THE
PIANOLIST
BY
GUSTAV
KOBBE
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THE PIANOLIST
THE PIANOLIST
A GUIDE FOR PIANOLA PLAYERS
GUSTAV KOBBE
AUTHOR OF "HOW TO APPRECIATE MUSIC," ETC.
NEW YORK
MOFFAT, YARD & COMPANY
1907
COPYRIGHT 1907, BY
MOFFAT, YARD & COMPANY
NEW YORK
Published November, 1907
TO MY FRIEND
JOSEPH HUTCHISON STEVENSON
CONTENTS
I. THE TITLE AND PURPOSE OF THIS
BOOK i
II. THE CHARM OF PLAYING A MUSI-
CAL INSTRUMENT YOURSELF. . . 10
III. FIRST STEPS OF THE MUSICAL
NOVICE 39
IV. THE THRILL OF THE GREAT MAS-
TERS 83
V. AN " OPEN SESAME " TO CHOPIN. . 117
VI. NOTES ON SOME OTHER MASTERS. 141
VII. EDUCATIONAL FACTORS 150
VIII. A FEW " DON'TS " FOR PIANOLISTS 159
vn
I. THE TITLE AND PURPOSE OF
THIS BOOK
MY book, " How to Appreciate Music,"
in the chapter devoted to the piano-
forte, contains a paragraph relating to the
Pianola and its influence in popularizing
music and stimulating musical taste. I con-
fess that before I started that paragraph I
was puzzled to know what term to use in
designating the instrument I had in mind.
" Mechanical piano-player " is a designa-
tion which not only does not appeal to me,
but, furthermore, fails to do justice to the
instrument, which, although mechanical in
its working, is far from being mechanical
in its effects.
The result? I took a cross cut and ar-
rived straight at the word Pianola as being
the name of the most widely known piano-
THE PIANOLIST
player, and happily derived from the name
of the most widely known instrument, the
pianoforte or, as it is more popularly termed,
the piano. For this reason the term Pianola
was used in the paragraph referred to and
now is employed in this book; and, for the
same reason, this book is called " The Pian-
olist." It is believed to be the title least re-
quiring explanation, if, indeed, it requires
any explanation at all. Right here, how-
ever, I must add that the company which
manufactures the Pianola objects to the use
of the word as a generic term.
So much for the title. Now for the pur-
pose of this book.
Soon after the publication of " How to
Appreciate Music " I discovered that the
paragraph concerning this new musical in-
strument had made a hit. It was widely
quoted as evidence of the " up-to-dateness "
of the book and I began to receive letters
2
TITLE AND PURPOSE
from pianola owners who were pleased that
the merits of the instrument should have
been recognized in a serious book on music.
Among these was a letter from a Mr. Harry
Mason, of Detroit, suggesting that I should
write a book for the use of those who owned
piano-players. Mr. Mason and myself never
have met. He knows me merely as an au-
thor of a book on music. All I know of
him is that he is one of the editors of a drug-
gists' trade paper in Detroit. Yet from him
has come the suggestion which has led me to
write this book, although, to judge from his
letter, he had not been deeply interested in
music until he began to use a " player " and,
through it, was led to ask for a book which
would tell him, in untechnical language,
something about an art that was beginning
to have eloquence and meaning for him.
To me this is highly significant, for there
must be thousands of others like him all
3
THE PIANOLIST
over the country, to whom, in the same way,
the great awakening just is coming through
the pianola at first a means of amusement,
then an educator with the element of amuse-
ment, but of a higher order, left in!
Shortly after I received Mr. Mason's let-
ter an incident added greatly to the force
of his suggestion. I always have been very
fond of Schubert's " Rosamunde " im-
promptu. The first person I heard play
it publicly was Annette Essipoff, a Russian
pianist and one of the very few great women
pianists of the world. Frequently I have
heard it since then, but never so charmingly
interpreted excepting But that is the most
interesting part of the story.
One night I was at my desk in my study,
when, suddenly, I heard the strains of this
impromptu, which is an air with variations,
from the direction of the drawing room. It
was sweet and tender, graceful and expres-
4
TITLE AND PURPOSE
sive, according to the character of the varia-
tions; and, when the last variation began
with a crispness and delicacy that made me
wonder what great virtuoso was at my piano-
forte without my knowing it, I hurried to
the drawing room and, entering it found
my fourteen year old daughter seated at a
pianola. The instrument had arrived only
a short time before from the house of a
friend who had gone South for the winter.
My daughter never had had a music lesson,
never had heard Schubert's " Rosamunde "
impromptu. Yet she had, without any ef-
fort, been the first to take me back to Essi-
poffs playing of Schubert's charming work!
It would have been ludicrous had it not
meant so much. In fact it was ludicrous
because, a few days before, when the instru-
ment had just been delivered and set up, I
had been deceived in much the same man-
ner by her playing of a composition by
Grieg.
5
THE PIANOLIST
But to return to the Schubert impromptu.
EssipofT, my young daughter, the associate
editor of a druggist' paper in Detroit, and
myself; the first a great virtuoso, the second
a schoolgirl, the third a writer on a trade
paper, the fourth a music critic what a
leveller of distinctions, what a universal mus-
ical provider the pianola is! Ten years ago
the virtuoso and the music critic would have
been the only ones concerned. The school-
girl and the trade paper editor wouldn't
have been " in it." Now, the schoolgirl was
playing like a virtuoso and the writer on
drugs and druggists was giving hints to the
music critic. A great leveller, placing the
musical elect and those who formerly would
have had to remain outside the pale, on a
common footing! This may not always ap-
peal to the musical elect, but think what it
means to the great mass of those who are
genuinely musical but have lacked the op-
6
TITLE AND PURPOSE
portunity for musical study or to those whose
taste for music never has been brought out.
To paraphrase a few sentences from my
" How to Appreciate Music " that have been
much quoted:
"'Are you musical?'
" ' No,' nine persons out of ten will reply;
1 I neither play nor sing.'
" * Your answer shows a complete mis-
understanding of the case. Because you
neither play nor sing, it by no means follows
that you are unmusical. If you love music
and appreciate it, you may be more musical
than many pianists and singers; or latent
within you and only awaiting the touchstone
of music there may be a deeper love and ap-
preciation of the art than can be attributed
to many virtuosos. For most of a virtuoso's
love and appreciation is apt to be centered
upon himself. And when you say, ' I can-
not play,' you are mistaken. You are think-
7
THE PIANOLIST
ing of the pianoforte. You may not be able
to play that. But you or any one else can
play the pianola, and that instantly places
at your command all the technical resources
of which even the greatest virtuosos can
boast."
One purpose of this book thus is to bring
home to people an appreciation of what this
modern instrument is, whether it is regarded
as a toy with which the business man amuses
himself with two-steps and ragtime after
business hours, or as a serious musical instru-
ment.
Another purpose, and a large one, is to
furnish pianolists with a guide to the music
which they play, or might play if their at-
tention were directed to it and to some of its
characteristics, and to point out the impor-
tance of the instrument in developing a love
of good music.
I also have in writing this book a purpose
8
TITLE AND PURPOSE
which I may describe as personal. I believe
I was the first American to publish an anal-
ysis of the Wagner music dramas that seemed
to be what the public wanted, and the first
to contribute to a magazine of general circu-
lation an article on Richard Strauss. It is
a matter of pride with me always to be found
on the firing line even if it is the privilege
of those who watch the battle from a safe
distance to dictate" the despatches and take
the credit for the result to themselves. And
so, I wish to be the first to write a book on
the pianola, an instrument of such impor-
tance to the progress and popular spread of
music that, at the present time, we can have
but a faint glimmering of the great part it
is destined to play.
II. THE CHARM OF PLAYING
A MUSICAL INSTRUMENT YOUR-
SELF
T TOW I wish I could play like that!
* * What is more common than this
exclamation from people who are listen-
ing to a great virtuoso or even only to a
fairly clever amateur? They realize that,
no matter how much they may enjoy a per-
formance, there is much greater fascination
in being the performer. Not a musical per-
son but would play if he could. Why, how-
ever, that "if"? It no longer exists. It
has been eliminated. The charm, the fasci-
nation of playing a musical instrument your-
self can be yours, and the only " if " to it
is if you have intelligence enough to appre-
ciate what that means.
What formerly was an insuperable ob-
stacle, the lack of technical facility the real
inability to play absolutely has been done
away with. There is no excuse for any-
10
PLAYING Music YOURSELF
body's not playing who wants to. The
pianola furnishes the technique, the dexterity,
the finger facility, or whatever you may
choose to call it. So far as this is concerned
the instrument itself makes you a virtuoso
places you on a par with a Liszt, Paderewski
or Rosenthal. It does so mechanically, yet
without the sharpness and insistent precise-
ness of a machine. Its action is pneumatic
and the effect of the compressed air is to
impart to its " touch " the manner in which
its " fingers " strike the keys an elasticity
which at least is comparable with the touch
of human fingers. As a friend of mine,
a lawyer, who has owned three pianolas and
who actually has been made musical through
them, expresses it: "When you've got a
mechanical device as good or nearly as good
as a virtuoso, you've got something of enorm-
ous importance to the whole world." And
so you have.
ii
THE PIANOLIST
I find a great feature of the so-called me-
chanical piano-player lies in what it allows
you to do yourself. It provides you with
technique, but, to use a colloquial phrase,
" you can still call your soul your own."
The technique, the substitute for that finger
facility which only years of practice will
give, is the pianola's; but the interpretation
is yours! The instrument provides the de-
vices for accelerating or retarding the time
and for making the tone loud or soft,
but when to whip up the time or to slow
down, when to use the sustaining or the soft
lever or when to swell through a crescendo
from pianissimo to fortissimo all that is left
to your own taste, judgment and discretion.
There is, indeed, among the improvements
introduced in the pianola a contrivance, of
which more hereafter, by which complete
directions are given for the interpretation of
the roll of music that is being played. These
12
PLAYING Music YOURSELF
directions, however, are not compulsory.
They are, in each instance, based on high
authority and are of great value even to
persons who are thoroughly familiar with
the music, but they need not be followed if
the player does not want to follow them.
He is likely in the beginning to accept the
directions, the so-called metrostyle mark-
ing, as he would the instruction of a high
class teacher, while, later on, he may incline
to regard the metrostyle as indicating the
general spirit in which the piece should be
interpreted, but vary it in detail as his
mood or fancy dictates. The metrostyle may,
in fact, be called the pianolist's " coach,"
giving him the kind of hints and directions
which even the greatest players and singers
value. Something, however, of the pianolist
himself, something of his own thought and
feeling goes into every interpretation. That
this is so is proved by the fact that no two
13
THE PIANOLIST
pianolists interpret the same composition
alike. There are differences, more or less
marked, just as there are when the same
piece is played by two pianists. In the
broader outlines, in general spirit, the inter-
pretations may be the same, but they will be
distinguished by subtle shadings that indi-
cate temperamental differences. The per-
spective of a landscape varies when viewed
from different windows; so does life when
observed from different points of view; so
does the interpretation of a composition
when played by different people on the
pianola.
Were the instrument purely a mechanical
device to wind up and set going, the artistic
results of which it is capable never would
have been obtained, and, I may add, this
book never would have been written. The
fact that artistic expression instead of ma-
chine-like precision has been its aim is what
PLAYING Music YOURSELF
has caused its possibilities as a musical in-
strument to appeal to me. It cannot be
sufficiently urged that in this country, as in
every other, there is an immense amount of
latent musical taste awaiting only the touch-
stone of hearing music or, better still, the
fascination of personally producing music,
to assert itself. Before the invention of the
piano-player hearing music was the only
touchstone; through the piano-player there
is added the fascination of being yourself a
participator in prpducing the music you
hear. When Theodore Thomas said " Noth-
ing so awakens interest in music as helping
to make it," he hit the nail on the head.
"After playing all this music I want to go
to concerts next winter. I'd like to hear
how the ' Fifth Symphony ' sounds on the
orchestra," said my little girl after the pia-
nola had been in the house only a week.
"All this music? " Yes indeed. More than
15
THE PIANOLIST
she could have become familiar with in six
months' concert-going and instruction. And
we always had said that she wasn't musical!
This fascination of personally producing
music is such a great factor in the spread of
musical taste that it is well worth looking
into further. There always is more plea-
sure in doing something than in watching
some one else do it. Take the average ama-
teurs who get together for music. They en-
joy what they play a thousand-fold more
than if they were listening to the greatest
virtuosos playing the same program. Why?
Because always there is more satisfaction in
doing the thing itself than merely in contem-
plating the result of what some one else is
doing. And so, with music, " to experience
the full fascination the divine art can ex-
ercise on us mortals, we must take an active
part in the making of it." Through the
pianola the opportunity of taking an active
16
PLAYING Music YOURSELF
part in the making of it is open to every-
body. Remember what my friend said. It
is worth repeating. " When you've got a
mechanical device as good, or nearly as
good as a virtuoso, you've got something of
enormous importance to the whole world."
Mechanical, remember, only in a certain
sense. Were it wholly mechanical it never
could be " as good, or nearly as good, as a
virtuoso."
Now let us see how this personal affilia-
tion of pianola and pianolist, of instrument
and player, has been worked out, so that
the player is not a mere human treadmill
pumping air into a cabinet on castors, but
whether he be a lawyer, merchant, financier,
dressmaker, milliner, or society leader; one
of the Four Hundred or one of the eighty
million a musical artist with an unlimited
repertory.
The pianoforte is the most universal mus-
17
THE PIANOLIST
ical instrument of the civilized world. I
once turned the old question, " What is home
without a mother," into " What is home
without a pianoforte?" Practically no
household that makes claim to refinement is
without one. Only too often, however, even
in such homes, it is merely an article of
drawing room furniture, because no member
of the household can play it. There it
stands waiting for the chance visitor who
can strike the keys and make the strings
vibrate with music.
Imagine that you are a member or let
us say the head of that household. You can't
play a note and yet you are " fond of music."
This " fondness for music " manifests itself
in different degree in different people and
somewhat according to their opportunities.
You may be a hardworking business man
and when you come home from business,
you want diversion, amusement. For some
18
PLAYING Music YOURSELF
one to suggest a classical concert to you would
make you feel like being asked to begin the
day's work all over again without a night's
rest in between. As for Wagner, that would
be worse than straightening out an intricate
account after a day spent in poring over a
ledger. No. Music without any tune to
it may be all right for some people, but
comic opera is " good enough " for you.
You like that coon song you heard the other
night. How you would enjoy playing it
on the pianoforte if you only knew how!
But you don't, so you have to pay a specu-
lator three dollars for a seat if you want to
hear it again.
Suppose the days of miracles weren't past
and, by some miracle, you suddenly found
yourself in command of the technique of
the pianoforte able to play whatever you
Wanted to. You'd buy that coon song and
some other pieces of light music, and then
19
THE PIANOLIST
you'd hurry home to your pianoforte and
play them off as fast as you could, while the
family stood around and listened and mar-
velled.
That is precisely the miracle the pianola
performs for you. It gives you, from the
moment it enters your house, control over
the keyboard of the pianoforte that so long
has stood mute in your home. All you have
to do is to put in the perforated music roll,
work the pedals and the music begins.
Supposing it is that coon song from the
comic opera you liked so much. The first
time you play it, you may be so interested
in the instrument's accurate reproduction of
the tune that you don't stop to think of the
expression. The chances are, however, that
your delight over what you have accom-
plished will lead you to play the song right
over again. Now you begin to realize that
there was something more than mere ac-
20
PLAYING Music YOURSELF
curacy in the delivery of the melody when
you heard it at the theatre. There was in-
terpretation, that something which the indi-
vidual artist puts into everything he does.
You will recall that while the piece was
taken pretty fast as a whole, some phrases
were taken faster, other more slowly. You
have been told that by moving a little lever
to the right or left, you can produce these
effects. You try it. When you come to a
phrase that should be taken a little faster,
you move the lever slightly to the right
and the pianoforte responds. It is the same
when you move the lever to the left for the
slower phrases the pianoforte responds and
the phrase is retarded. Two other levers
control the volume of sound so that you can
play any part of the piece louder or softer
if you want to. It is not at all unlikely that
you may vary these details to suit yourself,
instead of simply being guided by your recol-
21
THE PIANOLIST
lection of what you heard at the theatre.
In a word you yourself become on the spot
an interpreter of music, put something of
yourself into what you play. The instru-
ment instead of being merely a machine that
grinds- out music is a machine only in so far
as it takes the place of technique, of finger
facility. The expression, the real interpre-
tation, that which gives one the fascination
of playing, is your own.
That's your first experience with the in-
strument. Pretty soon you are apt to have
another experience that is even more valu-
able. You stocked up pretty well with the
music of the day, the current Broadway
comic opera and musical comedy successes.
Gradually, however, that pet coon song of
yours will begin to pall on you a little. The
very jingle to the tune that made it catch
your fancy so quickly causes you to tire of
it, and so it goes with the other pieces whose
22
PLAYING Music YOURSELF
rhythm is so marked and continued with
such great precision and whose tunefulness
was so obvious that they made an instan-
taneous impression upon your musically un-
trained sense of hearing. You are beginning
to find out what any one who is trained in
any art is bound to discover sooner or later.
The things most easily understood are not
apt to give the most lasting pleasure. Some
one suggests to you that you try one of the
lighter classical pieces. You don't like that
word " classical," it suggest heaviness, lack
of tunefulness, the kind of thing that " may
be all right for some people," but never,
you think, would suit you. At last, how-
ever, you yield. You inquire for something
of the kind and are advised to try Mendels-
sohn's " Spring Song." Much to your sur-
prise you don't find it heavy at all. In
fact you recall once having heard it played
between the acts in a theatre and having
3 23
THE PIANOLIST
thought it rather pretty. Its rhythm isn't
as persistently emphatic as that of ragtime,
nor does its melody stand out in such sharp
relief, but instead of wearying you on repeti-
tion, you like it better every time you play
it.
Encouraged by this experience you next
purchase the same composer's " Spinning
Song." This may not appeal to you so
much at first. It seems to run along very
rapidly without any very clearly defined
melody. Still, it is by the same composer
as the " Spring Song," so it may be worth
trying over again. It is more familiar now,
and you begin to associate the rapid, whir-
ring phrases with its title with the idea of
" spinning." How clear it suddenly be-
comes. You even conjure up in your mind
the picture of some young woman in quaint
garb seated at a spinning wheel in an old-
fashioned room and you find yourself ex-
24
PLAYING Music YOURSELF
periencing all the pleasure that comes from
association of ideas, the keenest enjoyment
that art affords. You are making rapid
progress now, so rapid that it is as impossible
as unnecessary to follow you step by step.
The main point is that you are becoming
truly musical and at the same time enjoying
it. What might be " all right for some
people " has become all right for you too.
You have been repaid a thousand-fold for
the little effort it cost you to discover through
the gradual development of a taste that had
lain dormant, the kind of music that " lasts."
The same thing is true of your whole family.
It has become musical, and in an incredibly
short space of time. The pianola has done
it, and done the same thing in thousands of
other cases.
Now take the case of some one whose
musical taste, to begin with, is more ad-
vanced. Supposing that, instead .of having
25
THE PIANOLIST
had your musical horizon bounded by coon
songs and comic operas, you were an at-
tendant at orchestral concerts, song and
pianoforte recitals and grand opera. You
are a genuine music lover, genuinely mus-
ical, but you can't play. You long to re-
produce and express at home the music you
have heard elsewhere. If only, after hear-
ing Paderewski play your favorite Chopin
nocturne, which, as with so many other
music lovers, is the exquisite one in G major,
Opus 37, No. 2, you could go to your own
pianoforte and play it! You think it is
one of the most beautiful compositions in
the whole repertory, and of all pianists
whom you have heard, Paderewski, in your
opinion, plays it better than any other.
There are pieces that sound more difficult
and you have been told that it doesn't call
for advanced technique as much as it does
for soul. That is what your favorite vir-
26
PLAYING Music YOURSELF
tuoso seems to you to put into it soul, his
own soul, interpreting himself, unconsciously
expressing his own thoughts and feelings,
through those of the composer. That is
what you are convinced you could do, if
only you knew how to play; for you are
musical, very musical, almost, in fact, to
your finger tips. But these, alas, never
have been trained to command the key-
board. You are getting along well in
business, making money and all that; and yet
you look upon your life as half a failure
because, although you have the temperament
artistic, you are unable to gratify fully your
passion for music. You can listen, but you
can't play. You can hear Paderewski in-
terpret your favorite nocturne, but you can't
go home to your own pianoforte and let
your fingers conjure up memories of it on
the keyboard. You have a beautiful piano-
forte in your house for the use of others.
27
THE PIANOLIST
You'd be willing to mortgage half your
income for life, if you could learn to play
it yourself. But it's too late for that now.
So you think.
But one day you drop in at a friend's
house and from the drawing room come
strains of your favorite Chopin nocturne.
Something about it reminds you of the way
Paderewski plays it. Who can it be? You
know that your friend doesn't play the
pianoforte. But, as you stand in the door-
way, hesitating whether to go in or not, it
is he who looks out at you from behind the
instrument and nods to you to come in.
You drop into a chair and listen and won-
der. The nocturne comes to an end, your
friend rises, greets your wondering look with
a smile, and meets your amazed query with
one word: "Pianola!"
" It sounded like Paderewski," you stam-
mer in a dazed sort of way.
28
PLAYING Music YOURSELF
" Why shouldn't it? Practically, I have
been taught how to play it by that great
artist." He takes out the roll and brings
it over for you to look at. On it you see,
reproduced in facsimile this autographed
certification :
" The line on this roll indicates the tempo
according to my interpretation.
" I. J. Paderewski."
The roll, as the expression goes, has been
" metrostyled " by the virtuoso himself.
" I didn't know you had one of these
instruments. Why haven't you told me?
How long have you had it? "
" About a week," he answers.
" And you can make it sound like that? "
" Of course I can. Nothing easier. Just
stand behind me and watch."
He replaces the music roll and, as he
pedals and it unrolls, he shows you how
easy it is with the metrostyle to follow the
29
THE PIANOLIST
red line marked by Paderewski to indicate
how he plays the piece.
" According to my idea," continues your
friend, " he plays some parts of the second
melody a little too slowly makes it too
sentimental, instead of poetically expressive.
You may observe that I don't always follow
the line. That's one of the great things
about the instrument. You can profit by
the directions just as much as you want to,
but you can disregard them whenever you
have a mind to. It may seem presumptuous
to differ, even in a small detail, * from a
great virtuoso like Paderewski, but every
virtuoso has his idiosyncrasies and we, who,
after all, have been listening to music all
our lives and have heard all the great pian-
ists from Rubinstein to l Paddy ' himself and
all the women pianists from Essipoff to
Bloomfield-Zeisler, are entitled to some ideas
of our own. As I just said, one of the great
30
PLAYING Music YOURSELF
things about the instrument is that it allows
us this latitude. I call it a cinch!
" Now here's something else. We know
Richard Strauss' big tone poems, the biggest
things in music since Wagner. But did
you know that he's written some charming
little pieces for pianoforte? Just listen to
this. It's a * Traumerei ' or * Revery,' a
delicious little dreamy improvisation. He
1 metrostyled ' it himself and, as I've never
heard anyone play it, I'm only too glad to
have his directions. They give you the
general hang of the thing ' right off the
reel,' so to speak. But later on, when I
become more familiar with it, if I want to
vary the interpretation according to my
own mood of the moment, I can. It's a great
thing, though, to find out how famous living
composers, like Richard Strauss, Grieg here
are a couple of rolls from his * Peer Gynt '
suite metrostyled by himself Saint Saens,
31
THE PIANOLIST
Elgar, or even composers of first rate lighter
music, like Moszkowski and Chaminade,
conceive that they want to have their works
interpreted; or how great virtuosos, like
Paderewski, Rosenthal and other pianists,
play them; or gifted instructors in music,
like Carl Reinecke, would have them per-
formed. It's like taking lessons in inter-
pretation from these people.
" There's another matter that will interest
you. Take pieces like Rubinstein's * Melody
in F ' or the best known selection from his
1 Kammenoi, Ostrow,' where the melody lies,
in the former in between the accompaniment,
in the latter below it you recall, of course,
how the accompanying figure hovers above
it. In pieces like these it is important
that the melodic line should be clearly dis-
tinguished, otherwise it will be smothered.
Fortunately an attachment to the instrument,
the themodist, enables you to bring out
32
PLAYING Music YOURSELF
the melody and, at the same time does not
prevent your retarding or accelerating the
general movement of the piece or of varying
the volume of sound as much as you like.
" While I've had the instrument only a
little while, I've been struck with some-
thing else. I find that you can accomplish
a good deal through what I may call * foot-
technique,' varying the degree of strength
with which you use the pedals that pump
in the air. By this means you can play
louder or softer at will and by a sharp
pressure emphasize individual chords and
phrases. This, I find, makes the interpre-
tation seem more personal than when I
use the sustaining and soft levers alone. Al-
together I'm beginning to look upon myself
as a virtuoso, and the best thing you can
do, old man, is to take my advice and be-
come one too."
Fortunately you are musical enough and
33
THE PIANOLIST
intelligent enough to appreciate the philos-
ophy and significance of the instrument
that it supplies what you haven't got, the
technique, but that you give it the expression,
the soul ; that although it is not a pianoforte,
but an atachment to that instrument, never-
theless, in playing it, you express something
of yourself, something of your inner being,
something of your higher artistic nature
through it.
There is a large class of people to whom
the " piano-player " is or should be a great
boon. I mean those who play the piano-
forte, but not well enough to play publicly
or professionally. To this class belong the
thousands of music teachers and the ama-
teurs. The majority of them may be more
truly musical than many of the virtuoso
pianists, but they are lacking in technique.
For the technical standard is growing higher
every year. Comparatively few music teach-
34
PLAYING Music YOURSELF
ers have much opportunity of hearing music,
the result being that they find it difficult to
keep up with the times. They become old-
fashioned, and in these progressive days to
become old-fashioned means to be forced
to " drop out." They lack the technique
to run through the modern repertoire, and
the time to hear others in it. It hardly is
necessary to point out what the pianola,
which gives them complete technical mas-
tery of the keyboard, should be to them.
As regards the amateur I can cite my own
case as an example. I had progressed on
the pianoforte until I was able to play Liszt's
arrangement of the Spinning Song from
Wagner's " Flying Dutchman." It is a
difficult piece, but there is a great deal of
pianoforte music that is more difficult and
that was entirely beyond me. Moreover
the fact that I was able to play this composi-
tion after much assiduous practice, did not
35
THE PIANOLIST
mean that I could play equally difficult .or
even considerably less difficult music with
ease by sight. The repertoire of even the
best amateur is apt to be a small one. He
gains his general knowledge of music from
what he hears.
With me, in time, as with so many ama-
teurs, pianoforte playing had to yield first
place to my regular work. I took up
writing and that became paramount. I be-
gan to lose my pianoforte technique, and
I should not like to say how many years it
is since I lost the ability to play Liszt's ar-
rangement of the Spinning Song from the
"The Flying Dutchman," the "Butterfly"
etude of Chopin and other works that I
had had at my fingers' ends. Often, when
I went to pianoforte recitals and heard these
compositions played, I grieved over what
I had lost through sacrificing the piano-
forte to the pen.
36
PLAYING Music YOURSELF
I grieve no longer. I have acquired a
perfect technique, the technique of a great
virtuoso through the pianola. It is a key
that has unlocked for me the whole reper-
tory of music. With it I can play the most
difficult work ever written as easily as I
can a five-finger exercise. It gives me the
technique, but all that is summed up in the
one word " expression," I am at liberty to
put into the music myself.
In the whole world there are perhaps two,
at the most three pianoforte virtuosos who
really deserve to be called great. To listen
to them is the acme of musical delight. But
right next to this comes the performance of
any musical person, whether a child or
grown up, on the pianola. It is better than
the playing of any virtuoso not absolutely
of the very first rank, and infinitely prefer-
able to the playing of the most gifted ama-
teur, while the performance of the average
37
THE PIANOLIST
amateur almost is juvenile compared with
it. Moreover there are pieces of which
the Liszt " Campanella," the Mendelssohn
" Rondo Capriccioso " and the " Rosa-
munde " impromptu of Schubert, are ex-
amples, that, when played on the pianola
by a musical person, sound just as well as
if they came from under the fingers of the
greatest living virtuoso possibly better.
These are not dreams, they are facts; and
discoverable in due time by everyone who
is made musical through the instrument of
which I am writing; and, in an incredibly
short time by any one, already musical, who
takes it up. Moreover they are facts readily
susceptible of explanation, and here it is:
All technical difficulties being eliminated
by the pianola, the player is free to give
his whole attention to interpretation, to that
subtle something which we call " expres-
sion," and which constitutes the supreme
quality of a musical performance.
38
III. FIRST STEPS OF THE MUS-
ICAL NOVICE
1 CONFESS that when I first thought of
writing this book my intention was to
plan it somewhat on the same lines as the
usual " How to Listen to Music " book, but
to make it somewhat simpler. As the cata-
logue of pianola music includes everything
from Bach to Richard Strauss it seemed to
me that it would be easy to give the reader
a course in musical development, beginning
with the simpler pieces of Bach, like the
bourrees and gavottes; then taking up the
sonatas of Mozart and Beethoven; the com-
positions of the romantic school from Schu-
bert to Chopin ; and ending with the modern
school of Wagner, Liszt and Richard
Strauss in other words giving a survey of
the whole evolution of music.
This would coincide with the ordinary
course of musical instruction, which nat-
urally ranges from what are considered the
39
THE PIANOLIST
easier and simpler pieces to the more diffi-
cult ones, early music being less compli-
cated and making less demand upon the
player's technique than music of the present
day. But I had forgotten one important
point which is, that on the pianola nothing
is difficult, that with this modern instrument
the question of difficulty entirely disappears,
and that the most hair-raising, breath-catch-
ing exploits of virtuosity are as easy for the
pianolist as the most commonplace five-
finger exercises are for the pianist. In
other words, the pianolist can approach
music from a wholly new standpoint. For
him music exists simply as music. Its his-
tory, its evolution, which latter after all is
a matter purely technical, need not concern
him at all.
I was brought to this view by a rather
startling discovery. I think it will seem
equally startling to any one who has stud-
40
FIRST STEPS OF NOVICE
ied music in the usual way the laborious
technical development involved in acquiring
the mastery of a musical instrument, gen-
erally the pianoforte. In discussing Chop-
in's " Etude " in A flat, Op. 10, No. 10,
one of the greatest virtuosos of his day,
Hans van Biilow, said that " he who can
play this study in a really finished manner
may congratulate himself on having climbed
to the highest pinnacle of the pianist's
Parnassus, as it is perhaps the most diffi-
cult piece of the entire set. The whole
repertory of piano music does not contain
a study of perpetual movement so full of
genius and fancy as this particular one is
universally acknowledged to be, excepting
perhaps Liszt's ' Feux Follets ' (Will-o'-the
wisps)." In looking over the catalogue of
music for the mechanical piano-player I
find that this immensely difficult study by
Liszt, so difficult that Von Biilow classes
THE PIANOLIST
it with the Chopin study, " the highest pin-
nacle of the pianist's Parnassus," is listed
with the " popular " pieces. Thus a com-
position which taxes the resources of the
greatest virtuosos to the utmost and which
few if any amateurs can play at all, presents
no difficulties whatsoever to the pianolist
and actually becomes " popular." The same
thing is true of the Liszt " Bell Rondo "
(La Campanella). This delicate, dainty
yet immensely difficult work, which most
amateurs know only from hearing it played
in pianoforte recitals because they them-
selves can do no more than stumble through
it, is, like the " Feux Follets," a popular
piece in the repertory of the pianolist. Such
an astounding result is possible only upon
the pianola which absolutely eliminates all
technical difficulties and leaves the player
free to select his music without regard to
such difficulties.
42
FIRST STEPS OF NOVICE
Another matter connected with the pia-
nolist's repertory opens up a field for specu-
lation into which, fortunately, it is quite
possible for the layman to follow the musi-
cian and to appreciate the point I wish to
make. As many purchasers of pianolas are
people who never have received musical
instruction, it might be supposed that the
most popular selections for the instrument
would be either bits of musical slang like
twosteps and ragtime, or, at the best, simple
pieces in the recognized classical forms.
But the result of the spread of musical taste
through this new instrument is wholly dif-
ferent and wholly novel from the stand-
point of conventional musical experience.
The public, the great musical public created
by an instrument which does away with all
considerations of technique and leaves the
player free to select what he wants to play,
no matter how difficult it may be when
43
THE PIANOLIST
played on the pianoforte, sweeps aside all
conventions which learned commentators,
critics and writers on the history and evo-
lution of music have sought to establish and
in fact have succeeded in establishing for
those who have been obliged to study music
in the ordinary way, and boldly selects as
first choice from the vast array of composi-
tions Liszt's " Rhapsodic Hongroise " No.
2, with the " Tannhauser " overture of Wag-
ner a close second. In other words the
musical public when left to itself and not
led or led astray by pedants begins at
the right end of musical evolution which is
the end, the supreme efflorescence, and not
the beginning. Conceding that the evolu-
tion of the human race began with the
monkey and ends with ourselves, it may be
said, metaphorically, that the musical public,
when left to itself, declines to monkey with
the monkey, but at once proceeds to pluck
44
FIRST STEPS OF NOVICE
the full flower of evolution, the human.
For if any musical compositions are hu-
man documents that term is applicable to
the " Second Rhapsody " and to the " Tann-
hauser " overture. Each tells a vivid story
and tells it according to the canons of art,
life and truth. The unfortunate student
of music, shackled by instruction that aims
mainly at teaching him how to play an in-
strument and ignores the higher side of art,
plods through the classical repertory until
he gets an idea that music consists of noth-
ing but symphonies and sonatas, which is
as absurd as it would be to say that poetry
consists of nothing but sonnets, whereas a
couple of dozen good sonnets are enough
for the literature of any language.
Indeed, while instruction in the other arts
steadily is being modernized and steadily
aims to familiarize the student with their
higher aspects, little progress has been made
45
THE PIANOLIST
in the teaching of music. It still is in a
state comparable only with that which ex-
isted in the teaching of languages when in-
struction in these was given according to
the system of Ollendorf, with its series of
foolish questions and answers:
" Is this the sword of the grandfather? "
" No, it is the false curl of the grand-
mother."
A five finger exercise, or an old-fashioned
technical study with its dry little theme in
the treble and its foolish little answer in
the base, always suggests to me something
along the lines of the Ollendorfian phrase-
ology:
"Is this musical phrase beautiful?"
" No, but it is great for limbering up the
little finger."
Often since giving thought to the new in-
strument which wholly eliminates the ques-
tion of technique from pianoforte playing,
FIRST STEPS OF NOVICE
I have wondered if the importance attached
to " limbering up the little finger " has not
given us a wrong musical perspective;
whether compositions musically of little
value have not assumed enormous impor-
tance in the curriculum and been retained
there, because they developed ringer facility
in certain directions. For example to a
pianist the " School of Velocity " by Czerny
and the " Gradus ad Parnassum " by de-
menti, two series of famous technical studies,
mean everything. To the pianolist they
mean nothing need mean nothing. As
for the " School of Velocity " he can by
simply moving the tempo lever to the right
make the pianola play so fast that, if old
Czerny still were alive, he would lose his
breath listening to it. As for the " Gradus
ad Parnassum," the difficulties which de-
menti piled up in the pianist's path, the
pianolist overleaps as lightly and casually
47
THE PIANOLIST
as if wholly unaware of their existence. He
may never have heard of these technical
works yet, if he has natural musical instinct
or has developed it through the piano-
player, he will be as correct in his judgment
of what to play and how to play it, as if
he had devoted his whole life to an ardu-
ous study of pianoforte technique. The
pianolist's experience with music is wholly
musical, while the pianist's is largely tech-
nical. For observe, that while a music
teacher often selects a piece for his pupil,
not so much because it is beautiful but be-
cause it follows up and supplements the
technical exercise which the pupil has been
practicing, the pianolist's point of view in
choosing his repertory is not obscured by
any consideration of this kind. Scratch a
Russian and you find a Tartar; scratch
musical instruction of the average kind and
you find technique. The pianolist's prog-
FIRST STEPS OF NOVICE
ress is determined by music's appeal to his
soul; the average music pupil's by what he
can accomplish with his ringers. In this
way, as I already have suggested, certain
pieces have acquired an importance far out
of proportion to their musical value, and
have retained their position not only in the
curriculum but, unfortunately, even in the
concert repertory.
There is a lot of this dry wood in music
and the unfortunate student is compelled to
chop it until, when he sees a real tree, he
thinks it is all wrong because it has green
leaves instead of withered ones and strong,
sappy branches instead of little twigs that
snap off at the least touch. This is the
reason that modern music, although it is the
most natural music ever written, has to be
" explained " because students prejudiced
by pedantic instruction have become so ac-
customed to the artificial that they cannot
49
THE PIANOLIST
appreciate what is natural; just as experts
in primitive art fail to appreciate the beauty
of the later schools of painting.
To me it is positively exhilarating that
the great mass of those people who have
become devotees of the mechanical piano-
player do not stop to ask what is the rela-
tion of this or that composition to the de-
velopment of music or its place in musical
evolution ; but, taking music simply as music,
confidently place pieces like the " Second
Rhapsody " or the " Tannhauser " overture
on the pianola and are thrilled by the artis-
tic realism of these compositions. Uncon-
sciously they are supporting the contention
of those advanced thinkers in music who
place the expression of life and truth above
artificial form. Suppose a paint brush
were invented which would give complete
mastery of the technique of painting to the
person in whose hand it was placed. Would
50
FIRST STEPS OF NOVICE
that person go to work copying the old
masters? No. He would paint the sea,
the low meadow land, the foot hills, the
mountains, the waving grain, the forest, the
man he admired, the woman he loved. And
so it is that the player who has the technical
mastery of the pianoforte placed, so to
speak, at his disposal, is led by instinct
toward the most modern expression of mus-
ical thought and genius.
In his book, " The Temple of Art," Ernest
Newlandsmith has a chapter on musical
education in which he points out that after
all a pianist's fingers and muscles are simply
mechanical contrivances for striking the
keys, and that to gain complete control or
mastery of this mechanical process requires
incessant drudgery and labor, such mastery
being attained only by very few people.
" The average pianist never gains the power
of even striking the notes in really difficult
THE PIANOLIST
music; yet for an artist to infuse the exact
expression of his feeling into a work, he
must not only be able to do this, but must
also be able to vary this striking of notes
by the most minute and subtle degrees of
intensity, and that without experiencing any
difficulty whatever, so that his entire atten-
tion may be devoted to his feeling." All
this the pianolist gains without any of that
drudgery so apt to obscure correct musical
perspective, so that, to quote again from
Mr. Newlandsmith, " it is a matter of won-
der that any one can be found to speak
against mechanical piano-players, when they
remember that they are only mechanical to
the extent that a pianist has to be. They
are not intended to play of themselves, like
a musical box, but are controlled by the per-
former's feeling."
FIRST STEPS OF NOVICE
The first steps in music are apt to be " two-
steps." Marches and dances of a popular
kind and the seemingly inevitable coon-song
may be regarded as the infant's food of the
musical novice. For a person whose love
of music still is latent, may not " arrive "
at once at the " Second Rhapsody " or the
" Tannhauser " overture. The friend to
whom I have dedicated this book began
with the lightest kind of music, the kind he
now regards as " trash." For from know-
ing nothing at all about music, he has be-
come, through the piano-player, an ardent
lover of all that is good in the art. Nevin's
" Narcissus " happened to be included in his
first set of rolls. He tried it over, but
thought it dull. After a while, however,
when the other rolls began to pall on him,
he played it again and found in it something
that he missed in the others. This was the
first step toward better things, and step by
53
THE PIANOLIST
step thereafter he gained in musical taste
until now his judgment is unerring.
Nevin whose death six years ago and at
a comparatively early age, was a distinct
loss to music, was one of the small number
of composers who have written music of
the lighter kind which yet is thoroughly
good, music that is pleasing without being
trivial, melodious without a suggestion of
the commonplace, and thoroughly sound in
workmanship. This American composer
was exceptionally apt at reproducing in
music a mood or fancy and at painting in
tone the charms of a romantic locality. Pos-
sibly no gentler rise from what is known as
the " light classic " to the classic can be
provided than through him. Therefore I
begin with him, although he is a thoroughly
modern composer, my aim being gradually
to lead the pianolist from enjoyment of
lighter works, of the kind, however, which
54
FIRST STEPS OF NOVICE
possess genuine musical merit, to an appre-
ciation of the greater masterpieces. Some-
times I have selected only one work by a
composer and, except in the case of Chopin,
never more than a few examples from any
composer. But the works which I cite and
describe in more or less detail, should suffice
to stimulate the pianolist to explore more
fully the range of the composers I mention,
and of others. I give merely a taste; the
catalogue of music rolls supplies the full
menu.
To some this arrangement may seem hap-
hazard. Nevertheless it has system and
purpose. The usual method followed in
books that aim to be musical guides would
have been much easier. Mine I believe
best adapted to the needs of the average
pianolist, who, it may be assumed, at the
time he purchases his instrument, knows
little or nothing about music of the higher
5 55
THE PIANOLIST
kind; whose taste, in fact, still is to be de-
veloped.
I cannot imagine any one so obtuse to
musical impressions as not to find Nevin's
" Valse Caprice," Op. 6, No. i, thoroughly
delightful. It is the first of a set of several
pieces comprised in his sixth work, this
fact being expressed by the designation Opus
6, No. i. The piece is full of pretty senti-
ment and I always like to imagine that it
describes an episode during a dance. It
has charming melodies. Ornamental figura-
tions in the accompaniment, now above, now
below, give the effect of whispered ques-
tions and answers during the dance. The
questions put by the man are pressing and
ardent, the answers from the girl playful
and parrying. Sometimes they even ripple
with chaff. Yet, toward the end of the
dainty little composition, they become tinged
with sentiment, as if she were afraid she
56
might have gone a little too far and might
" spoil things " and thought it just as well
to let him know in time that, after all, she
was not turning a wholly deaf ear to his
pleading.
This piece I would follow with Nevin's
" Intermezzo," Op. 7, No. 3. Although it
belongs to an entirely different work I en-
joy playing it immediately after the waltz
and imagining that it relates to the same
young couple that he has led her out into
the conservatory or on to a terrace overlook-
ing a moonlight garden and under these ro-
mantic circumstances, is urging his suit
more persistently than before. She, how-
ever, is a little too fond of flirting to let her
real sentiments be known at once. But
when, as if giving up the riddle in her
dancing eyes and seemingly mocking smile,
he appears about to lead her back into the
ballroom, there is, at least so I like to read
57
THE PIANOLIST
the music, a pretty little laugh, as much as
to say, " Can't you read my real feelings
under my mask of banter," a tender glance
indicated by a retard on a charmingly ex-
pressive little turn of the melody and she
is in his arms.
Now I would repeat the waltz, to indi-
cate that, carried away by their happiness,
they have gone back into the ballroom and
thrown themselves heart and soul into the
dance. And there you have a little Nevin
suite telling a pretty story.
To me one of this composer's most fanciful
tone paintings is, " In my Neighbor's Gar-
den," Op. 21, No. 2. This is one of a series
of pieces the complete title of which is
" May in Tuscany," and which he com-
posed during a sojourn in Florence. You
can hear a bird sing all through this piece,
and that the composer so intended it, became
clear to me when I found that its original
FIRST STEPS OF NOVICE
title was " Rusignuolo," Italian for night-
ingale.
Make haste to mount, thou wistful moon,
Make haste to wake the nightingale:
Let silence set the world in tune
To harken to that wordless tale
Which warbles from the nightingale.
Those lines from Christina Rosetti's
" Bird Raptures," seem to me perfectly re-
flected in Nevin's composition, and equally
so are these lines from the same poet's " Twi-
light Calm":
Hark! that's the nightingale,
Telling the self -same tale
Her song told when this ancient earth was young:
So echoes answered when her song was sung
In the first wooded vale.
Or this from Byron's " Parisina " :
It is the hour when from the boughs
The nightingale's high note is heard;
It is the hour when lovers' vows
Seem sweet in every whisper'd word.
59
THE PIANOLIST
Nevin's " Barcarolle " is another beautiful
composition, which conveys the listener to
Venice with its picturesque canals and an-
cient palaces. It is a night scene, and re-
minds me of Wagner's description of the
singing of the gondoliers at night in one of
his letters from Venice: "Ah, music on the
canal. A gondola with gaily colored lights,
singers and players. More and more gon-
dolas join it. The flotilla, barely moving,
gently gliding, floats the whole width of
the canal. At last, almost imperceptibly,
it makes the turn of the bend and vanishes.
For a long while I hear the tones beautified
by the night. Finally the last sound, dying
away, seems to dissolve itself into the moon-
light, which beams softly on, like a visible
realm of music."
There is an entire Venetian suite by Nevin
which he composed during a stay in the
Italian city. One day he gave his gondolier
60
FIRST STEPS OF NOVICE
a day off, and the boatman took his sweet-
heart, who lived on the mainland and never
had been in Venice, through the waterways.
It was this which suggested to Nevin the
composition of the suite, which he entitled
"A Day in Venice." The best known num-
ber from it is the " Venetian Love Song."
Moskowszki is another good composer of
light music, and like Nevin, what he writes
is thoroughly original. His " Serenata "
Op. 15, No. i, is one of the prettiest of
modern pieces, and a perfect example of
what a serenade should be a graceful
melody over an accompaniment of guitarlike
chords. There is an intervening part with
much ornamentation, which has the effect of
improvising, a delicious little run leading
back to the first melody which now should
be played very softly and with slight re-
tardations, as if the serenader were depart-
ing and the music dying away. " From
61
THE PIANOLIST
Foreign Parts," Moskowszki's Op. 23, is
one of the best known modern compositions.
It consists of several numbers each repre-
senting a country and composed in true
national style and with as much success as
if, were such a thing possible, the composer
were a native of each of these countries and
were thoroughly imbued with its spirit. Of
these separate numbers I am inclined espe-
cially to recommend to the pianolist " Ger-
many," with its beautiful, broad, sustained
melody, thoroughly German in contour and
expression, and among the most beautiful
melodies composed in modern times; and
" Spain," one of the most brilliant little rolls
for the piano-player gay, spirited and full
of snap and go, the movement never flagging
from beginning to end. Moskowszki has
shown himself most happy in catching the
spirit of Spanish music. He has a book of
Spanish dances and two Spanish albums
62
FIRST STEPS OF NOVICE
full of music of most varying mood, yet
every mood characteristic of Spain and its
people, now gay, now languorous, now dash-
ing, now subdued, now softly whispering,
now full of verve and passion, like the
" Bolero," the fifth of the " Spanish Dances,"
Op. 12, with its sharply accentuated rhythm
and dashing melody, which toward the end
fairly swirls with excitement.
A " Moment Musical," Op. 7, No. 2, was
the composition which gave Moskowszki
his first taste of international fame, but in
spite of much that is genuinely beautiful,
especially in its opening melody, I think the
work suffers from undue length. By all
means, however, the pianolist should not
neglect this composition. Were I asked,
however, to select the work which seems to
me to bring out in the most favorable relief
Moskowszki's traits as a composer it would
be his "Waltz," Op. 34, No. i. It has an
63
THE PIANOLIST
introduction beginning with a phrase in the
bass like a man asking the honor of a dance
with an attractive girl, followed by a little
upward run, the gleam of the smile with
which she gives assent. Then there are
short, crisp, bright phrases, as though she
enjoyed the knowledge that every one is
looking at her as he leads her out and whis-
pers compliments.
The introduction with all these interest-
ing preliminaries over, the waltz itself opens
with a melody full of sentiment and almost
personal in its persistent suggestion of woo-
ing. At the same time it has a graceful
swing that carries it along like an under-
current, with rising and falling inflections,
and, like the Nevin waltz, with much dainty
ornamentation, as if the couple were con-
versing in low tones while dancing. Then
there is a brilliant episode when individuals
seem lost sight of in the general vividness
FIRST STEPS OF NOVICE
of the scene with its gaily colored costumes
and flash of jewels. There are alternating
sentimental passages until, toward the end,
the first melody bursts into a fortissimo a
great rising inflection, insistent and impas-
sioned then a final pitch of excitement as
all seem to throw themselves into the whirl
and the waltz reaches a brilliant end. While
Nevin in the waltz which I selected from
among his works, appears to tell the story
of two people, Moskowszki here places be-
fore our eyes a vivid ballroom scene with
one particularly handsome couple as the
center of attraction, without, however, let-
ting us wholly into their secret. The waltz,
though long, is of never-flagging interest.
This composer's opus 34 is an orchestral
suite (" Premiere Suite d' Orchestre ") of
which the second number is an " Allegretto
giojoso," a playful, sportive, chic and grace-
ful movement, with a tender melody in the
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THE PIANOLIST
middle part, at first heard alone, then with
a sparkling accompaniment. This piece
having originally been scored for orchestra,
it is quite possible to detect orchestral instru-
ments like flutes and clarionets in some of
the brilliant runs. The pianola roll is a
reproduction of an arrangement for four
hands, that is, for two players at one piano,
yet only one player is required to produce
the full effect of a pianoforte duet arranged
from an orchestral composition.
Moskowszki is a prolific composer, and
it is well worth the pianolist's while to thor-
oughly explore the catalogue of his works.
Much modern music merely echoes what
has gone before and may be summed up as
watered Chopin. Therefore, even if Mos-
kowszki's compositions are in the lighter
forms, their originality and melodiousness
make them worthy of ranking high among
modern salon pieces.
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FIRST STEPS OF NOVICE
One of the prettiest and deservedly pop-
ular little works in the modern repertory is
the Paderewski " Minuet," Op. 14, No. i.
Modern minuets are echoes of the classical
period. Compositions of this kind are to
be found in the sonatas and symphonies of
Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven and even
further back in the suites of Bach. Accord-
ingly the Paderewski " Minuet," in keeping
with the form, is simple and clear-cut and
gracefully melodious. At the same time,
however, it is modern in the brilliant orna-
mentation introduced in the middle part of
the composition which in a minuet is called
the trio.
The minuet was a stately dance. The
word is derived from the French menu
meaning small and referring to the short
steps taken in the dance. Originally the
music to it was brief, but as a complement,
a second minuet was added which, in time,
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became the trio, so-called, because it was
written in three part harmony. This was
followed by a repetition of the first minuet.
While the designation trio has been retained
to this day, the three part harmony no
longer is considered obligatory. The minuet
is one of the very few of the older dance
forms which have not become obsolete.
It was a square dance, the steps consisting
of a coupee (a salute to one's partner, while
resting on one foot and swinging the other
backward and forward) a high step and a
balance. In the Paderewski minuet the
stately, ceremonious character of this dance
is preserved together with its old fashioned,
na'ive grace and charm. It is quite possible
while playing it to see the dancers at a
French court ball or in the ballroom of some
chateau, the women, beauties of their day, in
high pompadour with puffs and curls pow-
dered white, with petites mouches, little moon
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FIRST STEPS OF NOVICE
and star-shaped beauty spots, on their faces;
square cut bodices, lace stomachers, paniers
over brocaded skirts with lace panels; feet
encased in high heel satin slippers with
jewelled buckles; and gracefully managing
their ostrich feather fans as they curtsy to
their partners; the latter wearing wigs also
powdered white, long coats of brocade,
elaborately embroidered waistcoats with lace
jabots, satin knee breeches, silk stockings
and a garter with jewelled buckle on the
right leg, and helping themselves to snuff
out of gold or silver boxes during brief
pauses in the dance. Such is the picture
that can be conjured up in imagination
while playing the Paderewski minuet.
Quite different yet equally effective in its
way is his " Cracovienne Fantastic," Op. 14,
No. 6. The cracovienne is a Polish dance
for a large and brilliant company and just
as Paderewski recalled in his minuet the
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stately assemblage of days long past, so in
his cracovienne he gives us a brilliant pic-
ture of a ballroom scene in his native Poland
when that country was still in its glory
and not partitioned among three nations of
Europe. The reiteration of its characteristic
rhythm gives it peculiar fascination. It is
clearly and distinctly melodious, with bright,
flashing runs giving it brilliancy.
Again different in style from any of the
preceding are the works of Cecile Cham-
inade. Not only is this composer a woman,
she is a French woman and, like a French
woman, essentially clever and chic. She
may be a trifle more superficial than the
composers I have mentioned, but her music
is clean-cut, clear as a crystal, and, like
everything about a refined woman, the
quintessence of neatness. It is quite as if
Mme. Chaminade's maid laid out her mus-
ical thoughts as well as her dresses, being
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FIRST STEPS OF NOVICE
sure to have every frill and furbelow in its
place, whether it be the robe d' interieur
which she is to wear at breakfast, her robe
de ville for calling, or her robe de soiree.
True it is that serious musicians are apt to
wear a somewhat supercilious expression at
mention of her music and to pronounce it
clever rather than deep, yet it is equally
true that it takes its place among the best
salon pieces of the day and gains value if
only from the fact that this bright French
woman has skillfully refrained from attempt-
ing flights for which her graceful wings are
not strong enough. Most of her music is
characterized by a fascinating archness and
coquetry and requires quick and sudden
changes in time for its proper interpretation.
While rarely attempting the larger musical
forms, she has been an industrious student
of the best music, so that all her compositions
are what is called " well made," correct ac-
6 71
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cording to the rules of musical science, yet
in melodic and harmonic inspiration char-
acterized by originality and musical inven-
tiveness. She writes with judgment, refine-
ment and taste, avoiding on the one hand the
pitfall of pretentiousness, and, on the other,
the monotony of platitude found in the
works of those who compose in the larger
forms but lack the originality to fill them
with new and interesting matter. It is a
great thing to know your limitations, yet to
be able to do vivid and original work within
them.
Brief as is Chaminade's " Serenade," Op.
29, its melody is charming, it is ably har-
monized and it appeals to the heart. There
is not a commonplace bar in it. It is one
of those delicate bits of inspiration which
survive other and seemingly grander works,
the grandeur of which, however, is in course
of time, discovered to be mere hollow pre-
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FIRST STEPS OF NOVICE
tentiousness. It is a capital example of the
manner in which this composer writes in the
small genre delicate, refined and sensitive.
She has been highly successful in composi-
tions in dance form, managing these with-
out a suggestion of the trivial. Thus her
"Air de Ballet," Op. 30, No. i, is full of
brilliancy and nervous energy without ever
degenerating into vulgar noisiness. Another
"Air de Ballet" by her from the ballet
" Callirhoe," to which her widely known
" Scarf Dance " also belongs, is crisp, bright
and dainty. " Callirhoe " is a ballet-sym-
phonique for stage performance and its pro-
duction showed her to be so well grounded
in her art that it does not suffer even under
the pressure of rapid composition, or of be-
ing obliged to work " on time." The com-
mission for this ballet was offered to Godard,
a well-known French composer. He was,
however, occupied with an opera and de-
73
clined the work, at the same time recom-
mending that the commission be offered to
Chaminade. It was accepted by her and
within six weeks from the day when she
began work upon it, it was completed even
to the scoring for orchestra.
While the pianolist hardly can go amiss
in choosing from among the list of Cham-
inade's compositions I may mention as
especially characteristic her " Arabesque,"
" Humoresque," La Lisonjera (Flatterer)
" Pierrette," " Scaramouche " (Mountebank)
and " Spinning Wheel."
Chaminade's compositions are so popular
in this country yet so little is known about
her personally, that I have secured a few per-
sonal data concerning her from my friend,
Mr. Percy Mitchell, who is attached to the
staff of an American paper in Paris. Mme.
Carbonel-Chaminade has a shock of dark,
curly, short-cropped hair which gives her a
74
FIRST STEPS OF NOVICE
boyish aspect, a touch of masculinity fur-
ther emphasized by a tailor-made costume
with stiff, white, turned-down collar and
loosely tied scarf. Beyond this aspect, how-
ever, there is nothing mannish about her.
She cares neither for sport nor exercise in
general; her principal occupation is musical
composition, her chief relaxation practicing
the pianoforte two hours a day; and she
reads an immense amount of poetry from
which she carefully selects the words for her
songs. Society she abhors, but she attends
scrupulously to her large correspondence.
Very many of these letters come from
America, and in a practical spirit truly
American seek information regarding the
interpretation of her works. " How should
your l Serenade ' be phrased? I am learn-
ing the l Scarf Dance.' By this same mail
I am sending you a copy of it. Would you
kindly mark the phrasing in it and return
75
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it to me? " In connection with questions
of this kind it is interesting to note that
practically all of Chaminade's compositions
have been metrostyled for the pianola by the
composer herself. The pianolist at least
will not find it necessary to trouble her with
questions like the above.
Probably no composer has had one set
method of work. It is apt to vary accord-
ing to surroundings. So with Chaminade.
She may write while seated at her piano-
forte, testing her thoughts on the keyboard
and even working them out in detail before
putting them on paper. Or she may sit at
her table, a vast velvet-covered affair taking
up nearly half of her studio. Sometimes an
idea that has haunted her for weeks may
take definite shape while she is speeding on
a train to fulfill a concert engagement and
she will jot it down in spite of the roar
and vibration of railway travel. As the
FIRST STEPS OF NOVICE
train rushes on the composition may be com-
pletely worked out in the composer's mind
before the journey's end, and so retentive
is Chaminade's memory that, when she re-
turns to her villa in Vesinet, near the forest
of St. Germain not far from Paris, she can
seat herself at her table and copy the work
from that mental vision of it which she had
on the train.
Some years ago during a semi-professional
tour which she made through Roumania,
Servia and Greece, she was invited to play
for the students of the Athens conservatory.
When she stepped on the stage she saw row
after row of young people armed with the
printed music of what she was about to
play and prepared in a cold-blooded, busi-
ness-like way to open the music of the first
number on the program and to follow the
concert note for note from the printed scores
from beginning to end. Imagine the effect
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upon her nerves produced by the rustling
of one hundred pages all being turned at
the same instant at intervals during the
concert; and even now she laughingly con-
fesses that she was nearly overcome with
stage fright and prays she may never have
to endure again such an ordeal as the music
students of Athens unwittingly prepared for
her.
With the exception of Nevin, the com-
posers whose works I have mentioned are
living and actively engaged in composition.
The piece to which I now desire to call the
pianolist's attention belongs to the dawn of
the romantic period in music. It was com-
posed by Weber who died in 1826, is en-
titled " Invitation to the Dance," was written
a few months after his happy marriage with
the opera singer Caroline Brandt, and is
dedicated to " My Caroline." Because
Weber was one of the first composers who
78
FIRST STEPS OF NOVICE
rank as great to give distinctly descriptive
titles to compositions, and because of certain
other characteristics in his works, he is
regarded as the founder of the romantic
school of music music which is not simply
sufficient unto itself but has a secondary
meaning that adds immeasurably to its inter-
ests; music which seeks to suggest a definite
mood and even to throw a realistic picture
of some scene in nature or some human ex-
perience upon a background of harmony and
instrumental coloring; and which cares less
for the artifices of form than for the expres-
sion of the true and the beautiful from the
standpoint of modern art.
The " Invitation to the Dance " derives
further interest from the fact that it was
the first composition to lift the waltz, which
up to that time had been employed simply
as an accompaniment for dancing, to the
level of other legitimate and recognized
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artistic musical forms. The composition
opens with an introduction in slow time,
the first phrase unmistakably being the voice
of the man conveying to the lady an invita-
tion to dance. You hear her playful ob-
jection undoubtedly she wants to be asked
a second time the repetition of his invita-
tion, her assent, the short dialogue as the
two step out on the floor; brief, but resonant
preluding chords; then the free, elastic
rhythm of the waltz followed by its gay,
dashing melody. There is an exuberance
of runs and ornamentations until the first
feeling of elation lapses into a second
dreamy, languorous waltz melody, as if the
dancers were floating on the scented atmos-
phere of the ballroom. In portions of this
there is a sentimental colloquy between the
couple whom we met in the introduction, the
two voices being clearly differentiated. The
little duet between them adds to the beauty
80
FIRST STEPS OF NOVICE
and interest of this portion of the work, the
melody of which simply is exquisite. Then
everything whirls and sparkles again and,
when the dance has ceased, there is a briefer
recapitulation of the introduction, the lady
is led back to her seat, and the episode comes
to an end.
The pianolist may now place Liszt's
"Campanella" (Bell rondo) on the instru-
ment. Originally this was composed by the
famous violinist Paganini. Liszt trans-
cribed it for the pianoforte and so success-
fully that now it is better known in his
version than in its original form. It is a
piece which can be described only by one
word delicious. Its title is immediately
understood by the unmistakable silvery
tinkle of a bell in the high treble, constantly
recurring, but always with added instead of
diminishing, beauty. On the pianoforte it
demands virtuosity of the highest rank, yet
81
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for the pianolist it is as easy to play as is
the simplest pianoforte piece intended for
a beginner.
And so, having begun this chapter with
Nevin, one of the lighter composers of pro-
nounced merit, the pianolist already finds
himself playing a work by Weber and an-
other by Liszt, two of the most famous
figures in musical history. Even if, as I
trust will be the case, he becomes so inter-
ested in the works I have cited in this
chapter, as to try much other music by the
same composers, he will, in an almost in-
credibly short space of time, be ready for
the thrill of the great masters which shows
that, after all, the sequence I am following
in this book is not as haphazard as some may
think.
82
IV. THE THRILL OF THE GREAT
MASTERS
TN his choice of music the pianolist need
* not pause to consider the slow evolution
of the art from the simple to the more
complex, since for him nothing is complex.
Thus he is free to disregard all traditions,
even such an absurd one, for example, as
that which insists that a sonata or symphony
should be played as a whole, that, if a work
in this form consists of three or four move-
ments, none of these should be " lifted " out
of the whole and played as a separate com-
position.
The pianolist calmly looks upon these
movements as so many different pieces and
chooses between them. Thus among the
hundred classical compositions most in de-
mand by pianolists, the slow movement of
Beethoven's " Fifth Symphony " ranks seven-
teenth, while the first is as far down on the
list as thirty-seventh, and the roll with the
83
THE PIANOLIST
last two movements as sixty-fifth. That in
future the consensus of opinion of thousands
of music lovers who are unhampered by
pedantic tradition, will have immense in-
fluence in determining the standard of com-
posers and of their several works, and will
have immense effect in hastening the intro-
duction and appreciation of works by new
composers, in spite of opposition from the
ultra-conservative element, goes without say-
ing, and will be one of the most important
factors in the revolution this new musical
instrument is destined to effect.
All this readily can be appreciated when
the attitude of this great musical public
toward Liszt's " Hungarian Rhapsodies " is
taken into account. For years the critical
camp has been divided on Liszt, some con-
sidering him a composer whose unequalled
greatness as a player of the pianoforte led
him to write music that was superficially
THRILL OF GREAT MASTERS
brilliant but barren of genuine musical in-
spiration. Others, like Henry T. Finck and
that band of advanced commentators on
music among whom I am proud to number
myself, unhesitatingly rank him with the
greatest composers. This phase of musical
life, this warring of factions, the pianolist
happily ignores entirely, and following his
unbiased intuition, places Liszt's second
" Hungarian Rhapsody " at the head of the
repertory, closely follows it with the twelfth
and fourteenth, and, all told, includes nine
of these fifteen compositions in the top list
of one hundred pieces of serious music
which have proved most popular with pia-
nola players. The pianolist is not aware
of the fact, but that most inexorable of all
critics, time, most emphatically justifies his
choice.
Liszt brought out these rhapsodies fifty-
three years ago. They are not compositions
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which suddenly are offering themselves as
candidates for popular favor. For more
than half a century has passed over these
master works, which still are as fresh and
modern as if they had been struck off but
yesterday in the white heat of inspiration.
Their roots go back even further than fifty-
three years. As long ago as 1838 Liszt
published them as short transcriptions of
Hungarian tunes. Then he worked them
over and, in 1846, issued them in somewhat
more elaborate form as " Melodies Hong-
roises." Still further elaborated they be-
came in 1854 the " Rhapsodies Hongroises "
as we know them.
These rhapsodies reflect the weird roman-
ticism of that most mysterious and fascinat-
ing of races, the Gypsies, as successfully as
Chopin's music reflects the crushed aspira-
tions of his unhappy country, Poland. Al-
though they are called Hungarian, they are
86
THRILL OF GREAT MASTERS
neither derived from nor founded upon
national Hungarian music, but are purely
of Gypsy origin. The Hungarians, how-
ever, have adopted the Gypsies as their
national musicians, and it is by reason of
this adoption, or, in order to express through
the title this mutual assimilation, that Liszt
has called these rhapsodies " Hungarian."
With a Gypsy parentage so authentic that
he speaks of the melodies on which they
are based, as " the songs without words "
of the Gypsies, his rhapsodies form the
only channel through which the intense
inner life and mystic idealism of this strange
race has found expression. They are the
long suppressed cry of souls struggling for
self utterance and they constitute nothing
less than an epic, the " Iliad," of that strange
race which centuries ago cast itself upon
the continent of Europe like a wave coming,
none knew from where or whither bound.
7 8 7
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This race, as Liszt describes it in his book
on Gypsy music, brought no memories, be-
trayed no hope; possessed no country, re-
ligion, history. Divided into tribes, hordes
and bands, wandering hither and thither,
following each the route dictated by chance,
they still preserve under the most distant
meridian, the same infallible rallying signs,
the same physiognomy, the same language,
the same traditions. The ages pass. The
world progresses. Countries make war or
peace, change masters and manners, but this
people that shares the joys, the sorrows, the
prosperity and the misfortunes of none other;
that laughs at the ambitions, the tears, the
combats of civilization; still obstinately
clings to its hunger and its liberty, its tents
and its tatters, and still exercises, as it has
exercised for centuries, an indescribable and
indestructible fascination upon poetic minds,
passing it on as a mysterious legacy from
age to age.
THRILL OF GREAT MASTERS
Such is the race of which Liszt recites the
epic in the " Hungarian Rhapsodies." They
portray the life, the scenes, the mood of the
Gypsy camp, vividly, brilliantly, yet with an
undercurrent of tragedy the tragedy of
homeless wanderers. Because they repre-
sent life, because they are true to life, be-
cause they depict life with a wonderful
union of realism and beauty, they will, in
spite of critical detraction, live as long as
the Bach fugues, the Beethoven sonatas or
the Wagner music dramas.
An elaborate musical analysis of these
wonderful works would be futile. They
are too racial, and in parts too pictorial to
be dissected in narrative style. What I have
said of the race from which they derive
their characteristics should serve as a gen-
eral explanation of their purport. The sec-
ond, twelfth and fourteenth rhapsodies are
admirable examples of the series. In gen-
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eral these " Hungarian Rhapsodies " open
with a few brief bars suggestive of tragic
recitative, which leads into a broad yet
strongly marked and searching rhythm, upon
which is built a slow, stately yet mournful
melody, broken in upon here and there by
strange weird runs and rapid passages.
These latter serve a double purpose. They
imitate the curious aeolian harp effects of
the most characteristic instrument of the
Gypsy orchestra, the cembalon, a large,
shallow box with strings about as numerous
as those of the pianoforte, and played with
two little mallets, with which the player pro-
duces the weird arpeggios or rapid, broken
chords and the improvised runs character-
istic of Hungarian Gypsy music; and they
also prepare the player and listener for the
rapid movement into which the slow melody
passes over, finally to dash into the very
frenzy of emotional and physical excitement.
90
THRILL OF GREAT MASTERS
These three divisions, the slow movement
introduced by a recitative, the rapid move-
ment following, and the still more rapid one
with which the rhapsodies generally end, are
based upon three distinct kinds of melodies
of the Gypsies, and their startling contrast
contributes to the effectiveness of the com-
position. The slow melody in the first part of
the rhapsodies (a different melody in each
rhapsody of course) is the " lassan," a sad
song giving utterance to the pathos of the
race. The dance music that follows, so full
of playful humor, grace, caprice, coquetry
and dashing contrast, is the "frischka";
while the delirium, almost demoniac in its
fury, with which the rhapsody rushes to its
intoxicating finale, and compared with
which the Italian tarantella and even the
Dervish dance of the East are tame, is the
" czardas." In playing these rhapsodies one
must try to imagine a Gypsy camp, the
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flicker of firelight in the deep forest or on
the wild plains of Hungary, a sense of
loneliness or of vast distance, forms of
swarthy men and women suddenly appearing
from a shadowy background to be illumined
for a moment in the light of the fire, their
swaying, whirling forms vanishing the next,
back into the vague darkness from which
they issued. Of the " Hungarian Rhap-
sodies " hostile critics may say what they
please; he who plays them understandingly,
will feel in them the thrill of a great master.
A composition of impassioned, yet mourn-
ful beauty is Liszt's " Liebestraum " (Dream
of Love) one of a set of three nocturnes,
this one being based upon a well known
German poem, Freiligrath's,
O love as long as love thou canst,
O love as long as love will keep;
The day will come, the day will come,
When at a grave you stand and weep.
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THRILL OF GREAT MASTERS
Liszt's "At the Spring " is a charming
composition somewhat in the same style as
the " Campanella," but instead of describing
silver-toned chimes of bells, reproducing the
purl of a bosky spring. One hears the clear
rippling water and sees its sparkling jets
in glints of sunlight, as it dashes against the
stones, and its shimmering spray. The
work is the forerunner and model of numer-
ous similar pieces, all of them, however,
lacking its freshness and originality and its
high order of musicianship.
The pianolist who is led by the examples
of Liszt's music which I have cited to
choose liberally from the numerous compo-
sitions by him in the catalogue of music
rolls, hardly can go amiss. If, however,
he prefers to leave this for some other time,
and to turn to another composer, he will
find Mendelssohn's " Rondo Capriccioso,"
Op. 14, a capital roll. This rondo was com-
93
THE PIANOLIST
posed in 1826, the same year in which he
wrote the overture to Shakespere's " Mid-
summer Night's Dream," with its wonder-
ful depiction of fairy life. The " Rondo
Capriccioso " might be part of the " Mid-
summer Night's Dream " music, it is so
much in the same character. Nothing could
be more crisp and dainty. It seems to depict
elves romping through the forest by moon-
light. Nor is it without romantic moods,
as if love-making were going on even among
these light-footed, light-hearted revelers.
But when this is said, it still is all touch
and go; a breath, a sigh, the iridescence of
the moonglade on a woodland lake then
off and away:
Over hill, over dale,
Through brush, through brier,
Over park, over vale,
Through flood, through fire,
94
THRILL OF GREAT MASTERS
I do wander everywhere,
Swifter than the moon's sphere ;
And I serve the fairy queen,
To dew her orbs upon the green.
or
Light as any wind that blows
So fleetly did she stir,
The flower she touch'd on dipt and rose,
And turned to look at her.
This " Rondo Capriccioso " is indeed a
fascinating piece, written in its composer's
most facile vein. It is one of the finest
rolls from among which the pianolist can
select. There can be no doubt that Men-
delssohn has been losing ground as com-
pared with the enormous popularity which
he enjoyed in his lifetime. But the pend-
ulum has swung too much the other way.
Certain of his compositions have been too
much neglected. The " Rondo Capriccioso "
is one of them. As it actually sounds
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THE PIANOLIST
crisper and daintier on the pianola than on
the pianoforte no matter by whom played,
it enjoys well merited popularity in the
pianolist's repertory and may contribute
toward restoring the appreciation of Men-
delssohn's music to its proper balance.
I would be greatly surprised if a beauti-
ful work like Schubert's " Rosamunde " im-
promptu were not among the most popular
pieces of the pianolist's choice. The word
impromptu is sufficiently self-explanatory,
but it needs to be pointed out that this
work of Schubert's differs from the usual
impromptu in being an air with variations,
the variations, however, giving the impres-
sion of free fantasies or improvisations on
the original air. There are five variations
and the composition ends with a repetition
of the air.
The work is written in the truest Schu-
bertian style. I like to fancy that the
THRILL OF GREAT MASTERS
melody with its serene, lyric beauty is a pic-
ture of the fair Rosamunde herself. The
first variation, a plaintive melody over an
agitated accompaniment, I should be in-
clined, still referring to Rosamunde and re-
garding each variation as expressing an ex-
perience in her life, to entitle " Moods."
The second variation is more playful in
character but without any loss of romantic
charm, and I should say that we might
call it an expression of her " Fancies."
The third an impassioned meditation, a
cry from the heart, Rosamunde's heart, may
be called " Love." The fourth variation,
which again is frankly playful like the
second, is " Hope." The fifth, as brilliant
as a cascade on which the sun is shining,
is " Joy." It ends suddenly without com-
ing to a full stop in the musical sense, and,
after a pause, the original air now couched
in broad and beautiful chords, begins in the
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THE PIANOLIST
lower register, rises successively to the mid-
dle and higher ones, then dies away an
exquisite ending. Is this not Rosamunde,
the more charming for the romance of
which she is the heroine; Rosamunde, look-
ing at her engagement ring, musing on the
past and trustful of the future?
Schubert was one of the most famous song
composers and Liszt in addition to being
an original composer, rendered a great ser-
vice to music by transcribing, in most ad-
mirable style, many of Schubert's most fam-
ous songs for pianoforte. Widely known
as they are for voice, they have through
these transcriptions become almost as famil-
iar for pianoforte. The delicate and dainty
" Hark, Hark the Lark " is a favorite work
in Paderewski's repertory. So spontaneous
was Schubert's inspiration that he wrote the
music of this song at a tavern where he
chanced to see the poem in a book which
THRILL OF GREAT MASTERS
he was examining. " If only I had some
music paper!" he exclaimed. One of his
friends promptly ruled lines on the back of
his bill of fare and Schubert, with the varied
noises of the tavern going on about him,
jotted down the song then and there.
Another splendid Schubert song that has
been made popular on the pianoforte through
Listz's transcription is " The Erlking." As
it ranks among the greatest songs, and by
many people actually is considered the great-
est, the illustration it affords of the rapidity
with which Schubert worked is most inter-
esting. Two friends calling upon him one
afternoon, toward the close of the year 1815,
found him all aglow reading " The Erlking "
aloud to himself. Having read the poem,
he walked up and down the room several
times, book in hand, then suddenly dropped
into a chair, and, without a moment's pause
and as fast as his pen could travel over the
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THE PIANOLIST
paper, composed the song. Schubert had
no pianoforte, so the three men hurried over
to the school where formerly he had been
trained for the Imperial choir this was in
Vienna and there " The Erlking " was
sung the same evening and received with
enthusiasm. Afterwards the Court organist
played it over himself without the voice, and,
some of those present objecting to the dis-
sonances which depict the child's terror of
the Erlking, the organist struck these chords
again and explained how admirably they
expressed the situation described in the poem
and how well they were worked out mus-
ically. Schubert was only thirty-one when
he died and was only eighteen when he set
this poem of Goethe's to music, yet the
whole song is almost Wagnerian in its de-
scriptive and dramatic qualities, and its
climax thrilling.
The work of Beethoven's which seems
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most to appeal to the pianolist is the " Moon-
light" sonata. Possibly the attractive title,
which, however, Beethoven probably did
not give to it, may have something to do
with its selection. But why not attribute
its popularity to the fact that the music
bears out the title?
A sonata is a composition in several move-
ments, usually four, and follows a clearly
outlined, in fact, an almost rigid form, not
to say formula. It attained its highest de-
velopment during the classical period and
left its impress upon all the larger composi-
tions of that time, for a symphony is nothing
more than a sonata composed for orchestra,
instead of for the pianoforte, and trios, quar-
tets, and other pieces of chamber music of
the classical period are sonatas for the corre-
sponding combination of instruments.
The " Moonlight Sonata," however, is
less rigid in form than the average sonata.
IOT
THE PIANOLIST
In it, in fact, Beethoven may be said to have
broken away from form, for after the word
sonata he adds the qualifying phrase " quasi
una fantasia," signifying that, although he
calls the work a sonata, it has the character-
istics of a free fantasy.
Instead of opening with the usual rapid
movement, the work begins with a broad
and beautiful slow one, a sustained melody,
a poem of profound pathos in musical ac-
cents. This is followed by a lighter alle-
gretto which Liszt called " a flower 'twixt
two abysses," the second " abyss " being the
last movement, which is one of Beethoven's
most impassioned creations. At the end
both of the first movement and of the alle-
gretto the usual wait between the divisions
of a sonata is omitted, Beethoven giving the
direction " attacca subito il sequente," liter-
ally meaning " attack suddenly the follow-
ing," indicating an inner relationship be-
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tween the movements so close that there
must be only the briefest possible pause be-
tween them.
This sonata is a true drama of life, a story
of unrequited passion. It is dedicated to
one of the great beauties of Beethoven's time,
the Countess Giulietta Guicciardi. Although
it is known that the composer subsequently
was deeply in love with her cousin, the
Countess Therese Brunswick, he is believed
to have been in love with Giulietta at the
time he wrote the " Moonlight Sonata." The
countess was not insensible to his passion.
She already was engaged to Count Gallen-
berg, but one day, coming excitedly into the
presence of her cousin Therese, she threw
herself at the latter's feet, " like a stage
princess," and exclaimed: " Counsel me, cold,
wise one! I long to give Gallenberg the
mitten and marry the wonderfully ugly, won-
derfully beautiful Beethoven, if only it did
8 103
THE PIANOLIST
not involve lowering myself socially." And
so she gave up Beethoven and led a life,
none too happy, with her Count. Connect-
ing the " Moonlight Sonata " with this epi-
sode in Beethoven's life, the first movement
of the sonata may appropriately be regarded
as a song of love, deeply pathetic because no
response is evoked by the longing it expresses.
The second movement, the graceful alle-
gretto, is the coquetish Giulietta who would
not " lower herself socially " by marrying a
genius. The third movement is the rejected
lover crying out his passion and despair to
the night.
From Beethoven to Grieg, from Vienna
to Norway, from the greatest master of the
classical period to a composer who still is
living and who has been called not in-
aptly, " the Chopin of the North," may
seem a long step. But the pianolist can
travel with seven league boots. Grieg's
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THRILL OF GREAT MASTERS
most widely known compositions are four
of the pieces of incidental music which he
wrote to Ibsen's drama " Peer Gynt." Peer
Gynt is the Faust of Norwegian literature.
Without attempting here to follow up this
parallel, it may be said that he is a curious
combination of ne'er-do-well, dreamer and
philosopher, with a pronounced streak of
impishness running through his character
and giving a touch of the extravagant and
grotesque to many of his actions and to
some of them even a suggestion of the weird
and supernatural.
" Peer Gynt " has its roots in Norwegian
folklore and was written by Ibsen in Italy
when he was about thirty-seven years old,
and it precedes the problem plays by which
he is best known, although Peer's character
is in itself a complex problem. Grieg in
his incidental music, adroitly avoids the
difficult task of interpreting or even hinting
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THE PIANOLIST
at the curiously contradictory nature of the
principal role in the play, one of the most
interesting psychological studies in modern
literature. His music deals with the more
superficial aspects of the story and is pic-
torial rather than intellectual or profoundly
emotional. The principal selections for
the piano-player from the " Peer Gynt "
music, are contained on two rolls with two
selections to each roll. One of them gives
the music of "Anitra's Dance " and " In the
Hall of the Mountain King"; the other the
scenes " Daybreak " and " Death of Aase."
Were these selections to be arranged in the
order in which they occur in the drama it
would be necessary to begin with the " The
Hall of the Mountain King" and follow
this, in the order mentioned, with " Aase's
Death," " Anitra's Dance " and " Daybreak."
On the rolls, however, the pieces are not
arranged in the order of their occurrence in
1 06
THRILL OF GREAT MASTERS
the play, but in the sequence which is most
effective from a musical standpoint just as
in this book I have purposely refrained
from following any set, historical sequence,
but have adopted a purely musical method
of guiding the pianolist from music of the
lighter kind to that of a more serious char-
acter.
" Anitra's Dance " is an episode of the
drama laid in Morocco which Peer has
reached in the course of his wanderings.
Anitra is a lithe-limbed daughter of the
East who entrances Peer with her dancing,
and, when he promises to endow her with
a soul, promptly informs him that she would
rather have the opal from his turban; grad-
ually coaxes all his jewels from him; then
swiftly throws herself upon his horse and
gallops away, showing herself a true ex-
emplar of the " eternal feminine," so called,
I presume, because it eternally is getting the
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THE PIANOLIST
better of the eternal masculine. Be that as
it may, "Anitra's Dance " is the very essence
of witchery and grace. In the scene " In
the Hall of the Mountain King" the trolls
gather for the marriage of Peer to the Troll
King's daughter. When Peer, at the last
moment, refuses to go through the cere-
mony, the trolls dash at him. One bites
himself fast to his ear. Others strike him.
He falls. They throw themselves upon
him in a heap. At this critical moment,
when he is writhing beneath them in torture,
the sound of distant church bells is heard,
the trolls take to flight, the palace of the
Mountain King collapses and Peer is stand-
ing alone on a mountain. The scene may
be construed as one of his supernatural ex-
periences, as a nightmare, or as the allegory
of a stricken conscience. " Daybreak "
which opens the second roll is in Egypt,
Peer standing before the statue of Memnon
1 08
THRILL OF GREAT MASTERS
in the first hush of dawn and waiting for
the rays of the rising sun to evoke the music
which according to tradition many thou-
sand years old, is drawn from the statue by
the sunrise. In this number Grieg paints
the colors of an Oriental daybreak rather
than attempts to convey the thrill of an
ancient sculpture, on the edge of the great
desert, thrilling with song at the first kiss
of the rising sun. In the " Death of Aase "
Peer watches his mother's life slowly ebb
away and seeks to divert her mind from
death by grotesque tales, even throwing him-
self astride a chair and persuading her
through subjective suggestion, that he is the
forerider of a beautiful chariot in which she
is seated, so that the poor woman, who all
her life long has felt the pinch of penury,
dies with a vision of wealth and glory be-
fore her eyes created for her by the son,
worry over whom has hastened her death.
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THE PIANOLIST
In keeping with the lyric trend of his genius,
Grieg has ignored the grotesque and ghastly
humor of the situation, and has contented
himself with portraying its sombre and
tragic aspect, his music being in character
somewhat like a funeral march.
The pianolist will find a characteristic
Norwegian touch in Grieg's " Bridal Pro-
cession Passing By," Op. 19, No. 2, from
his " Sketches from Norwegian Life." It
begins with a curiously droning rhythm,
played softly as though the procession were
approaching from a distance. Over this
rhythm is introduced a piquant march fig-
ure, hopping and skipping along as if the
musicians were dancing at the head of the
marchers. As the procession approaches
and the music becomes louder, one hears in
the bass an accentuation of the characteristic
rhythm, like the tap of a bass drum. When
the march has swelled to a forte, it sinks to
no
THRILL OF GREAT MASTERS
a brief piano, as if the winding path had led
the procession away again. Then there is
another brief outburst, this time fortissimo,
as if the marchers were quite near; and then
a pianissimo, as if they had passed behind
a hill and almost out of hearing. The music
grows loud again, the procession goes by,
and there is a delicious effect as the march
dies away in the distance, the rhythmic beats
with which it opened becoming softer and
softer, while the little hopping and skipping
march-figure, somewhat curtailed, flutters
over it.
Grieg's " Peer Gynt " suite was composed
for orchestra, but was arranged for piano-
forte by the composer. Notwithstanding the
fact that in its original form the suite is
intended to be played by a large body of
instruments of different tone coloring and
that arrangements for pianoforte of orchestral
works usually are so complex that even great
in
THE PIANOLIST
pianists find difficulty in rendering them
effectively, the " Peer Gynt " selections are
among the most attractive in the pianolist's
repertory. For, through the instrument on
which he plays, he is able to overcome the
most complicated chords and the most diffi-
cult and complex runs, as easily as if they
were music of the simplest kind. If the
pianola sometimes is called mechanical, the
injustice thus done it is due to its super-
human capacity of playing with perfect ease
things that are wholly beyond the fingers
even of the greatest virtuosos, yet can be
rendered fluently and also expressively by
the pianolist who has genuine feeling for
music.
It is this combination of technique and
expression that gives to Liszt's enormously
difficult pianoforte transcription of Saint-
Saens' symphonic poem, " Danse Maccabre,"
which even for orchestra is an extremely
112
THRILL OF GREAT MASTERS
difficult piece, its place in the pianolist's
repertory. This is one of the most interest-
ing of modern compositions, and most graph-
ically descriptive of its subject, which is the
" Dance of Death," " maccabre " being de-
rived from the Arabic " makabir," which
signifies a place of burial. Both in the
literature and in the painting of the Middle
Ages in Europe and particularly in church
decoration, figures the legend that once a
year on Hallowe'en the dead arose from
their graves for a wild and hideous dance,
with King Death himself as master of cere-
monies. Saint-Saens' symphonic poem real-
istically describes these scenes, and, as if to
attribute the inspiration for his music to its
precise origin, the composer has placed
above his score a poem by Henri Cazalis.
Mr. Edward Baxter Perry has made a free
transcription of this poem, which, at the
same time, serves capitally as a description
of the music:
THE PIANOLIST
On a sounding stone,
With a blanched thigh-bone,
The bone of a saint, I fear,
Death strikes the hour
Of his wizard power,
And the specters haste to appear.
From their tombs they rise
In sepulchral guise,
Obeying the summons dread,
And gathering round
With obeisance profound,
They salute the King of the Dead.
Then he stands in the middle
And tunes up his fiddle,
And plays them a gruesome strain.
And each gibbering wight
In the moon's pale light
Must dance to that wild refrain.
Now the riddle tells,
As the music swells,
Of the charnal's ghastly pleasures;
And they clatter their bones
As with hideous groans
They reel to those maddening measures.
THRILL OF GREAT MASTERS
The churchyard quakes
And the old abbey shakes
To the tread of that midnight host,
And the sod turns black
On each circling track,
Where a skeleton whirls with a ghost.
The night wind moans
In shuddering tones
Through the gloom of the cypress tree,
While the mad rout raves
Over yawning graves
And the fiddle bow leaps with glee.
So the swift hours fly
Till the reddening sky
Gives warning of daylight near.
Then the first cock crow
Sends them huddling below
To sleep for another year.
The composition opens weirdly with the
hollow strokes of the hour. There is a
light, staccato passage suggesting the spectres
tiptoeing from their graves to take their
"5
THE PIANOLIST
places in the fantastic circle. Then comes
one of the most strikingly realistic passages
in the composition Death attempting to
tune up his fiddle, an effect that is repeated
at intervals throughout the composition.
After reading the poem, the pianolist will
not require a detailed description of the
work. He will recognize the details even
to the moaning of the night wind and the
crowing of the cock, the scurry of the
spectres and their final wail, as the grave
closes upon them for another year.
116
V. AN "OPEN SESAME" TO
CHOPIN
THE goal of all pianists is Chopin. As
the list of one hundred favorite com-
positions for the pianola includes no less
than twenty-six works by this composer, he
would seem to be the goal of the pianolist
as well.
Chopin now is recognized universally as
one of the great composers. But during his
lifetime he was much criticised, called mor-
bid and effeminate and a composer of small
ideas because he wrote almost entirely in
the smaller forms. As if size had any-
thing to do with the beauty of a work.
In every art the best work of each great
man should be ranked with the best of all
other great men. Some geniuses express
themselves on a larger, but not necessarily
on a greater scale, than others. In poetry,
for example, Poe's " Raven " is not to be
ranked below Milton's " Paradise Lost " be-
117
THE PIANOLIST
cause shorter; nor in music need a Chopin
ballad be placed below a Beethoven sym-
phony because not so extended as the latter.
Every genius, however, must expect to be
condemned until Time silences criticism of
his work. For ever since men began to
create rare and beautiful things, there have
been other men who, having failed therein,
have found a bitter consolation in sitting in
crabbed and ill-tempered judgment upon
their successful betters.
Another point raised against Chopin was,
that practically he confined himself to com-
posing for pianoforte. A sufficient answer
to this is, that his music made the piano-
forte what it is. For he was the first com-
poser who appreciated the genius of the
instrument, discovered its latent tone colors
and developed its resources to their full
capacity for artistic beauty and expression.
Chopin was the first to make the pianoforte
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" OPEN SESAME " TO CHOPIN
both shimmer and sing. Rubinstein said
that the art of music could go no further
than Chopin and called him the pianoforte
bard, rhapsodist, mind and soul. " How
he wrote for it I do not know, but only an
entire passing over of one into the other
could call such music into life." George
Sand (Mme. Dudevant) the famous French
authoress with whom Chopin had a love
affair that was one of the tragedies of his
life, said that " he made the instrument
speak the language of the infinite. He did
not need the great material methods of the
orchestra to find expression for his genius.
Neither saxophone nor ophicleide was neces-
sary for him to fill the soul with awe. With-
out church organ or human voice he inspired
faith and enthusiasm."
Although Chopin figures on almost every
pianoforte recital program the average ama-
teur has comparatively slight knowledge of
9 119
THE PIANOLIST
the range of his genius. Only the player
able to go over his works in person can ac-
quire such knowledge, and the number of
amateurs possessed of sufficient technique to
play Chopin's music is very small. " But
to-day," writes Mr. Ashton Johnson in his
" Hand-Book to Chopin's Works," " owing
to the invention of the pianola and the fact
that all Chopin's works, including even the
least important of the posthumous composi-
tions, are now available for that instrument,
the whole domain of his music is, for the first
time, open to all. Those who wish may
pass the portal hitherto guarded by the
dragon of technique and roam at will in his
entrancing music land."
Chopin was a native of Poland. He was
born near Warsaw in 1810. When the
Poles lost their country it was as if their
grief and the melancholy of their exile found
expression through Chopin's music. He
120
" OPEN SESAME " TO CHOPIN
became the musical poet of an exiled race.
The most significant years of his life he
spent in Paris surrounded by the aristocracy
of his own country, who yet had no country,
and by the aristocrats of art. Liszt, Heine,
Meyerbeer, Bellini and other famous men,
as well as famous women, were his personal
friends.
The affair with George Sand left on his
music the imprint of sorrow, poignant grief,
and a pathos reaching down into the depths
of tragedy. Different in character was his
idealization of the beautiful Countess Del-
phine Potocka. The episode is fully set
forth in my " Loves of the Great Com-
posers." One of Chopin's favorite musical
amusements, when a guest in the house of
intimate friends, was to play on the piano-
forte " musical portraits " of the company.
One evening in the salon of Delphine's
mother, he played the portraits of the two
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THE PIANOLIST
daughters of the house. When it came to
Delphine he gently drew her light shawl
from her shoulders, and then played through
it, his fingers, with every tone they pro-
duced, coming in touch with the gossamer
like fabric, still warmed and hallowed for
him from its contact with her. It was Del-
phine who soothed his last hours by singing
for him as he lay upon his death bed.
She was one of the very few people to
whom he dedicated more than one of his
works. Both his second concerto (in F
minor, Op. 21) and his most familiar waltz,
the Op. 64, No. i, bear her name. Chopin
as a pianist, showed decided preference for
the slow movement of the concerto, a move-
ment which is of almost ideal perfection,
" now radiant with light and anon full of
tender pathos," to quote from Liszt. It is in-
deed, an exquisite idyll, beautifully melodious
and replete with delicate ornamentation. Be-
122
" OPEN SESAME " TO CHOPIN
cause of its beauty and its association with
Delphine, I would suggest that the pianolist
begin with this larghetto. There is another
reason for the suggestion. In its ornamenta-
tion it illustrates to perfection that character-
istic of Chopin's music known as the " tempo
rubato." Much of Chopin's music has in
addition to inspired melody, an iridescence
as if produced by cascades of jewels. These
are ornamental notes which yet are not
ornamental in the limited meaning of the
word; for in spite of all their light and shade
and their play of changeable colors, they
form part of the great undercurrent of
melody. There are various technical defini-
tions of tempo rubato, but Liszt described
it poetically and yet exactly when he said,
" You see that tree? Its leaves move to and
fro in the wind and follow the gentlest mo-
tion of the air; but its trunk stands there
immovable in its form." Or the effect might
123
THE PIANOLIST
be compared with the myriad shafts from
the facets of a jewel, vibrating brilliance in
all directions, while the jewel itself remains
immovable, the center of its own rays.
These effects readily are discoverable in the
larghetto of the Potocka concerto.
The pianolist should then take up the
valses of Chopin beginning with Op. 64,
No. i, like the concerto, dedicated to Del-
phine. This is the most familiar of all the
Chopin waltzes, so familiar that it frequently
is referred to in a derogatory way as hack-
neyed. Yet, when properly played, it is
one of the most effective of his compositions
in this genre. Of the Chopin waltzes in
general, it should first be said that they are
not dance-tunes but expressions, alternately
brilliant, charming and sad, of the intimacy
of the ballroom, and that they possess an
innate grace which no other composer has
been able to impart to the form. They
124
" OPEN SESAME " TO CHOPIN
have been characterized as salon music of
the noblest kind and were well described by
Schumann when he said that if they were
played for dances, half the ladies present
should be countesses which exactly hits off
the distinguished quality of these valses. To
play them is like looking at a dance through
a fairy lens; they seem like improvizations
of a musician during a dance and to reflect
the thoughts and feelings that arise as he
looks on, playing the waltz rhythm with
the left hand, while the melody and the orna-
mental note groups indicate his fancy love,
a jealous plaint, joy, ecstacy and the tender
whisperings of enamored couples as they
glide past.
" Gliding " is the word that has been ap-
plied to the smooth brilliance of the Potocka
valse. There runs a story regarding this
composition that George Sand had a little
dog that used to chase its own tail around
125
THE PIANOLIST
in a circle, and that one evening, she said to
Chopin, " If I had your talent, I would im-
provise a valse for that dog," whereupon the
composer promptly seated himself at the
pianoforte and dashed off this fascinating
little improvisation. It is Parisian in its
grace and coquetry and ends with a rapid
run, the last note of which is like the
rhythmic tap of the foot with which a
dainty ballet dancer might conclude a lightly
executed pas.
In striking contrast to this is the " Valse,"
Op. 34, No. 2. This is in a minor key and
instead of representing the abandon of the
dance, it seems rather to depict a melan-
choly lover allowing his eyes to travel
slowly around the ballroom in a futile search
of his heart's desire. The prevailing tone
of the composition rather is that of an elegy
the burial of fond hopes. Stephen Heller,
pianist and composer, tells of meeting
126
" OPEN SESAME " TO CHOPIN
Chopin in the store of a Paris music pub-
lisher. Heller had come in to order all
the valses. Thereupon Chopin asked him
which he liked best, and when Heller men-
tioned this sad one in slow time, Chopin
exclaimed, " I am glad you like that one,
for it also is my favorite," and he invited
Heller to have luncheon with him.
Perhaps the most brilliant and extended
of the valses is Op. 42. In this Chopin im-
poses upon the triple waltz time, a melody
that is in double time that is, while you
count " one, two, three " for the accompani-
ment, " one, two " will suffice for the melody
above it. The effect of this device has been
described as indicative in this waltz of the
loving, nestling and tender embracing of
the dancing couples. It is followed in the
music by sweeping motions free and grace-
ful like those of birds. The prolonged trill
with which the piece begins, seems to sum-
127
THE PIANOLIST
mon the dancers to the ballroom, while the
waltz itself, is an intermingling of coquetry,
hesitation and avowal, with a closing passage
that is like an echo of the evening's events.
These three waltzes, if played in the order
in which I have mentioned them, make a
capital valse suite, and another could be
made by taking in the following order, the
dashing " Posthumous Waltz " in E minor,
the C minor, Op. 64, No. 2, with its veiled,
sad beauty; and the brilliant Op. 34, No. i.
In his " Nocturnes " those sombre poems
of night, Chopin seems weaving his own
shroud. But if, like Robert Louis Steven-
son, Chopin loved the darkness and its mel-
ancholy murmuring, and if there was a touch
of morbidness in his nature, yet, like Steven-
son, he had in him a strain of chivalry.
Mr. Huneker, therefore, in his book on
Chopin, is quite right when he says of the
nocturnes that if they were played with
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" OPEN SESAME " TO CHOPIN
more vigor, a quickening of the time pulse
and a less languishing touch, they would be
rescued from a surplus of lush sentiment.
Undoubtedly, the most popular of the noc-
turnes is the one in E flat, Op. 9, No. 2.
In fact it is so popular that when any one is
asked to play " Chopin's Nocturne," this one
is meant. Because it is popular, it is sneered
at by some critics, but it possesses a lyric
beauty quite its own and " sometimes sur-
prises even the weary teacher with a waft
of unexpected freshness, like the fleeting
odor from an old and much used school
book in which violets have been pressed."
A sustained love song, it ends with a cadence
that should be played with a rippling
delicacy suggestive of moonlight on a lake
in the garden of an old chateau.
There are nocturnes of Chopin's composed
on a larger scale than the Opus 37, No. 2,
but to my taste there is none more beautiful.
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THE PIANOLIST
It bears a striking resemblance to a passage
in George Sand's diary describing a voyage
with Chopin to the island of Majorca.
" The night was warm and dark, illumined
only by an extraordinary phosphorescence
in the wake of the ship; everybody was
asleep oh board except the steersman, who,
in order to keep himself awake, sang all
night, but in a voice so soft and so subdued
that one might have thought he feared to
arouse the men of the watch. We did not
weary of listening to him, for his singing
was of the strangest kind. He observed a
rhythm and modulation totally different
from those we are accustomed to, arid
seemed to allow his voice to go at random,
like the smoke of the vessel carried away
and swayed by the breeze. It was a
reverie rather than a song, a kind of care-
less floating of the voice, with which the
mind had little to do, but which kept time
130
" OPEN SESAME " TO CHOPIN
with the swaying of the ship and the faint
lapping of the dark water, and resembled a
vague improvization restrained, neverthe-
less, by sweet and monotonous forms."
How suggestive this is of the nocturne!
The undulating accompaniment, the scintil-
lation of the treble, suggests the gliding,
gently rocking motion of the vessel and the
phosphorescence in its wake; while the sec-
ond theme of the nocturne would, even
without any suggestion from the passage in
George Sand's diary, be taken for a bar-
carolle, a reverie sung at night, now rising,
now dying away, but with the pulse of a
musical poet throbbing through every note
the most beautiful melody, I think, Chopin
ever wrote.
And speaking of this melody as an im-
provization, reminds me of those other im-
provizations by Chopin, the " Impromptus,"
in which he has displayed his genius as
THE PIANOLIST
convincingly as in any of his other works.
They are fresh and untrammeled in their
development, and as full of sunlight as the
nocturnes are of darkness. The .one in A
flat major was dedicated to the Countess
de Loban as a wedding present, and was a
farewell to her as a pupil. Brilliant, joyous
and iridescent in its opening and closing sec-
tions, that in the middle voices vague and
tender regret. The composition sometimes
is spoken of as the " Trilby " impromptu.
It is the one Du Maurier made Trilby sing
under the hypnotic influence of Svengali.
Had Chopin's directions for the destruc-
tion of certain of his manuscripts after his
death been carried out, the world would be
the poorer by the loss of his " Fantaisie Im-
promptu," published as Op. 66. It is diffi-
cult to understand why he should have
wanted this work destroyed, since it produces
a sinuous, interwoven, flowing effect, inter-
132
"OPEN SESAME" TO CHOPIN
rupted by a middle melody of much senti-
ment and beauty. It has been very well
described by Mr. Perry in a brief poem en-
titled "The Fantaisie Impromptu":
The sigh of June through the swaying trees,
The scent of the rose, new blown, on the breeze,
The sound of waves on a distant strand,
The shadows falling on sea and land;
All these are found
In this stream of sound,
This murmuring, mystical, minor strain.
And stars that glimmer in misty skies,
Like tears that shimmer in sorrowing eyes,
And the throb of a heart that beats in tune
With tender regrets of a happier June,
When life was new
And love was true,
And the soul was a stranger to sorrow and pain.
A reading of this poem conveys to the
player the correct mood in which to inter-
pret the impromptu.
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THE PIANOLIST
By way of contrast I follow these careless
raptures careless only in their effect of
spontaneity with the famous " Marche
Funebre," the funeral march which forms
the third movement of Chopin's sonata in
B flat minor, Op. 35. This has been called
the best funeral march ever written for the
pianoforte. At Chopin's own funeral it was
played scored for orchestra. In my opinion
it is not only " the best funeral march ever
written for the pianoforte," but the most
intrinsically beautiful and sad funeral march
ever composed. Its opening suggests the
solemn tolling of great bells, the heavy
march rhythm gives the effect of the slow
procession of mourners; and the dirgelike
music, soft and muffled at first, grows in
power like the measured, inflexible rhythm
of fate. Then it seems as if the mourners
had arrived at the open grave, for the music
voices a weeping melody, pure and tender
134
" OPEN SESAME " TO CHOPIN
and sweet; then the march rhythm makes
itself heard again and the procession leaves
the grave, the music dying away in the dis-
tance. This is the funeral march of a na-
tion, of Chopin's own beloved Poland.
Chopin wrote two sets of twelve " Etudes."
They gave an entirely new significance to
the term. For the Chopin etudes not only
are supreme as studies. They are supreme
as music as well. Before they were pub-
lished the usual musical study was something
very dry and set. How different these
superb compositions are from studies such
as are comprised in Czerny's " School of
Velocity," which make you feel like em-
ploying the " velocity " you have acquired
to run away as quickly as possible from the
" school," whereas the Chopin etudes are so
full of melody and of the rarest and the
most beautiful musical effects, that to play
any one of them suffices to whet the appetite
i 135
THE PIANOLIST
for the others. The pianolist might well
go through the entire two sets of twelve.
It would open up a new musical world to
him. Here I can only point out three.
Opus 10, No. 5, is the " Black Key " etude,
so called because all the notes of the right
hand are on black keys. This is a brilliant
study with a very charming ending. Opus
25, No. 9, is the so called " Butterfly Wings "
etude, a designation which expresses its gen-
eral characteristic of lightness and grace,
but fails to make allowance for the accent
of passion in the rising and descending pas-
sage that occurs about the middle and which
should be brought out when it is correctly
interpreted which usually it is not. The
greatest of all the etudes is the " Revolu-
tionary," Op. 10, No. 12. It was written by
Chopin in 1831, when he heard the news
that Warsaw had been taken by the Russians,
and it expresses the tornado of emotion that
136
" OPEN SESAME " TO CHOPIN
swept over him when he realized that Po-
land was about to sink beneath the triple
onslaught of Russia, Austria and Germany.
This composition which, mind you, goes by
the simple name of " study," is one of the
most tremendous outbursts of wrath in music
a storm of the soul without even such
lyric episodes as those which form islands
of calm in the torrential last movement of
Beethoven's " Moonlight Sonata." Well
may Mr. Huneker say that the end " rings
out like the crack of creation. It is ele-
mental."
This etude, certain of the " Polonaises,"
the " Scherzos," the " Ballades " and the
" Fantaisie " in F minor, reveal a fire, pas-
sion and virile power that will surprise those
who have formed their estimate of Chopin
from the mournful nocturnes and brilliant
waltzes. The so-called " Military Polon-
aise," Op. 40, No. i, is so replete with the
137
THE PIANOLIST
spirit of war that in the middle portion it
is easy to hear the roll of drums and the
clash of battle. It was of this polonaise
Chopin said, " If I had the strength to play
it as it should be played I would break all
the strings of the pianoforte."
The most effective of the polonaises, his
opus 53, also breathes forth martial ardor
and defiance. It begins with a stirring call
to arms, followed by the swinging measure
of the polonaise proper with a melody that
suggests soldiery on prancing steeds and with
flashing sabres, defiling in review before
battle. This is followed by a " trio " in
which a rapid octave figure in the bass, be-
ginning softly and growing louder and
louder until it reaches a crashing climax,
with strains like a bugle call ringing out
above it, depicts a cavalry charge coming
from the distance, drawing nearer and nearer
and sweeping past with a mighty roar.
138
" OPEN SESAME " TO CHOPIN
There is a story that while Chopin was com-
posing this polonaise, he was so affected
when playing over the nearly completed
work, that, seized by a peculiar hallucina-
tion, he saw the walls of the room open and,
approaching from the outer night, a band
of medieval Polish knights mounted and in
armor, as if they had risen from their ancient
graves and ridden on the clouds to appear
in response to the summons of his music.
The somewhat vague passage which follows
the climax of the cavalry charge and leads
back to the main subject possibly may be
accounted for by this strange experience.
Unfortunately there is no opportunity here
to take up the " Scherzos," so unlike the
coquettish, bantering pieces of the same name
by other composers, Chopin seemingly rep-
resenting tragedy mocking itself, as any one
playing the B flat minor " Scherzo," Op. 31,
may hear for himself; the "Ballades," so
139
THE PIANOLIST
eloquently narrative of love and adventure,
the A flat major and the G minor being
especially popular in the pianolist's reper-
tory; and the " Fantaisie," in F minor, one
of the greatest compositions for pianoforte.
As for the " Mazurkas " and " Preludes,"
pieces that are among their composer's hap-
piest creations, I can do no more than call
the pianolist's attention to their existence
and advise him not to neglect them.
140
VI. NOTES ON SOME OTHER
MASTERS
"[BESIDES those composers, one or more
U of whose works I have described in
some detail, there are others who at least
should be touched on, always bearing in
mind, however, that one of the aims of this
book is to stimulate the pianolist to explore
for himself. Bach, Handel, Haydn and
Mozart can be studied most profitably in
connection with the courses that are referred
to in the chapter on Educational Factors
which follows. There too will be found
reference to the thorough courses on Wagner,
one a general course on that composer, the
other a special course on his " Ring of the
Nibelung."
A line of composers that may well inter-
est the pianolist has come to the front in
Russia. Rubinstein, whose " Melody " in
F and " Kammenoi, Ostrow," No. 17, are
among the popular selections in the piano-
141
THE PIANOLIST
list's repertory was a Russian, who, how-
ever, from a musical standpoint, expressed
himself in German. To a certain extent
the same is true of Tschaikowsky. His
music is " universal " rather than national.
It has, nevertheless, the Russian tang to a
greater degree than Rubinstein's, and Tschai-
kowsky is classed correctly as the head of
the Russian school and one of the greatest
of modern composers. His " Pathetic Sym-
phony," which has been metrostyled by
Edouard Colonne, a distinguished French
orchestral conductor, is a noble work.
Among smaller pieces which the pianolist
readily will appreciate, are the " Song with-
out Words," Op. 2, No. 2; an attractive
" Valse a cinq Temps," with its oddly ex-
tended rhythm ; the very characteristic " No-
vember, in the Troika," Op. 37, No. 1 1 ; an
expressive " Barcarolle " and the selections
from his " Casse Noisette " (Nutcracker)
ballet suite.
142
OTHER COMPOSERS
Next to Tschaikowsky's " Song without
Words " the most widely known short piece
for pianoforte by a Russian composer is
Rachmaninoff's " Prelude," Op. 3, No. 2,
a broad and sonorous work with a splendid
climax. A little "Waltz," Op. 10, No. 2,
is captivating; and a " Serenade," Op. 3,
No. 5, has an originality and charm quite
its own. A very beautiful " Moment Mus-
ical," Op. 1 6, No. 5, does not seem to have
been included as yet in the catalogue of
music rolls, an honor to which it clearly is
entitled. Arensky, Balakirew, Cesar Cui,
Glazounow, Karganoff, Liapounow, Rimsky-
Korsakow, Sapellnikoff and Taneiew are
other interesting figures of the " New-Rus-
sian " school of which so much is heard at
present.
Dvorak who was a Bohemian wrote much
music distinctly and fascinatingly character-
istic of his native land. He was, however,
H3
THE PIANOLIST
broad enough in his tastes to recognize, dur-
ing his sojourn of three years in America,
the beauty of the Negro plantation melodies
and to compose upon several of these as
themes, his symphony " From the New
World," sometimes called more briefly the
"American Symphony." This symphony,
two works of chamber music, also composed
during his residence in America, and his
compositions in his native Bohemian musical
idiom usually are ranked higher than his
more cosmopolitan efforts. His " Hu-
moreske," Op. 101, No. 5, the " Slavic
Dances " and " On the Holy Mount " are
among his compositions unmistakably Bo-
hemian in origin.
While Saint-Saens, having worked more
successfully in the larger orchestral forms,
is ranked first among contemporary French
composers, and Chaminade leads as a com-
poser of clever salon music, the pianolist
144
OTHER COMPOSERS
can add some attractive pieces to his reper-
tory from the compositions of Delibes and
Godard. Delibes is the composer of the
opera " Lakme," and the Airs de Ballet from
this, as well as the selections from his " Cop-
pelia " and " Sylvia " ballets, will be found
spontaneous and original. In fact in all
instances in which music composed in dance
forms has survived, this will be found due
to a decided strain of individuality and re-
sulting originality in the composer. The
Valse Lente from the " Coppelia " ballet is
among the hundred most popular pieces in
the pianolist's repertory; and well up in
the same list is Godard's graceful " Second
Mazurka," Op. 54.
Among the most distinguished modern
composers is the American, Edward Alex-
ander MacDowell. He is living, but his
work is over; for, unfortunately, his mind
has given way. His " Scotch Poem " with
THE PIANOLIST
its graphic musical representation of the sea
beating against a rockbound coast and its
lyric episode consisting of a trist Scotch
ballad, is highly dramatic, while his " Sea
Pieces " are among the most poetic of con-
temporary compositions for pianoforte. His
" Witches' Dance " is highly descriptive,
and in whatever direction the pianolist may
familiarize himself with the music of Mac-
Powell, he will be found a highly original,
eloquent and expressive composer, whose
fame, already established, is bound to grow
with the lapse of time.
This chapter may fittingly be concluded
with a brief reference to two great Ger-
man composers, Schumann and Brahms.
Although " popular " is not a word ordi-
narily associated with Schumann, two of his
shorter pieces, "Traumerei" (Revery) and
" Warum " (Why) are great favorites.
Schumann did much for the development of
146
OTHER COMPOSERS
music that has a distinct meaning and his
works frequently bear titles that are sug-
gestive of some mood or scene, like "At
Evening," "Soaring" (Aufschwung, some-
times translated as Excelsior) , " Carnaval,"
a series of twenty-one pieces descriptive of
carnival scenes ; and the " Novelettes."
Brahms is far more of a melodist than
his critics give him credit for, but his clear-
ness of expression is interfered with by the
relentless scientific accuracy with which he
works out his ideas, to which method he is
apt to sacrifice only too often the innate
beauty of his thoughts. He seems, how-
ever, to be slowly gaining ground, but more
through his songs than through his instru-
mental works excepting those of chamber
music. Yet any one who will seriously
study Brahms and begin with the shorter
pianoforte pieces, Op. 76 and Op. 116-119,
will find mines of purest musical gold,
H7
THE PIANOLIST
where, perhaps, he least expected to dis-
cover them. Entirely different in style from
Brahms' other works are his " Hungarian
Dances," in which he has taken dance themes
of the Hungarian Gypsies and skillfully
worked them up into pieces that are melod-
iously and rhythmically fascinating and un-
reservedly popular. They are much played
by pianolists.
Let me point out again, here, that, how-
ever unsystematic the arrangement of this
book may seem to the musical pedant, I
have followed a certain sequence one of
my own devising and which seemed to me
best adapted to give the pianolist a bowing
acquaintance with some of the great com-
posers that would lead him to wish for a
closer intimacy with these and others. What
I have kept in mind, and very clearly, is
the fact that I am dealing with a player
for whom all technical difficulties have been
148
THE PIANOLIST
eliminated by the very instrument on which
he plays. The complete control it gives
him of all technical resources is what makes
the old method of analyzing pieces accord-
ing to their historical sequence not only un-
necesary but futile in a book of this kind.
Nevertheless, so perfectly does this instru-
ment adapt itself to all music, that any one
who desires to trace up the technical evolu-
tion of the art from Bach to the present day,
will find it the readiest means for accom-
plishing his purpose, especially if he uses in
conjunction with it the educational courses
referred to in the next chapter.
149
VII. EDUCATIONAL FACTORS.
TT is not overstating the case to say that
- the pianola is the first practical means
ever devised in history through which
people in general, whether they have had
previous instruction in music or not, can
become familiar with the world's best mus-
ical compositions. Not only can they fa-
miliarize themselves with the past, they are
able to keep up with the present. For ex-
ample, many of Richard Strauss's works,
including selections from " Salome," are to
be found on the rolls prepared for this
modern instrument. In fact every new com-
poser whose work has any significance is
represented in the catalogue of music rolls.
Supposing a pianolist is planning to attend
an opera or a concert. It would have to
be a very peculiar opera or a very peculiar
concert program which he could not obtain
and try over beforehand. Needless to say
that, by trying it over beforehand, his ap-
150
EDUCATIONAL FACTORS
preciation of the performance would be in-
creased a thousandfold.
Singers who cannot accompany themselves
on the pianoforte, will find this new instru-
ment a boon. For there is a special list of
accompaniments in which the principal
works in the vocalist's repertory are repre-
sented. Lovers of chamber music in which
the pianoforte figures, will find pieces like
sonatas for pianoforte and violin or violon-
cello, trios for pianoforte, violin and violon-
cello, pianoforte quartets, quintets and sim-
ilar works, arranged so that the pianolist
can play the pianoforte part. " This is the
first time I ever have heard every note of
the pianoforte part of the Schumann quintet,"
said the first violinist of a well known string
quartet to Mr. E. R. Hunter, a professional
pianolist, after a performance of this fam-
ous work with Mr. Hunter at the pianola.
The importance of the educational value
11
THE PIANOLIST
of this new instrument is recognized by
many of the leading educators in music.
Harvard, Yale, Columbia, the University of
California, the University of Michigan, Vas-
sar and many other institutions of learning
use the instrument in connection with their
musical courses. At Harvard, in connection
with the lectures on music, the students are
not only allowed but encouraged to go in
groups of six or eight to the hall in which
the instruments are installed, and play for
themselves the symphonies of Beethoven, the
music dramas of Wagner and other music
that has formed the subjects of the lectures.
"As a self-educator," writes Henry T.
Finck, " this instrument is worth more than
all other instruments combined, for the rea-
son that any one can, without practice, play
on it any piece ever written."
Under the editorship of Carroll Brent
Chilton, assisted by a staff of musicians and
152
EDUCATIONAL FACTORS
writers on music, among them Paul Morgan
and Edward Ziegler, thorough educational
courses for pianolists have been devised.
The courses collectively are known as " The
New Musical Education," and are conducted
in connection with the Music-Lovers Library
of music rolls. These courses are admirably
arranged. There is a " Popular Course on
the Great Composers " with a supplementary
one on the " Modern Great Composers."
The former is divided into five lessons:
Bach and Handel; Haydn and Mozart;
Beethoven and Schubert; Schumann and
Mendelssohn; and Chopin and Wagner.
The course on the modern great composers
also is divided into five lessons: Liszt and
Wagner; Chopin and Brahms; Tschaikowsky,
Dvorak and Paderewski; Saint-Saens, Mos-
kowszki and Chaminade; and Grieg and
MacDowell, the last named the most dis-
tinguished among American composers.
153
THE PIANOLIST
Care has been taken in arranging these
two courses not to aim above the head of
the musical novice. For example, in deal-
ing with Bach and Handel, two of their
lighter pieces are taken up and analyzed.
Biographical data are given and, in addi-
tion to the pieces that are analyzed, supple-
mentary rolls of seven compositions by Bach
and five compositions by Handel are given,
together with lists of reference books. The
other lessons in these two courses are planned
in the same popular style. They give the
pianolist a bird's-eye-view of music and its
development from Bach to Wagner.
The " New Musical Education " also
takes up the great composers separately and
gives most thorough-going courses on them.
The Beethoven course, for example, is ar-
ranged in twelve lessons. The course fur-
nishes the student with the Beethoven biog-
raphy by Crowest; with twelve "lesson
154
EDUCATIONAL FACTORS
pamphlets," each pamphlet relating to a
division of the course and written by Thomas
Whitney Surette; with twelve scores, orches-
tral and pianoforte ; and sixty-two " educa-
tional " music rolls. The scores correspond
with the twelve works discussed in the twelve
lessons, each lesson being devoted to the
analysis of one composition. The rolls in-
clude not only those which give the works
complete, but also special rolls with music
quotations illustrating the points made in
the lesson pamphlets. The various musical
forms employed by Beethoven are explained
and analyzed, and in the complete rolls the
different sections characteristic of each form
are clearly indicated in print, so that the
student, having read the analysis, can follow
it intelligently on the roll. There are many
other practical details of this kind in all the
courses and which go to enhance their value
to the pianolist-student.
155
THE PIANOLIST
There are two splendid Wagner courses
to which I direct special attention because
of the frequent performances of his works
in opera and concert, and because a compre-
hensive knowledge of the development of
his theories adds so greatly to the enjoyment
of his music. The first course begins with
his early opera " Rienzi " and ends with
" Parsifal." All his works for the stage are
embraced in this course which consists of
ten lessons, each lesson having, in addition
to the ordinary rolls, a " quotation roll,"
illustrating the points in the lesson pamph-
lets, and in the case of the music-dramas,
giving the " leading motives," so that the
student can familiarize himself with these,
and with their significance in the drama,
and readily recognize them when he hears
them, while playing the complete rolls or
at a performance.
The second Wagner course relates to the
EDUCATIONAL FACTORS
" Ring of the Nibelung." It takes up con-
secutively the four great divisions of the
work, " Rhinegold," " The Valkyr," " Sieg-
fried " and " Dusk of the Gods," devoting
a lesson to each. Each lesson contains a
quotation roll of leading motives and the
following examples from the scores : Lesson
I., " Rhinegold." Prelude and scene of the
Rhine-Maidens, Loge's Narrative, and the
finale of the work. Lesson II., " The
Valkyr." Siegmund's Love Song, Ride of
the Valkyries, and the Magic Fire Spell.
Lesson III., " Siegfried." Forge Song,
Siegfried and the Forest Bird, Siegfried and
Briinnhilde. Lesson IV., " Dusk of the
Gods." Siegfried's Rhine Journey, Song
of the Rhine-Maidens, Siegfried's Funeral
March. I know from the experience of
one of my pianolist friends, how admirable
this course is. He took it before hearing
the " Ring " for the first time, with the
157
THE PIANOLIST
result that he knew the music and the names
of all the leading motives, recognized them
whenever they occurred in the score, and in
consequence, enjoyed the performance as
much as if he had become familiar with it
through repeated hearings. I may add that
the catalogue of music rolls contains a com-
plete collection of Wagner's works, making
the music of this composer accessible to the
pianolist whether he wishes to play it for
study or enjoyment
The pianolist holds in his hand the future
of the development of music in this country.
The instrument on which he plays is the
only practical means as yet devised of mak-
ing the great masterpieces of music pene-
trate to the minds and hearts of the masses.
Art has to advance on its own shoulders.
" I cannot rest contentedly on the past, I
cannot take a step forward without its aid."
The pianolist has both the past and present
of music at his command.
158
VIII. A FEW " DON'TS " FOR PIA-
NOLISTS.
BY way of postscript I give here a few
hints to pianolists. General directions
on how to play the pianola are provided
in pamphlets and circulars which can be
obtained without charge, and I do not pro-
pose to traverse these. The instrument is
capable of great brilliancy and great power,
greater than lie in the ten fingers of any
pianist. This very fact is what has caused
the instrument to be called " mechanical."
But in reality it is the fault of the player,
because, carried away by the capacity of
the instrument, he is apt in the beginning
to play too loudly and too brilliantly. One
of the first don'ts for the pianolist is that
he refrain from putting the instrument to
the full test of its not really mechanical
but superhuman capacity for brilliancy and
power.
Indeed, not only the beginner, but all
159
THE PIANOLIST
pianolists should bear in mind that the chief
distinction of the instrument lies in its ex-
ceeding delicacy. No virtuoso can play
as delicately and lightly and, at the same
time, as distinctly as can the pianolist those
rapid pianissimo runs and those exquisite
traceries and ornamentations which are
found in modern music; all of which does
not mean that the pianolist never should
play loudly and brilliantly, but that he
should not allow himself to be carried away
by the possibilities of the instrument in
these directions.
Certain refinements of interpretation
which the pianist long has made his own
also should be observed. Don't start a
trill and keep it up with an evenly sus-
tained strength of tone and rapidity from
beginning to end. Begin it a shade slower
and a shade more softly than the tempo and
dynamic signs indicate, let it swell and grow
1 60
A FEW DON'TS
louder, then taper down, and slightly retard
the turn which leads back to the melodic
phrase. This is not a hard-and-fast rule,
but one which usually it is safe to follow.
The pianolist can execute his trills with a
combination of delicacy and clearness that
is absolutely unique.
Don't rip off runs as if you were tearing
cloth. Come down with decision on the
first note, begin somewhat slower than the
indicated tempo and then increase the time
to the proper acceleration. This is the
true virtuoso effect, adopted, no doubt, be-
cause on the pianoforte it is easier to execute
a run in this manner; and so, however
erroneously, it has come to be considered
the genuine musical way showing that even
in art we are creatures of habit.
Don't use the sustaining pedal too fre-
quently, not even as frequently as indicated
on the rolls. The pedal directions on the
161
THE PIANOLIST
rolls follow those of the printed sheets too
closely. The pianist often is obliged to
use the sustaining pedal to hold a note that
he cannot keep down because his fingers are
otherwise employed. But the music rolls
are cut so that every sustained note is held
down as long as the composer directs that
it should be. Remember too that the term
" loud pedal " as applied to the sustaining
pedal, as it properly is called, is incorrect.
This pedal sustains but does not increase the
power of the sound that is produced. That
effect is secured by a stronger pressure of
the feet upon the pumping pedals. In fact
by varying the degree of pressure of the
feet on the pumping pedals the pianolist
can vary the degree of sound from a whis-
pered pianissimo to the strongest fortissimo.
The pianolist should remember that, as
the instrument on which he plays relieves
him of all burdens of technique and enables
162
A FEW DON'TS
him to play anything, no matter how diffi-
cult, with absolute technical accuracy, it is
all the more his duty to play with as much
expression as he can call forth from his
inner nature. Emotion, the power of ex-
pression, the art of interpretation, can be
developed by practice as well as any other
latent capacity. It is an excellent plan
for the beginner to take one piece, the Nevin
waltz that I have described, for example,
and play it over many times, not necessarily
at the same sitting, in fact better not; but
without attempting anything else. Each
time let the pianolist try to get more mean-
ing, more expression out of it than he did
before. He will find, if he does this, that,
when he takes up another composition, the
expression, the art of interpretation, will
come to him more naturally and more
quickly, until, from an ignorant beginner,
he soon will have developed into a musical
163
THE PIANOLIST
artist who can give himself and hundreds
of others the most exalted pleasure that of
listening to music, not to mere playing.
164
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