the last refuge of the improviser
 in the written-out piece. Beethoven insisted that his E flat major
 concerto should be performed without an improvised cadenza.

 At a period in which instantaneous performances were so popular,
 contests of the kind mentioned above were not misplaced. But Beethoven
 had more to suffer in them than others, since his genius had already
 outgrown them. He was a poet who loved to live apart and to offer
 his gifts in a more intimate fashion. How wonderfully did that very
 deafness, which turned his genius inward, preserve him in later
 years from public playing and conducting! But, before, he had been
 forced to enter the lists not only with Wölffl, with Gelinek, with
 the renowned technist Hummel, but actually with so contemptible an
 artist as Steibelt. This Steibelt was one of the disgraces of the age.
 Bespattered with praise, he rushed through Europe with his trashy
 compositions, his battles, thunder-storms, Bacchanals, which he played
 _ad libitum_, while his wife struck the tambourine in concert with
 him. The populace was enraptured, for Steibelt and Madame tickled
 their nerves with sparkling shakes and tremolos. At the house of the
 Count von Fries he fell in with Beethoven. A quintett of Steibelt’s
 and the B flat major trio of Beethoven’s (Op. 11) were played. In
 the latter occur the variations on a theme of Weigl, from the opera
 L’Amor Marinaro. Beethoven was out of humour and would not play. A
 week later the same company met again. On this occasion a quintett by
 Steibelt is again played, and to it Steibelt adds a series of wild
 clattering variations on the same theme of Weigl. Such “Leit-motive”
 attacks are familiar in these contests. It is well known that
 underlying Mozart’s Zauberflöte overture is a theme which Clementi
 had already used in his B flat major Sonata. Clementi had played
 it in a contest with Mozart, who did not care much for the Italian
 “mechanical” artist. But Beethoven this time avenged himself bitterly
 on Steibelt. After a long persuasion from his friends he stepped
 negligently to the piano, struck with one finger a few notes from the
 just-played quintett, and twisted it in and out until he had produced
 a fantasia; but Steibelt, before the conclusion of the piece, left the
 room and never came near him again.

 Thus Beethoven lived in a world with which he had no sympathy. It is
 true that there were some houses in which the higher class of music
 was openly cultivated. Such a house was that of Van Swietens, where
 Beethoven often played to a late hour from Bach’s Wohltemperiertes
 Klavier. But the multitude, whose musical horizon was bounded by the
 Italian opera, occupied itself with the glitter and splash of the
 executants. In such a city old Diogenes might have sought long for a
 man. A composer of the best class, Friedrich Wilhelm Rust, who in the
 midst of his capriccios in the style of Philip Emanuel often showed
 features reminding us of Beethoven, died at Dessau in 1796 alone and
 inglorious. A Franz Schubert lived close by Beethoven, but no one knew
 of his existence. Those who are heard of are virtuosos and writers for
 the pianoforte. Dussek, however, is of importance not only from the
 technical point of view, but from that of true _art_. He is noteworthy
 also as the first musician to compose almost wholly for the piano,
 with or without accompaniment. How distant are the times when we could
 feel surprise when a piece appeared written for piano alone! And this
 man, within the limits of his genius, made the poetry of the piano
 into a life-work. It is as if for the first time an anticipation
 of Chopin rose before us; but the likeness is after all only in
 externals. Dussek is the bourgeois romancist, when he spends his whole
 year in the country with his lady-love; but he is the true son of the
 eighteenth century when he in turn attaches himself to successive
 princely patrons. Especially devoted was he to the musical Prussian
 Prince Louis Ferdinand, on whose death at Saalfeld he wrote a suitable
 composition. His style would seem to have been noble and full, and his
 pieces are more charming than was usual at the time. Unlike Hummel
 he was very partial to the pedal; and it is in his pages, perhaps,
 that we find it for the first time accurately employed. His works
 themselves are of all kinds and degrees of merit. When, led by his
 national temperament (he was a Czech), he gives full play to the dance
 forms in the last movement, he strikes a fine and fresh note. He was
 one of the first to use syncopations effectively. But he has also
 written a final movement, that of the E flat major sonata in 6/8 time,
 which has a true and solid worth over and above its dance-form. He is
 less attentive to his first movements, and his most famous sonata,
 that in A flat major, which he entitled “Retour à Paris,” disappoints
 in this regard our expectations. In his second movements he is quicker
 to light on tones which, by their tender character, linger in the
 memory; as above all in the slow movement of the D major in 2/4 time.

 After all, if Dussek does not stand among the immortals, he yet, in
 intellect and power of invention, ranks among the lesser stars[112] to
 whom we owe the full elaboration of the popular forms. His style is
 soon grasped. We know one of his sonatas already as soon as we hear
 the first bars. A broad first theme gives us a good tune; then it goes
 smoothly flowing through grateful passages to the second theme in the
 dominant or relative key. Other runs give the fingers some further
 opportunity for bravura; perhaps a third scrap of melody peeps out,
 and we are at the landmark of the first double bar. Next some suitable
 free fantasia is arranged, which sounds more scholastic than it is; we
 pass with it through a series of related keys--until a motive already
 known, the first theme, brings us back again with a smooth glide to
 the beginning, from which point the movement practically repeats
 itself. In the following movements there is a longer melody adorned
 with variations. In the third a seductively familiar theme tickles our
 fancy, which at times spreads itself out in bravuras, or gives itself
 effect in a very poor imitation of a fugue.

 [Illustration: Dussek.]

 In company such as this Beethoven stands absolutely alone. It is true
 he has not yet wholly cast off the garment of his time. In many a
 harmonic phrase, in many a formal turn, he is a child of the period;
 above all in many a _naiveté_. And he not seldom exerts himself about
 passages which are utterly unworthy of him. He, the composer of the
 A major symphony, wrote at the same time the incredible “Battle of
 Vittoria.” Conscious advance, such as Wagner set before himself, is
 to him unknown; and we find among his later works various things that
 remind us of an earlier period, as, for example, the wonderfully
 Mozart-like C major Rondo for the pianoforte. But his _naiveté_ was
 strangely warped; and thus arose noteworthy mixtures of style, such as
 we so often observe in men who stand on the borders of two ages. His
 character was the most complicated that ever musician had; and only
 investigators who know not the demon of the great soul, can seriously
 ascribe the paltry avarice of the master to humane goodwill for the
 notorious nephew whom he supported. A soul like Beethoven’s is a
 mystery into which we can only penetrate slowly and with difficulty;
 and who knows--even if perhaps the deepest secrets of his “last style”
 should become common and familiar, whether even then the last word
 would have been said on this strangely complicated and distorted
 character? But Beethoven composed from the soul outward. This was the
 great novelty. And we must penetrate into his soul if we will rightly
 apprehend him.

 The enthusiastic compiler, Thayer, who died while writing
 Beethoven’s biography--musical history has often been the death
 of its authors!--remarks very excellently how differently from
 others Beethoven already sketches out his work. The motives stand
 there in hasty cursive--applications of motives--tone-ideas in
 words--as a painter sketches or a poet notes down his observations
 or inspirations. It bubbles up not like Bach’s steady stream of
 self-restraint, but in a torrent of unmeasured passion, which regards
 self-restraint as a weak concession and the correctness of the
 “galants” as a lie. In this man music spoke in words, not in pictures.
 He had the unparalleled boldness to tear out his secret feelings, all
 bleeding as they were, and hold them up before his own gaze. It was
 the boldness of a Zarathustra-nature. He belonged to those who worship
 Bacchus, not to those who follow Buddha. In Thayer’s possession was
 a note from Beethoven to his friend Zmeskall of Domanovecz. “For the
 future I bid farewell to the cheerfulness which I sometimes enjoy;
 for yesterday, through your Zmeskallic chatter, I became quite
 gloomy. The devil take them--I don’t want to know anything of their
 universal morality. Might is the morality of men who distinguish
 themselves above others. It is my morality, anyhow. If you start on
 me again, I shall pester you until you find everything I do noble and
 praiseworthy.”

 We shall then only understand Beethoven thoroughly when we leave form
 on one side and take music as a speech. It is no feeble paradox to
 say that the reason why Beethoven, in his operas and songs, paid so
 little attention to the words, was because the music was to him words
 enough. To this greatest of instrumental geniuses was revealed the
 great secret of pure music, which, precisely because it has no speech
 or language, speaks infinitely the more profoundly. Words obstruct it.
 When Beethoven, at the end of the Ninth Symphony, has recourse to the
 human voice, everyone feels that it was to him only the highest of
 all instruments, with which he can do yet more than with trombone or
 contrabass. It is the utmost triumph of the pure musician who can draw
 even the voice under his sway.

 [Illustration: Cast of Beethoven’s living face, 1812.]

 Music is to him a speech, because it is full of associations of ideas,
 which bring tones into relation with the outer world, and make them
 reverberate with a thousand inner meanings. In his orchestra we hear
 nature, as in his pianoforte we hear the orchestra. Not without
 reason has Bülow, in his edition of Beethoven, in more than one place
 translated the piano-piece for the reader into score, in order to
 make its content clearer. These are things which did not exist in
 Bach. The world of tone has sacrificed her great unity for the great
 fragmentariness of unveiled speech, and a never dreamt-of height was
 thus reached in that absolute tone speech, which formerly in Venice
 and in England had taken the place of the mediæval vocal music.

 What a Gabrieli, a Bull, a Bird, a Couperin, each in his own way,
 had begun, was by Beethoven brought to full completion. Here was the
 perfect opposition to the Middle Ages. Here was the Michael Angelo
 who could stand alone against the ancients. The abstractions were
 perfected, the relations more general, the language more intelligible.
 If Beethoven began his first Symphony with a chord of the seventh,
 it was possible to understand what he meant by it. To this man, who
 completed one epoch in beginning another; to this symphonist and
 chamber-musician, the clavier must become a daily necessity. His life
 has been written in his works. Words, which could only fetter him, are
 kept at a distance; the notes tell the story by themselves.

 [Illustration: Lithograph by C. Fischer, after the original portrait
 of 1817, by A. Kloeber (1793-1864).]

 If we would understand Beethoven’s language we must study the
 way in which he works out his motives. His peculiarities are the
 peculiarities of the naturalistic school. The melody mounts or
 falls as his emotion mounts or falls. He takes a motive and narrows
 it until its parts curve upon each other, and then again makes it
 greater and broader, until it lies open before us. This is a deep
 and mysterious language, which deals with the tones as a word, an
 expression; which looks on us, shall I say? like the eye of certain
 animals--we understand them through and through, and yet their speech
 is not ours. But the most powerful agent in stirring our emotion is
 the rhythm, that soul of all expression. It is the absolute pulse of
 things, which only the finer ears can hear in the outer world; it
 lies here before us in its artistic purity. The pauses, the leaps,
 the syncopations, the gigantic parallelisms of structure, the dynamic
 surprises, leave but a thin wall of partition between the phenomenal
 and the transcendental of music. There is no longer any reserve in
 the language. There are some movements in which Beethoven’s music
 stands at the very doors of verbal speech: such, for example, as the
 allegretto in Op. 14, 1 and the first movement of Op. 90. The words
 appear to tremble on the lips; but it would be the disappearance of
 the apparition were we to utter them.

 Over Beethoven’s realm broods a deep tragedy. A constraining
 seriousness speaks to us--the dark abyss of passionate emotion: a
 total pitilessness, a gloomy brooding, accents of misery, a unison of
 terror. Beethoven began his piano publications with the three sonatas
 (Op. 2.) dedicated to Haydn; works full of inexhaustible inspirations,
 of the ravishing freshness of youth. The second is introduced by sharp
 accents and those broad extensions of chords by means of octaves,
 which remained to the end characteristic of the author. Another
 man would have begun the piece _after_ this tragic cry, with the
 contrapuntally-rocking motive. But the first of his greater tragic
 outbreaks was the mighty Sonata in C minor, the so-called Pathétique,
 which he dedicated to his patron Lichnowsky. Upon the heavy, slow
 introductory passage follows the stormy First Movement, whose themes
 are, first, a tempest of rage, secondly, an utter despair; and the
 Grave intrudes its monitory remembrances in the midst. Unity of
 colouring is preserved. Over the second singing movement, and the
 third with its rondo-like passages, lies the same sombre tone; and the
 conclusion is sharply cut short.

 Beethoven revels in the gloomy. He buries himself in deep tones,
 as in the Andante of the Pathétique or in Op. 22, its cheerfulness
 notwithstanding. Later, on the magnificent Broadwood, which he
 received from England as a present, he goes with delight into the
 regions of the deep. A mystic tremolo attracts him; and the “trios” of
 his scherzi are full of the sonorous murmuring of billowy chords.[113]

 A new and grand expression of pain is the last movement of the
 Moonlight Sonata (Op. 27, 2), which is as full of hopelessness as the
 last movement of the other Sonata of this great pair (Op. 27, 1) is
 full of invigoration. The threatening strokes of the quaver chords
 which sharply define each repetition of the stormy motive-passages,
 the quivering secondary theme, the unrestful rests, the melodies,
 which seek to calm down the seething bass; all this was a world of
 seriousness which the clavier had not yet learned to know.

 But this was still a _composition_, compared with the naturalistic
 chaos of the Recitative Sonata (Op. 31, 2). This first movement is
 a remarkable embodiment of gloomy brooding, which is continually
 being disturbed by despairing cries, until it finally loses itself in
 that resignation of utter indifference, which is a typical form of
 Beethoven’s tragic finales.

 It seems to me beyond question that the impulse which drove Beethoven
 to compose great piano-pieces was supplied by the concerto-form. The
 concerto, in its secular character, had not remained without its
 advantages; it was broader and freer than the regular sonata. It
 avoids _reprises_ in the first movement, and arranges the divisions
 with more circumspection. In order to give the clavier-player a
 chance to rest, the orchestra must take over some independent parts.
 It begins with a broadly planned section, which so to say arouses
 curiosity, in which various themes are treated; and portions of this
 introduction are then inserted between the successive entries of
 the pianoforte, or even simultaneously with them. The piano itself
 appears usually three times. In the first and last of these the music
 is to some extent repetition, the intermediate section is a kind of
 free fantasia. Even in Mozart a strict unity of theme between the
 orchestral and the solo sections is not always to be observed; it was
 Beethoven who first carried it thoroughly out. He it was who with
 visible affection fashioned the concerto form. It is no accident that
 the two last of his pianoforte concertos, the G major and E flat
 major, to-day enjoy an exuberant popularity. What Mozart had promised
 in his C minor concerto, these perform to admiration. They are built
 entirely on that plastic sensuousness which is the essence and the aim
 of the concerto. Their themes are remarkably adapted for a polyphonous
 orchestral development, for a delicate imitation on the piano, or for
 the storm of the fullest harmonies.

 The technique, whether of the piano or of the orchestral colouring,
 though joyous, is yet severe. Far from all coquetry and all mere
 show--the technique stands, especially in the cheerful E flat major,
 on a height of extraordinary purity. The form is clear, but not
 so precise as not to admit of modifications in single sections,
 especially those devoted to the solo instrument. The intellectual G
 major, the technical E flat major, represented an extreme of happy
 sympathetic innovation.

 We only need to compare the great Waldstein Sonata in C major (Op. 53)
 with the Concertos, in order at once to see that the latter have stood
 godfather to the former. There are not merely external likenesses, as
 when the piano figures a theme which might have been played already
 on the orchestra, or when more important divisions close with a long
 shake, as in all concertos the piano sections usually do on the
 re-entrance of the tutti; or when with passages played pianissimo,
 and hurrying ghostlike, or in octaves, an effect is introduced which
 in Beethoven’s concertos the delicate piano is generally used to play
 out in contrast with the orchestra. Rather the important likeness
 lies in the whole broad outline. The themes appear as a rule twice,
 as is naturally the case in the concerto; the exposition is done
 leisurely and cheerfully; a cadenza, such as Beethoven had already
 used (_e.g._, in Opp. 2, 3, and 27, 2), gives to the conclusion of
 the first movement a specially concerto-like quality. The second
 slow movement is a short emotional transition, such as Beethoven has
 written so exquisitely in the G major and E flat major concertos; and
 the last movement, far from being a “concession” to the “light-robed”
 muse, is a spirited rondo, in brilliant style it is true, but in its
 augmentations and diminutions, its _stretto_ and the trill-conclusion,
 a genuine Beethoven--as no other could be.

 As thus the dependence on the broad effects to which the concerto
 style had accustomed the hearer, gave to the first movement of the
 sonata a new form and extent which it had hitherto not known, it was
 possible for Beethoven to infuse into it a tragic content which soars
 far above the general coloration of the “Pathétique” and the brooding
 naturalism of the “Recitative” Sonata. Here for the first time we
 hear those trumpet-calls to the battle with Fate, those heavy rolling
 waves at the return to the first theme, which later in Op. 111 found
 so concentrated an expression. A monumental epic develops itself about
 the conflict, which usually forms the content of first movements. This
 mighty form represents a mighty picture.

 What was thus given in the Waldstein was deepened and unified in the
 Appassionata (Op. 57). The uniform colouring of the Pathétique is here
 deepened by hints taken from the concerto. A sublime and rhythmical
 theme, based upon the simplest harmony, a solemn unison, dominates
 the first movement. The second theme, lyrical as it appears, is
 really only fashioned out of the first. As the movement progresses,
 we seem to hear mysterious winds, stormy seas, convulsions of nature.
 A cadenza, straight from the heart, leads to the most colossal
 _stretto_ ever written: a wild upheaving, a sudden down-sinking and
 extinction. Its spiritual connection with the choral-like andante con
 moto is obvious. The note of aspiration is heard throughout, first by
 pauses, then by a clearer and clearer expression in those deeply-felt
 variations, which finally repeat their theme. The despair of the final
 movement is the last act--a giant melody, uttered in piercing cries,
 sinking down panting in the middle, and at the end breaking out into
 Bacchanalian revelry, in which laughter and ruin are inextricably
 mingled.

 This was the most comprehensive tragic picture ever drawn by Beethoven
 on the piano; and it has therefore remained a unique composition. His
 works tell us that he outgrew the epoch in which misery is enjoyed.
 His tragic art leads us beyond despair not to Nirvana, but to the
 Elysian fields. Hymns of joy sound around him. Strong joy, Dionysian
 strength, was the aim of this Faust. What he once depicted in the
 wonderful monologue of Op. 27, 1, becomes his life. In the Elysian
 Fields the fugue of adolescence returns to him, giving him repose and
 safety. In it he allows the tragedy of Op. 106 to tower heavenwards.
 Or, ethereal, world-dissolving glories shine around him--these are the
 bright, cheerful phrases of the E major or A flat major Sonatas, in
 which they now give the theme, now the figuration, or in the scherzo,
 grow up in flowery profusion. Into this serenity he allows the tragedy
 of the last Sonata (Op. 111) to pass at last. After a movement of wild
 outcry come the simply resigned variations, which finally mount from
 dull earthly devotion to angelic harmonies, to end in the glitter of
 their smile, in the bright sphere of their unearthliness.

 [Illustration: From Beethoven’s A flat major Sonata, Op. 26. Royal
 Musikbibliothek.]

 To understand the joyous Beethoven of later years we must remember the
 capricious Beethoven of youth. A strong leaven of cheerfulness lay in
 him, a healthy will, which knew how to be humorous.

 The sportive Beethoven lies in the lap of Nature. There he hears the
 entrancing imitations of his Haydn Sonatas, the hurrying ghost-like
 scherzo with its Schubert-like romantic middle movement (Op. 10,
 2), the sparkling Rondo of the Variation Sonata. This we must hear
 played by Risler in order to appreciate its inimitable humour and
 poetry, which is based entirely on the soft touch of the contrary
 motions. The most perfect of Nature prayers, a Pastoral Symphony on
 the pianoforte, is the _Pastorale_ (Op. 28). Not only the second
 movement with its bird-like middle part; nor only the third with its
 extreme cheerfulness, nor the fourth with its outlook on the woods,
 its delight in the chase, its joyous conclusion; but also, and in the
 highest degree, the first movement, are confessions of Beethoven’s
 natural symbolism. This work stands on that indefinable border-line
 between the comic and the tragic, which is the unfailing mark of the
 intensest poetry. It is a complete picture of the world. Beethoven’s
 scherzi, his most peculiar form of art, which in the Sonata take the
 place of the old minuets, stand on this ground, and might be termed
 “secular,” in comparison with the dramatic embodiments of his first
 movements, or the complete picturings of the last.

 The Rondos exhibit a similar process of alteration. In them first, so
 early as the time of Philip Emanuel Bach, had the capacity of tonic
 art to “let a theme speak,” been exercised. They allowed a theme
 its full expressive value. To Beethoven, accordingly, in his first
 period, such rondos appealed with the strongest effect, and their
 charming melodies throng in his earlier sonatas. But he was able to
 give this form a still deeper meaning. In place of the melodies he
 adopts genuine motives of pregnant brevity, which, as in Op. 10, 3, he
 develops with characteristic reserve. These pieces, as contrasted with
 the old melodic rondo, show a convincing naturalism. To the old rondo
 they are related as his scherzo to the minuet. Equally significant is
 his love for certain diatonically moving accompaniment figures, as in
 Op. 14, 1, or Op. 28; he thus avoids the impression of a regularly
 harmonised theme, and allows the naturalistic motive to predominate
 over the formal melody.

 In the treatment of form in general, the sonatas exhibit a series of
 different experiments, which are of emotional interest. His other
 chamber music--the Violin Sonatas, the Trios, and all the rest, to
 which I now only allude--could not accomplish the suppression of form
 like the free, pure piano-pieces. The great Fantasia for chorus,
 orchestra, and piano (the latter treated in concerto fashion), which
 we value as an anticipation of the Ninth Symphony, was unique in its
 disregard of rule. Psychologically viewed, the sonata-form is much
 richer in content, and unravels the most wonderful mazes. Here is the
 history of the re-constituted sonata-form; a history which is too
 complicated to run in a straight line.

 Down to Op. 10 on the whole we stand on the classical ground of the
 sonata. In the three Sonatas, Op. 10, appear the first important
 irregularities. Both in the first and in the second Sonatas there is,
 in the “free” part, a quite new theme introduced, which points to
 a definite design; and in the third we find that wonderful D minor
 movement, with its utter abandonment to melancholy, which by means
 of a stretto[114] in the Largo raises itself absolutely out of the
 contemporary style. Yet all this was new only in tone; it was no
 more absolutely new in idea than the Grave of the Pathétique or the
 Variation Sonata with its Marcia Funebre, where the middle section is
 introduced by means of realistic drum-reverberations.

 [Illustration: Lyser’s Sketch of Beethoven.]

 An essential change is to be observed in the two sonatas Op. 27. We
 are at the beginning of the nineteenth century, not far from the
 time of the composition of the Eroica Symphony. Beethoven was fully
 conscious of the freedom of these sonatas (E flat major and C sharp
 minor): he inscribed both “Sonata quasi una fantasia.” In the E flat
 major a dainty andante movement meets us, whose voices are strongly
 interwoven. It develops itself slightly, in variation manner, but
 it is interrupted, once by a sustained melody, again by a stormy
 episode in C major. What has become of the rondo with its couplets?
 There follows the apparition of a rolling, beating, gigantic scherzo,
 beginning in C minor and ending in C major. The C (always _attacca
 subito_) prepares us for the bright A flat major adagio, which gently
 takes us up till the whole idea is exhausted. Finally we have the
 wholesome, powerful, and busy E flat major movement, arranged in free
 rondo-form, with its stirring reminiscences of the adagio. The twin
 sonata in C sharp minor is the so-called Moonlight, with its classical
 first movement, which was a unique expression of melancholy; and
 which, only slightly interrupted by the episodic allegretto, breaks
 out again into the despair of the presto agitato, which we have learnt
 to know as one of the most deeply tragical of Beethoven’s outbursts.
 Of a sonata as a regular composition there was here no further idea.
 These were transcripts from experiences.

 The experiences of Beethoven’s life in the following period, so far as
 they are recorded in the diary of the piano-sonatas, exhibit a certain
 archaic character. In this period from 1803-4 (the period of Op. 31)
 to 1811 (Op. 81 a) lie the most varied tendencies in confusion. It is
 a mighty attempt in all possible paths, but the reader will soon see
 that every path leads to a definite goal. In all the paths there is
 an attempt to grasp certain great elementary principles, which lie
 outside the direct development, and which are made subservient to the
 new spirit.

 This archaism of form appears first as an application of old forms
 to modern purposes. In the G major (Op. 31, 1) we are surprised by
 strange retrogressions--which yet are not mere retrogressions. The
 rosy coloration of the adagio draws past recollections into new
 life. The third movement shows us Bach’s application of the pedal
 bass, transfigured by passing through the mind of Beethoven. In Op.
 31, 3 the minuet returns again, and in other passages, with their
 simply-cut melodies on “Alberti” basses[115] we seem to have gone
 back a generation. In the “easy” sonata (Op. 49) and the “Ländler”
 (Op. 79) this tendency reaches its height. It is a return to nature;
 a growth of simplicity, in all points, however trifling; the reaction
 experienced by every mature genius. Beethoven never wholly lost this
 tendency to reaction. He became in his later days more Mozartian than
 he had been even in his youth, and more of a Bach than Bach himself.

 The second path leads us back not to the form but to the essential
 nature of Beethoven’s youthful period. The delicate work of the
 porcelain age lives again in him; above all in the charming F
 sharp major Sonata, of which he himself was so fond. It is quite
 extraordinary how in Beethoven the spirit of a past time receives
 life under astonishingly new forms. This graceful filigree-work,
 with its sweeping unearthly conclusion in the first section,[116]
 built entirely on delicate inspirations, piquant harmonies, dainty
 modulations--has wonderfully shot up in such colour, as autumn
 blossoms only can offer. Take next the famous Les Adieux, dedicated to
 his pupil, the Archduke Rudolf (E flat major). It shows a delight in
 the minute and the intimate, such as we meet in old Dutch pictures.
 There is not a passing-note, not a modulation, which was not worked
 under the magnifying glass. I should myself not like to omit the last
 movement, known as the “Wiedersehen.”

 The beautiful characteristics of the “Absence” Sonata are well known;
 the various metamorphoses of the three descending notes, more or less
 obvious, but always helping to enlarge the meaning of the first idea
 [see, for instance, in the first Adagio, bar 7; also the bass of each
 phrase from bar 10 (third quaver) to the first double bar; then in
 the Allegro, bars 19-21, in the bass, and the semibreves just before
 the repeat; also in the “free” part after the repeat mark; and 13
 bars from the end of the movement, left hand, etc.], the meaning of
 a dreary longing, which Beethoven tries to portray in the “Lebewohl”
 movements. The tender expression of the Andante, the trembling joy and
 almost overpowering delight of the “Wiedersehen,” the sweet charm of
 the delicate prolongation of this movement at the _Poco andante_ near
 the close, all these cannot but deserve mention here. Of course there
 was nothing new in having three movements labelled with such names as
 these. What _was_ new was the inner unity which was attained in this
 piece, and which was only equalled by the delicacy of the workmanship
 itself. To this (so to speak) archaic and delicate style was added
 the world-embracing Art which found its proper field in the C major
 (Waldstein, Op. 53) and the F minor (Appassionata, Op. 57) sonatas.
 Thus was the proper foundation laid for the grandiose poems of the
 last six Sonatas, which lead the three streams into one course.

 The first of these (Op. 90) is in two movements, like the last: the
 first, a thoughtful and restful movement without reprise, with a new
 motive in its development; the second, a slow rondo, embracing the
 parts of the theme fugally. It is a work which, like all these last
 sonatas, is never thought of as a “piece,” but stands before us in one
 transparency, laying bare the inmost fibres of the man.

 In Op. 101 an unparalleled height of thematic development is attained.
 Rhythmical motives are plentiful; the smoothly flowing six-eight time;
 the same with accent completely displaced (as in bar 29, etc.); the
 vigorous dotted quaver and semiquaver of the Vivace; the prominent
 formula of the section in B flat in the same movement, etc. As before
 in the Appassionata, the boundaries between first and second themes
 fade away before the consciousness of their unity. The Sonata exhibits
 thematic in all its forms. The fugue half changes into the rondo,
 free in expression, lively in character. An unearthly sweep of music,
 born tone by tone, rolls over us; the _e a_ of the motive is its
 air-built scaffolding. It is the streaming forth of the most inward
 intuition of tone; a special kind of absolute naturalism, which yet
 enfolds in itself the future of music. We think of the “Bagatelles,”
 which Beethoven wrote and published at this time, cabinet-pieces of
 remarkably genuine character.

 Then suddenly rises before us the “Grand Sonata” (Op. 106). We
 recognise no longer the old well-known features. It has assumed
 the forms of the giant-world; it laughs in its greatness, in its
 childlikeness. Will it really permit itself to be played by human
 hands? We are at the mysterious limits of piano-music. Rhythms marked
 by sharp blows, modulations in thirds, enharmonics, narrow-cut
 successions of chords[117]--these are the very hand of Beethoven. The
 first movement works with its three themes--an Olympian poem--as far
 as the _stretto_. Its development rests on a fugal foundation. The
 scherzo is all rhythm; in the trio, it is all unrhythmical; mystical
 colours, sliding passages from B flat minor to D flat major, as in
 the Ninth Symphony from D minor to B flat major. The Adagio is so
 to speak the last possibility of the old form, wide as life itself,
 Michael Angelo-like in its strenuous longing for F sharp major. The
 transitional passage, the Largo, which introduces the last movement,
 like an old Toccata, tries this and that, prelude-wise, and striving
 after fixed forms. The three-voiced giant-fugue is the deliverance,
 in whose retardations the old storm, however, still conceals itself.
 But there is a joy in the mighty straining of these dissonances, which
 Bülow ought not to have tried to soften. Theme and counter-theme,
 “cancrizans” canon,[118] lyrical episodes, dainty counter-motives,
 inversions, new canonic motives, tied up again with the fugue,
 contrary motions, diminutions. This old lofty tone speech remained
 serious; it is the refuge of the anchorite who turns back to the
 powers of Nature, and finds rest in the wise observation of the stars.
 It is the utmost of art for art. Who is there whom it troubles?

       *       *       *       *       *

 Three flowers bloom in this late garden, three unique documents of
 a pure masterdom: the “playing” sonata, the “landscape” sonata, the
 “life” sonata. The first is on the heights of pure technique, the
 second is a clarified objective picture, the third is pure subjective
 inwardness.

 Op. 109 opens with a graceful impromptu-like harp-play of broken
 chords, which twice thicken themselves in recitative songs. A somewhat
 hard sounding scherzo stands in the midst. It is closed by the
 variations on that never-to-be-forgotten melody in E major, which,
 through reflective romance, cheerful étude-like activity, sober
 fugues, bright trill-heights, lead back to the captivating simplicity
 of their theme. The freedom of the first movement and the confinement
 of the second are both made use of by the third.

 We have a landscape in the A flat major (Op. 110). Over the
 sward rises the tender song. Butterflies and sun-glitter are the
 accompaniment. A wholesome strength mounts up and cheerfully wings
 its way. In a pause of meditation it comes to rest; and from the
 contemplation rises the old eternal lamentation of man. From its last
 breathed tones ascends the fugue, the great law of nature. Once again
 the lament, broken, helpless, dashing itself blindly against fate--and
 all the more dazzling is the fugue, embracing all, Truth with its
 disregard of the individual.[119] Thus does Beethoven express his
 pantheism.

 But even this sonata seems feeble in comparison with the unheard-of
 intensity and greatness of Op. 111. The master sits at the piano, and
 his hands run preluding over the keys, in broad, piercing, dashing
 chords, which become closer and intenser round the node-point of the
 dominant. From the dominant grows a theme of savage grandeur, of
 Titanic power, all-embracing in its widening grasp, its Medusa-locks
 flying in the air, crushing out all sweetness and softness, till, as
 it came, it sinks terribly to earth, in those helpless _diminuendo_
 chords,[120] with no _ritardando_, such as Beethoven alone
 experienced. In the elemental song of the Adagio comes the release. In
 its variations it spreads itself out into a world-embracing grandeur,
 till its wisdom attains the two extremes of deep internal ardour and
 ethereal brightness, whose opposition is developed in the last pages
 in broad lines. The earth remains below; the minor conclusions are
 forgotten; the forms have become a twilight dream; only when _our_
 soul meets the Master-Soul does man attain to these realms.

       *       *       *       *       *

 At this time the inventive composer-publisher Diabelli had a good
 idea. He composed a childish waltz in C major, and invited fifty of
 the most distinguished composers and virtuosos of Vienna and the
 Austrian states to be kind enough to set variations to it. Beethoven
 sent him thirty-three variations, which appeared as Op. 120. Diabelli
 may well have been astonished. He had perhaps some dread of the “last”
 Beethoven who was then so full of youth. But he had not expected
 anything of this kind. Perhaps he did not quite know whether it was
 all done in earnest. Even the name of Beethoven did not aid the
 venture much. The world during many years troubled itself little
 about it, and let the strange colossus alone. It was reserved for
 Bülow, who had the keenest sense for the last efforts of Beethoven’s
 genius, to penetrate deeply into the great mass. He observed that the
 thirty-three variations are no co-ordinated series; they are an inner
 drama, like one of the later sonatas. They rise from the explanatory
 sections which lay out the theme, through a gentle minor group, by a
 double fugue, into calmer regions; a minuet concludes, which is no
 minuet, but one of those wonderful resurrections which were the old
 Master’s special love. The variations are a testament, as the Goldberg
 variations were those of Bach. From melody to canon, from gloom to
 parody, from archaism to anticipations of the future, from popularity
 to the philosophy of the hermit, from mysticism to dance, from
 technical glitter to the mystery of enharmonics, they lead us along
 three and thirty paths to different realms.

 [Illustration:

 Beethoven’s last Grand Piano, by Graf, Vienna, with four strings to
 each note, on account of his deafness. ]


     [110] _Pigtail and Tuft_, a combination of “Bigwig” and
     “High and Mighty,” with “Sir Oracle.”

     [111] Meaning the “leader” of the band, practically the
     conductor in those days.

     [112] The author here uses a term to describe Dussek, which
     I remove to the foot of the page, viz. _Epigonus_, which
     means “one born after,” in the sense of a descendant who
     merely continues his father’s work. Often it is equivalent
     to our “decadent.”

     [113] The author may perhaps refer to the Scherzi of Op. 2,
     No. 3, in C, or Op. 7 in E flat.

     [114] The student is not likely to find the passage marked
     with this word, but the author is none the less correct in
     his description, for it must be played so.

     [115] See Op. 31, No. 3, first movement in E flat, bar 46
     and ff.

     [116] Apparently the passage referred to is the 10 bars
     which precede the second subject, in the first movement of
     the F sharp major sonata.

     [117] Things corresponding to these expressions, which
     convey scarcely anything in themselves, will be found in
     this order in bars 1-3; bars 5, 6, 9, 10; bars 25, 26; bar
     18, et cetera, of the first movement; and will illustrate
     the author’s system of description.

     [118] “Cancrizans” (_cancer_, a crab), is an adjective
     applied to a tune that is the _same_ whether you play it
     from the beginning to the end, or the reverse way. Here it
     is used to characterise some rather mild reversions of the
     theme, _e.g._--first section with two sharps, bars 15-17.

     [119] This appears to be a subtle reference to the
     “inversion” of the subject when the fugue is resumed.
     The “individual” must learn to see things right side up,
     knowing they are upside down!

     [120] Thirteen bars from the end of the movement. _N.B._--A
     curious instance of “cribbing” on the part of Chopin stands
     confessed in the following passage.




 [Illustration: Viennese pianoforte players about 1800. Eberl. Gelinek.
 Wölffl. ]




                              The Virtuosos


 Beethoven’s playing was naturalistic. In him there were no tricks
 of technique to be admired, no mere virtuosity to praise; but the
 hearers were stirred to their hearts. In this storm and stress, this
 whispering and listening, this awakening of the soul, they recognised
 an original naturalism of piano-playing, standing by the side of the
 naturalism of his creative art. Rhythm was the life of his playing. He
 thought out all technique with a view to rhythm. In the Berlin Library
 is a collection of Cramer’s Études, containing a series of annotations
 by Schindler, the well-known biographer of Beethoven. The expressions
 are so remarkable that the spirit of Beethoven has not unjustly been
 detected in them. Shedlock, in fact, has published them simply as
 Beethoven’s elucidations of Cramer, whose Études the Master is known
 to have prized exceedingly. In every Étude the _melos_, or latent
 melodic air, which lies at the base of the figurations, is brought
 into prominence, and the rhythmical presentation of these figurations
 is made as accurate as possible. The rest is for the most part left to
 the time, the diligence, and the ability of the player. Thus could a
 great creator look at Études. Of necessity he looked at them from a
 totally different point of view from the virtuoso pure and simple. He
 cared chiefly for the presentation of the idea, for the inwardness of
 the piece. Everything that was written down in concrete notes served
 to him but as a means for that expression, the mastery of which was
 the mastery of interpretation. From this point of view Beethoven would
 have written his “Klavierschule,” of which he often spoke in his
 latter years. With mere fingering and wrist action he would have had
 little indeed to do.

 This great task was undertaken by a band of artists who must not
 be undervalued. They stood in the first rank of virtuosos. It is
 precisely at this time that technique first properly arises as an
 art; and their zeal in the attempt to solve the new problem was great
 indeed. They discover new possibilities of expression, they disclose
 new effects in the capacities of the pianoforte, and they reveal an
 inventive power in these new paths which offers the most surprising
 beauties. We must consider them from the right side, and never forget
 that the development of the piano could never have taken place so
 naturally and organically unless its technical advance had gone on in
 parallel lines with its spiritual progress.

 I have here no other aim than to view things under a certain _species
 aeternitatis_. What was done by Bird, Bull, Couperin, or Pasquini,
 though to-day perhaps only one in a thousand piano-players knows their
 names, was of more importance than a Polacca of Kalkbrenner or an
 Étude of Ludwig Berger. We have a fixed horizon; what is not within
 it remains outside it. Lives of entire and rich content, sorrows and
 joys of extreme intensity, may sink into oblivion; they are in history
 a mere grain in the quicksand. It is useless to look up in my index
 the name of everybody who has composed a Rondo or given piano-lessons
 in Moscow. We must content ourselves with those who, by the great
 halting-places, have deserved a monument on the way: those only
 without whom history would offer a distinct blank.

 A very great work is represented by the theoretical piano-schools,
 which followed one another at this time in close succession. If in
 the little book of Philip Emanuel Bach there was the beginning of a
 unifying system, on which the following age had only to build, yet,
 in the face of the most varying theories of the first half of our
 century, we can but recognise that piano-teaching, from mere excess of
 zeal, never succeeded in developing a genuine system. It has always
 been the tendency of the piano-teacher to keep in the past an ideal to
 worship, while with the present he has such a poor understanding that
 every new method of instruction makes a _tabula rasa_ of the preceding
 method, begins all afresh, and allows the pupil salvation only
 according to its private judgment. Piano-study has never enjoyed the
 advantage possessed by other sciences, of building up from century to
 century, each upon the last. In theory it has remained a mere mosaic;
 and it has been saved only by practice.

 It is practice also that gives a certain systematisation, not to the
 teaching, but to the history of teaching. All the separate workers
 at the great task, little as they admit the possibility of salvation
 outside their own creed, are yet driven forward by the stream of time
 and by the results of experience; and the law of averages brings about
 a clear advance apart from their personal agency. If we compare the
 systems of the eighteenth century, the schools of Philip Emanuel, of
 Marpurg, and that of Daniel Gottlob Türk, which closes this series,
 with the works of the epoch on which we have now entered, we see
 clearly how practice has marked out the path for theory, always
 reflecting upon itself, itself inducing its decomposition into its
 constituent _à priori_ and empirical parts, and finally limiting
 itself to a mere application of experience.

 The Pianoforte School which was written by Adam was a kind of
 pronunciamento of the Paris Conservatoire. This Conservatoire, founded
 in the midst of the troubles of the Revolution, ultimately gave French
 technique a position to which for a long time it had been a stranger.
 Adam’s principle is to put the “manieren” more on one side, and to
 avoid that too eager devotion to the teaching of general composition
 with which the books of the eighteenth century had been occupied. In
 its place he brings the study of touch more prominently forward. The
 day of the spinet is over; the hammer-clavier now dominates the world,
 and leads theorists to attempt methods of touch which may correspond
 to its possibilities of delicate expression. The pedals also begin
 to play their part. Adam recognises four pedals, of which one is our
 damper-raiser, and three serve for soft effects. Gradually they have
 been reduced to two, the damper-raiser and the so-called “soft” pedal.

       *       *       *       *       *

 A great opponent of all use of the pedal was Hummel. In our time
 it is no longer necessary to point out that the pedal, an integral
 part of the hammer-clavier, deserves not to be rejected, but simply
 to be treated on its own artistic lines. But Hummel stands, in his
 theoretic relations, so strongly on the foundations of tradition,
 that his attitude can excite no surprise. His “Ausführliche
 theoretisch-praktische Anweisung zum Pianofortespiel,” which appeared
 in 1828, is the crown of the united exertions of piano theory. This
 voluminous work, which gained with difficulty a circulation that
 it soon lost for ever, is a system, carried out into the minutest
 details, of all the technical capacities of the piano; so systematic,
 indeed, that here theory, by deductive methods, discovered effects
 which practice could not have attained alone. It is an unparalleled
 example of theoretic speculation, and yet really nothing more than
 the extension of Marpurg’s or Türk’s old-fashioned methods. These
 countless headings in capital letters, each describing a different
 class of “passage,” these numbered possibilities of fingering, these
 pedantic elucidations, beginning always from the first over again,
 are nothing but, as he calls them, an “Anweisung,” mere directions,
 abstraction from reflection outward. Any one who has mastered the
 first part has the second already at his fingers’ ends, but this
 master of dissection troubles himself not a whit on that point, and
 knows no economy in pupilage. He is opposed to learning by heart,
 since the fingers, he says, ought to find the keys without sight: so
 far is he from the modern view that only a complete mastery of a piece
 renders adequate interpretation possible. He troubles himself little
 about a science of touch. He introduces the “manieren”; but, contrary
 to the method of the eighteenth century, he makes the trill begin
 on the upper note. So far is a system of execution from his purpose
 that he can actually write as follows: “Runs and notes going upwards
 are executed crescendo, downwards diminuendo; but there are cases in
 which the composer intends the reverse, or that they should be played
 with even strength.” Hummel’s book is to-day a monument of misguided
 diligence, great in its patient calculation of permutations, but a
 dead curiosity.

 [Illustration: The Brothers Pixis. 1800. Engraved by Sintzenich after
 Schröder.]

 If, on the other hand, we look at Kalkbrenner’s Paris Pianoforte
 School, which he dedicated “to all the conservatoriums in Europe,” we
 see--with no heavy artillery--advances of all kinds which in part
 fill up the perspective of Adam. Where Hummel has ten main classes
 of fingered passages, he has only six; five-finger exercises for the
 unmoving hand; scales in all forms; thirds, sixths, and chord-forms;
 octaves with the wrist; trills; overlapping of the hands. In this
 there is more thrift, while there is no talk of absolute completeness.
 The “manieren” slowly cease to occupy important chapters; the pedals
 again come by their own; for Kalkbrenner as a Parisian hates the dry
 tone of the Vienna pianoforte. Execution also begins to receive a
 systematic treatment. Interesting references are made to punctuation
 in order to illustrate musical phraseology; conclusions on the tonic
 are a full stop; on the dominant a semicolon; while interrupted
 cadences are a note of exclamation. This is naive enough, but it is at
 any rate a beginning.

 We are thus already standing at the point at which clavier theory
 decomposes itself into its elements. If Hummel was the great
 theoretician, Czerny was the great man of practice; a quite unique
 person, the hero of all piano-teachers, whose practical eye runs
 equally over all the possibilities of playing, and works them out in
 separate parts; the genius of the Étude. He it was who discovered
 the great secret that no separation of methods of fingering is of
 any avail in practice, but that the perfection of the fingers must
 be carried out solely on the basis of their mechanical gymnastic. It
 is useless to try to apply my five fingers to so many theoretically
 possible permutations; the important question is what practical use
 can be made of my fingers according to their physical structure.
 Czerny has no obsolete rules of practice, but a science of mechanism;
 thus taking the very opposite pole to Hummel. Piano-study, which with
 Couperin and Philip Emanuel was still a part of a musical training
 with just the necessary amount of mechanics, became with him primarily
 the gymnastic of the fingers with the addition of instruction in touch
 and execution. Long past are the times when the good old clavier
 was only used to “fill” the song, which was after all the essence
 of music. From music we have come to the fingers. A science of
 the fingers is constructed, and the fingers are trained as earlier
 only the throat was trained. Technique has remembered her own ways,
 and made the last first. The emancipation of finger-gymnastic was
 an epoch-marking point in the treatment of the piano, the desired
 answer of theory to practice, which for a long time had recognised
 the specific art of the piano. It was perhaps the last important
 stride in its emancipation when the results of practice were made the
 groundwork of instruction. Czerny, in his great Pianoforte School,
 his Opus 500, is almost entirely free from the _à priori_ theory. He
 transfers mechanics to music. With good results he treats individual
 cases, as for example, when he appends to the beginning of passages
 a finger-exercise not given in the scale; he designs immediately to
 return to the usual fingering in order to arrive duly at the extreme
 notes with the extreme fingers, and to avoid unnecessary underpassing.
 It was reserved for a later time not merely to bring the note-material
 lying before us into harmony with economic fingering, but also to
 make execution, which with Czerny has but a loose dependence on the
 finger-exercise, re-act upon the fingers. Bülow, for example, is fond
 of unusual fingering, in which the execution forbids any too easy
 playing, and a too loose rendering is prevented by irregularities in
 the succession of the fingers.

       *       *       *       *       *

 The mechanics of the fingers formed the first part of
 piano-instruction; touch and execution were the second. Their
 importance as means to the mechanism of music was fully seen; and
 in the “Technical Studies” of Plaidy, or in Köhler’s “Methode für
 Klavierspiel und Musik” (1857), they are as exhaustively handled
 as before had been the “manieren” or the thorough-bass. The former
 contents himself with the simple terms, Legato, Staccato, Legatissimo,
 and Portamento; the latter gives a more mechanical division, always
 according to the use of the fore-arm, the finger-joints, the wrist, or
 the elbow. Neither is complete, neither supplies a systematic advance
 on the lines of his predecessors; and we should be astonished at these
 divergences if we set the numerous schools of these times, from a
 theoretical point of view, over against one another. Practically
 considered, however, they agree well enough. The holding of the
 hand as enjoined by Philip Emanuel Bach has remained on the whole
 unaltered down to the present day. With trifling differences, which
 concern the relation of the extreme fingers to the middle finger,
 and the profile of the back of the hand, Bach, Türk, Müller, Hummel,
 Logier, Kalkbrenner and the rest, are at one as to the support of
 the arm which carries the hand, and of the hand which carries the
 fingers as they descend. In Paris Logier constructed an instrument to
 hold the hand in practice, in shape like a bracket, which he named
 “chiroplast.” Kalkbrenner, in his “Guide-mains,” introduced some
 modifications on the chiroplast; but such mechanical contrivances
 gained no general acceptance. Logier’s speciality was his prefatory
 note that the finger must remain in continual touch with the key. With
 this was allied that special kind of sensuously charming touch which
 differentiated the Parisian school from the brilliant playing of the
 Viennese and the emotional style of the English. That _carezzando_,
 or stroking of the keys, was a favourite practice of Kalkbrenner and
 Kontski in Paris. To-day Risler remains perhaps alone in this school
 with his pure sensuous charm of touch.

 If, in the whole great group of technical artists, which is bounded
 on the one side by Wölffl, Wanhal, Kozeluch, Eberl, in Mozart’s
 generation, and on the other by Thalberg and Liszt in ours, we should
 look for truly pre-eminent spirits, then we should have remaining
 Clementi, the father of all technique; Hummel, the inventor of the
 modern piano-exercise; and Czerny, the genius of teaching. But if we
 ask for the lines of the motion which runs through this epoch, we
 observe the victory of a virtuoso impulse, which goes back to Hummel,
 over a plainer and more intellectual tendency which has its rise in
 Clementi. The school of Clementi prefers the English pianoforte with
 its heavier but richer touch; that of Hummel the Viennese, with its
 lighter tone, which lends itself more easily to effects.

 [Illustration: Ludwig Berger. Pupil of Clementi; founder of a widely
 influential piano-school at Berlin. Lithograph by Wildt.]

 But it is not possible to draw a sharp line between the two groups.
 A Moscheles serves not less the spirit of Clementi than that of
 Hummel. The simplicity of Cramer, the counterpoint of Klengel, the
 plainness of Ludwig Berger, the intensity of Field, belong to the
 circle of Clementi’s influence. Berger’s pupils, Greulich, Heinrich
 Dorn, Wilhelm Taubert, Albert Löschhorn, whose studies still live,
 carry this style down to our own time. The teaching of Hummel lived
 on in Ferdinand Hiller, Benedict, Wilmers, Baake, Ernst Pauer, the
 Viennese Pixis. While Beethoven left behind him as actual pupils
 only the Archduke Rudolf and Ferdinand Ries, a respectable imitator,
 his temporary pupil Czerny passed over into the wake of Hummel, and
 brought the Viennese style to a final victory. Kalkbrenner, Moscheles,
 Weber, Liszt, Thalberg, Döhler, Madame Oury, Madame Pleyel, Theodore
 Kullak, Pollini, of whom many belong externally to Clementi’s school,
 passed as apostles of Viennese technique to all lands from St
 Petersburg to London, from Paris to Milan.

 Certain traditions of musical coteries and centres of instruction
 exhibit with this international character some more or less important
 local groups. In Prague men adored Tomaschek, the composer of
 Eclogues and Rhapsodies; Dionysius Weber, the first director of a
 Conservatorium there; and his successor Kittl. From Tomaschek’s school
 proceeded Alexander Dreyschock, the specialist of the left hand; Ignaz
 Tedesco, the “Hannibal of octaves”; and Schulhoff, the fashionable
 composer. In the middle of the century the Prague tradition was upheld
 by Proksch.

 In Frankfort lived Vollweiler, who enjoyed a widespread renown as a
 teacher, and later went to St Petersburg; and Aloys Schmitt, whose
 delicate Études have been taken up by Bülow into his great collection
 of educational pieces.

 Vienna alternates, but never loses in wealth. Berlin and St Petersburg
 as yet produced no fixed or permanent school. Leipzig takes its
 colour from the foundation of the Conservatorium with Mendelssohn and
 Moscheles and their fellow-citizen Schumann. England, from Clementi
 to Moscheles, imported a constant succession of Continental artists.
 The influence of the Conservatorium runs far and wide. A Strassburger
 named Hüllmandel, who took up his abode in Paris in 1776, had started
 clavier-instruction there. His pupil Jadin was director of the piano
 at the new Conservatoire. For forty-six years after 1797, Adam, whose
 name we remember because of his improved piano-school, carried on
 his labours in Paris. He was a tasteful professor, and brought the
 Parisian renown to its height. Kalkbrenner, the acrobat, succeeded
 him. Adam’s colleague, Pradher, was the teacher of those worst of
 fashionable composers, Herz, Hünten, Rosellen, shallowest and emptiest
 of musicians. Within the same walls was a Chopin!

 The life of the great virtuosos is a reflection of the unrest
 inseparable from their calling. It is indeed no longer a life of
 adventure, as with Marchand and Froberger; there is method in the
 madness. The life of the executant, no less than the execution,
 has found its form. The concert-campaigns are the foundation; the
 warrior returns to his home at greater and greater intervals; until
 at last, when delight in recitals has waned along with the pliancy
 of the fingers, some resting-place or other is found--a share in
 a piano-manufactory or a steady round of instruction. During the
 campaigns instruction also takes a kind of locomotive form; devoted
 pupils follow the master, and leave him at fitting places, to pitch
 their tents there and make room for other peregrinating pupils. Or,
 on the other hand, pupils swarm from all parts of the earth to a
 place which the Master is always leaving, but to which he constantly
 returns--like the summer students of German universities--a type of
 professional existence of which Liszt’s Weimar period gives perhaps
 the most famous exemplification.

 [Illustration: John Field, 1782-1837. Steel engraving by C. Mayer.]

 Muzio Clementi (1752-1832) was the first to exhibit this form of
 virtuoso-life on the great scale. Born in Italy, he found a home in
 London through the support of a wealthy Englishman; but he was far
 from showing the sedentary character of a Bach, a Couperin, or a
 Beethoven. Virtuosity impels to travel, as composition keeps a man at
 home. The difference which we observed between the sensitive anchorite
 Bach and the cosmopolitan popularity-hunter Handel, appears again
 between Beethoven and these executants. Mozart was too many-sided,
 and besides he died too young, to become a universal teacher of the
 piano; but Clementi lived almost three generations, during which half
 Europe grouped itself round him and his pupils. Down to 1780 he was
 still “cembalist” at the London Italian opera; during the next ten
 years he undertook two great tours, one to Vienna, the other to Paris.
 Meanwhile he became partner in an English piano-firm, which failed,
 whereupon he founded one of his own along with Collard. He set out for
 St Petersburg with his pupil Field; left him there; but on the way
 gained two new pupils, Berger and Klengel, whom also he established
 in St Petersburg. On one of his tours at Berlin he married, only to
 lose his wife shortly after. In 1810 he made another circular tour
 through Vienna and Italy. He spent another whole winter in Leipzig,
 and married a second time. His last years, when the world had outgrown
 him, he spent quietly in London.

 In the life of Hummel (1778-1837), the favourite pupil of Mozart,
 posts as kapellmeister with Esterhazy, in Stuttgart and in Weimar,
 with a longer, unattached residence at Vienna, regulated the
 varying domiciles at which he lived. Weimar, as a great resting
 place, enjoyed through him its first musical renown, which reached
 half through the period of Goethe. In the intervals he took his
 concert-tours to Dresden, Paris, Holland, Berlin, Belgium, England,
 Scotland, and St Petersburg. These, as far as the furloughs of a
 kapellmeister permitted, recurred with a certain regularity, till they
 gradually ceased entirely.

 [Illustration: Marcelline Czartoryska, _née_ Princess Radziwill, pupil
 of Czerny. Engraved by Marchi.]

 Cramer (1771-1858) had two long stays in London, in the midst of which
 a sojourn at Paris occupied the years from 1832 to 1845. He found a
 secondary occupation in a London musical house, in which he was a
 partner from 1828 to 1842. Kalkbrenner (1784-1849), on the contrary,
 lived in Paris, but his residence there was interrupted by a nine
 years’ stay in London (1814-1823). He too had secondary interests. He
 was concerned with Logier in a company for the exploitation of the
 “Chiroplast,” and he had also a share in a piano-factory. Moscheles
 (1794-1870) had no business. His external life was made up of his
 youthful time in Vienna with Beethoven and Meyerbeer, his sensational
 Parisian recitals of 1820, his glorious stay in London from 1821
 to 1846, and his professoriate at the Leipzig Conservatorium. At
 intervals, of course, he made Continental concert-tours.

 Among all the great virtuosos and teachers only Czerny had a really
 fixed abode (1791-1857). As a boy of fifteen he was already a teacher
 in Vienna, and as such he died there; his tours also being few and far
 between.

 [Illustration: Prince Louis Ferdinand. Engraved by Geiger after
 Grassy.]

 But Czerny is in this respect an exception. Otherwise the
 international play of virtuosity led to an exchange and co-operation,
 to the mutual curiosity and desire to learn, which mark the
 concert-life of that age. Duet-playing by great executants, in private
 or in the concert-hall, is nothing unusual throughout this time. But
 the genuine interpreter does not as yet exist. The player has mostly
 a personal interest in the piece performed, and the friends assist at
 the christening. It is the time of the Hexameron. Exchange is often
 even too self-abnegatory. Moscheles composed for Cramer (with whom,
 as also with Ries and Kalkbrenner, he often played duets) a last
 movement for Cramer’s own sonata for two pianofortes. Later on he
 took the piece back again and tacked it on to his well-known piece,
 “Hommage à Haendel!” We need not then be surprised at such gruesome
 pasticcios as the programme of a London Philharmonic concert under
 Weber,[121] when were played the C sharp minor concerto of Ries, the E
 flat major of Beethoven, and the Hungarian Rondo of Pixis.

 The two volumes of “Recollections of the life of Moscheles,” which
 his wife compiled from diaries and letters, give a clear view of the
 rich international concert-life of this age. Year by year we follow
 the kaleidoscopic existence of these artists, who see each other
 constantly and constantly part. Triumphs of virtuosity fill the winter
 seasons, followed by recreation in the country and preparations for
 an enlarged repertoire. The halls echo with jubilation and applause;
 and the audiences, especially the easily-kindled Viennese, are
 enthusiastic in their cheers. Music has become so popular and the
 compositions are so extraordinarily banal that it certainly did not
 often occur that they were rejected for shallowness--although, on
 the other hand, Kalkbrenner’s experience with a Beethoven symphony
 at a Paris Conservatoire concert was a sad warning to those who try
 to improve the public taste. The dilettantes push forward the more,
 the circle of instruction widens the cheaper and better the pianos
 become. They push themselves into rivalry with the artists in great
 concerts; as Moscheles relates of the celloist Sir William Curtis and
 the pianists Oom and Mrs Fleming. “I have to hear so much insipid
 music.” “Musique mise à la portée de tout le monde.” From professional
 piano-playing--and they often played at two places in an evening--the
 artists took recreation with the good temper which never failed in
 those years. The great singer Malibran would sit down to the piano and
 sing the Rataplan and the Spanish songs, to which she would imitate
 the guitar on the keyboard. Then she would imitate famous colleagues,
 and a Duchess greeting her, and a Lady So-and-so singing “Home Sweet
 Home” with the most cracked and nasal voice in the world. Thalberg
 would then take his seat and play Viennese songs and waltzes with
 “obligato snaps.” Moscheles himself would play with hand turned round,
 or with the fist; perhaps under the fist disguising the thumb, which
 in Moscheles’ peculiar way of playing used to take the thirds under
 the palm of the hand.

 [Illustration: Marie Charlotte Antoine Josephe, Countess of
 Questenberg.]

 These players preferred to play their own compositions. The separation
 between composer and virtuoso was not yet complete. Of course, when
 Ferdinand Hiller in his “Life of an Artist” says that he had never
 heard either Hummel or Chopin, Thalberg or Moscheles, play a piece
 by another composer, his experience was at least unique. Moscheles,
 for example, even played Scarlatti on the old harpsichord. But, as a
 rule, they abode by the old custom, so far at least as amateurs were
 not concerned. These latter were in their instruction-books liberally
 provided with historical material.

 Improvisation also flourished in concerts and soirées; and playing and
 composing, which in improvisation form a true union, can only with
 difficulty be severed in an age of creative virtuosos. Kalkbrenner
 composed while playing, and played while composing, so that no one
 could tell the difference between the two; and Czerny used to invent
 the necessary étude in the midst of the lesson. Thus it happened--a
 state of things unparalleled to-day--that the beloved duet-playing
 could be combined with the equally beloved improvisation--mutually
 contradictory as they appear. Moscheles speaks of an improvised duet
 with Mendelssohn. The latter played in the bass some English songs in
 ballad-style; the former interwove in the treble the scherzo of his
 friend’s A minor symphony.

 Slight as was the advance yet made in division of labour between
 player and composer, there was equally little comprehensive division
 between the species of music. We do not hear of chamber-music
 evenings, pianoforte evenings, orchestral concerts. All was mingled
 in one; and chamber-music finds the same audience as the symphony. A
 piano-recital without orchestra was a rarity; and the concerto-form
 is almost _de règle_ in all the greater performances. This is seen in
 the compositions of this period, which, as a rule, so far as they are
 specially adapted to public performance, were written for orchestral
 accompaniment. By their side were editions for private use, including
 the important orchestral portions. This concerto-piece could not
 greatly or permanently aid in the advance of a delicate or intimate
 piano-music. Through the rarity of special piano recitals it was
 not so easy to get pianos when they were wanted. In Frankfort there
 lived a well-known old lady who had absolutely the only piano store
 in the city. People had to praise her playing, to blow the trumpet of
 advertisement for her wares (they were Streicher’s), to court her and
 cringe to her in order to get an instrument for a concert.[122]

 In 1837 Moscheles ventured to introduce piano-evenings without
 orchestra. This was an important step. But even yet the evening was
 not wholly devoted to the piano. A soprano or contralto filled the
 gap between one performance and the next. How long was it before the
 serious nature of a concert was universally acknowledged! Possibly
 here the production of dubious works of the performer’s own led to a
 low, acrobatic conception of the true state of affairs; and it was
 only the interpretation of good works by others, which were more
 serious, that saved taste from complete degeneration. The public
 gradually became quiet, and felt itself turned from educator into
 educated. The court ceases to take its supper during the playing;[123]
 the cantatrice no longer concludes her _roulades_ with a smile worthy
 of the circus; and a singer is no longer hissed off the stage if he
 forgets to give his hand by way of thanks to his fair partner. Slowly
 it is realised that the concert is not a place for showing off, nor a
 mere form of social amusement, but a religious service.

 This composite structure of virtuosity carried to the extent of
 vapidity, and of interpretation carried into historical research,
 is reflected in the compositions of the period. On the one side the
 tradition was exactly carried on; people began to view the existing
 classical works--Mozart’s and Beethoven’s Sonatas, or all kinds of
 pieces by Scarlatti, Bach, and Handel, as material for study; they
 republished half-forgotten or badly edited authors like Scarlatti;
 they even wrote sonatas “in the style of Scarlatti”; they arranged for
 the piano great quantities of the most various chamber or orchestral
 music. Alongside of the historical tendency stands, as so often, the
 international. Spanish, Irish, Russian, Italian, Polish national airs
 and rhythms are taken _en_ _masse_ into the circle of salon music;
 the air swarms with Polonaises, Boleros, Gipsy airs, Ecossaises,
 Tarantelles. But this quite cosmopolitan music was stamped by a
 _fade_ enthusiasm for beauty; and there is bound up with the pieces
 an empty sentimental greeting or a hypocritical reminiscence. The
 mythological titles of the seventeenth century, and the realistic
 ones of the eighteenth, yield to the sentimental ones[124] of the
 bourgeois empire. But never was this system of naming pieces on a
 lower level; and never did it so corrupt the taste of the believing
 multitude. Even to-day we are not yet freed from its traces. Then
 there are the “Hommages à Beethoven” or “à Händel” corresponding
 to the old “Tombeaux,” but with less sincerity of intention. Then
 there are the “Fire pieces”--a whole collection of dedications to
 fire brigades--the “Burning of Mariazell,” and the “Ruins of Wien
 Neustadt,” figure among the salon-music of Czerny. Then follow the
 geographical recollections--the innumerable souvenirs of all possible
 towns, rivers, mountains, and people, such as the “Souvenir de mon
 premier voyage,” “les Charmes de Paris,” “le Retour à Londres,” etc.
 By their side are genuine characteristic titles chiefly employed
 to gild the pill of the “study.” Most objectionable of all are the
 favourite opera-fantasias, which are specially in vogue in the
 Parisian school. These tear the airs almost from the very mouths of
 the singers, and the composer’s completed melodies from his work, and
 stuff the _pot pourri_ with passages, figurations, and fragments of
 études, with spurious slow introductions and sentimental passages, so
 that finally absolutely nothing of the essence of the original airs is
 left. These are perhaps the worst examples of want of style and taste
 to be found in the history of art. Here the curse of popularity came
 home to roost; here was reached the extreme point, in the publicity
 of the concert and of society, which the clavier had to pass through
 since the development of the hammer-mechanism. Any harshness in an
 artistic work was sufficient to condemn it; invention was tabooed;
 smoothness and the tickling of the ear were the only law. What in
 Paris was done by Herz, Hünten, Karr, Rosellen, Kontski, and their
 fellows, made a great sensation, and quickly vanished. Hünten received
 for a moderate-sized work from fifteen hundred to two thousand francs;
 to-day he is banished even from the salon. Karr wrote to order
 hundreds of pieces; to-day no amateur knows a single one out of the
 huge mass. And the days in which Kontski’s “Reveil du lion” was put in
 the hands of pupils appear to be past for ever.

 The interdependence of piano and opera was not merely external. In
 Paris the opera, with its world-ruling influence, not merely forms a
 musical centre to which everything gravitates; it is itself subjected
 to the great law of this period--the law of mosaic work and of the
 aim to please. In the thirties and forties the world had thus reached
 hollow ostentation in the grand opera, and in the comic opera mere
 ballet-dancing. “Where,” wrote Wagner at that time, “where has the
 grace of Méhul, of Isouard, of Boieldieu, and of the young Auber
 gone, chased out of sight by the abject quadrille rhythms, which
 to-day rattle through the theatre of the opera comique and keep
 everything else out?” What was seen there was like what was heard
 on the pianoforte--pointless situations, introduced for the sake of
 the “business,” tirades which seem to be closed with the smile of
 the acrobat when he has finished his trick--technique, and nothing
 but technique. A librettist like Scribe is loaded with commissions,
 surrounded by Parisian or foreign composers--even Wagner in his youth
 having once written to him. He understands how to manufacture the
 proper substratum for the musical triflings. Read from this point
 of view Auber’s later operas, as the “La Part du Diable,” or those
 overtures whose whole structure depends on the fact that they are
 skilfully adapted to dances; or that daub-work in the musical setting
 with the jaundiced transition passages, where a proper modulation
 would be almost out of place; or those boleros, which people sing
 in circumstances of the utmost grief, without being able to raise
 themselves to the height of the irony; or those étude colourations,
 introduced in the most indifferent places provided they pay, and
 developing themselves vigorously about a single vowel; or those
 scores, which are so miserably transparent that one can see the author
 first rapidly composing them at the piano and then putting in the
 instrumentation slap-dash. It is the first, and let us hope, the last
 time, that the piano reaches its hand to the opera--a most unfruitful
 elective affinity. Opera and piano are necessarily and essentially
 hostile. In the Paris of that day, when absolute music, as well that
 of Berlioz as that of Chopin, is still a modest retiring flower, the
 crowd ran after the gentle titillation of the opera, and the mass of
 piano music moves in the operatic humdrum path. Among the Parisians
 as among the Italians there was assuredly not an operatic composer
 who did not invent at the piano and transfer his inventions from the
 piano to the opera. Donizetti has left an interesting letter to his
 brother-in-law Vesselli, which was fastened as an inscription on his
 piano: “Do not sell this piano at any price, for it contains my whole
 artistic life from 1822 onwards. Its tone lingers in my ears. In it
 murmur Anna, Maria, Fausta, Lucia. Let it live as long as I live! I
 lived with it my years of hope, of wedded happiness, of loneliness.
 It heard my cries of joy, it saw my tears, my disenchantments, my
 honours. It shared with me my toils and the sweat of my brow. In it
 dwells my genius, every section of my path. It saw your father, your
 brother, all of us; we all have tortured it; it was a true comrade to
 us all, and may it always be a comrade to your daughter as a dowry of
 a thousand sad and happy thoughts.”

 There seems so much that is contemptible in this technical school
 that it would almost appear, at least from the artistic point of
 view, to have lived in vain. And yet it was at this time that a form
 sprang into existence which, born from technical necessities, became
 a custom, and from a custom a style, and so emphatically a style that
 it was able to enter into effective rivalry with the older styles--the
 contrapuntal, the thematic, the _leit-motif_. We are still under its
 dominion. This form is the _Étude_.

 The Étude was not the invention of the technists. It existed in germ
 in Bach; it half grew out of thematic; only the visual angle altered
 with time. In an invention or symphony of Bach a motive is treated
 according to the free laws of imitation; it is used up in all the
 voices, for all fingers. In a Prelude on some thematic ground-subject,
 in a fugue with its stern code of canonic succession, the same is the
 case: the motive is expended on itself. But between the broken chords
 of Bach’s C sharp Prelude and those of Chopin’s C sharp Étude there
 is a vast difference in the treatment. What in the one is used with a
 view to the motive is here expended with a view to the technique. Bach
 sets before him the artistic possibilities of the theme: Chopin the
 mechanical. Bach wrote many of his preludes with educational purposes;
 but he did not compose them with a sole view to their full practical
 value. As in theory the musical and the mechanical cannot be sharply
 severed, so the pieces are half for the purpose of supplying music,
 half means of instruction. The mechanical part was obliged first to
 emancipate itself before the conception of the Étude could be fully
 grasped. On the straight line leading from the old thematic to the
 Étude style, the conception of the motive altered itself. Motives
 were now found which could be arranged according to their technical
 productiveness. We see perhaps even the same motive, considered first
 contrapuntally or as a fixed idea, but afterwards according to its
 mechanical value.

 There are motives whose interest lies in the size of the hand; or
 in the playing of a legato passage simultaneously with the chords
 in the same hand;[125] or again, contrary motion of chords in both
 hands has to be carried out; or, yet further, attention is paid to
 an easy gliding of the hand over great stretches; or finger-changing
 on the same key is the ground-idea. The piece may aim at _cantabile_
 or at the perfect legato in a _fugato_ movement, or at the practice
 of octaves, pearl-like scales, pianissimo touch, the freedom of
 the left hand, a double melody, or any of the hundred technical
 possibilities. There are dry and insipid methods of thus working
 out academically a technical idea; but it is also possible to see in
 delicate and ingenious ways, slumbering germs of great fruitfulness
 in the technical motive, and to develop powers of unexpected beauty.
 The one way sees in a broken chord only the means of using it in major
 or minor modes, or in the seventh, or in some unusual successions,
 first for the right hand, then for the left, then for both, and
 perhaps finally with sustained notes. Theory is satisfied, a practical
 object provided, the academic conscience laid to rest. But the other
 way sees in the broken chords their elementary character, the germ
 of the Rheingold or of the Götterdämmerung. It permits them first
 to sound slightly, then to grow further and further, to assume a
 daemonic grandeur; like eternal signs, to stretch over the heavens
 and embrace the worlds. Thus, no less than the other, it presents all
 the _nuances_ of major, minor, seventh, right, left, up and down;
 but it covers these technical variations so perfectly with the sense
 of the inner meaning that they become identified, and can never be
 separated: the technical and the characteristic content have, in the
 mind of a genius like this, involuntarily become a unity. Such a
 master, for example, takes the neat finger-changing on one note as
 the means for a rococo-sketch, the pianissimo leaps for a dance of
 the elves, the rolling passages in the left hand for the roar of the
 sea with elemental upper parts; the rhythmical varieties in left and
 right for graceful fetters of the dance; the scurrying glide over the
 black keys for a picture of homely pleasures. Here reveals itself
 the entire fruitfulness of the technical setting, which--who could
 believe it?--precisely by the limitation of the motive, approaches
 very near to characteristic art and realism of presentation. Here is
 a rich field opened to technical subjectivity. Personality is very
 variously displayed in the setting of a technical idea. Contrast with
 Clementi, who scarcely ever shows any specific sense of character in a
 motive, such a man as Hummel, who on theoretic grounds calculates out
 the utmost technical possibilities of a motive; or Czerny, who in a
 practical manner attains the same many-sidedness; or Cramer, who was
 the first to find his way back to music from technique; or Moscheles,
 Chopin, Schumann, who cannot think technique without feeling character.

 Deep and mysterious is this connection between the Étude and its
 musical setting. Like the fugue the simplest Étude goes back to those
 elemental foundations which cannot fail of their impression, even
 if practically nothing is composed upon them. I hear some simple
 scale-étude of Bertini played, with the smooth harmonies on which it
 is built. There is nothing in the piece, no soul reveals itself to
 me, and yet there is a weird charm in these eternal ground-motives of
 all music, and in their tonics and dominants which are so to speak
 anchored in eternity. The dull man is soon wearied by them, but the
 sensitive man instantly responds. At this point the Étude sinks down
 to the great mother of all music: like the fugue it springs directly
 out of Nature. With the consciousness of character the Étude grows
 tuneful. In the studies of Moscheles, in the Symphonic Études of
 Schumann, in Chopin’s studies, art creates what Nature created. From
 the technical theme rises a certain spiritual aroma, reminding us of
 a tune, a scene, a landscape; the tune condenses itself in the return
 of the technical motive; it collects itself all the more narrowly and
 closely, in proportion as all contrasts and secondary tunes keep their
 distance. It is a spiritual melody, set in a firm frame, as condensed
 as neither the free fantasia form, nor the thematic sonata, nor the
 canonic fugue, had ever presented it. The tune is so concentrated
 that it cannot dispense with the frame, or it would fly to pieces. It
 has no capacity of transference; it prefers to exist as a fragment
 ready-made.

 It is thus that the Étude fixes the form. It favours fixed and
 limited technical models, which fit mosaic-wise into each other. It
 is opposed to huge, Beethoven-like emotions and their expression; its
 horizon does not pass beyond two pages. It is still further removed
 from Bach’s method, which depended on plain thematic development; it
 loves the speedy and the limited, and confines itself entirely to the
 practical. It penetrates into all works in which technical brilliance
 gives a false impression of the contents, or in which the greatness of
 the contents only finds its last expression by technique.

 The technical setting of the form, and the technical expression, pass
 over entirely into the consciousness of the time, and create new works
 in chamber-music, opera, and orchestra.

 Compare the development of a sonata by Weber with that of one by
 Beethoven; for example, Weber’s fourth in E minor with Beethoven’s
 Op. 28--two sonatas which in original idea, a soft melodic tune, were
 not so unlike as they turned out to be. In Beethoven the first melody
 develops itself on a 3/4 rhythm, which begins and ends naturally;
 the second theme is an unforced contrast to the first; gradually
 figurations attach themselves, which are natural offshoots of them,
 intertwining themselves without losing their original dependence; all
 grows logically out of itself; the end is given in the beginning,
 and the progress in the variation. In Weber, on the contrary, each
 piece is carried through by itself: the whole is no organism but a
 mere pasticcio. The sensitive first subject is treated in its naked
 melodic beauty; a semiquaver passage is attached to it; a bald
 enharmonic study leads on to the second theme, which treats its
 soothing character from many sides; and only the “free” section brings
 the whole a little closer together. And we know how even in the best
 men of this period the great creative organism, in which every part
 conditions its own subordinate part, gives place to a mere isolation
 and to total want of system. In the concertos, after the traditional
 mutual compliments of orchestra and piano, the solo instrument starts,
 with surprising suddenness, on its passages, which are strung together
 from étude-pieces, selected haphazard. At the conventional places the
 curtain is withdrawn, and the whole glitter of technique is displayed.
 The harsh transitions, the quick returns, the jostling fugues, are not
 only a peculiarity, say, of Schumann--they are the style of the time.
 They are the _framing_ style of a time which does not care for the
 want of restraint that attends great emotions.

 Its preference is for constructive logic in detail. More genuine piano
 music than the Étude there cannot be. The essence of the piano has in
 it become music. Matter and aim here alone determine the form, which
 no longer speaks merely in a universal musical language.

 The piano follows the lines of the time, which pursues technical
 purity in all things. In the representative arts certain styles were
 long seen to predominate, which for limited periods were indifferently
 transferred to all objects without respect to matter or aim.
 Renaissance, Gothic, antique, exhibit their churches, their tombs,
 their doors, their tables, their cupboards, their keys, whether they
 are bosses or reliefs, marbles or bronzes. In our century technique
 begins to speak its first word: a chair is to be a chair; a carpet
 shall be constructed with a view to the aim of carpets; a vase must
 speak in accordance with the material of vases; and painting must
 in the first instance be painting. A cupboard is not an entrance to
 a temple; a table leg not a statue. These are intrusions which art
 has not often experienced in its history. With music the case was
 not dissimilar. The fugal style ruled once so mightily that it drew
 church, dance, salon, fantasia, tune, all indifferently, under its
 sway. The good fugue was a good tune, and the best tune could only
 be expressed in contrapuntal form. Now, however, the emancipation
 had taken place. The organ no longer worked necessarily along with
 the piano, nor the song with the violin; and the orchestra became
 conscious of its power as a totality. What the Venetians had once
 timidly begun was now carried into actual fact; and the artistic
 form of the étude was the seal of this individualising process. The
 much-praised Paganini had no longer, like Corelli, to prompt the
 piano, as far as its content was concerned, from the violin outwardly.
 Paganini-études, by Schumann, were strict piano-pieces, which as far
 as form went borrowed nothing from Paganini, and in matter only a
 groundwork of notes. They strive towards the brilliancy of Paganini’s
 execution--that astonishing, spiritual technique, which aroused so
 wonderfully the emulation of a Liszt. And in turn there passed from
 the piano the brilliancy of a technique which inspired the orchestra
 to its own special triumphs. The “Queen Mab,” the “Mephistopheles,”
 the “Feuer-Zauber,” and the “Valkyries’ Ride” did not need to envy the
 piano. Yet without the fame of the Étude they would never have been so
 brilliant.

 [Illustration: Clementi. Engraved by Neidl after Hardy.]

 We are now coming nearer the personalities themselves. It is no
 long stride from the virtuosos to the romantic writers; the latter
 are only to be explained by reference to the former. We pass slowly
 from the domain of pure virtuosity to that of compositions of deeper
 meaning; from the realm of the teacher to that of the poet; from piano
 purism to the longing after poetic interdependence; from the noise of
 concerts to the intimate retirement of the home.

 In Clementi these signs appeared first. What he had to say was
 little; but what he had to teach was only the more in consequence. He
 collected, he tested, he drew out his experiences, and never willingly
 abandoned the historical attitude. This was the first recoil on the
 classical period. Clementi’s Studies were so fruitful that even a
 Beethoven was not unmoved by them; although of course there were many
 who opposed themselves to his speciality, the passages in thirds and
 sixths for one hand. Mozart hated this unrest; he aimed at a graceful
 and easy style. But the growth of technique soon shook off this
 old-fashioned rococo method; it aimed at universal conquest.

 As Clementi still lives in what we may call his “_grand-pupils_,” so
 his Gradus ad Parnassum has remained the father of all Étude-works,
 often reprinted, often re-edited. It is easy to recognise in it its
 antiquated constituent parts. No principle of distinction is adopted
 between the fingering of diatonic and chromatic scales. In his
 directions Clementi begins his chromatics with _E_. The Études move in
 a peculiar middle region between compositions and exercises. Single
 Études, like the splendid Presto in F sharp minor, reach the heights
 of a Cramer (Simrock, 24). He even provides genuine fugues in order
 that the fugal style may also be practised. In one Étude (Simrock, 38)
 cantabile and triplets are mingled as exercises. Often again three
 pieces appear together as a suite--a patriarchal retention of old
 customs. Others again are mere dry and insipid instruction-exercises.
 We follow with pleasure the process by which fixed technical problems
 gained in content as time went on. For example, the change of finger
 on one key is in Clementi a mere tedious motive with three notes only
 (Simrock, 20). In Cramer (Pauer, 41 ff) is already perceived the charm
 which short held notes may introduce into this monotonous exercise;
 and the drollery which a change of fingers as the characteristic
 motive carries concealed in itself, gives the character to the piece.
 Chopin, in his well-known C major study (Op. 10, 7), gives us a good
 example of this scheme of fingering, which is carried out strictly,
 the alternation of thumb and first finger never being interfered
 with, even on the black keys, in spite of the various awkward chords
 that occur. Thus he gives perfect freedom to the piquant turns and
 droll character of the piece without to any extent spoiling its
 effectiveness as an Étude.

 Over against the Gradus of Clementi, as a remarkable collection of the
 most varied pieces, stand certain smaller studies of a more defined
 physiognomy. The well-known “Préludes et Exercices” are written in
 all the keys, and keep on the whole to the scale-motive. The “Méthode
 du Pianoforte,” with its fifty lessons, collects all kinds of airs
 and old pieces, provided with marks of fingering--which, however, are
 very much behind those of Czerny. The book is noteworthy as one of
 the first important attempts to make use of already existing pieces,
 not the work of the collector, as material for studies. Very soon
 the sonatas of Beethoven appear in these collections, where they are
 arranged according to their difficulty. Here are Handel, Corelli,
 Mozart, Couperin, Scarlatti, Pleyel, Dussek, Haydn, Paradies, and the
 Bachs.

 Clementi sowed his wild oats in a series of preludes and cadenzas
 which he published (Op. 19) under the title of “Characteristic
 Music.” These were written in the styles of certain masters and
 other famous clavier-teachers, such as Haydn, Kozeluch, Vanhall,
 Mozart, Sterkel, and Clementi himself. It was half a jest, and a very
 moderately successful one; but it is worth noticing as a sign of an
 interpretative and compiling tendency.

 Among the hundred sonatas and sonatinas, for one or two players, which
 Clementi left behind, there is not a single one without interest
 or utility from the standpoint of instruction; but from that of
 content there is at most only one which can to-day attract us by its
 originality or genius. This is the so-called Dido sonata, dedicated
 to Cherubini; and even in it the genius is cold. In the other sonatas
 we see the body of a Beethoven without the soul. It is Scarlatti once
 again--trivial and soul-less; but unlike Scarlatti, who cut short what
 had a short life, it is pretentious in its eternal repetitions. It is
 a manufacture of music, nourished by the didactic spirit: compared
 with the full effects of Hummel it is an empty style.

 [Illustration: J. N. Hummel.

 Engraved by Fr. Wrenk (1766-1830), after the portrait by Catherine von
 Escherich (beginning of 19th century)]

 The index to Cramer’s works does not look promising. The Variations,
 Impromptus, Rondos, Divertissements; the Victory of Kutusoff; the
 Two Styles, ancient and modern; the Rendezvous à la Chasse; un
 jour de Printemps; Hors d’œuvre, grande sonate dans le style de
 Clementi; or the combined composition, in the fashion of the time,
 by Cramer, Hummel, Kalkbrenner and Moscheles, of variations on Rule
 Britannia--all these are equally unattractive. The hundred and
 five sonatas are almost unknown. Cramer’s importance lies entirely
 in his Études, which have been frequently reprinted and arranged.
 Of the various editions the finest is Pauer’s English “édition de
 luxe,” which is adorned with a fine engraving of Cramer. Here he is
 all genius and sensibility. The somewhat highly-coloured nose, on
 which he himself used to jest, attracts no notice in the portrait.
 “It was Bacchus who put his thumb there,” he would say; “ce diable
 de Bacchus!” The whole delicate spirit of Cramer breathes in these
 Études, which to-day are unforgotten and unsurpassed in their kind.
 Their instructive value lies in the isolation of the technical
 exercise, which is made less exacting by skilful introduction of
 contrary motion at the proper point, while the most noble musical
 forms mount up from them. They are pieces full of character, and
 without titles, to be heartily reverenced. On the other hand “Cramer’s
 Pianoforte School,” which went through countless editions in his own
 time, has now become useless. The most noteworthy thing we find in it
 is a preface on preludes and codas, which, unlike Clementi’s, does
 not simply copy the approved models, but sets forth theoretically a
 series of “styles” in such improvisations, from the simplest chords
 to melodic development. In the period of public improvisations such
 instructions were not without their use. Preluding is still a “style”
 with us; codas we excuse ourselves. But in those days a player saw
 nothing out of place in the direct connection of such free inventions
 with the piece before him. And Cramer was still old-fashioned enough
 not to object to interweave with pieces of Mozart all kinds of
 flourishes--often, as Moscheles assures us, trivial indeed.

 Over against Clementi, the genius of teaching, and Cramer, the
 genius of technique, stands Hummel as the inventor of the modern
 piano-exercise. Dussek had already, by his unusually full collection
 of exercises, accustomed the public ear to the new state of things;
 but Hummel brought the charm of the pianoforte and the effects of the
 seven octaves within the reach of all. What our amateurs, from the
 days of Chopin, know so well, that full and satisfying tone, that
 blazing colouration, is all in Hummel.

 In his huge Piano School a combination in Hummel of the old master
 and the modern player is very visible. He systematises fingering into
 the following divisions: (1) advancing with simple finger-order in
 easy figure-successions; (2) passing the thumb under other fingers or
 other fingers over the thumb; (3) leaving out one or more fingers;
 (4) changing a finger with another on the same key; (5) stretches
 and leaps; (6) thumb and fourth finger on the black notes; (7) the
 passing of a long finger over a shorter, or of a short under a long;
 (8) change of different fingers on a key, with repeated or not
 repeated touch, and often the repeated use of the same finger on
 several keys; (9) alternation, interweaving, or crossing of the hands;
 and, finally (10), the legato style. A stupendous work indeed; and
 for every head of the fingering, for every technical possibility, a
 number of examples are introduced, with the completest calculation
 of permutations ever seen. There are in all two thousand two hundred
 examples, and more than a hundred exercises develop the possibilities
 of playing between C and G. Before every exercise stand the harmonic
 ground-chords. And thus comes to pass the great miracle, that by
 means of the utmost conceivable combinations, by means of the hundred
 chromatic subtleties, musical figures are formed which no composer
 had previously invented, and which lead on to sound-effects never
 before suspected. In the examples of an exercise-book lay undreamed-of
 novelties in piano-composition.

 Hummel himself had a very modest opinion of his own compositions.
 He knew that he had made no advance in the path of Beethoven; and
 that no greatness was possible outside of it. “It was a serious
 moment for me,” he said once at Weimar to Ferdinand Hiller, “when
 Beethoven appeared. Was I to try to follow in the footsteps of such
 a genius? For a while I did not know what I stood on; but finally I
 said to myself that it was best to remain true to myself and my own
 nature.” With this determination Hummel founded the new, rich school
 of piano-playing, delighting in sound, and revelling in execution,
 in which even seriousness and passion are expressed with pomp and
 circumstance. Brilliancy has expelled grace, and the pompous the
 lightness of the dance.

 Like most of his contemporaries he composed at the piano, making
 pencil-notes the while. But he heard it as though he were his own
 audience. “When I sit at the piano,” he said, “I am standing at the
 same time in yonder corner as a listener, and what does not appeal
 to me there is not written.” This was not Beethoven’s method. Such
 a conscious striving after effect was not consistent with absolute
 sincerity. The concerto was the mainspring of Hummel’s creativeness.
 The innumerable concertos and concert-fantasias take the first rank
 among Hummel’s works. They appeared also with quartet-accompaniment,
 and also with a second piano, or arranged for one piano. He wrote,
 unlike Clementi, far more concerto-pieces than sonatas. All kinds
 of Variations, Rondos, Capriccios, and “Amusements,” gratified his
 publishers. He wrote dances in the profusion characteristic of the
 time. The Sonata in A flat for two pianos is precisely in harmony with
 the age. It is only in the second half of the century that original
 works of this kind begin to lose vogue, while the duet confines itself
 to the drawing-room. The Duet attained its highest point in Schubert.

 [Illustration: Hummel in his later years. From a steel engraving by C.
 Mayer.]

 Hummel’s works bristle with sound-effects. We observe many full
 chords, as in the orchestra, when all the groups of single instruments
 are employed in full harmony. The treble of the instrument is for the
 first time properly used in the grand style, a noble contrast to the
 melodic, burlesque, dæmonic, firework style of Steibelt and the rest.
 We meet the genuine pianoforte charm of sharp chromatic successions,
 where a Bacchanalian tumult of colour appears to sound a rattling
 fire of sensuous effects. Even modulations are conceived from the
 side of technical effectiveness; and chromatic insertions or sudden
 third-passages, charming us in the vigorous voice of the piano, are
 of common occurrence. The various registers of the piano, the bass,
 the middle, and the treble, are applied to surprising effects; a note
 of one register suddenly thrown into the other gives a colour of its
 own. Passages rapidly gliding through the various registers give a
 glittering spectrum. Take, for example, such a development as that
 of the second solo conclusion in the last movement of the A minor
 concerto. Here, starting at the _con dolcezza_, we find the pianoforte
 bringing into play most of the effective methods of the concerto
 style. The simply-harmonised cantabile, for the solo instrument alone;
 the repetition of the melodic phrases by the clarinet, etc., with an
 arpeggio accompaniment on the pianoforte; the ornamentation of the
 phrase by delicate scale-passages; the closing lines of bravura for
 the right hand; the showy chromatic scales, accented by superimposed
 thirds on the first of every group of four semiquavers; the sequences
 of semiquavers descending chromatically; the string of shakes for both
 hands which introduce the final _point d’orgue_ (four bars in strict
 tempo); all these are commonplaces of Hummel’s style, and are of
 interest as an illustration of the fashionable music of the time.

 [Illustration: A Canonic Impromptu, by J. N. Hummel, from the original
 edition of his Pianoforte School.]

 The concerto pieces of Hummel stand in respect of intrinsic value
 below the solo pieces. His great concerto fantasia, “Oberon’s Magic
 Horn,” is a banal piece of bravura with artistic references to Oberon.
 The part of it demanding most execution is the great storm with its
 thunder and lightning on the piano--a somewhat different performance
 from the tame storm in the Fitzwilliam Virginal Book. But the solo
 pieces also are of unequal merit. Fashionable compositions, like the
 Polonaise “La Bella Capricciosa,” which was then eagerly heard, are no
 longer tolerated. Hummel at his best, as we know him in his immortal
 Sextet, lives in certain delicate turns, such as are common enough in
 Wagner’s earlier operas, but were then a style of the time, making use
 of the melody both of Mozart and of modern days. The better Hummel
 is also seen in certain Schumann-like movements, full of fire and
 feeling, such as the fresh pulsating Scherzo “all’antico” of Sonata
 Op. 106, or the concluding movement of Fantasia Op. 18. Perhaps the
 Bagatelles (Op. 107) are his most interesting clavier-piece. Even
 to-day they show no sign of age; there is not a dead note in them.
 In them the pupil of Mozart is seen in the dainty melodic lines, such
 as an Audran has revived in our day; but the forerunner of Liszt is
 equally visible. In the last Bagatelle, the “Rondo all’Ongarese,”
 he stands precisely between the two epochs. The true spirit of
 nationality, as Dussek so happily applied it in his sonatas, mingles
 with classical reminiscences, as the concluding phrase clearly
 shows. Fugato episodes, derived from tradition, are interwoven with
 surprising anticipations of that method of variation which works
 by diatonic movement--a method very familiar to us from Liszt’s
 Rhapsodies. Hummel then is a kind of Janus.

 [Illustration: Czerny. Lithograph by Kriehuber, 1833.]

 Much more simple was Czerny, king among teachers, whose life and
 work were taken up with the enforcement of one great principle.
 Every piece must be played in that manner which is most natural and
 applicable to the case in hand, and which is fixed partly by the notes
 before us and partly by the execution. His genius for teaching was
 so cultivated that in a moment he could devise the right study for
 a student who exhibited any defect. How precisely he worked in such
 matters a glance at his “Higher Steps in Virtuosity” will show. The
 themes of the Études in the third volume are called: (1) seven notes
 against two or three; (2) five against three; (3) five against three
 in another manner; (4) passing of the fingers over the thumb; (5)
 passing under of the thumb with a quick alternation of the stretching
 and retraction of the fingers; (6) motion of certain fingers while the
 others remain stationary; (7) broken octaves legato. This is not the
 grammar of Hummel with its theoretical chess-play of possibilities;
 it is the method of Toussaint-Langenscheidt, which invents its
 exercises from the data of experience. In the great Piano School the
 exercises are always continued in the course of the instruction.
 The scales are recommended for daily preliminary practice, and
 duet-playing is drawn into the circle of regular exercise. It is, of
 course, impossible to review the whole enormous crowd of his works.
 In addition to the numerous general practice-pieces, which appeared
 in manifold combinations, there are the special pieces also: the
 school of velocity, of legato and staccato, of ornaments, of the
 left hand, of fugue-playing, of virtuoso-performance; the art of
 preluding, the introduction to fantasia playing, octave-studies, the
 practice of the full common chord and of the chord of the seventh
 in broken figures; and everything besides. It is a mighty arsenal
 of mechanical appliances. His works are numbered up to Op. 856;
 but all except the Studies are lost in oblivion; they are mere
 hack-work. Even the greater Studies are, in musical value, inferior
 to Cramer’s. Czerny’s great collections from previous masters are
 the work of a practical historian. Such are the arrangement of the
 Wohltemperiertes Klavier, the edition of Scarlatti, the arrangements
 of Beethoven, Mozart, or Mendelssohn for two or four hands; and
 the innumerable selections of the most brilliant passages from the
 works of masters from Scarlatti and Bach to Thalberg and Liszt. His
 practical History of Piano-playing--the first that ever appeared--was
 thrown into a didactic form and appended to the great “Art of
 Execution.” Every composer is treated from the point of view of
 playing, under six heads. Clementi is to be played with a steady
 hand, firm touch and tone, distinct and flowing execution, precise
 declamation; Cramer and Dussek _cantabilmente_, without glaring
 effects, with gentle legato and the due use of the pedal; Mozart with
 less pedal, clearly, staccato, with spirit and vigour; Beethoven and
 Ries characteristically, passionately, melodiously, with a view to
 the _tout ensemble_; Hummel, Meyerbeer, and Moscheles brilliantly,
 rapidly, and gracefully, with definition in the proper parts, and
 intelligent but elegant declamation. Thalberg, Liszt, and Chopin, the
 great innovators, form a class apart. Czerny’s astonishing genius for
 instruction embraces the whole field of the clavier, with a many-sided
 capacity that seems almost more than human. A greater teacher there
 never was than he. He gathers all into his net, even the works of his
 own pupils; he practises everything, even setting it for three or
 four pianos; he arranges everything, even isolated passages of great
 masters; he composes everything, even penny variations and Chinese
 rondos.

 In Kalkbrenner we see the lowest type of the time. Externally a fine
 gentleman and artistic man of the world, he is inwardly hollow and
 vapid. It is hard even to give an idea of this extreme emptiness; but
 it is well illustrated in such a piece as the “Charmes de Berlin.”
 This great virtuoso won his triumphs in the worst kinds of salon-music
 as well as with all sorts of Études, Concertos, and Sonatas. Le Rêve,
 Le Fou, La Solitude, Dernières Pensées Musicales, La Mélancolie et La
 Gaité, La Brigantine, are some of these detestable compositions. But
 his opera fantasias touch the very nadir. Here a sort of sanction is
 given to an utter want of taste. After largo introductions, full of
 feeling, he slices favourite melodies into passages, till the contour
 of the air is utterly destroyed, and the commonest cadenzas are flung
 higgledy-piggledy into their artistic forms, and so we rush off into
 a sweep-dance. The fantasia, once the freest outcome of the musical
 soul, becomes a wretched conglomeration of fragments of Études.
 Kalkbrenner once remarked, as Ferdinand Hiller tells us, “Ze Tance is
 a tream, a referie; it begins with lofe, _passion_, despair, and it
 ends wid a military march.” The story is true enough.

 [Illustration: Lithograph by Eichens, after Vogel, 1825.]

 To imagine that with Weber we already pass over into the fairy-land
 of romance is, alas, a mistake. He would doubtless have made the
 transit had not an early death overtaken him in the midst of the
 uprising of genius that began in 1820. But, as it is, his piano
 music belongs to the technically rich but spiritually empty style
 of the time. If he did not still live as operatic composer and
 orchestral poet, his piano-compositions would be forgotten. His
 technique, successful as it was, is never so rich as that of the
 majority of the virtuosos of his time. It is not hard to perceive
 that he recurs again and again to certain motives. The ornamentation
 which was earlier called “Anschlag”--the preparatory striking of the
 under and over note before the main note, which is seen brilliantly
 exemplified in the Rondo in E flat major--the S-curves of the
 melody, which are a simple re-arrangement of this “anschlag”--the
 “pizzicato” notes over embellishing or broken accompaniments--held
 notes over struck chords--broken combinations of three notes, ranging
 themselves chain-like after one another--these are his somewhat
 limited repertoire. In the Polonaises in E flat major and in E major,
 in numerous operatic variations, in Écossaises and popular national
 dances, he pays his tribute to the time. But there is no local
 colouring in the variations on the Russian “Schöne Minka,” or on a
 Gipsy song. Dussek and Hummel were in this point his superiors. The
 intellectual themes, like the second of the C major concerto, show
 the greatness of Weber as behind a mask. The favourite concerto Op.
 79, if judged by a severe standard, is only a fashionable if very
 clever and successful mosaic of neat Études with the requisite melody.
 The daintiest mosaic piece, the March, is given to orchestra alone,
 as if Weber had felt compelled to enter his proper abode. Liszt
 perceived this when he played in the concerto, and played the _tutti_
 brilliantly with the instruments, and thus exhibited a remarkable
 _tour de force_. The four sonatas, often utterly trivial, are in
 the main a congeries which perishes by its eclecticism. As with all
 his contemporaries, the first movements, those touchstones of the
 inner meaning, are the weakest. The subjects are thin, the framework
 is that of the drawing-room; and the other movements have a higher
 stylistic value. The powerful rhythm of the second movement in the C
 major, the excellent minuet-scherzo, the stirring perpetuum mobile as
 last movement are admirable single ideas. But the importance rises
 only slowly; the fourth sonata has, not inner meaning, but a certain
 majesty. Yet what is this romance, this octave-scherzo with its rapid
 waltz-trio, this masquerade of elves, to Chopin, to Schumann, or even
 to Mendelssohn? Weber’s most popular piece is also his purest--the
 Invitation to the Dance. It is a _pot-pourri_, such as the age loved;
 and the very title is _à la mode_. But the conception of forming the
 introductory adagio as a dialogue, the brilliant advance from the
 ravishing waltz to Bacchanalian tumult the pure and not virtuoso-like
 colouring, which rests on this happy invention, raise the work far
 above all that is merely fashionable.

 [Illustration: Moscheles in his youth.]

 The true man of the transition is Moscheles--double-souled, with his
 concessions to modishness on the one side, and on the other his wealth
 of invention and his musical intensity. He was born out of due time.
 He ought to have left virtuosity behind him, in order to be able to
 give full play to his characteristic, not undramatic, and broad-lined
 art. To-day he is almost forgotten; no opera, as in Weber’s case,
 preserved his fame to our times. But his works more than repay study;
 if our pianists would once again take up his C major concerto, they
 would be amazed.

 [Illustration: Moscheles, later, 1859.]

 In his youth he composed Variations on the Alexander March, with which
 he was compelled, much against his will, when a ripe composer, to
 dazzle the world. It was one of the most popular of concert pieces.
 It is not true that in later years he altered his style and wrote
 more soberly. His very sober Melancholy Sonata (Op. 49), written
 fairly early, in one movement, with its charming accompaniment figure,
 reminds us of the Parsifal tremoli. And on the other hand, a later
 work, the Danish, Scotch, and Irish Fantasias (this latter on the Last
 Rose of Summer), are _pot-pourris_ in full modish style. What would
 the Virginal Book composers of English and Scotch folk-songs have said
 to these variations? In order to avoid the fashionable appearance,
 several movements are even written in various tempi, as in a sonata.
 In his A flat minor Ballade, on the contrary, he has with astonishing
 dramatic force struck the legendary tone in a free and genuine manner,
 in a sort of romantic rondo.

 Moscheles, who was the first master to arrange for piano an orchestral
 score by another writer (that of the Fidelio, by commission from
 Beethoven), was unable to escape the operatic rechauffées of the
 time. His speciality was the putting together of different operatic
 airs, which formed the favourite repertoire of a singer. He wrote
 such fantasias on the favourite pieces of Pasta, Henriette Sonntag,
 Jenny Lind, and Malibran. They are commonplace enough. Yet this same
 Malibran, after her sudden death, he honoured in an “Hommage,” which
 was one of his finest pieces. There is in it an unearthly power
 of invention, a dramatic life, as if drawn from the stage; spirit
 breathes in every bar; and the interest is sustained to the final
 sorrowfully rising cross-passages, which strangely forebode the
 longings of Tristan for the sea.

 He wrote many drawing-room pieces, which bore the usual significant
 titles--Charmes de Paris, La Tenerezza, Jadis et aujourd’hui, la
 Petite Babillarde. Similar titles he superscribed to his Études, such
 as his three Allegri di Bravura and his characteristic Studies (Op.
 95). Among the former are La Forza and Il Capriccio; among the latter
 are Juno, Terpsichore, Moonlight at Sea, Dream, and Anguish. In these
 the seeker after mode will be disappointed. They are pieces worthy of
 Schumann in power of form; half exercises, half characteristic pieces,
 reaching that height of technique where air and étude unite in the
 closest bonds. The work which Cramer began has reached the height of
 artistic achievement. For here, where meet knowledge, technical sense
 of form, and poetic conception, the peculiar musical vein of the age
 is found. The fugal “Widerspruch” [contradiction] is an artistic
 construction that stands alone; “Anguish” is a penetrating tuneful
 picture, which once more reminds us of Wagner; it is a foretaste of
 Siegmund’s flight or of the Valkyrie Prologue.

 The untitled Études Op. 70, which rank as his best work, stand out
 as the forerunners of the Studies Op. 95. There is the same delicate
 characteristic sense; they are a gallery of tone pictures, among
 which the twelfth Étude in B flat minor is never to be forgotten.
 It is a Night-Piece in the style of Schumann. But all is calculated
 for human fingers, not for those of Liszt, like Op. 95. And here we
 feel patiently after the essential nature of the musical Étude. We
 observe the inner relation between mechanical and spiritual motion.
 Expression and difficulty grow alongside; the straining of the fingers
 is involuntarily the straining of the soul; their smooth gliding is
 the gliding of emotion, and the stress of mind is loosened in the
 muscles of the fingers as they move over the keys. It is thus that the
 irreconcilable at last meet.

 [Illustration: Parisian and London Pianists at the beginning of the
 19th century.
                 L. Adam.      Kalkbrenner.      Cramer.]


     [121] Weber conducted the Philharmonic in 1826, in which
     year he died.

     [122] This sort of thing is by no means without example
     in our own time. The difficulty is very commonly solved
     in English towns even of the size of Frankfort, by having
     pianos sent from London.

     [123] But the best bred evening party still (in London
     at least) shouts at the top of its voice when it “hears
     a master play.” See “Punch,” and Du Maurier, _passim_. A
     striking illustration of the vulgarity of modern manners.

     [124] The author means “Pearls of the Ocean,” “Fairy
     Revels,” “Convent Bells,” and such like.

     [125] It is convenient to refer these descriptions to
     Chopin’s Studies, though of course they can be paralleled
     elsewhere. Cf. Chopin’s Studies in C, in A minor, in F, etc.




 [Illustration: Waltz by Schubert. Berlin Royal Bibliothek.]




                              The Romantics


 Where definitions fail, the word appears at the right time. The
 word proves the existence of things, even if they cannot be sharply
 defined. The word is the artistic form of a transient emotion; it was
 made for things which were nameless till its creation; it was girded
 with associations which fastened themselves on to this conception.
 Such a word is Romance. Romance is not a return to the popular, to
 nature, nor to the mediæval, it is no love for the legendary or the
 symbolic or the most delicate forms of the most delicate stirrings of
 the soul. It was indeed the one of these things to one set of persons
 and another for others; but in reality it is none of these and all of
 these. If I say it is an _oppositum_ to _synthesis_, or intimateness
 from the point of view of all possibilities, I have defined it very
 coldly. But its essential point seems to be its reactionary character.
 It aims not at raising structures, but at reading souls, and it finds
 a thousand ways of so doing. These thousand ways cannot be crammed
 into one definition. We strike only gently the chord of the word, so
 symbolic, so harmoniously chiming. It is a feeling whose value is not
 to be analysed.

 Near the great architect Beethoven lived the first musical Romantic,
 the well-beloved Franz Schubert. He felt the burden of existence as
 only musicians can feel it. But he had inexhaustible fountains of
 consolation, which sang to him melodies almost more profusely than
 to Mozart, and he did his utmost to throw the melodies, without too
 much pedantry or Titan-pride, into songs, symphonies, quartets,
 and impromptus, as the inspiration took him. He had no long life
 for working, but he used his time well. It is now many, many years
 since his death, and still numbers of his works are unpublished.
 His best teacher was the people, and their songs and dances. The
 unsophisticated musical feeling, which came to light in this popular
 song and national dance--the simple natural phrases, the speaking
 soul, the genuine sense for drama--these were the formative principles
 of his immortal songs, and these gave the character to his piano music
 also. Men have been studying his numerous national dances as in a
 Bible of the dance for fifty years. There are still rare and beautiful
 flowers to be found among them; others have been picked out by the
 virtuosos, and transformed to hothouse plants in many forms, not
 always so stylish as Liszt’s Soirées de Vienne. The case has been the
 same with his four-hand Marches, whether Caractéristique, Héroique, or
 Militaire. If we return to their original forms, a surprising air as
 from country meadows meets us.

 He lives entirely in music. From the far land of invention float the
 melodies, eternally varying, giving colour to the harmonies, and
 pouring themselves out to their very last note. The ear cannot have
 enough of them, and, full of the holiest delight, pursues them to the
 end of their heavenly course. In Paradise there is no time; and these
 melodies are a prologue to eternity. Schubert died at thirty-one.
 His D minor quartet, one of the loveliest compositions ever written,
 leads us to imagine that he would have been the greatest musician
 of the century. But he has left us only the works of his youth--a
 youth of intellectual intimateness and smiling sunshine. In delicacy
 of musical feeling we put no one above him. He stands before us in
 the small band of original and delicate minds, whose secret can make
 the life of higher emotions happy. Let not him who has not delicate
 fingers touch Schubert. To play him means to have a dainty touch. The
 keyboard appears unmaterialised: only so much of the mechanism seems
 to remain as is necessary to render living the conception of this
 beauty. In peaceful hours we enjoy him most, and confess that there is
 no tone-poet whom we love so deeply from the heart as Schubert.

 In this, those things of their own accord are separated out, in which
 Schubert did not follow only his natural impulse to the popular
 song. He was in the first place no master or teacher of musical
 construction. His scores are simple, and even in his four-handed duets
 (he has left behind him duets of surpassing beauty) whole passages
 could often be rendered as they stand by a single player.

 Schubert never appears a slave to the arrangement he adopts; but the
 movement flows so naturally from his pen that there is no want of
 harmony between his idea and its realisation. He is just as little a
 special artist of the form. He has written many sonatas--four-handed
 and two-handed; but he cares little for the form. Where he can subject
 his dainty ideas to this mould, as in the first three movements of
 the duet in B flat major, he is interesting to us. When he cannot
 easily do so, he has recourse to variations in the style of the time
 or to all kinds of academic free fantasias. In this case he speedily
 becomes antiquated. But we must again remember that he has left us
 only youthful works. His latest sonatas, particularly those in A major
 and in B flat major; his latest chamber-music and symphonies, the
 wonderful Schumann-like F minor fantasia, and the Beethoven-like duet
 “Lebensstürme” in rondo form, are more weighty in structure and show
 him on the way to throw his great conceptions into more recognised
 forms: in this style he would have grown into a great artist.

 The “Wanderer” Fantasia stands on the boundary line. The method of
 writing a free fantasia on a song-motive--on this occasion one of his
 own--by which the ordinary four movements are preserved, was then _à
 la mode_. That the last movement should begin with a fugato, which
 soon passes over into more general virtuosity, was equally common. In
 the more purely virtuoso passages, specially in the quite conventional
 coda, Schubert is the very child of the Viennese school. The free
 fantasias are rather in Hummel’s than in Beethoven’s style--preserving
 a middle path between the two. The form is so free that from the waltz
 movement of the scherzo to the weighty fugue, from the song of the
 adagio to the conventional conclusion, almost all the styles of piano
 music that exist are packed in. But if a song or a waltz rhythm or a
 special tone expression appears, then we observe with what alacrity
 Schubert sets about his work. He prepares it beforehand with a certain
 effort. He caresses the new theme; for example, on the entrance of the
 melodic E flat major theme in the first movement, in the dramatic deep
 tremolo in the adagio, and in the pianissimo D flat major waltz in the
 third movement.

 Nothing is more distinctive of Schubert than the development of the
 Fantasia Sonata Op. 78. The first movement hardly hangs together.
 A wonderful theme, depending on delicate touch, is mingled with
 empty technical intermediate passages. The Andante is a Volkslied,
 arranged as in sonatas; as a whole treated somewhat feebly, but with
 sudden small intermezzos, at first in F sharp major (bar 47), where
 suspensions in Schubert’s true style sound in softest pianissimo in
 the middle voices. In the third movement a ravishing minuet meets
 us, running in cheerful rhythms, with a waltz-like conclusion which
 anticipates one side of Schumann, and with a dainty trio in B major,
 in bell-like tones and magical retardations such as Schubert himself
 hardly surpassed. Thus a G sharp[126] in the chord of the dominant
 seventh, with which the melodic chain is ornamentally interwoven, was
 a discovery rich in wonders. And the last movement with its original
 popular dance, which he overheard directly from the heart of the
 people where the basses rumble below and the fiddle-bows spring on
 the strings; with the two laughing trios, in which Johann Strauss
 is entirely anticipated; national dances with a dainty melody,
 which conclude so lingeringly in the spiritual chorale-tone (in C
 major)--pictures like these music had not hitherto known. All kinds
 of foreign national airs had, of course, been dealt with in artistic
 style; and Schubert himself, in his brilliant Hungarian Divertissement
 for four hands, has painted a gipsy picture with all his dexterity
 in rhythm; but the German national airs had received but scanty
 attention. Here, at last, we find the German folk-music, which found
 in the Viennese dance-composers its popular embellishment, and in
 Schumann its artistic treatment.

 With his Impromptus and Moments Musicals, those small impressionist
 forms, Schubert placed piano-literature upon a new basis. Here is
 found that form of chamber music which is most peculiar to the piano
 as a solo instrument with full harmony. It is not a sonata, which is
 founded by the great laws of universal tonic art; nor a concerto,
 which drags the piano before a many-headed multitude which delights in
 distraction; nor an operatic fantasia or variation on an air, which
 forbids the charm of free improvisation; no technical elaborated
 étude, nor a scientifically constructed fugato;--but a piece which
 brings single selected musical thoughts into a short artistic form,
 no longer in extent than the tone-colour of the instrument permits;
 yet, with all infelt genuineness, informed with the best effects of
 the piano, which the player, as he composes in solitude, feels in
 full intensity. Almost all Schubert’s pieces retain something of the
 spirit of the time. Some are a kind of variations; others études, a
 third class dances; but they are constantly more than mere echoes
 of the time; they are founded on an inner genuineness, and much too
 full in expression to permit of being included under any category
 of the external. In Beethoven’s life we witnessed the way in which
 a world-embracing genius gradually threw off the traditional form;
 in Schubert we see how an intimate spirit gradually rises above the
 style of the time. This development is included between the Sonatas
 and the Wanderer Fantasia on the one hand, and the Moments Musicals
 on the other. At the same period in which the technical musicians
 accomplished the outward emancipation of the clavier, these short
 pieces (Kurze Geschichten) made it inwardly free.

 [Illustration: Lithograph of 1846, by J. Kriehuber (1801-1876).]

 As Impromptus the two groups, Op. 90 and Op. 142, were published.
 Those of the first group have all penetrated deeply into our musical
 consciousness. All roads lead us back again to the first Impromptu
 with its simple popular melody in two sections, which is varied in
 so many extraordinary ways; and with that melodious middle-movement,
 more joyous and ethereal, than any that had ever been heard before on
 the pianoforte. Who can forget the second with the light étude-like
 triplet-swinging in E flat major and the mighty B minor middle
 section; or the third with its wonderful G flat major melody, its
 divine modulations and its captivatingly simple conclusion, revealing
 unexpected melodic wonders in a broken chord of the seventh; or the
 fourth, a light floating figure with its short Volkslied intermezzi
 and the long drawn out melody of the trio in C♯ minor--Schumann all
 over!

 The second group of Impromptus (Op. 142) stands below the first
 in importance. It was with Schubert as with Mozart; good and bad
 inspirations came to him alike, and he could not discriminate them.
 Yet they contain the dainty A flat major piece, which demands nothing
 but a gentle touch; and in the variations of the third Impromptu
 (which is therefore no impromptu) the likeness to Schumann is once
 more astonishing. It is a peculiar pleasure to detect Schumann in
 Schubert, and it is a piece of historic justice which has often been
 neglected.

 More successful, indeed Schubert’s greatest achievement, was the
 “Moments Musicals,” which appeared in 1828, the year of his death.
 The first of these is a naturalistic free musical expatiation; the
 second a gentle movement in A flat major; the third the well-known F
 minor dance--in which a dance became a penetrating and sorrow-laden
 tongue--the fourth the Bach-like C sharp minor moderato, with its
 placid middle section in D flat major; the fifth a fantastic march
 with a sharply cut rhythm; and the sixth, perhaps Schubert’s most
 profound piano-piece, that reverie in still chords, which only once
 are more violently shaken in order to lull us to sleep with its
 pensive and dainty sorrow, its delicate connections, its singing
 imitations, its magic enharmonics, and its sweet melodies rising
 like flowers from the soft ground. The conclusion of the trio, in
 the style of a popular chorale, with its harmonisation in thirds, is
 (like many of his harmonic passages in octaves or sixths) exceedingly
 characteristic of the popular nature of Schubert’s music.

 We have been turning over the leaves of a book from which Schumann
 and Chopin might have found matter to fill years of their lives. In
 form and colour, melody and movement, the model was before them. This
 modest man, who in his Vienna solitude wrote such things as these
 for himself, loved a few good friends, but publicity he hated. A
 composer who never appeared in public--was the like ever seen before?
 In the aged Beethoven the world understood it; but in this young man
 it could only reward it with indifference. He remained willingly
 unknown, like so many of his companions in sorrow who wished to be
 artists in themselves without relation to others, and without the
 encumbrance of patronage. The times were altering in music as in
 painting. The patronage of the State or of the Prince is disappearing;
 the commissions the artist receives become fewer and more distasteful;
 he becomes more intimate and is constrained to offer his works to the
 public, and to supply what it will purchase. Supply and demand rule
 art as well as anything else: but nowhere is the severance so painful.
 Pensions are irksome, and official posts are not to be had otherwise
 than indirectly. The struggle after the ideal which is the life of the
 artist is purer than it ever was. The type which Feuerbach and Böcklin
 represent in painting, that new type of artist who can be happy
 without commissions and without honorarium, is first clearly exhibited
 by Schubert in the musical world. Publicity, to which Beethoven at
 first had recourse, and which he would have carried further had fate
 not opposed, was impossible to Schubert. He had to live on a pension,
 his applications for posts were rejected, publishers were timid, and
 very slowly indeed did his songs win their way to favour. Goethe
 never answered him on receiving his songs; and Beethoven, to whom he
 shyly dedicated his Variations (Op. 10) as “admirer and worshipper,”
 only learnt to know him in the last days. As he began, so he died. The
 publishers had still to work through the whole century in order to
 bring out his works, which they dedicated in very stylish manner to
 Liszt, Mendelssohn, or Schumann: as Schubert closed his eyes he knew
 as little as the world that his simple integrity had won a new realm
 for art.

 Some years after Schubert’s death, in November 1831, a certain Robert
 Schumann published as his first work some Variations, whose theme
 was formed on the name Abegg (A B E G G). It was easy to see that
 the Countess Abegg, to whom they were dedicated, was a pseudonym for
 a good lady, whom the author had once admired as a beauty without
 otherwise troubling himself much about her. The theme was worked out
 a little too painfully, and the Variations moved in eclectic style
 among influences derived from Beethoven, Weber, and the contemporary
 virtuosos; but their originality was nevertheless unmistakable. It
 was not the worn-out contemporary style of variations; and many sound
 traces of that naive dilettantism, which always stands at the cradle
 of the new, were easily to be detected. Sudden pianissimo effects,
 single selected technical motives, an original melodic gift for
 singing with contrapuntal voice-parts and new forms of accompaniment,
 rapid harmonic changes by the chord of the seventh, legendary romance
 in the finale alla fantasia, the successive release of the notes of
 a chord, from the lowest to the highest--all this led men to wait
 eagerly for Schumann’s next work.

 This next work bore the title of “Papillons”--a title not unknown
 in contemporary drawing-room music. But here there was nothing of
 the drawing-room style. These butterflies seemed to come from the
 regions where Schubert had found his flowers. Thence they brought
 a breath of short lyrical songs--a concentrated breath of severe
 and restrained beauty. A wonderfully penetrating heart-felt tone
 breathed through them. The world had now to do with a reflective,
 deeply musical nature, far removed from all the merely brilliant
 virtuosity of the time: it was a romantic spirit. After the short
 slow introduction came the waltz, whose outlines inevitably recalled
 Schubert; but its emotions were personally felt. There were melodic
 passages in octaves for alternate hands, dying away in the aria
 with the “nachschlagbegleitung”[127] down to pianissimo, a splendid
 fugato-march in spirited style, episodes of popular songs, sportive
 whisperings, sparkling polonaise rhythms, melodious effects working
 out of very gentle full chords, canonic melodies in lively motion,
 repetitions of earlier bars in later sections to represent the
 external unity of these little stories, and as a conclusion the
 “Grossvater” song. The whole is united contrapuntally with the first
 waltz. The carnival is silenced--this appears suddenly in words--the
 tower-clock strikes six (and high enough on the upper A); a full chord
 of the seventh piles itself up gradually and closes the piece.

 No one knew what was the chief impulse which led Schumann to write
 these “Papillons.” Those who corresponded with him alone knew that he
 was thinking of the “Flegeljahre”[128] of Jean Paul. From Jean Paul
 he received his spiritual nourishment, and those to whom his letters
 came could tell that he hardly sent off one without including in them
 a rhapsody for the Bayreuth poet. In this intermediate world between
 the highest earnestness and endless laughter he preferred to live in
 ironic love and loving irony. To reflect deeply on immortality, and at
 the same time to drink in comfortably the sweet odour of the girdle
 cake which the goodwife is cooking in the kitchen--it is in this
 mixed light that the poet stands, who has so characterised himself.
 The fantastic boundaries of the real and the imaginary world, of the
 most insipid flatness of the animal nature and of the most ethereal
 heavenly flights, alike attract him. His delicate soul flies to
 Nature, and Nature is to him--so he writes to his mother--the great
 outspread handkerchief of God, embroidered with His eternal name, on
 which man can wipe away all his tears of sorrow. But the tears of
 joy too--and when every tear falls into a rapture of weeping--whence
 came these tones in the soul of a musician? The world had never yet
 understood them. It knew them in literary circles, which busied
 themselves with romantic new creations, where unknown regions seemed
 suddenly to open themselves between the everyday and the legendary,
 and which demanded new, painfully twisted words for the wild tumult of
 their representations. Where pure music had long wandered alone, the
 poets and the æsthetics had now penetrated; and was now a musician to
 give them a hand to speak in their tongue? This was a surprising turn.
 Upon the musical poet came the literary musician. The one could only
 gain; had the other anything to lose? No; Schumann seemed musician
 enough to prove that nothing was lost. None of his friends, to whom he
 recommended the perusal of the conclusion of the “Flegeljahre”--whose
 masked dance, he said, the Papillons were intended to transform into
 tones--would have expected this pure and genuine music from him. I
 imagine they all puzzled their heads to know what the wild Jean Paul
 had to do with these dainty musical butterflies. And it is to-day even
 harder for us.

 A delicate musician read Jean Paul, and the grotesque figures of
 this “Walt und Vult” combined in him with a world of tone, which
 slumbered within him, in those deep regions of associated ideas which
 stand at the basis of artistic creation. They there formed a special
 union with their musical counterpart, the simplest, most natural, and
 least academical creations which the art of tone ever saw--those of
 Schubert. So early as 1829 Schumann, who was then a student, wrote to
 Frederick Wieck from Heidelberg: “When I play Schubert, it is as if
 I were reading a Romance of Jean Paul set to music.” Jean Paul and
 Schubert are the gods in Schumann’s first letters and other writings.
 He cannot shake off the ethereal melancholy, the “suppressed” lyrical
 tone, in Schubert’s four-handed A major Rondo: he sees Schubert, as
 it were, in bodily shape, _experiencing_ his own piece. No music,
 he said, is so psychologically remarkable in the progress of its
 ideas and in its apparently logical leaps. There is a rare fire in
 him when he speaks of Schubert. How eager is he for new publications
 from Schubert’s remains! Yet, while he is devouring a volume of his
 national dances, he is weeping for Jean Paul. In the Papillons, we
 hear, there was Jean Paul; and what we find in them, is Schubert. What
 was to come of this conjunction?

 This question was very satisfactorily answered in the next work (Op.
 3). This was a collection of Études with a textual introduction on
 motives after Paganini, but adapted to the piano. Considered as a
 whole it was technical to a degree, yet without disguising the real
 Schumann. And what was the meaning of the Introduction? Every great
 pianist had already written his “School” or wanted to write it. Did
 these barren finger-directions speak for the virtuoso Schumann?

 The Intermezzi (Op. 4) answered in the negative. These were genuine
 pure music without any external pretensions. It was possible already
 to recognise the true style of Schumann: the characteristic features
 were repeated. Dotted motives, built up in fugato style; delicate
 melodies with the “nachschlag” accompaniment and with other melodies
 superimposed; reflective repose in chords; syncopated rhythm;
 parallelisms of the air in octaves; all these were as before. In
 the slurred thirds and the sequences, and especially the diatonic
 runs, which seem to gather their strength as they go, the model was
 not Schubert but Sebastian Bach. There was something in this not
 merely of his absolute, self-contained music, but even of his means
 of expression. At this time of course this could do no harm. In the
 fifth and sixth intermezzos Schumann’s personality would seem to
 have entirely ripened. This marked propensity to “anticipations,”
 those pianissimo unisons, those sharp detonations of C and C sharp,
 D and D sharp; the singing legato middle voices developing in the
 canonic manner, the absolute transference of whole passages by means
 of a single note foreign to the scale, generally effected by an
 anticipation; all this had grown into a definite musical picture,
 extraordinarily sympathetic, in which soul and technique were united.
 With stern sadness the hands grip one within another, to bring out the
 “suppressed lyric” of the piano; and a delicate noble spirit guides
 them, which delights to express strange things in strange forms. With
 stern sadness, as in the style of Jean Paul, and right in the midst of
 the music, where an answering voice intrudes itself, Schumann writes
 over the notes the words, “Meine Ruh ist hin”--my peace has departed.
 This is not as text, but merely as a comment by the way.

 Then came Op. 5, free variations in romantic style, on a theme by
 Clara Wieck; and Op. 6, called “Davidsbündlertänze.” They were
 dedicated to Walther von Goethe, and bore as motto the old proverb:--

    “In all’ und jeder Zeit verknüpft sich Lust und Leid;
    Bleibt fromm in Lust, und seyd dem Leid mit Mut bereit.”

    [In all and every time, our joy and sorrow meet:
    Gird up thy loins and go, bravely thy fate to greet.]

 In the later revised edition Schumann cut out this good old saying,
 as he omitted so much of the first and heartfelt edition. “Two
 readings may often be of equal value,” says Eusebius once in the
 aphorisms. “The original one is usually the best,” adds Raro. Why did
 not Schumann follow his own Raro? Raro was the most delicate of the
 “Davidsbündler.” He was in his irony, which had drunk deep of worldly
 wisdom, raised far above the storm and stress of Florestan and the
 gentle, simple complaisance of Eusebius. In Florestan there was much
 of Beethoven, in Eusebius an echo of Schubert. Raro was to surpass and
 combine them in a higher unity. But Raro is just--rare.

 The “Davidsbündler” declare war on the Philistines, and of an evening
 bring their dances together, which are then published in a single
 volume. Florestan contributes the stormy ones, Eusebius the gentle
 ones; while Raro puts in his word as seldom as in actual life. Such
 bands of Romanticists we have heard of before; we think of Hoffmann’s
 Serapion Brothers, and their zeal against the Philistines. Herz and
 Hünten, and all the musical lions of the drawing-room were to be put
 aside. There was still music after Beethoven. David’s companions
 meant, like their prototype, to put the Philistines under a harrow.
 Even the explanatory notes of his “Bündler” were cut out by Schumann
 in his later revised edition. He smiled perhaps at the beautiful
 fancies of his youth, when he seemed to carry three temperaments
 warring in his soul. And yet this fictitious society was the truest
 expression of his romantic soul, in which living music and literary
 reflection met together. They were his fellow-workers in his life’s
 work, whom he could never renounce.

 The moment had come when the world busied itself with Schumann in
 somewhat wider circles. It asked after his private circumstances,
 and gained the answer--surprising, and yet no longer utterly
 surprising--that here an academically educated man had become a
 musician--a phenomenon long unknown, and only possible in this new
 era of art, in which one could give oneself up to composition without
 having to wait for a commission for each single work.

 [Illustration: Engraving by M. Lämmel]

 Schumann had attended the Zwickau Gymnasium in due course; and at
 eighteen, in 1828, he entered the legal profession at Leipzig. His
 piano-lessons under Frederick Wieck of course attracted him far more
 than jurisprudence; and when, after an interval spent at Heidelberg,
 he returned to Leipzig, the die was cast. The letter to his mother in
 which he announces his decision is to-day interesting for the light
 it throws on his intentions. Naturally, he thought of the career of
 a virtuoso; and, in order to make his fingers supple, he hung one
 of them in a sling while practising, with the result that first the
 finger and then the whole hand was maimed, and Schumann was saved
 for pure composition. Composition is soon intimately knit with love
 for Clara Wieck, the daughter of his teacher, whose great talent
 was to compensate him for his own lost power. We cannot forget his
 youthful letters to Clara, which form the conclusion of the edition
 of “Schumann’s Letters,” which she issued. Never were more lyrical
 letters written. He dedicates to Clara his whole power of creation;
 it is she that lives in all his pieces, and to create was to think of
 her. Before this he tells her legends and supernatural tales. “Look
 now at your old Robert; is he not still the frivolous ghost-tale
 teller and terrifier? But now I can be very serious too, often the
 whole day long--but don’t trouble about that--they are generally
 processes in my soul, thoughts on music and compositions. Everything
 touches me that goes on in the world--politics, literature, people.
 I think after my own fashion of everything that can express itself
 through music, or can escape by means of it. This is why many of my
 compositions are so hard to understand, because they are bound up with
 very remote associations, and often very much so because everything
 of importance in the time takes hold of me and I must express it in
 musical form. And this, too, is why so few compositions satisfy my
 mind, because, apart from all defect in craftsmanship, the ideas
 themselves are often on a low plane, and their expression is often
 commonplace. The highest that is here attained scarcely reaches to the
 beginning of what is aimed at in my music. The former may be a flower,
 the latter is the poem, so much the more spiritual; the one is an
 impulse of raw nature; the other the work of poetical consciousness.”

 In these words Schumann penetrated into his own heart; and there is
 nothing to be added to this characterisation of his literary music.
 The new type existed in its purity; namely, the musician, standing
 on the height of the representative art of the time, of which type
 Wagner was the best expression. There is a strange likeness in these
 two opposed natures. What in Wagner passed over into the external, in
 Schumann passed into the intimate. Where the one carries us along with
 him in an intoxicating rush, the latter is a personal enjoyment for
 retiring souls. The one lives in the orchestra, and plays the piano
 badly; the other dreamed first for the piano, then for the chorus, and
 never was able to express himself tolerably through the orchestra.
 Wagner never burst into tears, like Schumann, when he before his
 wanderings played for the last time on the beloved instrument which
 had heard all the sorrows and joys of his youth. And Wagner never
 wrote to Madame Cosima as Schumann wrote to Clara: “You speak in your
 last of a cosy place where you would like to have me--do not aim too
 high--I ask no better surroundings than a piano and you close by. You
 will never be a kapellmeisterin in your life; but inwardly we are a
 match for any pair of kapellmeisters, are we not? You understand me.”

 This man of delicate feeling, who wished to reduce piano-culture to
 a system, was editor of a paper, which he founded at Leipzig in the
 year 1834, along with certain friends and men of like tastes, of
 whom he seems to have valued most Schunke, who died very soon. This
 “New Magazine of Music” was Schumann’s special medium, and in it he
 published his splendid and very spirited criticisms and aphorisms;
 later, when Brendel purchased it from him, it was of equal use to
 Wagner, his exact opposite. Till 1844 Schumann edited it for the most
 part personally; and his position aided the spread of his works,
 which laid themselves out so little for popular success. Still more
 effective was the career of his betrothed, who because of certain
 awkward obstacles only became his wife in 1840. This was his most
 productive year. It saw the appearance of a hundred and thirty-eight
 songs, and of the cycle of Heine’s lyrics (Op. 24). If the betrothed
 Clara and the piano were spiritually united, the married Clara and the
 song were equally so. Thus the songs stand precisely midway between
 his youthful piano-writings and the orchestral and choral efforts of
 his later years. And indeed the piano succeeds better in them than in
 any song hitherto written. The accompaniments of “Du, meine Seele” or
 of the F sharp major “Ueberm Garten durch die Lüfte,” are minute and
 scrupulous pieces of artistic work.

 The eighteen “Davidsbündler,” Schumann’s first complete piano-work,
 were composed in 1837. Clara contributed the first bars--a cheerful
 musical motto. Schumann was fond of accepting his first bars as
 gifts from friends. The Romancist was fond of these incursions into
 actuality, this poetry in the real. As the letters A B E G G had once
 taken his fancy, so later did A S C H. And once he wrote in Gade’s
 family album a piece on “Gade, Ade” (Gade, farewell).

 [Illustration: Clara Schumann, née Wieck.]

 Schumann’s music is characterised in few strokes; it is never
 hard to recognise its features. The interwoven melodies, the love
 of “anticipations,” the rollicking humour, which might almost be
 borrowed from old drinking songs, the contrapuntal collisions of the
 bass on which the light waltz flutters down, the cheerfully pensive
 codas, the restlessness of his syncopated rhythms, the sweet lulling
 romantic tone mingled with wild and vigorous march-motives, the full
 effect of broken chord passages of mounting fifths, the conclusions
 of the sections abruptly broken off by a staccato chord--all these
 were to be seen in spring-like freshness in the “Davidsbündler.” We
 have there the “einfaches stück” of Eusebius, the free recitative
 in No. 7 beginning with arpeggiando chords for the left hand. Next,
 “Florestan’s lips quiver.” Then follow the extraordinarily beautiful
 E flat major (No. 14) with its airy melancholy; the staccato, passing
 humorously over into the “Wie aus der Ferne,” and finally “Happiness
 speaks out of his eyes.” Nothing so wonderfully simple, so old-new,
 so true, so German, had been painted on the piano since Schubert. And
 here was a yet more modern spirit--a mind whose depths were not merely
 over-flowed by the streams of music, but were pictured in delicate
 musical emotion. The construction is clean and simple; the language
 refined and lofty; the whole the consolidated improvisation of a mind
 standing at the highest point of representative art. More perfect
 improvisations it did not lie in the nature of the piano to produce.
 It was the high-water mark of piano literature.

 I pass rapidly over Op. 7, one of his earliest composed pieces,
 the toccata, brilliant in colouring, delicately chased, bold in
 construction, wonderful in technique; and Op. 8, a concert allegro,
 in which he, certainly in an unusual way compared with the literature
 of the time, sacrifices a little to popularity, and thereby crushes
 out certain beauties. I pass on to Op. 9, the “Scenes Mignonnes” of
 the carnival, in which neither technical nor concert problems were to
 be mastered. The motive of the carnival is A S C H, which is the name
 of the home of one of his musical lady friends and which contains all
 the letters of Schumann’s name which are adapted to the stave.[129] A
 bustling ball-play develops itself, Pierrot and Harlequin appear, a
 Valse Noble unites the parties, the mask of Eusebius is seen through,
 and the gentleness of Florestan is resumed, the Coquette frisks by,
 Papillons flutter round, and the letters A S C H dance a rapid waltz.
 Chiarina and Estrella, not unknown characters, are represented; and
 Chopin appears in person between them. A short recognition scene in
 the time of the Polonaise, in which we hear the dainty causeries
 among the marching rhythms--the miniature ballet of Pantaloon and
 Columbine--a comfortable allemande, into which Paganini suddenly darts
 with his most extravagant leaps; in the distance a gentle confession
 of love;--all comes again together in the polite and festal promenade
 of the couples. There is a pause; and then reminiscences run through
 the memory; one melody restlessly pursues another; room is made; the
 final effect comes; the “Davidsbündler” begin an abusive march against
 the Philistines; they roar out the Grandfather song--“Grandfather
 wedded my Grandmother dear, so Grandfather then was a bridegroom, I
 fear”--and the people enjoy it, till they all, with a “Down with the
 Philistines,” join in, and a galloping stretto finishes the boisterous
 amusement.

 The inscriptions Schumann inserted later. He took a literary delight
 in putting in an “Estrella,” as it is seen in old copper engravings.
 It was the pleasure of the delicate man of taste in labelling. But he
 laid no stress on this nomenclature; the relations indicated were as
 wide as before, when there were none of these labels. We are reminded
 of Couperin, whose miniature porcelain pictures were ticketed just
 like this moving panorama of tunes, and in surprisingly similar
 style. In both the titles were nothing but a halt in the midst of
 full musical representation; they involved no limitation, no point of
 departure. Under like tickets, works came into the world which were
 separated in time and in tone by whole centuries. Schumann himself
 almost thought the titles a trifle too theatrical. The Davidsbündler,
 he said, are related to the carnival like faces to masks.

 Among the works that followed, technical and purely musical gifts
 alternated. As Op. 10 we have further Paganini Études, with wide
 stretches, contrapuntal, transformed in the spirit of Schumann.
 Here, as before, the order of publication did not correspond to
 that of composition. The F sharp minor sonata (Op. 11) was begun
 contemporaneously with the Impromptus. It was dedicated to Clara.
 It is a romantic deepening of the sonata form, cast throughout in
 these small lyrical sections which are peculiar to the time, but here
 are held together by an internal unity. We must feel this unity in
 order not to cut up the work into mere fragments. An oceanic vastness
 spreads over it, whose tone is struck in the broad introduction. It
 has a first theme, contrapuntal in style, and a second of full-voiced
 melody; the working-out attaching new ideas half in imitative, half
 in étude fashion. On the third, the A, which drags itself over, the
 aria begins its deep-felt lament, in three melodies with the genuine
 Schumann-like coda, sighing itself away under the final slurs. The
 fresh staccato canon work of the scherzo carries us with it. Two
 wonderful trios introduce themselves, the second with the remarkable
 recitative. The conclusion is formed by a modest movement which is put
 together like a mosaic out of a stormy quaver theme, two cantabiles,
 a syncopated motive, a section in full chords and a stretto. We shall
 only feel the unity if we give our playing a touch of improvisation.
 In a word the case is this; in a sonata of Schumann what most charms
 us is the movements regarded separately; and in the movements, the
 separate passages. This Sonata, like the others of his works, must be
 considered as a volume of lyrical poems.

 The “Fantasie-stücke” were the next work. These again are a
 completed picture, for the most part broader in conception than the
 Davidsbündler, with which they were contemporaneous in composition.
 They were the ideal of delicate piano composition, and have remained
 so down to the present day. The sweet “Abendruhe,” the stormy
 “Aufschwung,” the dainty “Warum,” the capricious “Grillen,” the gloomy
 “Nachtscene,” in which Schumann was thinking of Hero and Leander, the
 “Fabel,” alternating in Ritornell and Staccato; the “Traumeswirren,”
 and the beautiful “Ende vom Lied,” whose humour sounds again
 wonderfully in the intellectual augmentation at the conclusion--all
 this formed an extraordinary picture-gallery. The height of art was
 attained in the “Nacht,” where the dark rolling accompaniment, the
 solitary sighs in the gloomy air, the deep returns to darkness, the
 gently sounding and wild shrieking cries and emotional songs, over the
 gurgling accompanying figure which runs through the whole, made one of
 the immortal piano-pieces.

 A more purely technical work was the Études Symphoniques, written in
 1834 simultaneously with the Carnival, on a theme of Fricken’s. These
 variations are as significant for Schumann as the Goldberg variations
 for Bach or the Diabelli variations for Beethoven. They are a breviary
 of all specialities in expression. All Schumann’s characteristics
 were here: the strongly accented fugue, the tied notes with repeated
 chord accompaniment, the cantabile with broken chords, the staccato
 chords in canon, the dotted rhythms of Var. IV., the complicated
 syncopations of Var. V., the bold phrasing of Var. VI., the Bach-like
 style of Var. VII., the hurrying rush of semiquavers in Étude IX., the
 duet of voices with tremolo accompaniment in Var. IX., the march with
 contrapuntal treatment on pedal points which concludes the work--all
 was here; and all was made into a delicate étude in which that union
 of technique and poetry was constantly completing itself in fresh form.

 In the Sonata (or concerto) “without orchestra” (Op. 14) which he
 recast later without introducing much warmth of feeling, we observe
 chiefly the strong influence of Bach, which informs the last movement.
 If we look closely, indeed, we shall be often reminded of Bach
 in the last works, particularly in the Symphonic Études. Certain
 slurred ornamental figures, certain tricks of accompaniment, the
 play of dotted and triplet rhythms, the canonic carrying-out of the
 theme, left no doubt that Schumann had been trained on Bach, and
 that he had strengthened his musical consciousness by the study of
 a music in which there is not a superfluous line. The Letters make
 this certain. In 1832 he sat over the Wohltemperiertes Klavier, his
 Grammar, and occupied himself in analysing the fugues down to their
 minutest ramifications. “The use of such a process is great, and has
 a morally strengthening influence upon the whole man; for Bach was
 a man, through and through; in him there is nothing half-finished,
 nothing halting; all is written for eternity.” All this has a special
 and peculiar influence on Schumann. The abstract music of a Bach is
 mingled with the concrete representative secondary aims of romance,
 which find an entrance all the more easily as this absolute art,
 free from all words and all that is ephemeral, is by far the most
 expressive to the profoundly musical spirit. Bach’s art expresses
 every phase of feeling, and the emotions are so wide-embracing that
 they never find a boundary in the domain of reality. This art is the
 original realm of all transcendental desires. “The profound power of
 combination, poetry and humour in the new music,” wrote Schumann in
 1846, “has its origin for the most part in Bach. Mendelssohn, Bennett,
 Chopin, Hiller, the so-called Romantics, as a whole, stand far nearer
 to Bach than to Mozart; for as a whole they know Bach through and
 through. I myself daily confess to this high power, to purify myself,
 and to strengthen myself through him.”

 Along with Bach was mingled in his mind the author Hoffmann. There
 was a remarkable elective affinity in the sympathies of his nature.
 The “profoundly-combining” Bach took the place of Jean Paul, and the
 story-teller Hoffmann took the place of Schubert. The twists and
 turns of a writer, whose style might be called “contrapuntal,” found
 their continuation in the musician who brought all counterpoint into
 a wonderful “incommensurable” harmony; and the popular simplicity of
 a musician found its complement in the dreamy lyricism of a genius
 who had formed perhaps a more beautiful anticipation of the whole
 music of our century than its actual state has realised. This poet,
 himself a musician, valued the most romantic of all arts, “one might
 almost say, the only genuine romantic art; for its subject-matter is
 the eternal: music opens to man an unknown realm which has nothing
 in common with the external world of sense, and in which he leaves
 behind all defined feelings in order to give himself up to an
 inexpressible longing.” And the poet leads us into a realm of magic.
 In the “Kreisleriana,” the garden into which the author leads us is
 full of tone and song. The stranger comes up to the young squire and
 tells him of many distant and unknown lands, and strange men and
 animals; and his speech dies away into a wonderful tone, in which he
 expresses unknown and mysterious things, intelligibly, yet without
 words. But the castle maiden follows his enticements, and they meet
 every midnight at the old tree, none venturing to approach too near
 the strange melodies that sound therefrom. Then the castle maiden lies
 pierced through under the tree, and the lute is broken; but from her
 blood grow mosses of wonderful colour over the stone, and the young
 Chrysostom hears the nightingale, which since then makes its nest and
 sings its song in the tree. At home his father is accompanying his old
 songs on the clavicymbal, and songs, mosses, and castle-maiden, are
 all fused in his mind into one. In the garden of tone and song all
 sorts of internal melodies rise in his heart, and the murmur of the
 words gives them their breath. He tries to set them to the clavier,
 but they refuse to come forth from their hiding-places. He closes the
 instrument, and listens to see whether the songs will not now sound
 forth more clearly and brightly; for--“I knew well that the tones must
 dwell there as if enchanted.”

 Out of a world like this floated all sorts of compositions into
 Schumann’s mind, as once from the “Flegeljahre” of Jean Paul. Thence
 came the “Scenes of Childhood,” where we listen to tales of foreign
 lands and men, and dream by the hearth, and play Blind-Man’s Buff,
 and then bend forward to hear, for the Poet is speaking. They are his
 miniature painting; of a gentle ineffable grace. Only a “Romantic” can
 love children thus. Schumann himself had a particular fondness for
 these little pieces, whose smallness was their very essence.

 [Illustration: Louis Böhner, the original of Hoffmann’s Kreisler.
 Engraved by Freytag.]

 From Hoffmann also came the inspiration of the “Kreisleriana,” so
 called after Hoffmann’s tale of the eccentric Kapellmeister Kreisler.
 In 1834 Ludwig Böhner, the original of Kreisler, met Schumann. Once
 “as famous as Beethoven,” he jeered at men till they now jeer at him.
 In his Improvisations, here and there, we catch a glimpse of the old
 brilliancy; but elsewhere it is all dark and waste. “Had I time,” says
 Schumann, “I should like to write _ana_ of Böhner to the papers. He
 himself has given me plenty of material. In his life there has been
 too much both of joy and of sorrow.” Here was a happy conjuncture for
 Schumann’s genius. A suggestive bit of life, and its poetic setting
 by Hoffmann, which had first appeared to him as literature, was
 transformed into music, and a work was born whose title, as so often,
 he borrowed from a fiction with whose contents it had but little
 connection, except as suggesting the groundwork. The “Kreisleriana”
 was his greatest work. The artist who brings life itself, gently
 transfigured by literary art, into musical emotion, never before or
 since became so clear a personality. The piano has advanced into the
 midst of a life-culture. A thousand threads run from all sides into
 this intimate web in which the whole lyrical devotion of a musical
 soul is interwoven. The piano is the orchestra of the heart. The joys
 and sorrows which are expressed in these pieces were never put into
 form with more sovereign power. For the external form Bach gave the
 impulse; for the content, Hoffmann. The garlanded roses of the middle
 section of No. 1, the shimmering blossoms of the “inverted” passage in
 the “Langsamer” of No. 2, the immeasurable depth of the emotions in
 the slow pieces (4 and 6), the bass unfettered by accent, in the final
 bars of No. 8, leading down to the final whisperings, are all among
 the happiest of inspirations.

 [Illustration: The last piece in Schumann’s “Kreisleriana,” main
 movement. After the autograph in the possession of Baroness Wilhelm
 von Rothschild, Frankfort a.M. Differs from the printed edition, being
 simpler and more massive.]

 The Kreisleriana are dedicated to Chopin; the Fantasia Op. 17 to
 Liszt. We are on the height on which the first artists of the piano
 are greeting each other; on which breathes the purest atmosphere of
 this intimate music; we are on the heights of a culture which has
 become the dominating power of the world. The Fantasia is, so to
 speak, a confession of this devotion. In its first movement there
 is an undefinable romantic feeling as of the words woven round a
 legendary theme (he called it first the “Ruin”), with mysterious
 passages, answering voice-parts, mystic ghostly calls. In the
 second there is the grand triumph, a panegyric on technique and
 toil--he called it the “Gate of Victory.” In the third is the
 poetic transfiguration (at first called “Star-picture”), with its
 ethereal dances and the dying sound of harps, and the sweeping
 mist, broken chords with pedal, resolved in rubato, over which
 descend the mournful melodies.[130] The first movement is not free
 from the variation-technique of the time; the second is a tribute
 to virtuosity; the third, a half Schubert. Contrasted with the
 Kreisleriana of 1838 we recognise an earlier style of 1836, and we
 wonder at the strong power of progressive development in Schumann--a
 power, which, strange to say, some would deny to him. But the Fantasia
 was so happily _felt_ that it despised time and still to-day stands
 in the forefront. As there are Études which seem to hold out a hand
 to Romance, so here Romance held out a hand to technique; and the
 Fantasia, in its three forms, remained a classic monument of all the
 contemporary tendencies. When Schumann published it he cut out the
 old inscriptions, its profits being devoted to assisting in erecting
 the Beethoven monument at Bonn, and wrote above the first movement
 this motto from Schlegel: “Through every tone there passes, to him who
 deigns to list, in varied earthly dreaming, a tone of gentleness.”

 In the productive year 1838, before the Scenes of Childhood, Schumann
 had written three books of “Novellettes,” which were now published for
 the first time and dedicated to Henselt. Springing from his happiest
 period the music flows as if of its own accord, and its framework
 is admirable. They are the most subtle pieces conceivable for the
 piano, and the most popular of his compositions, neat and regular
 music. Their construction is transparent; the sections arranged
 for contrasted effects. In the first piece we have the March, the
 Cantabile, and the Canon; in the second the glitter of semiquavers and
 the delicate rocking Intermezzo; in the third the humorous Staccato
 and the wild B minor section; in the fourth the dance and the song
 mingle with the staccatos of the sequences; in the fifth a Polonaise,
 in a style approached by few, and Intermezzi in legato, cantabile,
 and staccato; in the sixth and seventh the effective contrasts of
 scherzo, canon, and cantabile; in the eighth an air in duet alternates
 with several trios; all kinds of sections are attached, a voice from
 afar, and free repetitions, as if everything left over had been thrown
 into it. They are unsurpassed, wonderfully dainty pieces; but the
 Kreisleriana were an experience.

 The charming smoothness of the Novellettes was no longer alien to
 Schumann’s feelings. The older he grew the more he strove to attain
 a “dry light,” which might easily prove dangerous to his romantic
 temperament. He began to despise the exuberance of his youthful works.
 We cannot, in reading the last piano works of Schumann, restrain a
 certain feeling of pain. Where once the stream bubbled and sparkled,
 it now flowed too evenly; where before the music was _felt_, it
 is now constructed. A new ideal comes slowly into the circle of
 Schumann’s sympathies, and that was Mendelssohn. He not only admired
 Mendelssohn’s greatness, placing him perhaps even above Chopin, but,
 as his works show, he envied his constraining plastic art, which
 possibly he mistook for monumental calm.

 In piano-literature Mendelssohn is the composer for young girls, the
 elegant romancist of the drawing-room. From the sphere of polite
 literature, where passion must be trimmed and neat, and where there is
 no sentence passed without amiability, and a smiling _laissez-faire_
 rules the day, there penetrates into glowing romance the limitation
 of this neatness, and a formality well adapted to the drawing-room.
 The old Volkslieder, the simple Ritornells, the tones of aspiration in
 forgotten old airs, the dances of elves, the moonlight love-scenes,
 are all brought on to a parquet for the delectation of comfortable
 people. It is a gilt-edged lyricism, without any unbefitting
 exhibition of unseemly feeling; a mere art of perfumery compared
 with Bach and Schubert. The development of the pieces shall exhibit
 nothing to shock; it shall run on in the most intelligible manner. A
 dainty accompaniment-figure is formed, which plays some bars alone;
 then follows the melodious and soothing theme, which moves in certain
 sequences and delights to rock itself to and fro on related degrees
 of the scale. The strophic divisions are clearly defined; small
 cadenzas mark the main sections; and at the conclusion there appears
 a miniature canon or a vigorous episode, which leaves behind a good
 impression on the mind of the satisfied listener.

 At the head of this enormous branch of piano-literature stands
 Mendelssohn. His “Songs without words,” of which six books appeared
 in his life and two more after his death, gave the decisive form to
 this class of Short Story in music. All the technical devices of the
 time, the wide stretches, the broken accompaniments, the multiplicity
 of rhythms, are here adapted to the drawing-room. The Volkslieder are
 put, as it were, into evening dress. That in A minor is surrounded
 towards the conclusion with octaves, which are merely technical, and
 without emotional significance. The Funeral March, compared with that
 of a Beethoven, is as if it were written for a set of marionettes. The
 Spring Song is, so to speak, set on wires. And all is so beautiful, so
 objectionably beautiful! It tells us all through that it is beautiful,
 and the composer moves his head to and fro with the music, and says,
 “How beautiful it is!” Until at last, when we have grown to man’s
 estate, we can endure it all no longer; or at most we take up once
 again from time to time this or that song, preferably one in quick
 time--perhaps the Spinning-Song, the best of all.[131]

 From these drawing-room romances of Mendelssohn one piece is to be
 taken apart, as equally pleasing both to young and to old. This
 is the Elf-music. Such music, with its gay dancing of gnomes,
 intermingled with a slightly sentimental air, was wonderfully suited
 to Mendelssohn’s genius. He never surpassed his overture to the
 Midsummer-Night’s Dream, written at seventeen. There are four of
 these “Elf” or “Kobold” pieces for the piano. The first, in the
 Character-Pieces, Op. 7, begins in E major, shoots rapidly past,
 and ends very daintily in the minor. The second, Op. 16, 2, begins
 on the contrary in E minor, and concludes in a very spirited fashion
 in the major--a very poetical little Battle of the Mice, with tiny
 fanfares and dances, all kinds of squeaks, and runnings to and fro
 of a captivating grace. The third is the Rondo Capriccioso (Op. 14),
 for which all piano-players have a deadly hatred, but which is much
 prettier than we are inclined to think to-day, when it is worn out.
 Finally we have the F sharp minor Scherzo, which was written for the
 “Album des Pianistes,” with dotted, staccato, and singing themes, and
 stands out among his pieces.

 [Illustration: Head of Mendelssohn, after Hildebrand.]

 Mendelssohn was one of the few great musicians, whose whole life,
 from cradle to the grave, was lived in sunshine and happiness. From
 his joyous youth to his European renown as head of the Leipzig
 Conservatorium his life was a round of serenity, and at its zenith he
 might well die. Sunshine and happiness are in his works; storm never
 breaks in, no sigh moves to tears. His storms and sighings never
 forget their artistic calm. His pieces cast friendly glances on all
 sides, and are quite conscious of the friendly glances they receive in
 return. As beautifully as their author played--he played rarely but
 willingly in concerts--they present their technique, so popular, so
 charming; sounding more difficult to play than they are. The technical
 content is chiefly rapid staccato, whether of single notes or chords;
 the ornamentation of melodies in arpeggio; brilliant repetitions
 obtained by rapid alternation of the two hands; free obligato use of
 the pedal; and a showy use of a facile right hand.

 These find their most popular expression in the conclusion of the
 Serenade, in the first movement of the D minor Concerto, and in the E
 minor Prelude. Popular even ad nauseam are the Concert-pieces, the B
 minor capriccio (the favourite fantasia with march-conclusion), and
 the two piano concertos, all of which are practically in one movement,
 with partial repeats. In technique these appear to owe an obligation
 to Weber, for whom Mendelssohn had a heartfelt admiration.

 The third group of Mendelssohn’s piano works, along with the “Short
 Stories” and the concertos, are the “Bachiana,” or, more properly,
 “Handeliana.” An æsthetic historic sense is a rooted characteristic
 of the romantic spirit. Mendelssohn’s studies in Bach and Handel had
 a great influence on his development, and are plainly shown in some
 of the “Seven Character-Pieces,” with their soft, gentle, old-world
 conduct of the melodies, and the clever fugal movement which seems
 to set an ancient counterpoint on to Mendelssohnian harmonies. Here
 belongs the Fantasia, Op. 28, with its three contrapuntal movements;
 also the famous E minor fugue and its companions in Op. 35, with the
 appended chorale and the pompously smooth partwriting, fall into
 this place. It is constructed entirely differently from the fugue
 of Bach, which grows up from within; it is a grafting of a fugato on
 the trunk of a drawing-room piece. Finally, we recall the “Variations
 sérieuses,” composed in 1841, the purest, most solid, most massive
 work that Mendelssohn ever wrote for the piano, without a suspicion of
 triviality, filled full with intellectual outlines and harmonies, a
 splendid erection, but--throughout dependent on Schumann.

 We have thus returned to Schumann, whom Mendelssohn so nobly repaid
 for his admiration. This elegant composer, who, whether as poet, as
 concertist, or as a follower of Bach, was always equally clear and
 plastic, might well appear to Schumann the fulfilment of his own aims.
 He had not wavered as to whether he was called to be a musician,
 though he had perhaps regarded business as the easier course. At his
 pieces he had toiled as Heine toiled at one of those smooth-flowing
 poems of his. The doubt may well have often recurred to him whether
 the flow was checked. But from this Mendelssohn the music flowed so
 easily from the fingers, and stood so clear and transparent before
 him. At one time he believes that the stream is clear, and he rejoices
 over the speed with which he finishes twelve sheets in a week. This
 work was the “Humoreske,” which entirely puts aside the earlier
 fragmentary romance, and throws all, joy and sorrow, into the same
 crucible. Thus we gain a piece bearing all the marks of decadent
 imitation of Bach’s traditions, and even of those of Schumann himself,
 in spite of isolated, delicate, lyrical traits, which occur specially
 in the G minor section (Einfach und Zart). We are now in March 1839.
 Schumann writes to Clara, asking her why she chooses the Carnival to
 introduce him to people who do not know him. Why not rather choose the
 Fantasie Stücke, in which one does not nullify the other, and in which
 there is a comfortable breadth? “You like best storm and lightning
 at once, and always something new that has never been.” Then also
 he put his “Arabesque” and his “Blumen-stück” together, which has
 nothing but the title in common with Jean Paul. As a matter of fact,
 nothing was new, and everything had been. It had become a question
 whether the limits of the possibilities of the piano had not already
 been overpassed. As Op. 22 he brought out the Sonata in G minor,
 which he had composed earlier; a piece, compared with the F sharp
 minor, rounded and of satisfying content. The final pithy movement
 he replaced by one of neater and smoother character. It is sad to
 hear him, in his letters, speaking with great _empressement_ of the
 Nacht-stücke (Op. 23) and then to find that there is nothing special
 in them. As Op. 26 appeared the “Carnival Jest” (Faschings-schwank)
 which brought back his old style of the “short story,” but forced
 into a sort of sonata-arrangement. The vigorous “Reveillé” in F
 sharp major, the fine painting of the restless bustle, the beautiful
 Romance, the delicate simplicity of the Scherzino, with its canonic
 conclusion, the singing Intermezzo, which in breadth and value on
 the whole surpassed Mendelssohn--all these have ill prepared us for
 the great falling off in the Finale. This piece was Schumann’s last
 great utterance on the “subjective” piano. In the meanwhile the Song
 had taken him captive, and dominated his whole nature. In Schumann
 development proceeded almost according to classes. After the Song came
 chamber-music, then chorus, then the symphony.

 Among his later piano-pieces we find all sorts in various
 styles--partly interesting as showing an advance upon himself,
 partly, alas, mere decadent imitations of himself. The fulness of
 ideas and of titles is quite astonishing in his “Jugendalbum,” in his
 “Albumblätter” containing the dainty Slumber Song, and in the “Bunte
 Blätter” containing the Geschwind-marsch. The most delicate aftermath
 of Romance proper was the “Waldscenen” in which the “Eintritt” and the
 “Verrufene Stelle” are worthy of a musical Hoffmann. The Hunting Song
 is in the style of Mendelssohn. As late fruits of the intimate piano
 lyric appear the sweet variations for two pianos, which we cannot
 choose but love, the four-handed Eastern Pictures (Bilder aus dem
 Osten), in which Chopin plays a part, and the Songs of Early Morning,
 and to Bettina, which show a beautiful touch of a later style, often
 reaching the borders of motives from Parsifal. But most important
 were certain concertos. Of these the limpid A minor, dedicated to
 Hiller--the first movement of which was composed earlier--in its
 freedom and colouring recalling Beethoven, and finally showing traces
 of Chopin’s influence, is a perfect work. Finally, we must not omit
 the Concert Allegro (Op. 134) dedicated to Brahms, a brilliant
 creation, often recalling Bach, with a theme very much in the style
 of Brahms, and many interesting repetitions of earlier figures of
 Schumann’s own. Why has it been almost forgotten?

 Like Schubert throughout his music, so has Schumann in his
 chamber-music left us his youth. He broke off the regular practice
 of it at about the same time of life as that at which Schubert
 died. During the next fourteen years a slow decline in the artistic
 freshness of his works made itself noticeable; and finally, alas, his
 genius deserted him.

       *       *       *       *       *

 At this time some one wrote: “Thalberg is a king, Liszt a prophet,
 Chopin a poet, Herz a lawyer, Kalkbrenner a troubadour, Madame Pleyel
 a sibyl, Döhler a pianist.” The reader will observe that Schumann
 is not even mentioned in this list. In Paris, as yet, he did not
 count. There was an utter absence of the frivolous in his music, and
 it had none of the qualities which were likely to conquer the great
 world. Chopin scarcely ever required his pupils to play the works of
 Schumann, and would seem to have had very little taste for them. On
 the other hand, it was Schumann who gave an impulse to the popularity
 of Chopin’s works in his magazine, as early as the appearance of the
 Variations on the theme “Reich’ mir die Hand” (Op. 2). Indeed, the
 rapid and enduring fame in Germany of Schumann’s only true rival was
 due to Schumann himself.

 “Chopin a poet.” It has become a very bad habit to place this poet
 in the hands of our youth. The concertos and polonaises being put
 aside, no one lends himself worse to youthful instruction than
 Chopin. Because his delicate touches inevitably seem perverse to the
 youthful mind, he has gained the name of a morbid genius. The grown
 man who understands how to play Chopin, whose music begins where
 that of another leaves off, whose tones show the supremest mastery
 in the tongue of music,--such a man will discover nothing morbid in
 him. Chopin, a Pole, strikes sorrowful chords, which do not occur
 frequently to healthy normal persons. But why is a Pole to receive
 less justice than a German? We know that the extreme of culture is
 closely allied to decay; for perfect ripeness is but the foreboding of
 corruption. Children, of course, do not know this. And Chopin himself
 would have been much too noble ever to lay bare his mental sickness to
 the world. And his greatness lies precisely in this, that he preserves
 the mean between immaturity and decay.

 His greatness is his aristocracy. He stands among musicians in his
 faultless vesture, a noble from head to foot. The sublimest emotions,
 towards whose refinement whole generations had tended, the last things
 in our soul, whose foreboding is interwoven with the mystery of the
 Judgment Day, have in his music found their form. At this Judgment
 Day appears to be expressed what man kept dark within himself, and
 shuddering sought to hide from the light. Now it has become free
 without becoming plebeian; it has been uttered without becoming
 trivial. This miracle is sung by geniuses, who are not cold as marble,
 nor of such unreal beauty that we, to our horror, are constrained to
 believe that there is an anti-human classicism. No; the angels bear
 those delicate features as they weave nobility and joy into one.
 These are Polish piquancies, tender and shining eyes of inner fire,
 with happy heavy lids, and gently curved outlines, in which pride and
 spirit blend together; speaking lips, which have something sweet to
 say, and gentle, melting contours.

 [Illustration: Chopin. Anonymous Lithograph, after portrait by Ary
 Scheffer (1795-1858).]

 Chopin gave recitals but rarely. In his youth--who was ever, as a
 youth, without visions of a virtuoso-life?--he sometimes did so;
 but even then with little enthusiasm. If he was heard in Paris, it
 was at very select matinées at the Pleyel salon, to which only with
 difficulty was admission to be obtained. The exiled aristocracy of
 Poland, the world of Parisian art and letters, and ladies, sat
 around and listened. _Réunions intimes_, _concerts de fashion_, as
 Liszt called them, were the purest piano-recitals ever given. The
 artist knew his audience; and in that small circle there was free
 play for the isolated poesy which sounded from the instrument. A
 delicate genius had won back for the piano its reserved nobility.
 There was here no _fracas pianistique_, no noisy circus-scene before
 a many-headed, unknown, indeterminate public; but courtly culture
 without the court. When in 1834 Chopin gave a great recital in the
 Italian Opera, he was undeceived by the want of response which he
 found, and necessarily found, in those great halls, which only
 dissipated his dainty playing. He said to Liszt, “I am not fitted for
 public playing. The public frightens me, its breath chokes me, I am
 paralysed by its inquisitive gaze, and affrighted at these strange
 faces; but you, you are meant for it. If you can’t win the love of the
 public, you can astonish it and deafen it.”

 Chopin once said of himself that he was in this world like the E
 string of a violin on a contrabass. His finely-strung nature sought
 retirement, and fate had given him precisely that longing for rest
 and harmony which of necessity made the contrabass of this world
 excessively painful to him. He ran restlessly from one abode to
 another, till he found in the Place de Vendôme the best for dying
 in; he became more and more retiring, called for peaceful pearl-gray
 carpets, and gave full play to all his decorative emotions, which are
 the external proof of a harmonic soul. The art of his life was driven
 into isolation, into inclusion in the sacred recesses of his musical
 poems; and he knew well how so to level his life to the external
 observer, that the biographers--apart from his one great passion--had
 never so uneventful a life to record. The well-known description of
 an evening with the master, which Liszt gives in his fanciful but yet
 so true biography of Chopin, is so rich in character that reality
 itself could hardly have done it better. A melting twilight in the
 room, the dark corners seeming to produce themselves into infinity,
 the furniture covered with white hangings, no candle except by the
 piano and by the fireside. We distinguish Heine, Meyerbeer, the tenor
 Nourrit, Hiller Delacroix, the unemotional Minkiewicz, the gray-haired
 Niemcewicz, and George Sand with propped arm leaning back in a chair.
 The people stand round Chopin in the twilight, and hardly know whence
 these magic tones come. [The English reader will recall the exquisite
 description of Chopin’s playing in Crawford’s romance “With the
 Immortals.”]

 We can easily see why Chopin could never compose duets. Not only
 did he devote himself exclusively to the piano--he wrote nothing in
 which the piano does not bear a part--but he broke with the custom of
 writing duets for one or two pianos. A single Rondo for two pianos,
 of the year 1828, was found among his remains. How he smiled once
 at Czerny, who “had composed another overture for eight pianos and
 sixteen persons, and was very happy over it.” Chopin opened to the two
 hands a wider world than Czerny could give to thirty-two. And further,
 he selects and rejects with great care before publishing. He prints
 nothing which does not absolutely satisfy his mind both as a whole and
 in its details.

 Between his youth in Poland--which was soon closed to him on political
 grounds--and his last journey through England and Scotland, his stay
 in France stretches like a peaceful background of exclusively artistic
 activity. A thousand anecdotes cluster round him, but only a few of
 them have stood the test of criticism and comparison. In his “Life of
 Chopin”--and there are few musical biographies equally good--Niecks
 has collected everything that is told, and all the arguments against
 the authenticity of the various tales. Even upon that famous scene,
 in which the Countess Potocka sings the dying Chopin to his eternal
 slumber, the traditions are contradictory. There are few letters to
 help us. Chopin was too reserved to write them. It was said that he
 would rather go right through Paris to decline an invitation by word
 of mouth than write his excuse. And of the few letters he actually
 did write, the best appear to have been burnt in the sack of Warsaw.
 Nevertheless there is a certain charm in being thus obliged, as it
 were, to see him in shadow.

 [Illustration: George Sand, in man’s dress. Lithograph by Cecilia
 Brandt.]

 A sweet tie bound him to his native country. The fundamental
 characteristic of the Poles, who united the merits of the Gaul and of
 the Slav, that character of modesty and resignation, of sadness and of
 reminiscence, flowed all the purer into the works of the artist. It
 was easy to see that almost every one of Chopin’s compositions, even
 if it was _not_ a Mazurka, sprang from the rhythm and sentiment of
 the Mazur (Magyar) music; but it had been all steeped in the spirit
 of the Parisian life. A _milieu_ of his own was here, of a charming
 and cultivated kind, of which there are but few; the _milieu_ of fair
 Polish ladies, who in Paris lived for their aspirations and their
 temperaments. As Liszt said, the French alone saw in the daughters of
 Poland a yet unknown ideal: the other nations had not the slightest
 suspicion that there was anything worthy of admiration in these
 elusive sylphs of the dance, who smiled so happily of an evening,
 and in the morning lay sobbing at the foot of the altar; in these
 apparently distracted travellers, who, if they journeyed through
 Switzerland, drew the curtains of their carriages lest the sight
 of the mountain-landscape should erase the memory of the limitless
 horizon of their own native plains. Is not this a paraphrase of
 Chopin’s music?

 That enigmatical daemon, whom fate had allowed to grow up within the
 walls of Paris--George Sand--was Chopin’s one grand passion. This was
 his one overmastering emotion--but its influence never faded. The
 beginning and the end of their association were varied a hundredfold.
 His love for her seems to have begun in hate and to have ended in it;
 hers began in dreaming, and ended with emotion; and, as she carried
 through the episode in actual life with _bel esprit_, so she clothed
 it poetically with the same. Who can reproach a Don Juan nature with
 wickedness? George Sand must have been wicked to play her vampire-part
 to the end. But there was nothing petty about the style in which she
 played it.

 The Powers were cruel who brought these two persons together. Now in
 Paris, now at George Sand’s country place at Nohant, now in travel,
 Fate compelled them to play this fearful comedy, in which, at bottom,
 neither truly knew or comprehended the other. The woman remained a
 _bel esprit_, and the artist remained a dreamer. And in the midst of
 the comedy stands the ridiculous idyll of Majorca, in which these
 two persons live near each other, in a prison of their souls. The
 man delicate and pining, with agile limbs, slight hands, slight
 feet, silky-brown hair, transparent complexion, finely-curved nose,
 quiet smile, voice muffled “like a creeper whose calyx rocks on the
 delicate stem, dressed in wonderful colours, but of such airy texture
 that it tears at the slightest motion.” The woman, with an ideal
 Greek countenance on a somewhat thick-set body; a face that might
 seem to have come down from earlier ages, as Heine describes it, but
 softened by a surprising gentleness--Musset’s “femme à l’œil sombre.”
 They sit in the midst of the cypresses, oranges, and myrtles in the
 deserted monastery of Valdemosa with its chapels, churches, carved
 statues, and moss-grown stonework. In the evening the populace come
 out and dance ghostlike boleros with castanets, or at other times the
 wind howls as if possessed and the rain falls without intermission.
 Eating is impossible; ships cannot come through the storm. A Pleyel
 piano, brought there with difficulty, stands in the deserted halls,
 and Chopin sits at it and shivers. He longs for home; and she is soon
 compelled to recognise that nothing increased his chest-complaint so
 much as this winter in Majorca, which she had aided him in planning.

 This winter in Majorca was that of 1838 and 1839. It has long been
 believed that it gave rise to Chopin’s Preludes. Some have even
 fancied they recognised in the dropping motives of some of them,
 especially the E minor, the B minor, and the D flat major, the effect
 of the constant rain of Majorca. The truth is that a large part of the
 Preludes were written, or half written, before this, and that only the
 last touches were given to them in Majorca. Nay, it is even possible
 that the mighty and fiery A major Polonaise was conceived and finished
 under the gloomy sky of Majorca. Dates are difficult to obtain, and
 also of very little importance. Chopin writes his works so entirely
 from the heart that they have very little dependence on the moment of
 their composition. The single case of an impulse of this kind would
 seem to be the news of the sack of Warsaw, upon which he is said to
 have written the stormy C minor Étude. Poetic influences, also, Polish
 or French, move him only as it were on the circumference. He is a
 delicately emotional nature, but far from a literary one.

 Chopin’s habit of conceiving his pieces as great wholes is precisely
 what renders an analysis of his works impossible. Chopin, with all the
 charms we know so well, with all his wide embracing harmonies, his
 spirited voice-outlines, is but one, and one whole: and this single
 Chopin takes now one, now another, isolated form, in which, from the
 original motives, ever fresh creations are fused together. In every
 piece he is entirely present. There are, it is true, a few weaker
 pieces of his youth; and Fontana has published a large stock from
 his remains (these are numbered from Op. 66 on)--a thing to which he
 would have objected; he hated this stirring of dead bones. But these
 pieces have now vanished even from the practising repertoire of the
 following generations. Certain lines can always be drawn over his
 general work. We see him, at first, plainly dominated by his only
 true forerunner, Hummel, for whom he felt a passionate admiration,
 and whose method of execution he has only further enlarged; so that
 in Chopin’s daintiest colourations a keen observer can detect the
 relics of the old “manieren” and ornamental flourishes. The E flat
 major Rondo, the Concert-Polonaise, and, above all, the two Concertos
 in E minor and F minor, show clearly the influence of Hummel, notably
 in their jerky insertion of étude-like murmuring motives, their
 simply broken accompaniment to the cantilena, their brilliant effects
 in the high registers, their easy drawing-room phrases, and their
 surprisingly Mozart-like charm in melodic line. But the concertos,
 the most fairy-like in the whole range of that class of literature,
 already point to regions so far out of the reach of Hummel that they
 cannot be exhaustively summed up under that category. Scarcely to
 be separated chronologically from them are the pure commencements
 of the genuine art of Chopin, which is clearly visible in the first
 Mazurkas, and stretches far into the forties. Even those remarkable
 spirited variations in B flat minor, dated 1833, on an operatic theme
 of Herold, in which Chopin seemed to make a concession to fashion,
 are not removed a hair’s breadth from the distinction of his best
 style. In 1840, a year so fruitful for Schumann also, appeared Op. 35
 to 50. Chopin was thirty-one, the age at which Schubert died. At last
 a certain later style has been marked off; restrained, contrapuntal,
 and yet unfettered. His most brightly-coloured examples he gave in the
 wildly poetical Barcarolle, the spiritual B major Nocturne, and the
 full-bodied Fantasia-Polonaise.

 Chopin’s work shows but few departures from his regular lines.
 Of these we may mention the beautiful pasticcio of the F minor
 Fantasia, which should be played with a sort of extempore laxity; the
 Barcarolle; the Tarantelle; the Bolero; and the refined Berceuse,
 in which, over the uniform accompaniment, a splendid succession
 of motives ascends or descends; which form an epitome of Chopin’s
 “manieren,” as the Goldberg Variations were of Bach’s, the Diabelli
 of Beethoven’s, or the C sharp minor of Schumann’s. Apart from these
 his pieces fall into symmetrical groups, each of which has its own
 pronounced character.

 His sonatas remain most strange to us; they are sonatas in the strict
 sense as little as the other sonatas by the Romantics. Chopin cares so
 little for form that he avoids the recurrence to the first theme. The
 whole falls into fragments: the B flat minor has its wild first theme
 and its dainty second; the capricious Scherzo, the Funeral March,
 which, alas! has become so popular (it was introduced into the Sonata
 only by an afterthought), and the spirited unisono storm of the last
 Presto, right on to the fortissimo concluding bar. But from the B
 minor Sonata, the sultry Largo, and the last movement, a kind of giant
 boating-piece, strike us as most remarkable.

 Chopin finds his true form in the Ballades and Scherzi. This is the
 extempore form, which even in the Impromptus has for long not been so
 unfettered. The dividing lines of the sections are drawn from free
 invention, and the thought is constrained by no scheme. An artistic
 order introduces the rhythm of the arrangement with which the moment
 would have been obliged to dispense. It is naturalism lifted into the
 sphere of discrete art.

 The improvised form is shown in the Preludes still more purely, but
 with less pretension. They are a succession of musical aphorisms, from
 the sketch to the finished piece, running through the gamut of all
 forms.

 In these Ballades, Scherzi and Preludes, we reach again one of those
 solitary peaks of piano literature in which improvisatorial invention
 and artistic construction meet again in a higher unity.

 The Études crown the efforts of this period, to bring technique
 and tune into the friendly relation peculiar to them. While we
 admire their mechanical value in point of polyrhythmical effects,
 wide stretches, double trills, independence of the left hand, airy
 piano-effects, freedom of the wrist, and quickness of finger-change,
 we praise their poetry, the grace of the C major or the magic of the A
 flat major, the solemnity of the C sharp minor, or the intoxication of
 the G flat major, the Titanic force of the C minor, or the melancholy
 of the E flat minor.

 The Nocturnes--with the silken web of the D flat major in their
 midst--are the high songs of melody which Chopin nowhere else has
 framed with such entrancing aspiration or such broad exclamatory
 sighs. But the dances are the high songs of rhythm, to which never yet
 was so intellectual a homage paid. The Polonaises have the _galant_
 and knightly features of the old Polish nobility; and Chopin’s head
 rears itself in them more proudly than one would have expected from
 his feminine nature. But the Mazurkas are bourgeois little joys,
 half bathed in sorrow, half crushing their pain in the jubilation of
 the rhythm--an unparalleled series of intellectual inspirations. In
 the Waltzes we have only a higher kind of Mazurkas, with less of the
 national spirit, like Poles in the Parisian drawing-room. The slow
 Waltz in A minor, not without reason, was dearest to Chopin’s own
 heart.

 Chopin’s playing was the rapture of his contemporaries. All agree that
 his individuality could only be made intelligible by himself. How long
 did Moscheles torment himself with the remarkable harmonic transitions
 which he found in Chopin’s compositions! But when he heard the master
 himself, all doubt vanished; what had seemed violent now became
 self-intelligible. Chopin’s playing was dainty and airy; his fingers
 seemed to glide sideways, as if all technique were a glissando; even
 the Forte was in him not an absolute but a relative forte--relative,
 that is, to the gentle voice of the rest; and it rises, the older
 he grew, so much the less by force than by a subtle play of touch.
 All execution has made way for a certain free extempore poesy; the
 _rubato_ softens the harshness of bar-accent. Liszt’s definition of
 the rubato is well known--“You see that tree; its leaves move to and
 fro in the wind and follow the gentlest motion of the air; but its
 trunk stands there, immovable in its form.” Chopin seems never to have
 carried the rubato so far that this trunk itself would have stirred.
 Once already had a player arisen who cultivated this graceful and
 airy kind of execution. Field, a Scot by birth, Clementi’s pupil,
 a pale and dreamy man, had anticipated the delicate breadth of
 Chopin’s touch; and the world had been enraptured with his melancholy
 renderings by means of apparently motionless hands. Alongside of not
 very important sonatas, concertos, and rondos, he had published a
 series of song-like pieces, which he called “Nocturnes,” and in which
 he put to special use his longing melodies, his dreamy _portamenti_,
 his rose-chains of airy colourations. Compared with Chopin’s
 Nocturnes, these must necessarily appear pale and even monotonous; but
 in his whole essence, in the form of his pieces, and the delicacy of
 his touch, Field was a prelude to Chopin--as Dussek or Louis Ferdinand
 were in their kind. When Chopin once played before Alexander Klengel,
 Clementi’s pupil, the latter was strongly reminded of Field. And when
 Chopin, after his arrival in Paris, conceived the idea of taking
 further lessons under Kalkbrenner, whose delicate playing he admired
 above everything, the latter likewise thought that the style reminded
 him of Cramer, but the playing of Field. “Were you Field’s pupil?” he
 asked. Chopin’s true teacher, the forgotten Elsner of Warsaw, had had
 no share in it. Chopin had formed his own playing, as he formed his
 own style. In early years he had a mania for width of stretch, and
 even invented a device for stretching the fingers. The experiment was
 fortunately more successful than Schumann’s attempt to increase the
 independence of the fingers by means of a sling. The difference is
 noteworthy: Chopin aimed at a richer impression of voluptuous fullness
 in the chords; Schumann at increased independence of part playing.

 Chopin, as a sensitive artist, laid special stress on the kind of
 instrument he used. In his youth he would only willingly play on
 Graf’s pianos; in Paris only on those of Pleyel, whose silvern muffled
 tone was specially attractive to him. In those of Erard he thought
 the tone too insistent. “If I am in a bad humour I play an Erard, and
 easily find there the tone ready-made. But if I am in the humour, and
 strong enough to make my own tone, I use a Pleyel.” The fingering,
 also, he regulates for himself. For the sake of a better execution
 he never objects to put his thumb on a black key in suitable places,
 or to glide with one finger over two keys, or to let longer fingers
 pass over the shorter without using the thumb. In his Études he has
 expressly written marks for many such naturalistic fingerings.

 The special character of Chopin’s method, which in this literature
 created an epoch, consisted in an effective use of three voices. Of
 course it is not meant that he constantly writes strictly in three
 parts; quite on the other hand, he has made a quite unique use of the
 unison in the B flat minor Sonata, in the fourteenth and eighteenth
 Preludes, and in the second movement of the F minor Concerto; and
 there are plenty of examples in him of the simple accompaniment of a
 simple melody. But the peculiar charm of his technique begins only
 in the parallel application of three voices (I am not using this
 term in the contrapuntal sense), in the laying alongside of three
 motived systems, three musical thoughts, three principal paths. In
 the Berceuse, for example, upon the heels of the one voice over the
 accompaniment treads instantly a second, and the threefold combination
 of accompaniment and two overparts is carried through in all possible
 variations. The two overparts are no less present in several passages,
 which appear on paper merely as zigzag runs, which bind together
 continuously the two melodic lines. In favourable cases, as in the
 boldly accented chords toward the conclusion of the B flat minor
 Scherzo, this peculiar line-counterpoint is carried to an extreme.
 The fusion of unfusable things in melody, rhythm, and harmony is
 the new synthesis by means of which this art advances. The charm of
 certain melodies of Chopin is increased by their taking up intervals
 foreign to the key, which affect us half with Eastern, half with
 ecclesiastical associations, but on closer inspection these are seen
 to be merely due to the collision of two melodic lines.[132] There
 are, for example, resolutions of suspensions, which are postponed
 for the moment; the main melody of the First Ballade, the whispering
 second Intermezzo of the famous B flat major Mazurka, the D in the C
 sharp minor Nocturne, the A in the B minor Prelude, are instances.
 It is a _rubato_ of melody: a musical, not a rhythmical rubato. If
 a section of a Mazurka in Op. 30, 3 is repeated pianissimo, it does
 not shock us, if certain notes already played reappear a semitone
 lower, precisely as if the dynamic weakening had a musical weakening
 as its result. It is an effect of intellectual naturalistic charm.
 Everywhere the straight line is by preference avoided. Suspensions
 (retardations) are boldly prolonged at the conclusion of a bar, as in
 the B flat major Mazurka or in the stretto of the G minor Ballade. The
 melodies wind themselves round invisible axles, and the _fioriture_
 play in turn round the supports of the melodies. The time is ignored,
 incommensurable passages can only be worked in by the _feel_, triplets
 and duplets are mingled with each other, or a wonderful pseudo-rhythm,
 as in the F major theme of the A flat major Ballade, makes us
 waver pleasantly between two time-emotions. There is constantly a
 combination, by the two independent hands, or by the independent
 movement of an upper or under group of fingers in one hand: this is
 the extreme attainment of artistic finger-mechanism on a harmonic
 instrument.

 The sensuous charm of sound in Chopin’s music rests essentially on
 this _use_ of the individualisation of the fingers. Formerly the
 fingers had only been tools, which rendered on the piano the general
 many-voiced piece. Now, however, a music had arisen from the essence
 of the fingers which was quite peculiar to the piano. The pedal held
 the dissected music again together. The left hand continues its own
 melodic lines under the right, as we find in the E minor Prelude, in
 the C sharp minor Étude, in the middle movement of the C sharp minor
 Polonaise, and the Scherzo of the B flat minor Sonata, in the F sharp
 major Impromptu, in the G minor Ballade, in the A flat major Waltz
 (Op. 34, 1), or in so many Études with characteristic full figuration
 in the left hand. Or in passages which run swiftly enough to allow
 this little acoustic deception to grow into a charm, the two melodic
 passages or one melody unite with their retardation notes into those
 zig-zag contours which became Chopin’s distinguishing mark. There is
 a long spirited series from the first Hummel-like pieces in the E
 minor Concerto, through the ethereal sounds in the middle movement of
 the third Scherzo, to the B minor Scherzo which forms its wild main
 movement entirely by means of this mannerism. The concluding trills
 of the concertos, the arpeggios of wide chords; the ornamentations
 in the middle of the chords, take a share in the using-up of the
 polyphony for sound effects; until at last we meet the threefold or
 fourfold web in the concluding sections of the Barcarolle.

 We have, in these last phrases of Chopin been reminded of the
 influences of Bach, and in fact, the extreme individualisation of the
 fingers leads us of necessity back to Bach, in whose works the fingers
 are called upon to perform the last possibilities of many-voiced
 music. Throughout it all Chopin knew that Bach is nature in music.
 When he was practising for his recitals, he played, not Chopin but
 Bach.

       *       *       *       *       *

 [The English pianist and composer, William Sterndale Bennett,
 contemporary and friend of Mendelssohn, equally popular as a musician
 both in Germany and his own country, demands notice in this place.
 If England has not succeeded in forming a definite musical style
 for itself in the nineteenth century, at least it can take credit
 for having possessed one composer who may be called “unique” in the
 true sense of the word. As far as his powers extended, Sterndale
 Bennett achieved the highest distinction. There is no one _like_
 him--his pianoforte music (on which alone he can afford to take his
 stand) ranks quite by itself in expression, character, and technical
 difficulty. Those who class him with Mendelssohn look merely on the
 surface, and show themselves incapable of making a worthy distinction.

 Sterndale Bennett’s music is never _weak_, although for the most part
 cast in a delicate mould. On the other hand, he seems to have felt
 that the “grand” style was out of his reach, and that it was no part
 of his business to act the strong man. Accordingly, he seldom shows
 any inclination to venture too high a flight. This alone suffices to
 distinguish him from Mendelssohn.

 Probably most pianists, when speaking of Sterndale Bennett, would
 naturally think first of the Three Sketches (Op. 10, Nos. 1, 2, 3),
 “The Lake,” “The Millstream,” and “The Fountain.” And it would be
 difficult to better this as a specimen list--the first as a perfect
 expression of natural tranquillity, the second as an example of
 Sterndale Bennett’s peculiar technical difficulties, and the last as a
 complete imitative picture.

 The “Six Studies” (Op. 11) are quite characteristic. Their musical
 value is very evident to the hearer; it is only the player who can
 appreciate the perfection of execution they demand. No. 3, in B flat,
 is the gem of the set. No. 6, the octave study in G minor, approaches
 real power in the first section. The _cantabile_ second subject is
 an exemplification of the quite inimitable style of the composer.
 Amongst other miscellaneous pieces the following must be named--the
 Fantasia in A, Op. 16, dedicated to Schumann, especially the first
 movement, with its lovely melody on arpeggiando accompaniment--the
 Caprice in E (with orchestra), Op. 22, an excellent proof of Sterndale
 Bennett’s mastery of the “concerto” manner--the Rondo piacevole in E,
 Op. 25, where one notes the wonderful grace of the first subject, the
 expressive power of the second.

 Sterndale Bennett comparatively seldom rises to emotional heights;
 however, see his Op, 28, No. 1, the Introduction and Pastorale in A,
 particularly the early bars of the Introduction, where, if he does
 not attain the seventh heaven of a man or an archangel, he at least
 reaches the clear empyrean of the happy skylark. He touches the same
 high level towards the close of the Pastorale itself. For other
 examples of his capacity for the expression of deep feeling compare
 also the third and fourth movements of the “Maid of Orleans” Sonata,
 Op. 46, an idyllic work, almost unknown, and scarcely ever played.
 Description of this Sonata would be useless: it should be studied.
 It shows Sterndale Bennett at his best and worst--it shows all his
 strength, and some of his peculiar weaknesses.

 Space prevents more than the mere mention of other works in which the
 pianoforte takes a prominent part:--The Concerto in F minor, Op. 19
 (played by Sterndale Bennett himself “at the concerts of Leipsic”);
 the violoncello and piano duet, Op. 32; the Sextett for two violins,
 viola, violoncello and contrabasso, with pianoforte, Op. 8; the
 pianoforte Trio in A, Op. 26; and, not least important, from the point
 of view of this book, the twelve songs, the accompaniments of which
 are of ideal beauty.]

 [Illustration: Chopin’s Hand. From a marble in the National Museum at
 Budapest.]


     [126] Cx (C double sharp), bar 11 of Trio.

     [127] See Papillons, No. 2, bar 5. The phrase
     (“after-stroke accompaniment”) is untranslateable; and the
     rhythmical formula referred to, though quite common, is not
     to be described in words.

     [128] “Flail-years” = “wild oats time.”

     [129] S = E flat or A flat.

     [130] This sentence refers to the marvellous and perfectly
     inexpressible passage in the Fantasia Op. 17, beginning
     forty-one bars before the “Mässig, durchaus energisch.”

     [131] These remarks, though severe, are just, if they are
     not allowed to apply themselves to _all_ of Mendelssohn’s
     work without proper discrimination. Many of his pianoforte
     works and songs are abundantly feeble; but we, in England
     at least, must always owe Mendelssohn a debt for having
     provided an easy path by which amateurs have been led, now
     for many years, towards the high and true romance of men
     like Schubert, Bach, and the others. But it is necessary,
     and indeed the special duty of an Englishman, to advise
     young persons who read this book, that Mendelssohn _at his
     best_ is what they should get to know, and that unless
     they have “Elijah” and “St Paul” by heart, the adverse
     criticism of the composer of those works is denied them.
     Even in these two great oratorios it requires no practised
     Diabolus to find their weaknesses--but what shall an honest
     man say of “Yet doth the Lord see it not,” or “The nations
     are now the Lord’s,” in spite of the wretched weakness of
     counterpoint in the fugal parts of the latter movement? The
     man who could write such things is a great man and a true
     “romantic.”

     [132] Cases of this kind are common in Purcell and Bach.
     Examples are easily quoted. One of the commonest with
     Purcell is the collision of ♮7 and ♭7 in perfect cadences.




 [Illustration: An Afternoon with Liszt. Lithograph by Kriehuber.
 Kriehuber. Berlioz. Czerny. Liszt. The violinist Ernst. ]




                       Liszt and the Present Time


 At the beginning of the era of present-day piano-art, perhaps also at
 the culmination of all independent and advancing piano-art, stands
 Franz Liszt. The artistic phenomenon of Liszt is yet so near to us,
 that it is still misunderstood. Even to-day he has fanatical friends
 and bitter foes: blind assailants and diplomatic defenders. And
 through it all, the whole world of piano-playing stands under his
 influence.

 [Illustration: Photograph of Liszt, taken in Budapest.]

 This was possible because Liszt was a developed artistic nature,
 who did not fall in with the established scheme, was by everybody
 differently understood, differently loved, differently hated. We can
 distinguish three types of artists. The one is the rapid composer,
 whose new thoughts readily find their new suitable form. The second
 class is that of the artists of the will--great innovators, like Manet
 and Degas among the painters, who worked not so much by their visible
 productiveness, as by their personal influence, exerted from day to
 day; an influence which after their death seems almost inconceivable.
 The third consists of the compilers, classics in the historical
 sense, who form a synthesis of all the constituent parts, a unity of
 opposites, into which history continually diverges, a conjunction
 of all begun and severed paths, the complete culture of a time made
 living. Liszt belongs to none of these types; he belongs to the last
 two _together_. The union of the innovator and the classic forms his
 essence; and in understanding this lies the complete comprehension of
 him. He possessed a double power, which influenced the world as it
 did, because the world never saw the one half of his nature before the
 other.

 Liszt the revolutionary cast his seed wide into the world. His system
 of patronage, founded on artistic feeling, not merely smoothed the
 way for Wagner and Berlioz, but assured to every suppliant the
 preservation of a modicum of self-respect and a modicum of hope.
 He pointed out to the modern musical development, in a kind of
 theoretical praxis peculiar to himself, the paths which led from the
 revolutionary principles of Berlioz to the popular musical realism
 of to-day. He scattered over both hemispheres the seeds of intimate
 personal instructions, of great and small disclosures; so that even
 now eternal gratitude to this most kind-hearted of all artists is felt
 over the world.

 [Illustration: Title-page of Hofmeister’s Edition of Liszt’s Op. 1.]

 Liszt the compiler is a new Liszt. Here the revolutionary remained
 apart, and the new Liszt came forth, who rushed in undreamed-of
 splendour through real and imagined worlds. He gathers cultures, a
 princely collector, with the crown of rare desert upon his head.
 The world did not know that this same man could pass through times of
 quiet creation and thought. He is a man of the world of the highest
 _savoir faire_, a writer of bewitching elegance, a conqueror who makes
 nought of the boundaries of peoples, a king despising kings, a demigod
 as conductor of tumultuous musical festivals, and in his works,
 which seem to appear daily in countless, uncontrollable numbers,
 a classical combiner of that which is and that which has been. It
 was he who united composition and interpretation, music and poetry,
 romance and virtuosity, Olympian and Titan, Beethoven and Paganini.
 Everything that the piano had experienced, the mystic longings of
 the old counterpoint, the love of variation of Bird and Bull, the
 ornamentation of Couperin and Rameau, the sensuous delight in sound
 of Scarlatti, the absolute art of Bach, the charm and formal beauty
 of Mozart, the pain of Beethoven crying for release, the intellectual
 confessions of the unique triumvirate, Schubert, Schumann, and
 Chopin--the rays of all met in him. A true combiner, he did not jumble
 these cultures in a learned and academic fashion together in himself,
 but he developed their common medium, in which they could test their
 mutual effects, with ever new charms.

 [Illustration: Liszt in his youth. Lithograph by Kriehuber.]

 The life of Liszt necessarily prepared him for this mighty
 combination. It is a co-ordination of cultures, each of which, singly
 experienced, might have sufficed for an ordinary mortal. He passed
 through six such lives in the various parts of his existence. As
 “petit Litz” he lived the life of a precocious much-loved child; then
 in Paris he penetrated to the depths of a romantic idealism, which
 drew closely together the men of that fruitful epoch; next, with the
 Comtesse d’Agoult he lived for five years the free and productive
 life of a wandering artist: then he experienced the glories of
 European renown as a virtuoso; next, he exerted himself in Weimar as
 the pioneer of the modern style; and finally, in Rome, Buda-Pest,
 and Weimar, he lived the peaceful life of a ruler, having attained
 the heights of worldly honour and equally those of that conquest
 of the world which found its symbol in his priestly robe. Lina
 Ramann had the courage to make three volumes of biography out of this
 unparalleled life, in which the unique material is spoilt by doubtful
 German and uncritical enthusiasm. Liszt is in her books not the
 subject but the hero of the tale; and the wickedness of women is the
 theme. The Comtesse d’Agoult receives the same measure as George Sand
 in Niecks’ “Life of Chopin.” It is remarkable, how in the archives
 which are arranged after the death of great men, so little is said
 of humanity and so much of abstract right. Is the moral order of the
 world so inexorable that even its fairest opponents must be docketed
 and ticketed in accordance with it?[133]

 [Illustration: After Dantan’s Caricature of Thalberg.]

 In the romantic Thirties, and in Paris, men thought otherwise. In
 the freedom of that society Liszt’s personality received its stamp.
 In Paris he remained after the tour of the world which he made in
 childhood, on which Beethoven had kissed him; and in Paris he learned
 the elegance of a man of the world, and a depth of pantheistic
 thought. These were his two opposite poles. And very soon this
 mental culture raised him far above all his contemporaries in his
 profession; Chopin alone was worthy to be placed at his side. It was
 a good preparation for those triumphs of virtuosity that were soon
 to come, which were to transform him from a delicate Parisian into a
 European citizen. The splendour of virtuosity lay like the eternal
 sun over Paris. From time to time something would happen to cast even
 that splendour into the shade. In the twenties came Moscheles; then
 the wonders of the little Liszt; and now the appearance of Thalberg.
 Thalberg, the natural son of a prince, a ravishing and brilliant
 person, a cavalier through and through, came to Paris in 1835 and
 took her by storm. He had a luxuriant, fascinating execution, in
 which the silken glitter was that of the _fontaine lumineuse_; and he
 had besides the peculiarity of holding the middle melody supported
 by the pedal, both hands taking part, while they enfolded it in
 arabesques of chords. In the rivalry with him Liszt was the complete
 and foursquare man: no longer the “petit Litz,” standing on the height
 of the time, but the mature Liszt, with his “profil d’ivoire,” who
 left the time far behind. Liszt and Thalberg were both _gentlemen_.
 They never showed such animosity as their respective partisans, who
 split Paris as once it had been split by the Gluckists and the
 Piccinists. But their rivalry had nevertheless something dramatic
 in it, and in it lay a regard for piano-culture never yet seen. The
 crisis of the struggle was reached on the 31st of March 1837, when
 the Princess Belgioso ventured to invite both Liszt and Thalberg to
 a benefit-concert, at which the price of the tickets, forty francs,
 was proportioned to the character of the company. Hitherto each had
 performed on his own account; and each had been applauded for himself.
 Both came; and both played. The following conversation gives the
 decision of the audience--“Thalberg est le premier pianiste du monde!”
 “Et Liszt?” “Liszt, Liszt est--le seul!” It seemed a drawn match.
 But meanwhile the depth of Liszt’s artistic character was conquering
 though unobserved. Liszt had in an article severely censured the empty
 compositions of Thalberg. Fétis, the musical historian, took the
 other side, and maintained strongly that not Liszt but Thalberg was
 the man of the new school. A few years only had to pass, when people
 grew sick of playing Thalberg. The broader humanity of Liszt’s art
 had won the victory over external glitter in popular dress--a victory
 which Liszt’s personality could not gain over that of Thalberg.
 Thenceforward Liszt’s supremacy was uncontested.

 [Illustration: Lithograph of 1835 by Staub.]

 [Illustration: After Dantan’s Caricature of Liszt. From the
 Nicolas-Manskopf collection, Frankfort-on-Main.]

 [Illustration: Facsimile of Liszt’s Hungarian Storm-March.]

 [Illustration: Facsimile of Liszt’s Hungarian Storm-March.]

 [Illustration: The “jeune école” of Parisian Pianists. Lithographed
 by Maurin. _Standing_--J. Rosenhain, Döhler, Chopin, A. Dreyschock,
 Thalberg. _Sitting_--Edward Wolff, Henselt, Liszt.]

 [Illustration: Liszt in his youth. Engraved on steel by Carl Mayer.]

 In the same year, 1837, Liszt made a confession, in an essay written
 for the _Gazette Musicale_, which was the greatest flattery that ever
 the piano received from one of its masters. Liszt refuses to go nearer
 to the orchestra or to the opera. “My piano is to me what his boat
 is to the seaman, what his horse is to the Arab: nay, more, it has
 been till now my eye, my speech, my life. Its strings have vibrated
 under my passions, and its yielding keys have obeyed my every caprice.
 Perhaps the secret tie which holds me so closely to it is a delusion;
 but I hold the piano very high. In my view it takes the first place in
 the hierarchy of instruments; it is the oftenest used and the widest
 spread.... In the circumference of its seven octaves it embraces the
 whole circumference of an orchestra; and a man’s ten fingers are
 enough to render the harmonies which in an orchestra are only brought
 out by the combination of hundreds of musicians.... We can give broken
 chords like the harp, long sustained notes like the wind, staccati and
 a thousand passages which before it seemed only possible to produce on
 this or that instrument.... The piano has on the one side the capacity
 of assimilation; the capacity of taking into itself the life of all
 (instruments); on the other it has its own life, its own growth, its
 individual development.... It is a microcosm, a micro-theus.... My
 highest ambition is to leave to piano players after me some useful
 instructions, the footprints of attained advance, in fact a work which
 may some day provide a worthy witness of the labour and study of my
 youth. I remember the greedy dog in La Fontaine, which let the juicy
 bone fall from its mouth in order to grasp a shadow. Let me gnaw in
 peace at my bone. The hour will come, perhaps all too soon, in which I
 shall lose myself and hunt after a monstrous intangible shadow.”

 [Illustration: Cartoon representing Liszt and his Works. 1842.]

 It is due in very great measure to the example of Paganini’s
 violin-playing that Liszt at this time, with slow, deliberate toil,
 created modern piano-playing. The world was struck dumb by the
 enchantment of the Genoese violinist; men did not trust their ears;
 something uncanny, inexplicable, ran with this demon of music through
 the halls. The wonder reached Liszt; he ventured on _his_ instrument
 to give sound to the unheard of: leaps which none before him had
 ventured to make, “disjunctions” which no one had hitherto thought
 could be acoustically united: deep tremolos of fifths, like a dozen
 kettle-drums, which rushed forth into wild chords; a polyphony which
 almost employed as a rhythmical element the overtones which destroy
 harmony; the utmost possible use of the seven octaves in chords set
 sharply one over another; resolutions of tied notes in unceasing
 octave graces with harmonies thrown in the midst; an employment
 hitherto unknown of the interval of the tenth to increase the fulness
 of tone-colour; a regardless interweaving of highest and lowest
 notes for purposes of light and shade; the most manifold application
 of the tone-colours of different octaves for the coloration of the
 tone-effect; the entirely naturalistic use of the tremolo and the
 glissando; and above all a perfect systematization of the method of
 interlacing the hands, partly for the management of runs so as to
 bring out the colour, partly to gain a doubled power by the division,
 and partly to attain, by the use of contractions and extensions in
 the figures, a fulness of orchestral chord-power never hitherto
 practised. This is the last step possible for the piano in the process
 of individualisation begun by Hummel and continued by Chopin. The
 three systems of notes, instead of two, appear more frequently; in
 fact the two hands appear for the most part to play a group of notes
 which seem to be conceived for three. And precisely by this means
 the two hands run inside and through one another, as if they were
 only a single tool of ten fingers. The music appears again to become
 a corporate unity of tone, as it had already once been in its first
 beginnings. But, it has now become, out of a universal music, a music
 for the piano. An historic mission is fulfilled.

 [Illustration: Der General Bass wird durch List in seinen festen
 Linien überrumpelt u überwunden. “General” Bass surprised and overcome
 in his fortress by Liszt. (_List_ means craft, or stratagem. Observe
 Liszt’s wings, _flügel_, which word also means grand piano. General or
 “thorough” Bass is a personification of the “classical” school.)]

 [Illustration: Liszt and Stavenhagen.]

 Liszt invents a fingering for his purposes which has no other
 principle than that of the most absolute opportunism. Scales, struck
 by one finger, trills played with changing fingers, strenuous parallel
 octave passages, heavy fingering in order to drag out parts which
 otherwise glide too lightly--everywhere, in place of the academic
 rule, there is an attempt to grasp the effect of the moment, a
 moulding after the impulses of the expression. And thence arises a
 soul-giving power even down to the most trifling passing-note, until
 the man and the playing are one. Liszt did the miracles of a prophet
 in his recitals, tumultuous assemblies, in which it actually happened
 that the people did not stir from the place till one o’clock in the
 morning.

 So early as 1839 he was able to venture on the first pure
 piano-recital ever given, after Moscheles had paved the way with
 his mixed piano-recital without orchestra. Not only could he fill
 up a whole evening with performances on this instrument alone; he
 was able to fill with his performances twenty-one evenings in the
 short space between December 27, 1841, and March 2, 1842. This was
 the brilliant period of his virtuoso-years; twenty-one recitals in
 Berlin within this short space! In the history of piano-playing
 they are festival weeks, holy days, in which by the greatest of all
 pianists a world-literature was made living on the keys, so that all
 Europe resounded. At that time we hear of a critic wondering how this
 marvellous man could actually improvise along with an orchestra! So
 little were people accustomed to playing by heart, which since Liszt’s
 time has become the universal rule.

 Liszt’s innumerable compositions for the piano, which were first
 completely named in Ramann’s book, remind us again of the three
 types of artists of which we spoke above. We find in them Liszt the
 compiler, who makes use of the experiences of centuries; and we find
 Liszt the innovator, who points out new ways in motives which we
 might think were only seen in Wagner, in naturalisms which developed
 music, and in technical means of expression; but we do not find in
 him a composer of genius, who can hardly hold himself back from his
 inspirations, and who with unforced ease, creates new forms for the
 new ideas. We shall, as time advances, suffer less and less from
 illusions on this point. And Liszt himself was content to be an
 innovator without being a creator. He was a clever artist who knew his
 own limitations accurately. He invents a theme which is spirited, new,
 and characteristic; and when he has invented the theme he sits down
 and arranges it according to all the powers of technical expression;
 and varies it in forms whose technique is their content, so that
 technique and content become identical. This is the last effect of
 the Étude-principle, in which an idea finds, not its form, but its
 technical expression.

 [Illustration: Plaster Cast of Liszt’s Hand. Weimar.]

 This special method of Liszt is preserved at its best in the twenty
 Rhapsodies. The Magyar _Dallok_ had appeared already as studies.
 But these Rhapsodies far surpass them in polish. Hungarian national
 airs, with their rushing rhythmical and unrhythmical _verve_, were
 here for the first time taken up into the circle of art, and supplied
 the motives from which he poured forth a pyrotechnic display of
 brilliant variations, whose technique has not a single useless note,
 and whose working-out is indescribably delicate and harmonically
 interesting. Nos. 2, 6, 9 (Pester Karneval), 12 (to Joachim), and 14
 (to Bülow), are not unjustly preferred to the rest. No 14, with its
 astounding development from the funeral march to the joyous stretto,
 has remained one of the most marvellous piano-pieces on record. In it
 an unparalleled technique is revealed, while the piece is not thereby
 rendered hollow or superfluous.

 [Illustration: Liszt lying in state. Bayreuth. 1886.]

 The charming Spanish Rhapsody, the Chopin-like “Consolations,” the
 wonderfully impromptu-like “Apparitions” and “Harmonies Poétiques et
 Religieuses,” that grand congeries of various differently arranged
 and differently put together Études and drawing-room pieces, the
 “Années de Pélerinage” (three volumes) with the Tarantelle, the
 Paganini Études with the Campanella, further collections of Études
 till we reach the Twelve Études d’exécution transcendente, the
 “Dream Nocturnes,” the “Mephisto Waltzes and Polkas,” the “Caprice
 Valses,” the “Chromatic Galop”--I will only refer to a few pieces
 which possess a special historic or artistic interest. In 1834, as
 his first romantic production, appeared the “Pensée des Morts,” in
 mixed time, _senza tempo_, with mottos from Lamartine, for whom, with
 Chateaubriand, he felt the highest literary admiration. In the same
 year came out “Lyon,” a realistic piece on the uprising of the Lyons
 working-classes, and one of the few piano-compositions relating to
 contemporary events. “Sposalizio” and “Il Penseroso” (1838, 1839) are
 notable as pieces inspired by the impressions of the representative
 arts, as the somewhat feeble “Fantasia quasi Sonata” (1837) arose
 from the perusal of Dante. The whole of these are romantic confessions
 in which the arts greet each other in friendly wise. In importance,
 however, they are far surpassed by the later piano works; above all by
 the five best original pieces, the Legends, the Concertos, and the B
 minor Sonata.

 [Illustration: Music-room in the “Altenburg” at Weimar, with Liszt’s
 giant piano by Alexandre, Paris. In the background a clavier of
 Mozart’s.]

 The Legends of 1866 are in honour of his patron saint, St Francis.
 The first shews him in an ecclesiastical theme, sweeping over the
 waves, which are represented by the usual variation. In the other he
 is preaching to the birds. It is a wonderful free impromptu, in which
 a church air is set over against the twitter of the birds, which
 is marked by masterly technique. The birds seem to be listening to
 the saint; their twittering seems likely to give way to his pious
 harmonies; but at the conclusion we see them again in a cheerfulness
 which leads on to a ravishing cry of birds. It is the most poetical
 piece that Liszt ever wrote for the piano.

 The Sonata in B minor (1854) dedicated to Schumann, has one movement
 but many themes. Six motives of varied colouring are knitted into one
 web, which unfolds itself into a splendid picture. A royal brilliancy
 lies over the whole. More free and lively are the two single-movement
 Concertos. The one in A major has its characteristic line C sharp B C
 B, which is to be followed out into the cadenzas; a main theme with
 all kinds of subordinate themes, in a natural threefold quickening
 from slower reflective sections. The E flat major is constructed on
 the opposite model--its characteristic line is E flat, D, E flat; D E
 flat, D, D flat. This work is probably the most frequently heard of
 Liszt’s concerted pieces. It is more _giusto_ in essence, with slower
 by-themes--especially the beautiful Adagio with the Tristan-like
 motive and the Pastorale middle-section--swinging up in Bacchic
 style. On the return to the main theme all the motives alter into a
 more cheerful strain; the adagio gives way to a martial movement, and
 the Pastorale is taken up by the piano with increased ornamentation.
 In the place of the old formal scheme a psychological process had
 entered; an inward conversation of the piano with the orchestra and
 its instruments.

 [Illustration: Liszt at Weimar, 1884. From a Photograph.]

 From the point of view of number, still greater than the original
 pieces are the arrangements, which embrace a whole world, from
 variations to complete transformations of themes, from the “Dance
 of the Dead” on the Cantus of the Dies Irae to the Rhapsodies,
 from his arrangements of Bach to his Paraphrases of Wagner, from
 the innumerable songs and waltzes of Schubert to the settings of
 Beethoven’s symphonies, and the symphonic poems of Liszt’s own. Here
 was a huge mass of material, which was transmitted spiritually and
 artistically to the public by means of the piano. And in the hither
 and thither of the arrangements we trace the most labyrinthine paths.
 Schubert’s Marches, for example, were first transcribed for four
 hands, then arranged for orchestra, and finally re-transcribed from
 the orchestral setting for the pianoforte. Liszt’s arrangements are no
 mere transcriptions; they are poetical re-settings, seen through the
 medium of the piano. He assimilates the composition before him into
 himself, and reproduces it on the piano as if he had conceived it,
 with all its special peculiarities, for the piano alone. Such things
 seemed often to be the very best expression of his genius. This
 great series begins with the transcriptions of Paganini’s Capriccios,
 and that of the “Symphonie fantastique” of Berlioz; and it reaches
 its height in the two-handed settings of Beethoven’s symphonies. The
 pieces have become genuine piano-compositions, in which a full score
 is reproduced by specific fulness of chord, and a sweeping chord by
 broken harmonies sustained by the pedal. The piano is no longer merely
 one pillar of the musical structure; it has become the architect of
 an art of its own. This art of its own becomes yet more visible when
 it deals, not with the transcription of ready-made works, but with
 paraphrases of given sections, which were to be released from their
 surroundings. Liszt made many operatic fantasias of this kind, and did
 not always utterly oppose the taste of the time, which did not object
 to dissolve a characteristic melody into flourishes, or to make a
 sad and trembling motive tower into unexpected heights. Of this his
 Tannhäuser March and his Don Giovanni Fantasia are proofs. But the
 rule, nevertheless, is that he never undertakes anything contrary to
 the character of the passage to be paraphrased, and that--as he does
 most successfully in the Rienzi Fantasia--he does not overlay the
 melody with cadenzas and ornamentations from without, but extracts
 them, as it were, from the substance of the piece itself.

 [Illustration: Döhler. Lithograph by Mittag, after the picture of
 Count Pfeil.]

 [Illustration: Sophie Menter in her youth.]

 Only those parts of the opera does he bind together in his
 paraphrase, which stand in an inward relation to each other. It is
 now entirely drawn from a leading idea, and is related to the earlier
 externally-connected operatic fantasia as the symphonic poem to the
 symphony.

 [Illustration: Clotilde Kleeberg, 1888.]

 The immense difficulties of Liszt’s compositions retarded their
 popularity for many years. Clara Schumann and Sophie Menter were
 amongst the first brave performers to introduce them into their
 repertoires. To-day they almost overburden the recitals, and include
 much of little value, which would hardly survive except as the
 _disjecta membra gigantis_. His influence was of a kind never seen
 before. He created a type of recital in which his imitators often copy
 the Master down to his very hair. His missionaries travelled over
 the whole world from the circle which he gathered round himself at
 Weimar in the summer months. Their ideal is his creation; the perfect,
 memoriter, technically and stylistically adjusted mastery of the great
 and many-sided piano literature, without regard for century or nation.

 [Illustration: Madame de Belleville, 1808-1880. Pupil of Czerny.
 Well-known pianist. After the picture by Agricola.]

 [Illustration: Carl Filtsch, infant prodigy. Pupil of Chopin. Died
 very young.]

 [Illustration: “Anton Rubinstein, pupil of Mr A. Villoing, Moscow.
 To Dr. Aloys Fuchs, as a souvenir from the young Anton Rubinstein,
 Moscow. Vienna, April 5, 1842.”]

 Liszt’s contemporaries in piano-virtuosity are almost forgotten.
 Their name vanishes like a dream. Others succeed in their place;
 generations press eagerly on each other’s heels. There was the wild
 and headstrong Mortier de Fontaine, who was the first to venture on
 playing Beethoven’s Op. 106 in public. Döhler, Dreyschock, Rosenhain,
 Jaell and his wife, Wilhelmina Clauss-Savardy, Sophie Menter, like her
 in objectivity, the more vigorous Annette Essipoff, afterwards the
 wife of Leschetizki, who now holds the very centre of piano-teaching
 in Vienna. In our time are Madame Carreño, so masculine in her
 convincing interpretations, and Clotilde Kleeberg, her opposite, so
 sympathetic and delicate, the truly womanly executant of Schumann
 and Chopin. Madame Essipoff was a pupil of Anton Rubinstein, from whom
 a by-stream ran out alongside of the world-embracing school of Liszt.
 Rubinstein’s and Bülow’s playing represented the difference which was
 bound to arise between the classical and the spiritual interpretation
 of piano-works. Rubinstein was the great subjective artist, who gave
 way entirely to the mood of the moment, and could rush on in an
 instant in such a way as to leave no room for the cool criticism of
 a later hour. But Bülow was the great objective artist, the teacher
 and unfolder of all mysteries, the unraveller of the knottiest points
 in Beethoven’s latest works, which he understood to their innermost
 details. In his playing the intellect had the gratification of
 clear-cut sharpness, while the heart retained the emotion long after
 the artist left the platform. Both artists were in their kind finished
 and complete, and both were of incalculable influence on whole
 generations. The impressionist Rubinstein and the draughtsman Bülow
 had each the technique which suited him. The one rushed and raved, and
 a slight want of polish was the natural result of his impressionist
 temperament; the other drew carefully the threads from the keys,
 occasionally showing them with a smile to his audience, while every
 tone and every tempo stood in ironbound firmness, and every line was
 there before it was drawn.

 [Illustration: Hans von Bülow. Taken in the year 1879.]

 [Illustration: Last Portrait of Rubinstein.]

 [Illustration: Bülow on his deathbed. Cairo, 1894.]

 Rubinstein and Bülow were both interpretative natures. Rubinstein
 composed much, Bülow little; and Rubinstein’s compositions are hollow
 while Bülow’s are fragmentary. In their compositions the two men are
 at their worst; the pathos of Rubinstein became maudlin, and the
 severity of Bülow became simple harshness. The best that Bülow ever
 wrote for the piano was the piano-arrangement of Tristan, which is
 unparalleled in its expression of pain; but his best work of all was
 his annotations to Beethoven’s Sonatas and Variations. Rubinstein’s
 innumerable Dances and National Airs are played indeed, but they are
 practically forgotten; his Tarantelles, Serenades, Sonatas, Concertos,
 get nearer to sinking every year. Rubinstein’s experiences, his
 activity in St Petersburg, his final stay in a pension at Dresden,
 were rather external than internal changes. Later in his life he
 was able to spend more money on his gigantic plans. In a cycle of
 seven piano-recitals he undertook to give a complete picture of
 the historical development of his art. It is well known with what
 self-sacrifice he gave these recitals, and how nobly he followed the
 unique principle which great virtuosos should set before themselves,
 namely that those who have should pay for the art, in order that those
 who have not should receive it gratuitously. Bülow’s experiences,
 on the other hand, were internal. His change from Wagner to Brahms
 will be regarded by every student of great souls, not as a desertion
 of his colours, but as a mental phenomenon. In Bülow’s nature there
 was at bottom nothing in common with Wagner; and it may well be that
 he never saw Wagner except through the glasses of the concert, of
 execution, of display, not of the stage, or of sensuous perception.
 Bülow was not stage-bitten, nor was he even a man with a head full of
 the philosophy of the stage; he was a downright worker, a teacher, to
 whom indeed teaching came so natural that he for a considerable time
 gave lessons with Raff in Frankfort and Klindworth in Berlin. When he
 gave public recitals he did not, like Rubinstein, crowd a history of
 the piano into a few evenings. He took by preference a single author,
 like Beethoven, and played only the five last Sonatas, or he unfolded
 the whole of Beethoven historically in four evenings. He would have
 preferred to play every piece twice. Great draughtsman as he was, he
 hated all half-lights and colourations; he pointed his pencil very
 finely, and his paper was very white. If he laid his pencil down, it
 was only for a short time; and if he played any work, the composer
 was a made man. Over the variations of Tschaïkowski could be read,
 “Joué par M. Bülow dans ses concerts.”

 [Illustration: Reinecke in his youth. Most famous of modern Mozart
 players, afterwards Director of the Leipsic Conservatorium. After the
 picture by Seel.]

 [Illustration: Portrait by H. Katsch.]

 [Illustration]

 Teacher and virtuoso--these mark great pianists into two groups, or
 at least into two temperaments; and it was this marked difference
 which was signalised by the appearance of Bülow and of Rubinstein.
 In all, the severance is perfected according to the natural aptitude
 and inner development. Of course over every virtuoso at a certain
 time there comes the wish to busy himself with teaching, but only in
 a small circle; but on the other hand we observe that the decision
 to follow the teaching profession is instantly taken by those
 artists who have no turn for publicity, or do not like to face the
 competition which to-day is more keen than ever. The extreme of the
 virtuoso type is seen in certain international geniuses, who continued
 rather the tradition of Thalberg than that of Liszt. Thalberg, in
 the fifties, like Henri Herz in the forties, toured in America and
 Brazil. Rubinstein also, in the sixties, visited America. The most
 travelled of all was the Irish pianist and composer Wallace, who, for
 the sake of his health, toured and gave concerts through Australia,
 New Zealand, India, South America, the United States and Mexico--long
 before Thalberg’s Brazilian journey. To-day a tour in America is
 almost a matter of course in the life of every virtuoso. Countries
 like France and Italy are shut off from a great international
 intercourse of this kind, since their concert-life, and especially
 their cultivation of the piano, has never duly unfolded itself. The
 opera is there all powerful. But England, as a hundred years ago,
 invites to her shores the great men of the Continent, and sends
 them back loaded with treasures. As London pianists Hartvigson,
 the pupil of Bülow, Borwick, and Dawson, stand in the front rank.
 Russia, formerly a colony of foreign emigrants, has now, by Anton
 Rubinstein’s foundations in St Petersburg, and by the like activity
 of his highly-esteemed brother Nicholas in Moscow, awaked to a noble
 concert-life, in which the rivalry of the two capitals is remarkably
 balanced. It was inevitable that in nearer and further states ever
 more numerous pupils of German or Parisian masters should settle and
 labour as teachers. In America, so early as the sixties and seventies,
 a great number of naturalised teachers was known, among whom Wolfsohn
 is perhaps most distinguished. His eighteen evenings of historically
 arranged piano-music, which he gave so early as 1877 in Chicago, are
 deservedly famous.

 [Illustration]

 Tausig, the pupil of Liszt, who by his brilliant technique and his
 extraordinary sense for style was the wonder of his contemporaries,
 left behind him various good arrangements and compositions perhaps
 too obvious in their virtuosity. He was born in Warsaw and died at
 thirty. He would have meant to our time a teaching power of the
 first magnitude. The crown of piano-playing in our time has been won
 by Eugene d’Albert, born in 1864, a small man with giant power, a
 loveable person of astonishing artistic seriousness. He was a pupil of
 Liszt, and on him the mantle of Liszt has fallen in our generation.
 His greatest virtue is his classic temperament. In his memory rest
 safely stored the greatest works from Bach to Tausig. If he takes one
 out, he takes with it the sphere in which it stayed unspoilt--the
 style of its execution. The piece stands fast in its construction; not
 a phrase appears inorganic, not a rhythm accidental. The seriousness
 of Brahms’s Concertos, the murmuring of Chopin’s Berceuse, the Titanic
 power of his A minor Étude, the grace of Liszt’s Soirées de Vienne,
 the solemnity of Bach, move under his hand in the concert, without
 one taking the least from another. It is objectivity, but we do not
 cry out for subjectivity; it is personality, but we do not miss the
 _rapport_ with eternity.

 [Illustration]

 Liszt’s pupils Reisenauer and Stavenhagen endeavoured on a similar
 ground to play a part as more general interpreters. But chance and
 change played them many tricks. Others, again, had and have their
 special excellencies. Paderewski, idolised in England and America,
 is the delicate, emotional, drawing-room player; Sauer, the bravura
 pianist; Siloti, the interpreter of Russian piano-music; Friedheim,
 the Liszt-player; Karl Heymann, the graceful. Barth, the pupil of
 Bülow, is severe; Rosenthal, an amazing technician; Ansorge, one
 of the most intellectual; Gabrilowitsch, who drives the horses of
 Rubinstein; Vladimir von Pachmann, with all his extravagancy, at least
 plays Chopin’s Mazurkas with absolute faithfulness to their national
 character; Busoni shows great passion; Lütschg has an extraordinarily
 strong wrist; the miraculous child Paula Szalit transposes fugues
 on the spot; Josef Hofmann, once an “infant prodigy,” is now an
 astonishingly individualistic artist; and Eduard Risler has an
 inimitable soft touch. Since the triumphs of Planté, indeed, Risler
 is the first French pianist to achieve a universal renown. He is a
 pupil of the eminent Parisian master Diémer. He has discovered those
 last delicate _nuances_ which lie precisely between tone and silence.
 His tones seem not to begin and not to cease; they are woven out of
 ethereal gossamer. While d’Albert plays with the whole upper body,
 seeks the keys and rivets them fast, breaks the sforzatos, and soothes
 the pianissimos; Risler is a statue at the piano, externally a Stoic;
 but his gliding and crossing fingers, so soon as they have struck the
 first chord, become the most sensitive agents of an emotional soul.
 Under Risler’s treatment the commonplace becomes a novelty. Out of
 Liszt’s sermon of St Francis to the birds he draws the last poetical
 breath; Beethoven he bathes in a warm brilliancy of his own; and,
 not to be charged with too much sweetness, he flings himself loose
 with the overture to the Meistersinger, so that we fancy the whole
 orchestra to be playing, and we have an assurance that it is not
 weakness, but an active artistic restraint which gives to his touch
 its never-to-be-forgotten delicate profundity.

 [Illustration]

 Piano-playing, in such an unparalleled advance, became of necessity a
 profession, which at one time enticed to deceive, at another rewarded
 abundantly. It is a profession which on one side leads to royal
 wealth, on the other to that extreme of misery which is the half
 of all art. The collision, which in our age is inevitable between
 industry and art, revealed the terrible abysses which yawn between the
 claims of a profession and those of art. While in a Frankfort paper we
 can read advertisements in which a young lady teacher offers two piano
 lessons a week in return for the daily four o’clock coffee with the
 family, young Hofmann, at nine years of age, gave, in New York alone,
 within three months, thirty-five recitals, from which his impresario,
 out of a gross receipt of over twenty-five thousand pounds, took at
 least ten thousand for himself.

 [Illustration: Madame Carreño.]

 The piano has become an essential part of life. Those who cannot play
 it stand outside a great company which cultivates it as an engine of
 social and home intercourse. In households where there is no piano
 we seem to breathe a foreign atmosphere. To-day we need no longer
 explain the piano from the church or the theatre, from the ballet or
 the volkslied, from the artistic song or the violin; it has on the
 contrary become an active centre, which has given its form to our
 whole musical culture; nay, more, which has even given the stamp to
 our whole conception of music, not only in the minds of all amateurs,
 but in the minds of many professionals. Whether the young girl spends
 her time with Chopin’s E flat major Nocturne, or whether a false
 sentiment attaches itself to the “Maiden’s Prayer” or the “Cloister
 Bell”; whether the waltzes of Lanner delight a quiet mind or Strauss
 calls to the dance; whether the eager pupil plies her healthy sport
 in Cramer’s, Schmitt’s, or Czerny’s Studies, or the rising virtuoso
 exercises himself mechanically in scales after d’Albert’s fashion,
 while he simultaneously reads new notes, or as Henselt plays Bach
 while he reads his Bible; whether amateurs enjoy themselves with
 the piano-abstracts of operatic fragments; or whether artists like
 the Kapellmeisters Fischer and Sucher, offer those Fantasias from
 Wagner over which they have spent their lives; whether the professor
 allows himself the enjoyment of private piano-literature, or performs
 standard works before thousands in the concert hall;--all these are
 accidents of culture, they are phenomena which offer a picture of that
 intimate interdependence of music and actual life which has developed
 so fruitfully since the art ceased to be the private possession of a
 clique, and which has established it on an absolutely new foundation.
 Of course, the more general piano culture has become, the more has it
 been in turn used up as a profession, and the more easily were its
 wings fettered. Our chief men also have ceased to improvise during
 a recital. Only our “comic artists” do so at the present day. And
 of a power of magical improvisation, exercised in private such as
 Beethoven and Liszt so often displayed, we now hear less and less. The
 recitals, in great part, deal with the interpretation of known works,
 which often--like Beethoven’s E flat major concerto--are repeated _ad
 nauseam_. We have learning, we have playing, but we never see the
 enthusiasm which can be evoked by the stress of immediate creation.
 Piano-playing is a universal business even to the extremest limits
 of an amateurism which cannot strike a single chord instantaneously,
 nor dot a single note correctly. It is a long line from the little
 yawning schoolgirl, through the teacher running up and down stairs,
 to the virtuosos who play in the winter and give instruction in the
 summer. With excess of zeal comes sin. Nowhere in an art is a sin
 so often committed as in the choice of masters popular to-day. From
 false economy, musical culture, which is so profound and so difficult,
 is intrusted to the most incompetent, and fortunes are squandered
 in ruining the music in a child. In a paper once was to be read a
 somewhat humorous satire, entitled, “Directions for use,” in which the
 teachers were thus handled: “For beginners the choice of a master is
 recommended--there are masters at all prices--very good lessons can be
 had for sixpence; but masters with long hair charge three shillings
 and upwards--for male adults the choice of a mistress is recommended,
 because pleasure and love are thus excited together.”

 In order to put a check on amateur teaching a movement has of late
 years been set on foot to forbid untried teachers to occupy any
 position. As yet, however, the movement wants legal enforcement.
 Kullack and Klauwell in Cologne, Breslaur in Berlin, publisher
 of the _Piano-teacher_ (a paper now twenty-one years old), have
 founded seminaries for intending teachers. In 1896, in Cologne,
 out of four hundred students only thirty received a diploma of
 teaching capacity--but no means at present exists of forbidding the
 others to teach. Consider the enormous crowds that pass out of our
 music-schools. An infinitesimal proportion may perhaps decide for a
 virtuoso career. Of the rest half remain amateur, the other half go in
 to the teaching profession. The overcrowding may easily be imagined.
 The largest music-school in the world, the English “Guildhall School”
 of Music, had till lately 140 professors, 42 teaching-rooms, 2700
 students; and will shortly be enlarged till it has 69 rooms and 5000
 students. I have made special inquiries at the Berlin Conservatorium
 of Klindworth and Scharwenka. My numbers are I think exact to a few
 figures. In 1895-6, out of 387 students, 41 men and 208 women took
 piano only; 8 men and 15 women took piano with some other subject. In
 1896-7, out of 383 pupils, 40 men and 239 women learnt piano alone,
 and 4 men and 8 women learnt piano with something else. Of these
 247 women, besides, about 43 are English or Americans. Since on the
 average we reckon two years for a course, there go from this school
 alone, every year, more than fifty women-teachers into the world. Some
 of them perhaps may win a doubtful testimonial in a dearly-bought
 Berlin concert; others, who aimed at virtuosity, may, after a pitiful
 experience, themselves sink into teachers. Of the frequency of
 piano-performances in concerts the following figures may give some
 notion. I have counted the more important Berlin concerts in nine
 weeks taken at random--159 in all. Among them are 58 piano-concerts,
 partly combined with performances on other instruments, partly
 interesting through the personality of the pianist; mere accompanying
 of songs being of course not reckoned.

 [Illustration]

 The number of music-schools has increased specially in the capital
 cities. In France the Parisian High School has a great repute; in
 Russia the Moscow and St Petersburg Conservatoriums; in Belgium the
 Brussels Conservatoire, under the guidance of Dupont, who is also
 distinguished as the editor of old piano-works; in London the Royal
 Academy of Music [and the Royal College of Music]. In Germany we have
 in Frankfort the Hoch Conservatorium under Bernhard Scholz, and the
 Raff under Max Schwarz; Stuttgart has somewhat declined through the
 deaths of Lebert and Starck, the editors of the great Theoretical
 and Practical School; but Cologne has greatly gained in importance
 under Wüllner. In Leipzig under Mendelssohn, Moscheles and Plaidy,
 piano-playing took the first place; new technical devices like the
 pedal-clavier--that is, with organ pedals for the low notes--were
 freely admitted, as in our days the Janko-keyboard. But with the
 inevitable reaction, this school has decayed, and its importance in
 piano-art is not what it was. In Berlin the Royal “Hochschule” with
 Barth, Raif, Rudorff, and others, at its head, experienced a like
 fate. Private institutions have come to the front. Tausig’s School
 for higher piano-playing (1866-1870), was very distinguished. From it
 went Joseffy to New York and Robert Freund to Zürich. The New Academy,
 founded by Theodor Kullak, was also famous. It was afterwards replaced
 by another Institute founded by his son. The Stern Conservatorium, now
 directed by Gustav Holländer along with Jedliczka; the Klindworth,
 at which for a time Bülow and Moszkowski laboured; and that of
 Scharwenka, which, after Xaver Scharwenka’s departure for America, was
 for a time united with the Klindworth;--are known to all.

 Like the practical “schools,” the theoretical have also become
 innumerable. I take as a few of the most important works the
 following: Adolph Kullak’s “Aesthetic of Piano-playing,” re-edited
 by Bischoff, a unique and profound work on the theory of the art,
 as a hundred years’ experience and the careful observations of the
 author have enlarged it; Hugo Riemann’s “Comparative Theoretical and
 Practical Piano School, presenting system, method, and materials, in a
 historic and organic connection”; and, among the innumerable “schools”
 and volumes of exercises, the various thoughtful works of Germer. Two
 main principles have come to occupy the first place in the newest
 school-practice. First, the systematic carrying out--not merely of a
 musical mechanic of the hand, but its thorough gymnastic. This was the
 natural advance, which carried yet further the teaching of Czerny.
 The hand is adapted for piano-playing--as in the systems of Thilo,
 Virgil, and others--by gymnastics of the fingers, and stretching of
 the muscles. Thus a great part of the gymnastic cultivation is got
 over before actual musical practice begins. In this work the dumb
 keyboards, which to-day are constructed with great delicacy, have
 borne a great part. They now admit of legato playing and of different
 degrees of strength in touch.

 [Illustration: Hand of Eugene d’Albert. Röntgen ray photograph by
 Spies.]

 The second great principle is to take into account in instruction
 the peculiarities of the pupil’s hand. It stands to reason that the
 same exercises will not do for all hands. One hand demands this, the
 other that. This method is carried out with the utmost precision by
 the greatest of teachers, Leschetizky. A similar principle prevails
 in modern teaching of singing. We no longer endeavour to base
 voice-cultivation on the universal vowel A, but on that vowel which
 comes most natural to the organ of the pupil.

       *       *       *       *       *

 The arrangement of the keys is the sacred tradition of centuries. It
 presents the tone-system, as it were, lengthways, and is the natural
 expression of a melodic musical concept. The separation of the black
 and the white keys has been introduced in accordance with a certain
 theoretical principle, which allows the difference of position in our
 scales over the black and white keys to appear somewhat complicated.
 Our keyboards are constructed entirely on the C major scale; the tones
 outside this scale are thrown into the black keys, and thus appear
 in a subordinate position: thus all other scales have a strange form
 and often a somewhat difficult fingering. But since the seventeenth
 century our conception of music has gradually, from melodic, become
 harmonic; we hear vertically as well as horizontally; we hear the
 beauty of all chords as sounded together, and, unconsciously, we fill
 in the harmonies to every melody we hear. It would have been natural
 if the keyed instruments had adapted themselves to this altered
 musical conception, and had resigned the original conception of the
 scale to make way for harmonic conveniences. Nothing, however, is
 slower to be reached than the determination to revolutionise from the
 foundation a technique adopted in the schools, since no one is willing
 to make the sudden break with the old and the sudden start with the
 new.

 Attempts had already been made to break the monopoly of the C major
 scale, and to form a regular chromatic scale of twelve similar keys.
 In our own day Paul von Janko has improved this system by repeating
 every regular chromatic series three times in terrace-style one
 above another, so that not only wider stretches, but also, without
 much movement of the hand, a surprising control of full chords and
 of rapid passages is attained. The tones are thus brought more
 narrowly together as the monopoly of the C major key is destroyed;
 and the result betokens a decisive advance in the conception of
 modern music. This conception still embodies a compromise between the
 old scale-keyboard and an arrangement of the keys, which, founded
 on harmonic ideas, has promise for the future. Janko’s keyboard is
 slowly gaining converts. Great houses, like those of Ibach, Duysen,
 Kaps, and Blüthner, are taking it up. Hausmann in Berlin, and Wendling
 in Leipzig, are the chief supporters of the scheme. In America we
 hear stories of remarkable results. Only by the development of such
 a new keyboard, which will have to answer the demands of the modern
 conception of music, will it be possible to draw new tone-effects
 from the piano. Its utmost capacities, in its present form, have been
 exhausted, it would seem, by Liszt.

 Meanwhile the construction of the instruments has advanced to an
 unexampled perfection. It is only a hundred years since Stein began
 his laborious attempts on the new pianoforte. To-day a network of
 factories is spread over the whole world, in which innumerable
 faultless instruments are made, which put to use all the results of
 experience in the treatment of wood and wires. The modern pianos have
 already attained so completely the ideal of the hammer-mechanism that
 we are beginning to hark back to the forgotten tones of the cembalo.
 In Paris these aims have their strongest support in Diémer, who plays
 his Couperin on clavecins, and at the same time wins new renown for
 the oboe d’amour and the viol da gamba in the chamber-concert. Already
 quill-claviers are being more frequently constructed, and the reaction
 against the predominance of the pianoforte finds its satisfaction in
 their sweet and thrilling sounds.

 It is impossible to review all the piano-factories of both
 hemispheres, or to register all their innovations. I must content
 myself with mentioning the system of “overstringing,” invented
 simultaneously by several persons; the felting of the hammers,
 introduced by Pape; the third pedal of Steinway which holds on single
 tones without affecting the others; the use of a cast-iron frame
 and of cast-steel strings; and the vertical stringing of the upright
 “cottage” piano, which is developed out of older forms. Bechstein’s
 factory in Berlin stands at the head of German manufacture; but
 there are also Duysen, Blüthner, Schiedmayer, Irmler, Westermayer,
 Kaps, Ibach, and innumerable others; Bösendorfer in Vienna, Knabe
 in Baltimore, and Steinway in New York, who have succeeded to the
 renown of Chickering; besides the many other older-established firms.
 Bechstein, so fundamentally sound; and Steinway, with his patent
 fulness of tone, are the two rivals for the laurel at the end of the
 century.

 Henry Engelhard Steinway, born in Brunswick, began, in the fifties,
 his New York business in very small circumstances. A three-storied
 house was the factory, and one piano a week was the output. In 1859,
 however, the firm was in a position to build a great establishment,
 which now, after several enlargements, covers more than four acres.
 The output advanced with giant strides: numerous patents were taken
 out for the improvement of the resonance and the fulness of tone: in
 1872 the Emperor Alexander bought the twenty-five thousandth piano,
 and in 1883 Baron Nathaniel de Rothschild of Vienna bought the fifty
 thousandth. Besides the factory, the firm possesses in Astoria great
 estates, the timber of which covers not less than a hundred and
 fifty acres. There they have their yards, saw-mills, turning-mills,
 foundries, metal-workshops, and mechanical wood-bending and carving
 apparatus. The parts are sent from Astoria to New York to be fitted
 together. When completed, the pianos are exhibited in Steinway Hall
 (14th Street) with a view to sale. More than ninety thousand have been
 completed up to date, of which a large proportion has been transmitted
 to Europe through the London and Hamburg branches.

 [Illustration]

 Bechstein has adopted a similar division of his work. He has two
 factories, the one in the suburbs, for the preparation of the parts
 and the drying of the wood, the other in the town for the fitting
 together of the pieces. This latter is in close connection with the
 shop. Karl Bechstein, like Steinway, began in the fifties on a very
 small scale, and in 1860 founded his great house in Johannisstrasse.
 In 1880 he acquired the first portion of the suburban estate, on
 which to-day four factories stand. The victorious brilliancy of
 modern ingenuity is to be seen in the whole establishment. The
 probation through which the wood has to pass in the yards, then in
 the dry-rooms, in the store-cellars, and finally when sized in the
 store-houses of the factories, before it can be used, is a grand
 guarantee of its suitability. Two important rooms are devoted to
 steam-power. The one is the planing-room, where sides and lid are
 planed together by machines of such extraordinary power that the
 shavings hum about under centrifugal force, and are carried off by an
 exhaust apparatus. The other is the foundry, where all the metal work
 is carried on, from the boring of the cast frame to the preparation of
 the screws. Next, in the upper storeys, in the more distant factories,
 begins the process of fitting the piano together from the rough
 parts. The action is provided by a separate factory, the Nürnberg
 wires are spun, the walls of the grand pianos are glued together in
 from twelve to twenty thicknesses, the frame is bronzed, the wood
 inlaid, the ornaments put on, every tiny screw, every spindle is
 touched up with rare attention, till the instrument gains its speech,
 and is tested, for the last refinements, in separate rooms. Since the
 completion of the last building, they reckon on a yearly output of not
 less than three thousand five hundred pianos, on which eight hundred
 workers are employed. The proportion of grands to cottages is as
 three to four, a proof of the enormous popularity of the cottage, for
 which as a piece of furniture it is so easy to find room, but which,
 even in its best specimens, can never give to the musician the fulness
 of tone and the resonance of a grand. The demand for Bechsteins is
 greater than their factories can meet. It is remarkable that half
 of them go to England and the English colonies through the London
 branches; while Germany, Austria, Russia, Italy, Spain, and South
 America, share the other half. In a business of such magnitude it is
 no mere ostentation to record these figures, which simply supply the
 necessary statistics of the general trade.

 [Illustration: Upright Hammerclavier (pianoforte), Italian, beginning
 of 19th century. Two pedals, one to raise the dampers, the other a
 “jalousie schwellung” (_i.e._ Venetian shutters, like an organ swell
 or the harmonium “forte” action). Richly inlaid. Engraved crowns on
 the fronts of the keys. De Wit collection. ]

 [Illustration: Bechstein Cottage Piano, “English style.”]

 So long as the piano was merely an instrument for more or less gifted
 musicians, it was unnecessary to consider the question which to-day,
 when it has become a general means of social pleasure, stands in
 the foreground--namely its treatment as a piece of furniture. The
 “square” instrument has only certain parts, particularly the lower
 extremities, in which the style of the time could be expressed. The
 legs and the feet were, in the time of the Ruckers, _baroque_; as
 in the time of the Streichers they adopted the style of the Empire,
 and in our day that of the Renaissance. The rest of the body was
 fixed in its main lines by the given natural forms; and has altered
 very little in architectural relations in the course of centuries.
 The piano was in the fortunate position, even in the times when as
 yet little attention was paid to constructive logic, of being a
 construction, which, from its very aim, gained the most beautiful
 form. With its gracefully-bending walls, and its natural and yet
 characteristic shape, the grand piano, in many furnishing schemes of
 the insipid fifties or the glaring eighties, in many a jerry-built
 and cheaply appointed house, stood as the single solid and carefully
 wrought article in the place. The cottage, on the other hand, which
 too often is meant to be nothing but a piece of furniture, and
 which with its encasing wood-walls offers only too much opportunity
 to fashionable taste, has sunk deep into the domestic style, and
 even to-day has hardly freed itself from these false influences. It
 would seem that the cottage piano was invented in 1739 by the priest
 Don Domenico of Mela in Gagliano. Only at the commencement of this
 century did it begin to spread on this side of the Alps. It offered
 a grand field for dubious artistic experiments. Now it was treated
 merely as a sideboard, now as an Egyptian pyramid, now as an altar
 with figurative paintings, now as the _corpus vile_ for all kinds of
 marqueterie-experiments. I know only one cottage piano that expresses
 its essence in characteristic style, and develops its form without
 grimaces: this is the “English” type, plain and unadorned, introduced
 into the trade by Bechstein, a principal feature of which is that the
 legs are continued above the keyboard in a very graceful style, as
 candle-brackets.

 [Illustration: Bechstein Grand Piano _de luxe_, “Rheingold.” 1896.]

 When the grand piano is used as an object for decoration, the result
 is usually unsatisfactory. The contradiction between its plain form
 and gaudy ornamentation becomes very marked. Earlier ages saw clearly
 that the walls of the piano and its lid are best left plain, and
 adorned with paintings. But to-day the cases are more frequent in
 which specially magnificent pianos are so carefully fitted up with
 plastic ornamentation in all styles with pillars, reliefs, and other
 descriptions of carving, that one can only smile at the waste of
 labour. In the over-rich rococo adornment, which was presented by a
 piano built by Bechstein some time ago for the Empress Frederick for a
 particular apartment, a trained eye can to-day find no pleasure. More
 tolerable are the splendid grands, richly adorned with paintings, in
 which, in Germany, Max Koch is chiefly concerned. The Wagner piano
 for the Prince of Anhalt-Dessau, or the Rheingold piano, both by
 Bechstein, are also worth noticing. The latter has the daughters of
 the Rhine for legs, a waving ornamentation on the walls, and carved
 bulrushes on the lid; it is one of the most interesting monster-pianos
 built in our time. In England Alma Tadema is the piano-painter most
 in request. For Henry Marquand of New York he prepared an instrument,
 adorned with precious stones and with painting, which was priced at
 £15,000. His own piano is also extraordinary. The ornamentation
 chosen is in the style of mediæval mosaics, with expensive surface
 ornamentations. Under the lid are framed and adorned parchment strips,
 on which Liszt, Tschaïkowski, Gounod, and others, inscribed their
 names. This was appraised at £2500. A piano built in London for Carmen
 Sylva had ivory legs. Perhaps a varied ebony and ivory ornamentation,
 which springs from the appearance of the keys, taking advantage of the
 splendid surface provided by these materials, would be more promising
 than any kind of rococo or Gothic design. Ivory is still in strong
 demand for pianos. Ninety thousand instruments are yearly issued from
 the hundred and seventy London houses; and these take ten thousand
 tusks.

 Ever since composers began to write easier pieces the demand for
 pianos has been greater. The market has of course been well supplied.
 In 1896 appeared over 2500 “books”[134] of piano solos, 2000 songs
 with piano accompaniment, more than 250 books of duets, and 300 pieces
 for piano and violin. Among these figure many new editions of old
 works, which to-day form a literature by themselves. The arrangement
 of historical material, as it gives its character to the calling
 of the modern pianist, is also reflected in it. We have excellent
 editions, like the Berlin “Original Texts” (Urtexte), “Bischoff’s
 Bach,” published by Steingräber, “Klindworth’s Chopin,” published by
 Bote and Bock, “Bischoff and Neitzel’s Schumann,” “Bülow’s Beethoven’s
 Sonatas.” Breitkopf and Härtel have extended their Popular Library
 over the widest area. They have arranged their piano-publications into
 a uniform piano-library, which soon will embrace 10,000 numbers. Nay,
 the “Moonlight Sonata” is already to be purchased for a penny. And
 yet we must confess that really beautiful editions of bibliographical
 value are not to be found. An edition in artistic binding, on thick
 paper, in elegant engraving, following the best original copy, with
 none of those instructive but unornamental marks of fingering or
 phrasing, and at the same time well adapted for opening out without
 injury, and calculated for perfect typographical pictures on every
 page--why is there no such edition of Beethoven, when people can be
 found who will pay ten or twelve thousand pounds for a piano?

 [Illustration]

 Where the historic tendency is so well marked, creativeness has
 degenerated. Since the middle of the century plenty of good sound
 stuff has been written for the piano; but it must be confessed
 that piano-music has shown no tendency to strike out a new path.
 No commanding or revolutionary personality, like Schumann, Chopin,
 or Liszt, has arisen. Almost all modern production is but the
 popularisation of Liszt, or a respectable mean between Chopin and
 Schumann.

 Ferdinand Hiller began the endless succession of these eclectic
 musicians. But the last of the solid old style was Alkan, a solitary,
 eccentric, misanthropic, but withal interesting old man. He was born
 in Paris in 1813, and remained there. He was one of the many pupils of
 Zimmermann, that modest but most influential teacher. Alkan’s pieces
 were highly esteemed by Bülow, who gave him a place in his list of
 Étude-masters. In his works, which are chiefly Études and Preludes,
 there speaks a Berlioz, with an elemental and realistic power. He
 stands in his kind half-way between Chopin and Liszt. Some pieces,
 like the highly original Op. 39, 1, do not easily fade out of the
 memory. The seventh of the twelve Études, dedicated to Fétis, is a
 remarkably significant Chopin-like Ballade in Berlioz’ style, with
 kettle-drum rolls, and other most peculiar harmonic and orchestral
 effects. In the “Allegro Barbaro” of the fifth Étude he gives full
 play to his propensity to exotic phrases of foreign colouring.
 He works with uncanny, lengthy unisons, or with cutting climbing
 ninths. An out-and-out romantic, he delights not merely to rush into
 the middle of his pieces with explanatory words--“Mors” is one of
 these--but he has hit upon the most original titles that ever an
 association of ideas led a composer to adopt: “Pseudo-naïveté,” “Fais
 Dodo,” “Heraclitus and Democritus,” “Railroad,” “Odi profanum vulgus,”
 “Morituri te salutant.” To play his pieces is as difficult as to
 construe the Talmud.

 [Illustration:
       Stephen Heller.      Ferdinand Hiller.      Adolf Henselt.]

 A constant succession of romantic writers of Études or small pieces
 stretches from that era to our own. First stands the intellectual
 Volkmann; next, the somewhat too dainty Kirchner, a regular
 album-writer, who went so far in his admiration for Schumann as to
 publish “New Davidsbündler” and “The New Florestan and Eusebius.”
 Adolf Henselt, who lived at St Petersburg, practised an extraordinary
 longdrawn legato technique. He is still esteemed for his tolerable F
 minor Concerto, and for his second and fifth Études, especially the
 well-known “Si oiseau j’étais.” Stephen Heller, who lived in Paris,
 wrote a hundred and forty-nine works, almost exclusively for the
 piano. He is a combination of Schumann, Chopin, Mendelssohn, and
 water; but we light occasionally on passages of some inspiration.
 His well-known Saltarellos and Tarantelles, his effective “Forellen”
 (Trout) Fantasia, and his excellent “Danses Bois,” are in the taste
 of the time. More important was his pretty idea, in the Freischütz
 Studies, of uniting operatic motives and étude-practice in an organic
 and poetic combination.

 [Illustration: Tschaïkowski.]

 The lesser Romantics and Romanticists were meanwhile working
 diligently in Paris. A group of successful piano-composers of this
 class reaches down to our own day. The chief names are Fauré, Widor,
 Vincent d’Indy, Chabrier, César Franck, Dubois, Cécile Chaminade, Paul
 Lacombe. The drawing-room romance, which in Chaminade unfortunately
 tends too often to shallowness, exhibits often a Mendelssohnian
 classicism, of which dainty specimens are given in Lacombe’s
 Toccatina, and in the Toccata of Chaminade herself. The literature
 for two pianos is well illustrated in Chabrier’s Romantic Waltzes,
 which are unusually spirited. César Franck’s symphonic variations,
 serious and academic, and St Saens’ Concertos, more interesting in
 their effective technique than in content, stand out from the mass of
 orchestral piano-work.

 [Illustration: From painting by Fritz Erler.]

 An equally important group is that of the Russians, headed by the
 emotional and highly-strung Tschaïkowski, whom Bülow, not without
 justice, honoured with his special admiration. Tschaïkowski’s
 variations are one of the soundest and most genuine of modern piano
 works; and the B flat minor concerto has a swing and rush that
 carries us away. His Sonata, not only by its application of national
 themes, but specially by the national colouring of the episodic
 parts, down to the light and shade of the figurations, is unique
 among piano pieces. He was simpler and more popular in his numerous
 drawing-room pieces, which constantly reward study by a spirited
 phrase or unusual harmony. The school of older and younger Russians
 has worked on the same popular lines. To this school belong Borodin,
 Cui, Liadoff, Rimsky-Korsakoff, Mussorgsky, Glazounow, Naprawnik.
 A third group is that of the Scandinavians, who gained importance
 in Europe about the middle of the century, not merely in fiction
 and painting, but in music also. But they were rather inspired than
 inspirers. Their leader is Grieg, whose well-known concerto Op.
 16, in spite of certain eccentricities, has a very flowing course
 suggesting the united influence of many predecessors. His themes are
 good specimens of a music which is not the product of experience,
 but of invention. Scores of variations and dainty isolated pieces
 keep the same happy and attractive medium between the shallow and
 the interesting. They are in any case more important than Gade’s
 Mendelssohniana. For a long time less known, but far deeper and
 more genuine than Grieg, is Halfdan Kjerulf, whose works have been
 republished by Arno Kleffel (Simon). Humorous little pieces in the
 post-romantic style, but of concentrative ability, deserve the highest
 praise a Romantic can receive; they are like Schubert in spirit. Among
 the later Scandinavians, Schytte and Sinding have tried no new paths;
 Stenhammer, also of importance as a virtuoso, has given us works of
 pith and character, which may rank among the first.

 [Illustration]

 In England and America, in later times, Graham Moore and Macdowell
 may claim notice as lesser Romantics. The former is not free from
 triviality; the latter invents with more delicate genius, and has
 written a very respectable piano-concerto. But Germany may still boast
 that she retains the supremacy.

 From the group of German post-Romantics, which found in Franz Brendel
 a very fertile composer of programme tone-pictures, two great
 personalities drew apart. Adolf Jensen was the inheritor of Schumann’s
 emotion, Johannes Brahms of Schumann’s musical character. Jensen,
 whose character is the mean between Chopin and Schumann, has left
 behind him music which will not die, in his clear-cut and splendidly
 worked-out Suites, in his emotional “Wanderbilder” and Idylls, in
 the unique Eroticon, which characterises the different forms of love
 in separate movements, and in the four-handed wedding music, which
 is lovely and full of power. But Brahms inherited from his patron
 Schumann, not youth, not this simple thinking and inventing, but
 manhood, in which music became an absolute self-supported world.
 He worked in the world of tone, with no trace of virtuosity, with
 not a suspicion of a concession to the understanding of the mere
 amateur. His Sonatas and Concertos, the sparkling Scherzo Op. 4, the
 Variations, the Études, even the four-handed waltzes and the unique
 “Liebes-lieder” waltzes--for four hands with voices--there has, in our
 time, been no music written so free from the slightest condescension.
 Stubborn, at times repellent, even in her smiles not very gracious,
 this music seeks to make no proselytes; but whomsoever she wins as a
 friend, she holds fast and allows that rarest of pleasures--the
 pursuit of lofty aims, and the quiet rapture of a student.

 [Illustration: Johannes Brahms. Photograph from life by Marie
 Fellinger, Vienna.]

 [Illustration]

 Over against these two originals stands Joachim Raff, the eclectic.
 We have grown accustomed to count his eclecticism no reproach, for
 never did man more bitterly experience the sorrow of art. His great
 legacy of piano-pieces will at least give a good picture of the time.
 In them the most commonplace demands of art are mingled with the most
 heart-felt lamentations--as they never mingled except in our age. They
 are a long catalogue of virtues and vices, from the hapless Polka de
 la Reine to the Sonatas, in which, whether for piano alone, or more
 especially for piano and violin, he attained astonishing heights; from
 the ravishingly graceful suite-movements to the romanticism of his
 lyrical songs. And over all broods the unrest of the time.

 Among living Germans the same two main groups are in general to be
 distinguished: the artists of the serious, self-sufficient music, and
 the poets of the lighter, post-romantic _genre_. Rheinberger’s sound
 and solid Sonatas and smaller pieces are the purest representatives of
 the more absolute conception of music, and they deserve the highest
 praise. Richard Strauss, also, in his earlier years, came out with
 some remarkably original piano-pieces, which betrayed a strong sense
 for absolute music. I would mention particularly the pithy Burlesque
 for Orchestra and Piano. In such serious and solid endeavour Wilhelm
 Berger stands out among the younger masters. But--as in the middle
 section of his great variations for two pianos--he must beware of
 a too great fluency, which is the stumbling-block of all absolute
 musical emotion.

 Eugene d’Albert, in spirit, resembles Brahms. This appears most
 clearly in the eight massive Piano-pieces of his Op. 5, which live by
 their infelt music, and are in that respect to be numbered amongst
 the noblest fruits of modern piano-literature. This inclination to
 absolute music appeared even in his first work, a very interesting
 Suite, and has received further active expression in certain
 arrangements of Bach, which take a front rank along with those of
 Busoni. Among his piano-concertos, the second, which is included in
 a single movement, is without serious rival, at least among works
 that have appeared since Liszt, in wealth of invention and variety
 of colour. His secular turn will probably continue itself in his
 later works, which, in consequence of his devotion to opera, will
 necessarily cease to be influenced by Bach and Brahms.

 Paderewski stands perhaps on the dividing line between the severer
 absolute musicians, in whose style he composed his Variations and
 Humoresques à l’antique, and the daintier drawing-room romantics, with
 whom he associates himself specially in numerous fiery Polish dances.
 His Concerto in A minor is absolutely bathed in this national spirit.

 Xaver Scharwenka strikes a similar note. Something of Chopin at his
 best still lives in him; and his Concertos, above all, have given him
 a name as a composer. His brother Philip renounces the virtuoso, and
 appears rather as a teacher and former of taste. He has created a
 rich piano-literature, which prefers to deal in graceful and _galant_
 forms, and holds itself utterly aloof from storm and revolution.
 Scharwenka has the rare merit of having successfully cultivated
 four-handed piano music; and his “Herbstbilder” and “Abendmusik”
 belong to the most tasteful productions of this class. Among his
 multiform “Jugendstücke” the “Kinderspiele,” in several volumes, are
 the most successful. A similar activity has been shown by Wilhelm
 Kienzl, who has been able to work the light romantic _genre_ in all
 its aspects. Kienzl is one of our most fertile piano-composers.
 His pieces are all occasional, thought out for delicate orchestral
 effects, and thus are extremely unassuming. His “Boat-Scene” gained
 the special approval of Liszt, while his Dance Airs and Dance Pictures
 belong to the most popular class of piano-works. His illustrated cycle
 “Child-love and Life,” which appeared with text in four languages,
 seeks to apply to the piano the method of intuitive instruction. The
 cycle “From my Diary” is the best example of the specially subtle and
 suggestive touch, by which Kienzl attains his detailed orchestral
 effects; while the two volumes, “A Poet’s Journey,” are to be regarded
 as his ripest work.

 [Illustration]

 Moritz Moszkowski, who has not yet laid aside his career as a
 virtuoso, and only the other day appeared with a new piano-concerto,
 is among the most remarkable in the band of modern piano-poets. A
 delicate and polished virtuosity, as it appears in the Etincelles and
 the Tarantelle, is allied with a characteristic force in form, which
 has made his four-handed Spanish dances, and his “From Foreign Parts,”
 so popular.

 History shows that the piano only flourishes in a pronounced
 opposition to the opera, which is the other extreme, the triumph
 of all arts united. The opera seeks to realise the impossible; it
 calls into requisition a whole world of forces in order to grasp in
 a sensuous manner the heights of life. It forms a Titanic resolve
 to build mountains out of sand; an intoxication, an extraordinary
 consciousness of victory, gives wings to this most daring of
 experiments. A great man once appeared, who made Dionysus his lord,
 and sought to win from the stage a mirror of the world and worldly
 honour. We stand on the fair ruins of his splendid failure. We have
 been instructed, we have been elevated; but the tragedy of the
 theatre is too deep. Then come the hours in which we flee to the
 household-ingle of chamber-music, and strive to disentangle its
 enlacing lines, in which we see the whole of life included, since it
 depicts itself without the need of foreign aid. The piano will further
 be the central point of this introspection. Let us have no concertos,
 in which this delicate instrument is dragged before the crowd and
 has to fight a duel with the orchestra. All beautiful compositions
 notwithstanding, the piano is no concerto-instrument. In concertos
 the delicate ear is outraged. The piano will not adapt itself for
 new ideas in the hall, in the midst of virtuosity, or against the
 orchestra. It must become chaste; it must turn in faith to Bach’s
 Wohltemperiertes Klavier, the Old Testament, as Bülow called it, of
 the musician’s creed, and to Beethoven’s Sonatas, the New.

 It is noteworthy that in Schytte’s “Silhouettes,” or Variations on
 the same theme in the different styles of various Masters, he nowhere
 fails so badly as with Bach, who is marked by retardations in the
 middle voices, or with Beethoven, who is characterised by gloomy
 rhythm. The true path seems to have been lost. The line through Bach,
 Beethoven, Schumann, and Brahms, is the only safe line for the piano;
 and it is the line in music furthest removed from the opera. In those
 great natures, whether they knew it or not, was a strong repugnance
 to the opera; and Brahms, whose eulogists said he was the last of his
 race, will perhaps one day be viewed as the connecting link between
 the old and a new musical culture.

 It is in chamber-music alone that we have the right to look for
 great triumphs in the immediate future; triumphs of which Klinger’s
 “Radierungen,” Brahms’s “Clarinet Quintet” or Smetana’s “Aus Meinem
 Leben,” are at once the anticipation and the guarantee.

 It is for our children to see to it that the great traditions of the
 past are not forgotten; and that the building which it will fall to
 them to erect is not unworthy of its foundation.

 [Illustration]


     [133] Some of us would be inclined to follow this train
     of thought in another direction. The question would not
     be--May great artists break the law and be blameless? (the
     Pope practically held that they might; if Benvenuto Cellini
     does not lie about his own case) but--What right has the
     public to obtain a full account of any man’s private life?

     Vulgar curiosity, and an unacknowledged desire on the part
     of the reader to find that the great man is “even such
     a one as himself,” have more to do with the popularity
     of certain biographies than their writers would care to
     acknowledge.

     The “Life” of a great man should be a faithful report of
     his Greatness. His weakness and folly, often exceeding
     that of commonplace people simply because of the vastly
     greater range of his temptations, is no business of ours,
     and should never be printed, except in so far as it is
     necessary to make clear the plain story of his career.

     [134] Meaning separate publications--ranging from single
     pieces to large collections in one volume.




                               Postscript

 Prosniz’s “Handbuch der Klavier-litteratur,” which goes down to 1830,
 and the new edition of Weitzmann’s “History of Piano-playing and
 Piano-literature,” now in preparation, supply a complete apparatus of
 all the sources of information necessary to the student. Thus I have
 been able in this work, to the exclusion of all dryasdust references
 to authorities, to present the development of piano-literature from
 the point of view of culture and of human interest. For procuring the
 material which lies in the works themselves and contemporary writings,
 I am indebted to the labours of Dr Kopfermann, Director of The Royal
 Library of Music at Berlin. I am enabled to give the illustrations by
 the extreme kindness of Mr Otto Lessmann, the Baroness Wilhelm von
 Rothschild, Mr Nicolas Manskopf, Mr Edwin Bechstein, Mr de Wit, Madame
 Bülow, Madame Marie Fellinger, and others.




                                 Errata

  P. 43. The note on Agricola is a mistake. M. Agricola is of the
     early 16th century. Bach’s pupil was J. F. Agricola, for whom
     see p. 122, _note_.

  P. 48. _For_ “Tielman Sufato” _read_ “Sufato Tielman.”

  P. 63, line 2. _For_ “brown” _read_ “yellow.”

  P. 63, line 2. _For_ “dark grey” _read_ “gris de Maure.”

  P. 70, line 27. According to the latest investigations Scarlatti
     died in _Naples_ in 1757; thus he must have returned from Spain
     to Italy. (_Cf._ “Gazette Musicale,” Napoli, 15th Sept. 1898.)

  P. 114, line 19. _For_ “Hezekiah’s” _read_ “Gideon’s.”




                                Addendum

  P. 16. _Note_. That one of the earliest indications of the 18th
     century suite is to be seen in the Elizabethan “Parthenia,”
     viz., in the association of Prelude, Pavan, Galliard.




                       Index of Names and Matters


  Accompagnato--style, 95

  Adam, L., 160, 186, 192

  Agricola, M., 43 (_see_ Erratum)

  Alkan, 317

  Ansorge, 301

  Arcadelt, 8 _note_

  Aria, 72

  Arne, T. A.,  38

  Aston, 27

  Attaignant, 42


  Baake, 191

  Bach, Friedemann, 138

  Bach, John Christian,  94, 148, 159

  Bach, John Sebastian, 91 ff.
    Life, 93
    His contrapuntal method, 94
    Accompagnato, 95
    Style of work, 96
    Construction of his pieces, 96
    Technique, 116
    Clavier method, 118
    Bach and the Hammer-clavier, 122
    Original editions of, 102
    Toccatas, 98
    Symphonies and Inventions, 97
    Fugues, 100
    “Art of Fugue,” 103
    Wohltemperiertes Klavier, 102, 112, 113, 116, 119
    Chromatic Fantasia, 103
    Other Fantasias, 109, 110
    Partitas, 104
    English Suites, 106
    Overture in French Style, 120
    Italian Concerto, 109
    Preludes, 112
    Programme-music, 114
    Goldberg Variations, 117
    Other mentions, 148, 163, 326

  Bach, Philip Emanuel, 128 ff.
    Life, 138
    The “Versuch,” 139
    “Manieren,” 140
    Harmonies, 144
    Melody, 144
    Works, 143
    Amalia-sonatas, 145

  Barth, 306

  “Bebung,” 20, 119

  Bechstein, 310

  Beethoven, 157 ff.
    Reformer, 158
    Tragedy in Music of, 169
    Concertos, 170
    Scherzi, 169
    Forms, 171
    Style of playing, 183
    Sonatas in detail, 175 ff.

  Bembo, Pietro, 77

  Benedict, 191

  Bennett, Sterndale, 268

  Berger, Ludwig, 184, 191, 193

  Berger, Wilhelm, 323

  Bertini, 205

  Besardus, 12

  Bird, William, 27-31
    Carman’s Whistle, 31

  Bischoff, 307, 316

  Blow, John, 38

  Blüthner, 310

  Böhner, 245

  Bösendorfer, 310

  Bononcini, 74

  Borodin, 320

  Borwick, 300

  Brahms, 322

  Brendel, Franz, 322

  Breslaur, 304

  Broadwood, 133, 169

  Bülow, Hans von, 296

  Bull, John, 32, 34, 36, 71 _note_
    King’s Hunt, 35

  Busoni, 301

  Buxtehude, 92


  Caccini, 75

  Carissimi, 78

  Carreño, Madame, 303

  Cavalieri, 77

  Cavalli, 75

  Chabrier, 319

  Chambonnières, 52

  Chaminade, Cécile, 319

  Chopin, 256 ff.
    Etudes, 203, 263
    Chopin and Hummel, 261
    Life, 258
    Works, 262
    Playing, 257

  Clavichord, the, 19, 20, 89, 91, 124
    Clavicymbal, 23, 81

  Clauss-Savardy, 293

  Clementi, 190, 208
    Group of his followers, 191, 193

  Collard, 193

  Compass of clavier, etc., 19-22, 24, 211

  Concertos, 109, 151, 170, 319, etc.

  Contests, musical, 91, 161, 163

  Corelli, 78, 82

  Counterpoint, 9, 79, 84, 85

  Couperin, François, 53 ff.
    Content of his pieces, 56
    Forms, 55
    L’art de toucher le clavécin, 63, 64

  Couperin, Louise, 59

  Couplet in Rondo, 55, 147 _note_

  Cramer, 194, 210

  Cristofori, 121, 122, 133

  Cui, 320

  Czerny, 190, 216


  Da Capo, 84

  D’Agoult, 276

  D’Albert, Eugene, 307, 324

  Dance
    Old English, 18
    First instrumental dances, 15, 42
    French _danseuses_, 43 ff.
    Oldest books of dances, 52
    Old dance forms, 55
    Allemand, etc.

  Dandrieu, 49, 65

  D’Anglebert, 40, 65

  Dawson, 300

  Diémer, 302, 309

  D’Indy, Vincent, 319

  Diruta, 24, 80

  Döhler, 291, 293

  Donizetti, 202

  Dorn, H., 191

  Dreyschock, 293

  Dubois, 319

  Dumont, 65

  Dupont, 306

  Durante, 89

  Dussek, 159, 163 ff.

  Duysen, 310


  Eberl, 183, 190

  Eckard, Joh., 48

  Eckard (Paris), 160

  Elizabeth, Queen, 3, 4

  Elsner, 265

  English Music, 6, 14, 16, 27-39, 38 _note_, 82 _note_

  English relations to French music, 15, 41

  Erard, 133

  Ertmann, Baroness, 160

  Essipoff, Madame, 293

  Étude, 203 ff.


  Fantasia, Old English, 16, 82 _note_, 101 _note_

  Fantasia, Italian, 80

  Fantasia, free, 145
    _F. senza tempo_, 143

  Farnaby, 37

  Farrenc, 52

  Fauré, 319

  Field, 159, 193, 265

  Fingering, in old times, 26, 81, 116

  Fischer, 303

  Fleischer, Oskar, 41

  Fortbien, 133

  Franck, C., 319

  French Characteristic Pieces, 132, 148

  Frescobaldi, 73, 79, 80, 92

  Freund, 306

  Friederici, 133

  Friedheim, 301

  Froberger, 92


  Gabrieli, 15, 26, 79, 92

  Gabrilowitsch, 301

  Gade, 321

  Galilei, Vincenzio, 77

  Gallot, 51

  Galuppi, 89

  Gasparini, 70

  Gaultier, 41, 50

  Gelinek, 161, 183

  General Bass (see Thorough Bass), 284

  Germer, 307

  Gibbons, 7, 16, 37

  Glasounow, 320

  Gorlier, 15

  Graf Pianos, 182

  Gravicymbel, 133

  Greulich, 191

  Grieg, 321

  Guicciardi, Julia, 160


  Hackebrett (dulcimer), 121

  Handel, 74, 138

  Hässler, 159

  Hammer-klavier, 121, 312

  Harpsichord, 22, 24, 78 _note_

  Hartvigson, 300

  Hasler, 92

  Hasse, 14

  Hausmann, 309

  Haydn, 149, 159

  Hebenstreit, 121, 122

  Heller, Stephen, 318, 319

  Henselt, 318

  Herz, 201

  Heymann, 301

  Hiller, Ferdinand, 191, 317

  Hofmann, Jos., 301

  Hüllmandel, 192

  Hummel, 190, 193, 211, 212 ff.

  Hünten, 201

  Hurdy-gurdy, 21


  Ibach, 310

  Improvisation, 161, 162 (Mozart), 198
    In Bach’s time, 130
    In 1800, 161, 198, 211

  Irmler, 310

  Isaac, 92

  Italian Forms, 78-80
    Chamber Music, 78


  Jadin, 192

  Jaell, 293

  Janko, 308

  Jannequin, 48, 49, 50, 61

  Jedliczka, 306

  Jensen, Adolf, 322

  Joseffy, 306

  Judenkunig, 11


  Kalkbrenner, 190, 192, 198, 218

  Kaps, 310

  Karr, 201

  “Kenner und Liebhaber,” 143

  Keyboard, 24 _note_

  Kienzl, 323, 324

  Kirchner, 318

  Kirnberger, 131

  Kittl, 191

  Kjerulf, 322

  Klauwell, 304

  Klavier (see Pianoforte), 18, 21, 23, 121

  “Klavierlehrer,” paper, 305

  Kleeberg, 293

  Klengel, 193

  Klindworth, 306

  Knabe, 310

  Koch, 315

  Köhler, 189

  Kontski, 190, 201

  Kozeluch, 190, 210

  Krebs, 145

  Kuhnau, 92
    “Quacksalver,” 129
    “Biblical Stories,” 119

  Kullak, Ad., 306

  Kullak, Franz, 306

  Kullak, Th., 191, 304, 306


  Lacombe, 319

  Lasso, Orlando, 26, 37

  Le Begue, 65

  Lebert, 306

  Leschetizki, 308

  Liadoff, 320

  Lipawsky, 161

  Liszt, 193, 264, 271, 287 ff.

  Locatelli, 82

  Loeilly, 65

  Löschhorn, 191

  Logier, 190

  Louis Ferdinand, Prince, 164

  Lully, 44

  Lütschg, 301

  Lute in Middle Ages, 11, 77


  Madrigal, 8, 15, 37 _note_

  Marcello, 76

  Marchand, 91

  Marius, 122

  Marpurg, 130

  M’Dowell, 322

  Mela, Domenico des, 314

  Mendelssohn, 152, 198, 249 ff., 250 _note_

  Menter, Sophie, 293

  Merulo, 79 and _note_

  Meyerbeer, 194

  Monochord, 19, 42 _note_, 77

  Monteverde, 79

  Moore, Graham, 322

  Morley, Thomas, 37

  Mortier de Fontaine, 293

  Moscheles 152, 196, 198, 221

  Moskowski, 306, 325 f.

  Mozart, 151
    Mozart and the piano, 135
    Clavier concerts, 151
    Sonatas, 153 ff.
    Miscellaneous, 161

  Müller, A. E., 190

  Mulliner Book, 27

  Munday, John, 36, 93

  Mussorgsky, 320


  Naprawnik, 320

  Neitzel, 316


  Octave, “short”, 24 _note_

  Opera, Italian, 13, 74 ff.

  Operatic Fantasias, 200

  Organ, in Middle Ages, 10 ff.

  Ornamentations, 12, 20, 34, 41, 57 and _note_, 83 and _note_
    In Bull and Byrd, 29
    Couperin, 57
    Bach, 108
    P. E. Bach, 140 ff.
    End of 18th cent., 150

  Oury, Madame, 191


  Pachelbel, 92

  Pachmann, 301

  Paderewski, 301, 324

  Paganini, 207, 282

  Pape, 133

  Paradies, 89

  “Parthenia” (also see Addendum, p. 328), 16

  Pasquini, 70, 81

  Pauer, Ernst, 191

  Paul, Oskar, 18

  Pedal, 136, 188, (156, picture)
    With Dussek, 164
    Adam, 186
    Hummel, 186

  Pedal Clavier, 120

  Penna, Lorenzo, 24

  Peri, 75, 79

  Periodicals, musical, 131

  Phillipps, Peter, 37 and _note_

  Pianoforte
    Modern factories, 309 ff.
    History of the instrument, 121, 122, 136
    Viennese and English mechanism, 134, 136, 190
    Socially, 134, 303
    As furniture, 313 f.
    Pianos _de luxe_, 315
    Piano and Opera, 201, 326
    Piano and Orchestra, 150, 199
    Prices of pianos, 135, 137, 316
    Piano instruction, 190, 304
    Conservatoriums, 305
    Hammerclavier, invention of, 121
    “Cottage” Piano, 314 (156, 312, 313, pictures)

  Pièce Croisée, 58, 61

  Pixis, 187, 191

  Plaidy, 189, 306

  Planté, 301

  Pleyel, 133, 159

  Pleyel, Madame, 191

  Pollini, 191

  Porpora, 89

  Pradher, 192

  Programme-Music, old, 49, 92, 93, 132

  Proksch, 191

  Prosniz, 28, 328

  Purcell, 82 _note_


  Raff, 323

  Raif, 306

  Rameau, 65, 66, 86, 92

  Reading, the Monk of, 15

  Rebel, 45

  Registers or “stops” of Clavier, 23

  Reincke, 92

  Reisenauer, 301

  Repetition, principle of, 72

  Rheinberger, 323

  Richardson, Ferdinand, 37

  Riemann, 307

  Ries, 191

  Rimsky-Korsakoff, 320

  Risler, 190, 301

  Romantic School, 224

  Rondo, Old French, 147 _note_
    In Philip Emm. Bach, 147
    In Beethoven, 174
    Rondo and Sonata, 145

  Rosellen, 201

  Rosenhain, 293

  Rosenthal, 301

  Rossi, Michael Angelo, 82

  Rubinstein, Anton, 294 ff.

  Rubinstein, Nicolas, 300

  Ruckers, 23, 137, 314

  Rudolf, Archduke, 191

  Rudorff, 306

  Rust, F. W., 163


  Saint-Saëns, 319

  Sand, George, 260

  Sauer, 301

  Scarlatti, Alessandro, 76, 88

  Scarlatti, Domenico, 69 ff.
    Sonatas, 86
    Technique, 88, 89
    Cat’s Fugue, 89

  Scharwenka, Xaver and Philip, 306, 324

  Schiedmayer, 310

  Schmitt, Aloys, 191, 192

  Schobert, 160

  Scholz, Bernhard, 306

  Schröter, 122

  Schubert, 225
    Miscellaneous, 226
    “Wanderer” Fantasia, 226
    Op. 78, 227
    Impromptus and “Moments,” 228, 229

  Schulhoff, 191

  Schumann, 231
    Schumann and Schubert, 229 ff.
    Jean Paul, 232
    Bach, 243
    E. T. A. Hoffmann, 245
    Life, 236
    Clara, 236, 237
    “Zeitschrift,” 238
    Works, 231 ff., 238 ff.
    Miscellaneous, 249

  Schwarz, Max, 306

  Schytte, 322, 326

  Senfl, 92

  Shakespeare and Music, 5, 6, 7

  Silbermann, 122, 134, 137

  Siloti, 301

  Sinding, 322

  Sonata
    Sonata “da camera” and “da chiesa,” 78 _note_, 84
    Old Italian, 86
    Scarlatti, 86 and _note_
    Kuhnau, 92
    Sonata and Suite, 107
    18th century, 110
    Sonata and Rondo, 145
    Philip Emm. Bach, 143 ff.
    Haydn, 150
    Mozart, 153
    Beethoven, 170 ff.

  Spath, 135

  Spinet, 6, 24, 90

  Spitta, 102, 116

  Starck, 306

  Stavenhagen, 301

  Steibelt, 162

  Stein, 137

  Steinway, 310

  Stenhammer, 322

  Sterkel, 210

  Strauss, Richard, 323

  Streicher, 134

  Streicher, Nanette, 160

  Sucher, 303

  Suite, (_see_ Dance) 106, etc., and _see_ Addendum

  Suspensions in Couperin, 57

  Sweelinck, virginal pieces, 26, 37

  Swietens, Van, 163

  Szalit, Paula, 301


  Tadema, Alma, 315

  Tallis, 27, 32

  Taubert, 191

  Tausig, 300, 306

  Technique, (_see under_), 187-190, 209
    Couperin, 64
    Ph. Emm. Bach, 143
    Fingering, 116
    Keyboard, etc., 24, 26

  Tedesco, 191

  Temperament, equal and unequal, 101 _note_, 102

  Thalberg, 197

  Thilo, 307

  Thoroughbass, 78, 79

  Thumb, technique of, 139 ff.

  Tielmann, Sufato, 48

  Tinctoris, 14

  Tischer, 128

  Titles of drawing-room pieces, 59, 200

  Titles (allegorical, etc.) of old pieces, 42, 51, 59 ff.

  Tomaschek, 191

  Tschaïkowski, 319

  Türk, D. G., 185

  Turini, the elder, 86

  Turini, the younger, 89


  Variations, Old English, 33, etc.

  Venetian instrumental music, 13, 26

  Viadana, 78

  Viennese musical life, 160

  Villoing, 190 (line 8; _omitted_)

  Vinci, L., 76

  Virdung, 20

  Virgil, 307

  Virginal, 6, 18, 81

  Virginal Books, 15, 16, 27, 28

  Virtuoso and Teacher, 64, 192, 305
    Life of, 193.
    Virtuosos playing together, 198
    Virtuosos and Concerts, 299

  Vivaldi, 82

  Volkmann, 318

  Volkslied in Masses and Motets, 8

  Vollweiler, 191


  Wagner (instruments), 137

  Wallace, 299

  Wanhal-Vanhall, 190

  Weber, Dionysius, 191

  Weber, C. M., 206, 218

  Weitzmann, 28, 328

  Wendling, 309

  Westermayer, 310

  Widor, 319

  Willaert, 79

  Wilmers, 191

  Wölffl, 161, 183, 190

  Wolfsohn, 300

  Wüllner, 306


  Zimmermann, 317

  Zumpe, 133




                     List of Full-page Engravings
                                                                PAGE
  Title-page. Portrait of Franz Liszt. Pastel by F. von
       Lenbach, of the year 1881, in the possession of
       Madame Cosima Wagner in Bayreuth               _Frontispiece_

  Young scholar and his wife. Painting by Gonzales
       (1614-1684), in the Royal Gallery at Cassel                 8

  Lady at the clavier. Painting by Dirk Hals, ✝ 1656,
       in the Rijksmuseum at Amsterdam                            14

  Le Maître de Musique, painting by Jan Steen, 1626-1679, in
       the National Gallery, London                               44

  Concert. Painting by Gerard Terborch, 1617-1681, in the
       Royal Museum at Berlin                                     56

  J. Ph. Rameau. Engraving by J. G. Sturm (Nürnberg,
       1742-1793)                                                 62

  A clavier lesson. Painting by an unknown Dutch Master,
       17th century, in the Royal Gallery at Dresden              78

  Domenico Scarlatti. Lithograph by Anon                          86

  J. S. Bach. Bust by Carl Seffner. Modelled on the actual
       skull. After His, J. S. Bach (Vogel, Leipsic)             100

  Facsimile of title-page of Bach’s Manuscript of the
       Wohltemperiertes Klavier, in the Royal Musikbibliothek,
       Berlin                                                    110

  George Frederick Handel, engraved by Thomson                   136

  Joseph Haydn, engraved by Quenedey                             148

  W. A. Mozart, engraved in 1793 by C. Kohl (1754-1807)          150

  Mozart at the age of seven with his father and sister.
  Engraved 1764, by J. B. Delafosse (b. 1721) after L. C. de
  Carmontelle (✝ about 1790)                                     154

  L. van Beethoven. Lithograph by C. Fischer, after the
  original portrait of 1817, by A. Kloeber (1793-1864)           168

  J. N. Hummel. Engraved by Fr. Wrenk (1766-1830), after the
  portrait by Catherine von Escherich (beginning of 19th
  century)                                                       210

  Franz Schubert. Lithograph of 1846, by J. Kriehuber
  (1801-1876)                                                    228

  Robert Schumann. Engraving by M. Lämmel                        236

  Chopin. Anonymous Lithograph, after portrait by Ary
  Scheffer (1795-1858)                                           256

  Thalberg. Lithograph of 1835 by Staub                          276

  Liszt at Weimar, 1884, from a Photograph                       290

  Eugene d’Albert, portrait by H. Katsch                         298

  Johannes Brahms. Photograph from life by Marie Fellinger,
  Vienna                                                         322




               List of other Illustrations and Facsimiles

                                                                  PAGE

  Guido of Arezzo and his protector, Bishop Theodal, playing on a
       Monochord                                                     1

  Orlando Gibbons. After Grignon’s engraving in Hawkins              7

  Title-page of the first English engraved Clavier Music, 1611      17

  From the Weimar “Wunderbuch,” a Clavichord of about 1440          20

  From the Weimar “Wunderbuch,” Primitive Spinet, of about 1440     21

  A Concerted Performance                                           25

  Page from “Parthenia,” the first English engraved Clavier Music,
       1611                                                         29

  John Bull, at the age of 26                                       33

  Henry Purcell, 1658-1695                                          36

  The so-called “Hand” of Guido of Arezzo                           38

  D’Anglebert, Chamber Musician to Louis XIV., after Mignard        40

  François Couperin, “Le Grand”                                     54

  Portrait of Louis Marchand                                        66

  Rameau, out walking                                               67

  Old engraving after Wagniger’s design                             68

  Adrian Willaert, of Venice                                        72

  Frescobaldi                                                       73

  Virginal in shape of a work-box                                   81

  The same opened                                                   81

  The instrument taken out                                          81

  Italian cembalo, from a monastery, of the 18th century            83

  Old engraving representing Scarlatti playing a Harpsichord with
       two rows of keys                                             85

  An Octave Spinet                                                  90

  German Clavichord, 17th century, “gebunden”                       91

  Konrad Pau(l)mann, the first German writer for keyed instruments  95

  Skull of Sebastian Bach                                           98

  The Fifteenth Sinfonia of John Sebastian Bach, from the Royal
       Musikbibliothek, Berlin                                     105

  John Mattheson, at the age of 37                                 115

  Pedal-clavichord                                                 120

  “Bundfrei” Clavichord                                            124

  Philip Emanuel Bach                                              126

  F. W. Marpurg, Theoretician and Clavier Teacher. 1718-1795       130

  Streicher’s Pianoforte and Concert Saloon                        135

  Mary Coswey with the Orphica                                     146

  Beginning of Mozart’s A minor Sonata                             153

  Upright Hammer-clavier, called the “Giraffe”                     156

  Beethoven at the age of 31                                       157

  Dussek (portrait)                                                165

  Cast of Beethoven’s living face, 1812                            167

  Specimen from Beethoven’s A flat major Sonata, Op. 26            173

  Lyser’s Sketch of Beethoven                                      176

  Beethoven’s last Grand Piano, by Graf, Vienna                    182

  Viennese pianoforte players about 1800. Eberl, Gelinek, Wölffl   183

  The Brothers Pixis. 1800                                         187

  Ludwig Berger. Pupil of Clementi                                 191

  John Field, 1782-1837. Steel engraving by C. Mayer               193

  Marcelline Czartoryska, _née_ Princess Radziwill                 194

  Prince Louis Ferdinand                                           195

  Marie Charlotte Antoine Josephe, Countess of Questenberg         197

  Clementi (portrait)                                              208

  Hummel in his later years                                        213

  A Canonic Impromptu, by J. N. Hummel                             215

  Czerny. Lithograph by Kriehuber, 1833                            217

  Carl Maria von Weber. Lithograph by Eichens, after Vogel, 1825   219

  Moscheles in his youth                                           220

  Moscheles, later, 1859                                           221

  Parisian and London Pianists at the beginning of the 19th century.
       L. Adam, Kalkbrenner, Cramer                                223

  Waltz by Schubert                                                224

  Clara Schumann, _née_ Wieck                                      239

  Louis Böhner, the original of Hoffmann’s Kreisler                246

  The last piece in Schumann’s “Kreisleriana,” main movement       247

  Head of Mendelssohn, after Hildebrand                            251

  George Sand, in man’s dress                                      259

  Chopin’s Hand. From a marble in the National Museum at Budapest  270

  An afternoon with Liszt. Kriehuber, Berlioz, Czerny, Liszt, the
       violinist Ernst                                             271

  Photograph of Liszt, taken in Budapest                           271

  Title-page of Hofmeister’s Edition of Liszt’s Op. 1.             273

  Liszt in his youth                                               275

  After Dantan’s Caricature of Thalberg                            276

  After Dantan’s Caricature of Liszt                               277

  Facsimile of Liszt’s Hungarian Storm-March                       279

  The “jeune école” of Parisian Pianists                           280

  Liszt in his youth                                               281

  Cartoon representing Liszt and his Works. 1842                   283

  “General” Bass surprised and overcome in his fortress by Liszt   284

  Liszt and Stavenhagen                                            285

  Plaster Cast of Liszt’s Hand                                     287

  Liszt lying in state                                             288

  Music-room in the “Altenburg” at Weimar                          289

  Döhler. Lithograph by Mittag                                     291

  Sophie Menter in her youth                                       292

  Clotilde Kleeberg, 1888                                          292

  Madame de Belleville                                             293

  Carl Filtsch                                                     293

  Rubinstein at twelve                                             294

  Hans von Bülow                                                   295

  Last Portrait of Rubinstein                                      296

  Bülow on his deathbed                                            297

  Reinecke in his youth                                            298

  Carl Tausig                                                      299

  Paula Szalit                                                     300

  Eduard Risler                                                    301

  Josef Hofmann                                                    302

  Madame Carreño                                                   303

  Ferruscio B. Busoni                                              305

  Hand of Eugene d’Albert                                          307

  J. G. Paderewski                                                 311

  Upright Hammerclavier                                            312

  Bechstein Cottage piano                                          313

  Bechstein Grand Piano _de luxe_                                  315

  Joachim Raff                                                     317

  Stephen Heller                                                   318

  Ferdinand Hiller                                                 318

  Adolf Henselt                                                    318

  Tschaïkowski                                                     319

  Richard Strauss                                                  320

  Philip Scharwenka                                                321

  Dr Wilhelm Kienzl                                                323

  Maurice Moskowski                                                325


                TURNBULL AND SPEARS, PRINTERS, EDINBURGH.




 Transcriber’s Note:

 This book was written in a period when many words and names had
 not become standardized in their spelling. Words may have multiple
 spelling variations or inconsistent use of diacriticals and
 hyphenation in the text. These have been left unchanged. Dialect,
 obsolete and alternative spellings were left unchanged. Words and
 phrases in italics are surrounded by underscores, _like this_.

 Obvious printing errors, such as letters in the wrong order,
 backwards, upside down, missing or partially printed, were corrected.
 Unprinted punctuation and final stops missing at the end of
 abbreviations and sentences were added.

 Footnotes were numbered in order and moved to the end of the chapter
 in which the related anchors occur. Footnote [4] has two anchors.

 Changes:
 
   Phantasie to Fantasie
   obligato to obbligato