Songs and song writers

®«® SONGS AND
SONG WRITERS®®

BY HENRX FINCK

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The Music Lover's Library

SCHUBERT.

The Music Lover's Library

Songs and Song
Writers

By

Henry T. Finck

Author of " Wagner and His Works? " Chopin and
Other Musical Essays," Etc.

With Portraits

Charles Scribner's Sons
New York :: :: :: 1900

Copyright, /poo, by
Charles Scribner's Sons

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Music Library

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2.10

Preface

MANY music-lovers have doubtless asked
themselves the question why it should
have remained for Schubert, less than a cen-
tury ago, to practically create the Lied, or
lyric art-song. In the first two chapters of
this volume I have endeavored to answer this
question. The great composers and singers
were so busy with mammoth oratorios, operas,
symphonies, and sonatas, that the short song
was esteemed hardly worthy of their serious
attention; just as in England a story used to
be thought of no consequence unless it filled
several volumes. It is now conceded that a
story of three pages may give as much evi-
dence of literary genius as a three-volume
novel, while Schubert, Franz, and others have
proved the same principle in regard to music ;
and at present every composer writes a dozen
or two, if not a hundred or two, lyric songs.

The singers, too, have become more rational.
Not long ago they considered nothing short of

Preface

an operatic or concert aria big enough for a
first-class entertainment. To-day they are
quite as apt to choose a short Lied as an elab-
orate aria. Special song - recitals also have
multiplied remarkably of late, and the greatest
operatic artists have turned their attention to
them. Much has been written about the big
sums paid to many of these singers ; but in the
seasons 1898-99 and 1899-1900 some of them
— notably Mmes. Lilli Lehmann, Nordica,
Sembrich, and Schumann-Heink — gave song-
recitals in New York from which all arias
were excluded and which yielded them three
or four times as much as an evening at the
opera. I call especial attention to this fact as
a sign of the times. The public is obviously
eager to hear good songs, having at last real-
ized what I have been preaching for years —
that there are in the realm of song more neg-
lected gems than in any other department of
music.

Robert Schumann, who was a reviewer as
well as a composer, wrote, more than half a
century ago, that new songs were printed in
Germany every year in such abundance that
one might " roof over the whole country with
them." The process began long before him

Preface

and has continued ever since, till the number
of Lieder has become as the blades of grass in
a Western prairie. Unfortunately, most of
these countless songs have no more individ-
uality than those monotonous green blades;
yet, by their very numbers, they absorb the
world's attention, and the occasional beautiful
flowers scattered among them are born to
blush unseen, so far as the vast majority of the
public are concerned.

How is this unfortunate condition to be
remedied ? Professional singers, with the ex-
ception of a few of the greatest, like the four
just referred to, do not usually select songs for
their beauty, but for the opportunity they give
them to show ofi their voices to best advan-
tage. This throws on the amateurs themselves
the task of finding out what are the best songs.
Few of them, however, have time or opportun-
ity to travel over the whole vast field them-
selves, winnowing the chaff from the wheat.
It is to save them this trouble that the present
volume has been prepared — the first of its
kind, strange to say, in any language.

The most important function of musical crit-
icism is, in my opinion, discovering and calling
attention to good things the merits of which

Preface

are not sufficiently known to the public, and
to arouse enthusiasm for them. Therefore,
instead of writing a compendium of useless
knowledge about insignificant composers and
antiquated songs, that have merely a historic
interest — making a dry catalogue of a thousand
pages that nobody would read — I have endeav-
ored to give this short volume an eminently
practical character; ignoring what is anti-
quated, trashy, or commonplace ; mentioning,
so far as possible, whatever is good ; but dwell-
ing in detail and with enthusiasm only on the
best ; making the book, in short, a sort of
Song-Baedeker, with bibliographic foot-notes
for the benefit of students who wish to pursue
the subject further.

The French have a saying that the good is
the enemy of the best ; and it is obvious that
where there is so very much to choose from as
in the vast domain of lyric song, there ought
to be no attention for anything but the best.
No one would take his guests to a ten-cent
restaurant if he could have a Delmonico din-
ner for the same price. Yet, musically speak-
ing, this ridiculous thing is done a thousand
times every day. The best songs of the great
masters are actually cheaper than the epheme-

Preface

ral sheet-music products of the day. Many
persons, to be sure, prefer ham and eggs and
mashed potatoes to the " made-dishes " of a
great chef ; but their palates can be educated.
A year's familiarity with the songs com-
mended in this volume would make even the
half-musical ashamed of their former devotion
to trash, and open up endless new vistas of de-
light to them.

This applies to those, too, who cannot sing
or get a chance to listen to good singers, pro-
vided only they have a piano. One of my
chief delights is to sit at the piano and simply
play songs, after reading the words. Many of
the best Lieder have been transcribed for piano
alone, by Liszt and others. In the case of
those that have not, it is usually easy to play
in the vocal part. Indeed, one great advan-
tage of such songs without singers is that they
require less technique, as a rule, than the same
quality of pieces written for the piano. One
of the easiest composers to treat in this way is
Franz, whose songs thus make a superb addi-
tion to a pianist's library ; but the player
should never fail to read the poem, too, espe-
cially if he is so lucky as to understand Ger-
man ; and to-day all musicians are supposed to

Preface

know German just as, formerly, they were sup-
posed to know Italian.

The editions of Lieder by the great masters
— even those printed in Germany — now usu-
ally have English words, too, a further proof
of the growing demand for good songs in
America and England. Most foreign songs,
unfortunately — and most good songs, unfortu-
nately, are foreign — are marred by wretched
translations. For this reason singers should
never fail to get an edition that has the orig-
inal text as well as a translation, and learn to
sing in the original language ; partly, also, for
the sake of recognizing the titles, which I have
thought it best to refer to, as a rule, in the
original, because translations differ. If the
amateur wishes a literal version of the text of a
particular song, any German cobbler, or hod-
carrier will do better for him than the aver-
age translator, who usually sacrifices sense,
accent, and everything else to the ridiculous
struggle for rhyme, which is of no use what-
ever in a song. What incredible atrocities this
custom may lead to we see in the case of
Franz's setting of Mirza Schafiy's pretty poem,
Es hat die Rose sich beklagt. In a bare prose
version the original runs thus : " The rose

Preface

complained that the fragrance imparted to it
by the spring was gone so soon. But I con-
soled her with the assurance that it should per-
vade my songs and there live forever." Of
this a translator has made the following cari-
cature :

Oh, why so soon, the rose complained,
Must all my loveliness be dying ?
Oh ! far too soon my days are flying.
Then have I to her comfort said,
That by my little song I'd claimed
A lasting spring to crown her head.

Such vandalism ought to be a State-prison
offence.

In reviewing my Chopin and other Musical
Essays the critic of the London Athenceum re-
ferred to the author as " a typical exemplar of
what may be called free thought in music."
The reader will probably find a considerable
amount of "free thought" in this volume, too,
and it will perhaps in some cases annoy, if not
anger, him. But I am convinced that there is
in the musical world too much parroting of
traditional opinions, and that we need to adjust
our opera-glasses anew two or three times dur-
ing every hundred years. The opinions ad-

Preface

vanced in this volume may in some cases be
wrong ; but they are at any rate my own opin-
ions. Not a single song have I commented on
without having played it over myself ; nor
have I hesitated to say, for instance, that most
of Beethoven's songs are poor stuff, or that of
Schumann's two hundred and forty-five songs
only twenty are first class ; any more than I
hesitate to say that of my four favorite song-
writers two are still living, and one is an
American ; the four being Schubert, Franz,
Grieg, and MacDowell.

H. T. F.

NEW YORK, October i, 1900.

Contents
i

Folk-Song and Art-Song

Page

Songs of Savages 4

Early European Folk-Songs 7

Folk-Song Precedes Art-Song 8

Origin of Folk-Songs 11

The First Song-Writers 12

Troubadour Accompaniments 13

Folk-Song in the Church . . 14

What Led to Italian Opera 16

Jumbomania and the Lied 18

Bach and Handel ... 19

II

German Song-Writers before Schubert

Gluck 22

Haydn 24

Mozart 26

Beethoven 28

Reichardt, Zelter, and Zumsteeg 34

Spohr, Marschner, and Weber 37

III

Scbttbert

Contents
IV

German Song- Writers after Schubert

Page

Loewe and the Art-Ballad 105

Mendelssohn 109

Schumann 112

Franz 123

Brahms 154

Jensen and Others 161

Wagner, Strauss, and Others 167

V

Hungarian and Slavic Song-Writers

Liszt 17S

Rubinstein 184

Tchaikovsky and Dvorak 188

Chopin and Paderewski 191

VI

Scandinavian Song-Writers
Grieg 198

VII

Italian and French Song-Writers

VIII

English and American Song- Writers
MacDowell . . 238

Illustrations

Schubert Frontispiece

FACING
PAGE

Schumann

112

Franz

124

Jensen

162

Liszt

176

Rubinstein .

184

Grieg

198

MacDowell

238

Songs and Song -Writers

I

Folk-Song and Art-Song

JENNY LIND appreciated no other com-
pliment so much as being called " the
Swedish nightingale," and the same was true
of Christine Nilsson. No one who has ever
heard a nightingale singing in his grove will
wonder at this. " Full, rich, and liquid, the
notes fall with a strange loudness into the still
night," writes Benjamin Kidd. " Sweet,
sw-e-e-t, sw-e-e-t — lower and tenderer the long-
drawn-out notes come, the last of the series
prolonged till the air vibrates as if a wire had
been struck, and the solitary singer seems al-
most to choke with the overmastering inten-
sity of feeling in the final effort."

While musicians are bound to acknowledge
and admire the sensuous beauty of tone and
the emotional intensity and sincerity of bird-
song, there is another point of view from
which the Swedish prima donnas had less
reason to feel proud of having their song com-
pared to that of a bird. Strictly speaking, bird-

Folk-Song and Art-Song

song is not true song, but belongs in a class by
itself, intermediate between vocal and instru-
mental music. It is vocal in so far as the
bird uses his own voice, but instrumental inas-
much as no words are used. What raises man
above the animals is articulate speech ; and it
is the power of adding speech to song, poetry
to melody, that makes human song vocal in the
fullest and highest sense of the word. From
this point of view it would be the rankest flat-
tery to a nightingale to compare him to Jenny
Lind or Christine Nilsson.

SONGS OF SAVAGES

The lower races of mankind do not yet make
much use of this higher and unique double
function of the human voice. Though they
have plenty of crude music their tunes are
usually songs without words, or with words
that do not mean anything. Miss Alice
Fletcher says, in her suggestive Study of
Omaha Indian Music, that " comparatively few
Indian songs are supplied with words." Wal-
laschek, summing up his researches relating
to the lower races in all parts of the world,
declares that " the most striking feature of all
the savage songs is the frequent occurrence of
words with no meaning whatever"; and that

4

Songs of Savages

" in primitive times vocal music is not at all a
union of poetry and music. We find, on the
contrary, vocal music among tribes which,
owing to the insufficient development of lan-
guage, cannot possibly have any kind of
poetry." In his entertaining book on the
Australian savages Lumholtz relates that " they
themselves sometimes do not understand the
words which they sing " ; and Curr tells us
how songs that are sung at the corroborees,
or nocturnal dances, pass from one tribe to
others who often have no idea of the meaning
of the words, since every one of the wandering
tribes has its own language.*

Not all the songs of savages, however, have
the instrumental character just referred to.
Many of them are improvisations sung in the
evening on the events of the day, and in these
cases the words are as important as the tunes,
if not more so ; though the " sentiments " are, of
course, extremely trivial and selfish. Thus
Ehrenreich relates f how the Botocudos of
Brazil amuse themselves in the evening by
singing " To-day we had a successful hunt; we
killed this or that animal ; now we have enough

* Lumholtz, Among Cannibals, pp. 157-158; Curr, The
Australian Race, vol. i., p. 92.

t Zeitsc hrift fur Ethnologic, vol. xix., p. 32.

5

Folk-Song and Art-Song

to eat ; meat is good to eat, brandy is good to
drink," and so on. A good sample of the
aboriginal Australian song is the following :

The Kangaroo ran very fast,

But I ran faster ;

The Kangaroo was fat ;

I ate him.

Kangaroo ! Kangaroo !

The American Indians had war -songs,
prayers for good weather and for success in
various enterprises, calls to ceremonial repast,
songs of thanks, mystery songs, dance and
game songs, and so on. In these we have the
germs of the folk-songs of mediaeval Europe.
It must be remembered that our own ancestors
were, two thousand years ago, barbarians like
the American Indians. Tacitus relates that it
was the custom of the northern warriors to
sing the exploits of their great heroes, and that
they had another kind of war-songs which they
used to arouse a warlike spirit in themselves
and at the same time to inspire terror in the
enemy. On festive occasions, he says, "the
barbarians made the valley and mountains
echo their joyous song and their loud, wild
noises."

Early European Folk-Songs

EARLY EUROPEAN FOLK-SONGS

It would be interesting to know just how our
barbarian ancestors sang, and what changes
their music passed through before it assumed
the form of the mediaeval folk-songs that have
been preserved for us. But there was no
phonograph in those days, nor any practical
way of writing music. When Christianity be-
gan to extend its influence more widely, in
the seventh century, the aboriginal music of
the Teutons, moreover, came into conflict with
the imported Gregorian chant of the Church,
and the churchmen made systematic efforts to
destroy the old heathen tunes that were dear to
the populace from long association with their
customs and superstitions. Some centuries
later, when the church composers began to re-
cord music in a permanent way, the heathen
folk-music was still left out in the cold ; for
these composers were naturally more anxious,
as Dr. Riemann has aptly remarked, to hand
down to posterity the products of their own
pens than the folk-songs, which were like wild
flowers that have to take care of themselves.

Luckily, however, they did not disdain, on
occasion, to adopt these folk-songs as cantus
firmi, or themes, and weave them as tenor melo-

7

Folk-Song and Art-Song

dies, not only into their secular, but also their
sacred compositions. This process began as
early as the twelfth century, and to it we owe
the preservation of not a few of the old songs —
though just how old, no one can say. In some
cases the popular melody was apparently kept
intact ; in others, where it was introduced into
a sacred composition, it had to be disguised,
more or less, on account of the frivolous or ri-
bald text associated with it ; and still more fre-
quently the exigencies of composition induced
the writers to disguise the tunes by shortening,
lengthening, or otherwise changing them.
However, by comparing the different versions
of the same melody made by several composers,
scholars have been enabled to restore some of
the originals with tolerable accuracy.

FOLK-SONG PRECEDES ART-SONG

Historians of music have an incomprehensible
habit of speaking of a special " period of folk-
song," and they discourse learnedly in regard to
its date — whether it was in the fourteenth or
the sixteenth century. Rockstro gives the
readers of his History of Music the extraordi-
nary information (pp. 37-41) that secular song
originated among the Troubadours and Minne-
singers, passed from them to the Meistersingers,

8

Folk-Song Precedes Art-Song

and thence " brought its beneficent influence to
bear upon the great mass of the people," in the
form of the national or folk song ! As a mat-
ter of fact folk-song has always existed in one
form or another, as we have just seen ; and as
regards the Troubadours (who flourished from
the eleventh to the fourteenth centuries) there
is every reason to believe that most of their
tunes were either copies of Gregorian chants
or imitations of the current folk-songs. Dr.
Schneider, after an elaborate discussion of this
question,* comes to the conclusion that there is
little originality in the Troubadour songs or in
those of the German Minnesingers ; while the
pedantic artisans who vaingloriously called
themselves Mastersingers, not only derived most
of their tunes from the church, but were sworn
enemies of the naive, simple folk-music. Wagner
brings out this point vividly in his comic opera
Die Meister singer, wherein these masters express
their contempt for the beautiful melody Wal-
ter sings, when he explains — in answer to their
question as to who was his teacher — that the
songs of birds and other sounds of nature had
taught him how to sing.

Rockstro's radical error lies in the assump-

*H. E. Schneider, Das deutsche Lied in geschichtlichcr Ent-
•untkelung. Three vols. Leipzig, 1863. Vol. i., p. 237 seq.

9

Folk-Song and Art-Song

tion that music was given to the people by pro-
fessionals. As a matter of fact, music "just
growed " among the people. They invented
songs for every phase of life, from the cradle to
the grave, in the cities as well as in the country.
Lovers, soldiers, students, hunters, peasants,
shepherds, workingmen — all had their peculiar
ditties. There were songs serious, songs com-
ic or satirical ; songs relating to the home, the
field, the forest, the sea; songs of nature and
travel, of parting and reunion ; drinking, wed-
ding, mourning songs ; with a thousand others
of local, national, or historic interest. For local
color the Laplander has his reindeer-songs, the
Russian his songs of the steppe and the snow-
field, the Southern negro his plantation-songs,
the Swiss and Tyrolean mountaineer his Yodler,
and so on in all parts of the world.*

* The discussion of these various national phases of music would
fill a big volume. Indeed, Carl Engel has compiled a book of
over a hundred pages — The Literature of National Music (Lon-
don, 1879) — containing merely the titles and brief descriptions of
important collections of national music, or of treatises on the sub-
ject. See also the section on national music in the Annotated
Bibliography of Fine Art and Music by Russell Sturgis and H. E.
Krehbiel, pp. 61-63. Some remarks on " exotic " folk-songs may
be found in my article " Music in Russia, Poland, Scandinavia,
and Hungary," printed in Professor Paine's Famous Composers
and Their Works, Boston, 1891. Vol. ii., pp. 845-866. For
fuller details see Mrs. Wodehouse's excellent article on Song in

10

Origin of Folk-Songs

ORIGIN OF FOLK-SONGS

It is probable that, as I have said elsewhere,
" some of the finest folk-songs were first in-
vented by crude peasants in moments of grief
or joy. Such crudities as remained in this
song were gradually removed as it went from
mouth to mouth, as pebbles are polished by
constant friction ; and finally a melody re-
mained as finished and epigrammatic as those
proverbs of the people which have a similar
origin, and as perfect in form as a professional
genius could have made them." On the other
hand, it must not be forgotten that some of
the best folk-tunes may have been conceived
by men of genius. Suppose a Schubert or a
Wagner were born among peasants (such a
thing is quite possible) in a region where there
was not even a piano. Instead of writing art-
songs with elaborate accompaniments, or still
more elaborate operas, such a genius would
have to confine himself to originating simple
melodies. He might enjoy some local fame
as a tune-maker, but that fame would die with

Grove's Dictionary of Music and Musicians, vol. iii., pp. 584-
632. This article has, indeed, much more to say about folk-song
than about art-song. The evolution of folk-song from a formal
point of view is admirably discussed in chapter iii. of Dr. Parry's
Evolution of the Art of Music,

Folk-Song and Art-Song

him, and in the meantime his song would have
travelled from mouth to mouth to distant vil-
lages and countries, every one enjoying it but
no one caring for its author's name.

THE FIRST SONG-WRITERS

These considerations explain why folk-songs
seem national rather than individual products,
and why it was that for the first thousand years
of the Christian era music was nameless. There
-were plenty of song-s, but no song-writers. Pro-
fessed, deliberate inventors, who proudly at-
tached their names to the poems and tunes
conceived by them are not encountered before
the eleventh century, when we come across the
Troubadours in Southern France. The names
of about four hundred and fifty Troubadours of
all ranks have come down to us ; but, as just
stated, their art was derived chiefly from the
folk-song, notwithstanding the derivation of
their name from trobar or trouver, to find or in-
vent. We must also bear in mind that the
creative faculty is rare always and everywhere,
and that we therefore naturally expect to find
more originality and merit in miscellaneous
folk-songs, the productions of millions of name-
less singers, than in the courtly songs of a few
hundred named Troubadours.

Troubadour Accompaniments

TROUBADOUR ACCOMPANIMENTS

Inasmuch as many of the Troubadours and
Minnesingers travelled about, like common
minstrels, from castle to castle, exercising their
art to make a living, they may be classed among
professionals. It is likely that in this capacity
they helped to develop one side of their art
which chiefly distinguishes the art-song from
folk - song — the instrumental accompaniment.
While folk-songs are commonly conceived as
melodies requiring no accompaniment and
usually sung without it, the mediaeval bards
under consideration habitually sang to an in-
strumental accompaniment. That no special
importance was, however, attached to it is evi-
dent from the fact that the old musical manu-
scripts contain no traces of these instrumental
accompaniments. We know that various in-
struments were used — mediaeval varieties of the
fiddle, the harp, the zither, the bagpipe, etc.—
but just how they sustained the voices re-
mains a matter of conjecture. In many cases,
no doubt, the instrument simply played along
the vocal melody, while the harplike instru-
ments supplied an occasional arpeggio, possibly
a few chords — though it must be remembered
that the use of chords implies some knowledge

13

Folk-Song and Art-Song

of harmony, and the harmonic sense was only
just beginning to develop at this time. In all
probability the chords p'ayed by these min-
strels were as erratic as those that so many of
our untrained singers perpetrate when they try
to play their accompaniments on the pianoforte.

FOLK-SONG IN THE CHURCH

The Troubadours and Minnesingers may be
regarded as the professional representatives of
medigeval secular art. Not content with capt-
uring them, the folk-song also invaded the
province of church music. Believing that the
service could be made more impressive by again
allowing the congregation — as in the early da}^s
of Christianity — to join in with song, Luther
adopted a number of the most popular folk-
songs and substituted them for the monotonous
Gregorian chants. The populace could thus
give vent to their enthusiasm in a language that
they understood ; and the enemies of Luther
were doubtless right in holding that the suc-
cess of the Reformation was greatly promoted
by thus invoking the aid of congregational
folk-song.

This was in the sixteenth century, but we
have already seen that the church composers
had begun as early as the twelfth century to

14

Folk-Song in the Church

weave folk-songs into their compositions. The
result was, however, more ingenious than ar-
tistic ; and this brings us to an important point
— the inferiority of the mediaeval art-music to
the folk-song. The unknown creators of folk-
songs not only invented their own verses as
well as their tunes, but invented both at the
same time. We have here an interesting illus-
tration of the adage that " extremes meet." In
all genuine folk-songs words and music are born
twins, just as they are in the music dramas of
Richard Wagner. In the folk-song, as Wagner
himself wrote, " the word-poem and the tone-
poem are one and the same thing. The peo-
ple never think of singing their songs with
out words. ... If in course of time and
among different peoples a melody varies, the
poem varies with it ; separation of the two is
inconceivable to those who sing them; they
seem to belong together, like husband and
wife."

Even when folk-music was harmonized, as in
the madrigals and frottole which were so popu-
lar in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, the
voices were managed in such a way that the
words were still intelligible. But in the poly-
phonic (t.e., many-voiced) art-music all respect
for the words was cast aside and the melodic
harmonies were woven into such complicated

15

Folk-Song and Art-Song

woofs that it became impossible to follow and
understand the words.

With some honorable exceptions the compos-
ers of polyphonic art-music were too much in-
clined to treat their tasks as mathematical prob-
lems or Chinese puzzles rather than as a means
of artistic expression. Sometimes vocal pieces
were written with as many as thirty different
parts. In some of the canons the second voice
had to begin at the end of the opening melody
and crawl backward like a crawfish — hence
called a crab-canon. In other cases the singers
had to guess at what bar they must come in,
or guess what key they must sing in ! Some-
times the voices had to sing together in differ-
ent time. The direction clama ne cesses (bawl
without stopping) meant that the rests were
to be ignored ; noctem in diem vertere, that the
light notes must be read as dark ones, etc.

WHAT LED TO ITALIAN OPERA

It is one of the most interesting facts in the
history of music, that Italian opera originated
partly in a spirit of rebellion against this com-
plicated polyphonic music, which had once
more degraded the human voice to the level of
an inarticulate instrument. The inventors of
Italian opera held, with the Greek philosopher

16

What Led to Italian Opera

Plato, that of the three components of music,
speech was first in importance, rhythm next,
and melody third. They not only tabooed the
Chinese puzzles of the church composers, but
they went so far in their eagerness to do justice
to the words as to manifest in their composi-
tions what one of them boastingly called " a
noble contempt for melody " — nobile sprezzatura
del canto.

To those of us who remember the operas of
Rossini and Donizetti, in which the words are
mere pegs for the florid tunes, this seems a
strange attitude for Italians to assume. In
truth it was not much more than a fad — an at-
tempt to revive the glories of the Greek dra-
ma, in which music was united with the spoken
words. Italian opera soon threw overboard the
respect for words shown by its originators, and
its chief attraction became the da capo aria, the
object of which was to show off a singer's lung
power and agility. The favorites of the eight-
eenth-century Italian audiences were artificial
male sopranos, like Farinelli, who was frantical-
ly applauded for such circus tricks as beating
a trumpeter in holding on to a note, or racing
with an orchestra and getting ahead of it ; or
Caffarelli, who entertained his audiences by
singing, in one breath, a chromatic chain of trills
up and down two octaves. Caffarelli was a pu-

17

Folk-Song and Art-Song

pil of the famous vocal teacher Porpora, who
wrote operas consisting chiefly of monotonous
successions of florid arias resembling the music
that is now written for flutes and violins.

To such depths had art-song degenerated on
the operatic stage. Not all Italian opera-com-
posers, it is true, allowed their music thus to de-
generate into mere displays of instrumental vo-
calism. Lulli and Rameau in France, Purcell in
England were also among those who had higher
ideals. But it took a courageous and deter-
mined reformer like Gluck to establish the great
principle of the music-drama that "the play's
the thing " and the music merely a means of
heightening the effect of the words, as a painter
brightens a sketch by coloring it. He was the
right man at the right time ; yet what he did
was no more than applying to the opera what
had long been the vital principle of folk-song.

JUMBOMANIA AND THE LIED

The folk-song, however, did not get the credit
for having anticipated and suggested this great
reform. On the contrary, it languished in ob-
scurity and contempt. For nearly two centu-
ries, from Scarlatti to Donizetti, the operatic
aria flourished rankly, ruling the musical world
not only in the theatre but in the cantata and

18

Bach and Handel

the oratorio. It was the " big thing " in vocal
music, as the sonata was for the piano-forte, the
symphony for the orchestra. During all this
time the short song was looked on as hardly
worthy of the attention of serious composers.
Even when a simple song was introduced in
a larger work it went by the name of " ode "
or " aria." The folk-song, or Lied, was tabooed
in professional circles. We have here, in fact,
another illustration of what I have elsewhere
called Jumboism * or Jumbomania — the ten-
dency to esteem art in proportion to its bulk,
to measure it with a yardstick — the tendency
which even in the nineteenth century prevented
Chopin and Franz from being at once recog-
nized as geniuses of the first rank, because they
wrote no five-act operas or four-story sympho-
nies, but only short pieces and songs. On this
principle an elephant like Jumbo would be a
finer animal than a humming bird or a bird of
paradise, a sunflower more beautiful than a
pansy.

BACH AND HANDEL

From this point of view — and from this only
—can we understand why it remained for
Schubert to practically create the lyric art-

* Chopin and Other Musical Essays, 1889, pp. 6-8.
19

Folk-Song and Art-Song

song which we now call the Lied. Nothing
could more vividly illustrate the contemptuous
disregard of the Lied in the eighteenth century
than the fact that Bach and Handel (both born
in 1685) paid no attention to it. Bach wrote
thirty volumes of cantatas, passions, and other
species of vocal music, but only two Lieder —
according to some authorities only one.*
Handel wrote thirty-nine Italian and three
German operas, two Italian and nineteen Eng-
lish oratorios, twenty anthems, etc., but only
one song — a hunting song for bass voice, f

There was of course nothing in the world to
prevent Bach and Handel from writing im-
mortal Lieder, had they felt inclined to do so.
Bach's cantatas contain many arias that are as
melodious and as expressive as a Schubert
song, while his recitatives are often so flexible
and eloquent, so imbued with the spirit of the
words, so passionately dramatic, that they fore-
shadow the latest developments of the Lied and
the music-drama in Franz, Liszt, and Wagner.
Handel is more florid and less dramatic than

*Spitta: Johann Sebastian Bach, 1880, vol. i., pp. 759, 834,
835, accepts the Erbauliche Gedanken eines Tabackrauchers as
genuine, while rejecting the Willst du dein Herz mir schenken ;
whereas Schneider (vol. iii., p. 184) believes that both were
written by Bach.

t See Grove, vol. iii., p. 621.

20

Bach and Handel

Bach, yet his operas and oratorios also contain
arias in abundance that vie with our best
Lieder.*

Unlike Bach and Handel, the great German
classics who followed them — Gluck, Haydn,
Mozart, Beethoven — did write a number of
lyric songs, some of them genuine Lieder,
wherefore our attention must be bestowed on
them. We shall find, however, that they, too,
were unconsciously infected with Jumbomania,
for they treated the Lied as a mere trifle, un-
worthy of their best efforts.

* The great song specialist, Robert Franz, spent half his life
editing and restoring the works of Bach and Handel. He issued
several collections of arias selected from their vocal works which
cannot be too highly commended to the attention of singers.

21

II

German Song -Writers Before Schubert

GLUCK

/^* LUCK was already sixty-three years old
V-J when (in 1770) he wrote his first and
only songs with piano-forte accompaniment.
They were a musical setting of seven odes by
the poet Klopstock, and they appeared in print
under the elaborate title of " Klopstocks Oden
und Lieder beym Clavier zu singen in Musik ge-
setzt von Herrn Ritter Gluck, cum Priv. S. C. M.,
zu finden in Wien bey Art aria & Compagnie" *

Before Klopstock had had a chance to hear
this setting of his odes he had been told " by a
great authority " (as he wrote to a friend) that
Gluck was "the only poet among the com-
posers," and that all who had heard these
songs had been much pleased with them. This
admiration it is impossible for us to share,

* No. 2,250 of the Edition Peters comprises a reprint of this
original edition, besides two arias, with an appendix containing
explanatory notes by Max Friedlander.

22

Gluck

for these songs are simple to the verge of
puerility. The melody moves along in con-
ventional intervals without charm or original-
ity, and the only harmonic touch of interest
that I have noticed is in Der Jiingling, after the
words " Donner Sturm." It is amusing to read
that one day when Gluck and his niece paid
Kiopstock a visit the poet wished the niece
to sing for him the Willkommen du silberner
Mond, but that Gluck objected on the ground
that she could not yet do it, whereupon " he
sang it himself with a rough voice " ; amusing,
I say, because the ode is as simple as a folk-
song. The niece did, however, sing for the
poet "in an enchanting way" the ode, Ich bin
ein deutsches Mddchen, which has been incor-
porated in a school-book for German girls, and
is therefore the best known of these melodies.
The best of them, however, is Die Sommer-
nacht.

It is interesting to note that these odes were
composed just about the time that Gluck wrote
his famous Alceste preface, in which he ex-
plained his operatic reforms. As was to be
expected, he applied to the song with piano-
forte accompaniment the same reforms as to
the operatic aria, eliminating all superfluous
ornament, adapting the melodic accent care-
fully to the word-accent, and making the

23

German Song-Writers Before Schubert

melody heighten the effect of the text as color
does that of a sketch in painting. In this, and
in this alone, lies Gluck's title to remembrance
as a song-writer. He evidently did not con-
sider it worth while to bestow as much care on
a simple, detached song as on an operatic aria.

HAYDN

Regarded simply as music, Haydn's songs
are much more interesting than Gluck's; but
from the point of view of the ideal Lied they
are inferior, because they are absolutely instru-
mental in character. Whereas Gluck sought,
above all things, to make the music reflect the
spirit and letter of the poem, Haydn was habitu-
ally as reckless as any composer of fashionable
Italian operas, in using his text merely as a peg
to hang his tunes on.

It cannot be said that the songs he wrote with
piano-forte accompaniment* are without all
claims to consideration. His Liebes Made/ten,
/tor mir zu is as graceful and pretty as a folk-
song, somewhat suggestive of Schubert's Heide-
roslein. In the two introductory bars to Lachet
nicht, Mddchen there is also, perhaps, a slight

*No. 1,351 of the Edition Peters is a collection of thirty-four
Haydn Lieder.

24

Haydn

foreshadowing of Schubert ; while An die Freund-
schaft is a pleasing little song in the folk style,
of the religious variety. In O siisser Ton the ac-
companiment has in part the genuine character
of the modern German Lied, with splendid har-
monies in the three bars preceding the words
" In Echo's Kluft." Interesting harmonies are
also to be found in Stets barg die Liebe sich, in
which the music that goes with the words "Sie
glich der Duldung" again foreshadow Schu-
bert. In Der Umherirrende there are a few bars
(" Unken wehklagen " and " Thai verdoppelt
das Grausen ") of genuine characterization in
music of the dismal suggestiveness of the words
(" where tree-toads with their plaintive notes,
and the hooting owls increase the weirdness of
the lonely vale ").

The best by far, and the most famous of
Haydn's songs is his patriotic hymn Gott er-
halte Franz den Kaiser (God save our Emperor
Francis).

Apart from this song and the details al-
ready noted in a few others, there is little
to commend in Haydn's productions in this
line. Ein Kleines Haus and Antwort auf die
Frage eines Mddchens are not bad as instrumen-
tal pieces, but as Lieder they do not pass muster.
His English Sailor s Song (Matrosenlied) has so
little of a specific marine character that it might

25

German Song-Writers Before Schubert

as well be sung to " Mary Had a Little Lamb."
Modern taste requires more spice in music, and
to-day even an inferior cook would understand
that he must put more salt into a sailor's song.
To realize vividly how fastidious we have be-
come, as compared with the music-lovers of a
century ago, the reader may compare Haydn's
placid, shallow, and frigid First Kiss (Der erste
Kuss) with the passionate ecstasy of Chopin's
My Delights.

MOZART

Unlike Haydn, Mozart was specifically a
composer for the voice. When he was only
fourteen years old his opera Mitridate was pro-
duced in Milan and repeated twenty times. All
but two of his operas were written to Italian
librettos, and it is not an idle boast of the Ger-
mans that their Mozart's Don Giovanni is the
best of all Italian operas. No Italian com-
poser, either of the old Neapolitan school or
among those of the nineteenth century — Ros-
sini, Donizetti, Bellini — was a greater master
than Mozart of the bel canto or beautiful song ;
either in the broad, expressive cantabile or in
the fioriture (vocal embroideries).

All the more surprising is it that Mozart
did hardly anything to help along the Lied.

26

Mozart

Among his three dozen or more songs,* there
are not even as many as among Haydn's that
present any points of interest. In looking
through my collection I found only five that I
would care to hear again : the cradle song,
Schlafe mein Prinzchen, Set du mein Trost, Das
Lied der Trennung, Das Veilchen, and Ich wurd*
auf meinem Pfad ; and of these only Das Veilchen
( The Violet] ranks with the songs that live apart
from the fame of their makers. The others in
this collection would not be reprinted to-day,
were it not for Mozart's name on the title-page.
Some of them are almost incredibly weak, from
every point of view ; in many of them the text
is maltreated as to accentuation, and its emo-
tional import is not reflected in the melody ;
while others are marred by pompous operatic
phraseology.

The Violet is free from these blemishes. It is
charming in melody ; simple, but expressive, in
its harmonies. Here, for once, Mozart conde-
scended to give us his best, inspired as he must
have been by Goethe's exquisitely pathetic
poem about the modest violet which, when the
lovely maiden coming across the meadow does

* The exact number is uncertain. Some songs are incorrectly
attributed to Mozart ; while others, perhaps by him, bear the
names of other writers.

27

German Song- Writers Before Schubert

not — as it had hoped — stoop to pick it to adorn
her bosom, yet dies happy because it is her foot
that crushes out its life.

The time for the musical Lied had, however,
not yet come. Even Mozart gave the modest
violet only a passing- thought ; for the rest, he
was, like the world in general, interested chiefly
in musical sunflowers. The symphony, the
sonata, the opera absorbed the attention of the
musical world ; to write long-drawn-out arias
was the ambition of the composers, to sing them
the desire of the vocalists. The Jumbomania
had not yet subsided. Mozart, like Bach, Han-
del, and Haydn, wrote many melodies that
would have made excellent songs; but he pre-
ferred to work them up as operatic arias, or as
the slow movements in his symphonies and
quartets. Such gems were not to be wasted on
a mere Cinderella like the Lied.

BEETHOVEN

In Beethoven we still find this disposition to
treat the Lied as a mere bagatelle, unworthy of
a composer's best thoughts and efforts. In-
deed, he represents the climax of the tendency
toward big things. Not only was the sonata,
the symphony in four movements, his special
sphere, but he took particular delight in en-

28

Beethoven

larging the several movements. His Eroica
is twice as long as any symphony preceding it.
From such a man we must not expect much
sympathy for the short Lied ; and we are not
surprised to hear that he remarked to Roch-
litz : " Songs I do not like to write."

Beethoven's indifference to the Lied is, how-
ever, less remarkable than Mozart's, because he
was not, like Mozart, a born composer for the
voice ; but rather, like Haydn, an instrumental
specialist. The list of his works into which
the voice enters is insignificant compared with
his compositions for instruments ; and although
one of his most striking innovations was the
introduction of vocal solos, quartets, and cho-
ruses into his last symphony he did not, like
Haydn, learn in his later years to treat the
voice in a more vocal manner.

In view of Beethoven's declaration that he
did not like to compose songs, it is surprising
to find nevertheless that complete collections
of his Lieder contain more than sixty numbers.
At least two-thirds of these are utterly un-
worthy of their composer. In going over my
volume, a few days ago, with pencil behind my
ear, I found occasion to mark forty-five of
them as "poor," "childish," "empty," "medio-
cre:" namely, numbers 4, 8, 9, 10, n, 13, 14,
1 6, 17, 1 8, 19, 21-25, 30. 32-39. 40, 41, 45-49,
29

German Song-Writers Before Schubert

50-59, 60, 62, 63 in the Breitkopf & Hartel
edition. Fifteen I marked " fair " or " not bad,"
while only three have the word "good" at-
tached to them. Judgment and taste differ, of
course ; I can only speak for myself. The three
I have marked " good " are the only ones I
should care to have put on a program for
my own entertainment. They are Adelaide,
Die Ehre Gottes aus der Natur, and In questa
tomba.

Adelaide was composed when Beethoven was
only twenty-five years of age, and there are
good reasons for holding that in the later years
of his life he had no special liking for it. There
were moments when he felt inclined to destroy
— could he have done so — some of his early
compositions, including Adelaide and the Septet ;
but that was doubtless due largely to the im-
pression that those works had an undue share
of popularity as compared with better things of
his that were not sufficiently known and appre-
ciated at the time. He cannot have been so
lacking in self-judgment as not to know that
Adelaide was far superior to most of his songs;
and he must have been greatly interested in the
poem when he set it to music, for he wrote to
its author, Matthison, that he considered it
" heavenly."

Structurally Adelaide is not a model Lied,
30

Beethoven

being rather a solo cantata in the old Italian
sense of the word. To music-lovers, however
(as distinguished from professionals), the form
of a song is a matter of subordinate importance.
The vast majority of them have no more
thought of analyzing the form of a piece of
music than they have of parsing a poem they
like or of dissecting a flower they admire, after
the manner of a botanist. They ask merely, " Is
the melody fresh and pleasing, the rhythm stir-
ring, the harmony varied and interesting?"
and if these questions can be answered in the
affirmative they take the song to heart, even
though it be not symmetrical in form. From
this point of view Adelaide is a good song.
Partly, perhaps, because it is a sort of enlarged
"lyric scene" rather than a Lied, he did not
grudge it some of the original melodic ideas of
which he was so prolific in his instrumental
works, and took pains to elaborate the accom-
paniment in accordance with the spirit of the
text, introducing descriptive details and atmos-
phere.

Die Ehre Gottes aus der Natur is one of a
group of religious songs of a choral-like char-
acter, foreshadowing some of Franz's Lieder,
while In questa tomba oscura (In this dark tomb}
is known to concert-goers as a sombre setting
of a sombre text — a disappointed lover's bitter

31

German Song- Writers Before Schubert

cry for the rest which the grave alone can
bring him.

In others of his songs Beethoven was less
successful than here in creating a musical at-
mosphere in harmony with the mood of the
poem — in Wonne der Wehmnth, for instance, or
in the Liebes-Klage. For the expression of hu-
mor he shows still less aptitude. In Urian's
Reise um die Welt (Urians trip around the world}
the only comic thing, to my mind, is the repe-
tition, no less than fourteen times, of Bee-
thoven's commonplace twelve bars of music.
Again, what fun there is in The Kiss (" Ich war
bei Chloen ganz allein ") is entirely in the text ;
nor does the music of Beethoven's setting of
the flea song from Goethe's Faust (" Es war
einmal ein Konig") reflect the spirit of the
poem.

Nothing, indeed, proves more conclusively
the purely instrumental character of Beetho-
ven's genius than his failure to be inspired by
Goethe's poems, highly though he esteemed
them. Herein he differed from Mozart, as we
have seen. From Haydn he differed in this,
among other things, that patriotism did not
help him to write anything even remotely
comparable to Gott erhalte Franz den Kaiser.
His Kriegslied der Oesterreicher (War-song of
the Austrian*), composed in the same year as

32

Beethoven

Haydn's national anthem, is extraordinarily
weak — almost childish, though he was twenty-
seven when he wrote it. Even love — and he
was often in love — did not teach him to write
immortal songs, though the majority of his
songs belong to the erotic genre.

The fifteen songs which I have marked as
having some merit, but not enough to enable
them to rank among the gems of German song,
are An die Hoffnung, Gott deine Gute, Vom Tode,
Gottes Mac/it, Mailied, Marmotte, Gretefs War-
ming, L'amante impaziente, Lebens-Genuss, Wonne
der Wehmuth, Sehnsucht, Das Gliick der Freund-
schaft, Opferlied, Der Wachtelschlag, A Is die
Gelicbte sick trennen ivollte. In several of these
the excellence lies chiefly in some interesting
detail of the accompaniment; and it may be
said in general that Beethoven's direct contri-
butions to the development of the Lied lie al-
most entirely in this direction. I have been
particularly interested in finding a few songs in
which the accompaniment foreshadows Schu-
bert. One of these is Sehnsucht, especially at
the words "mbcht icJi hinuber, da mocJit ich
ivohl /««." The fifth and sixth bars of Vom
Tode, and more strikingly Als die Gcliebte sick
trennen wollte, suggest details of Schubert's The
Wanderer. Beethoven's Marmotte also makes
one think of Schubert's Leiermann (Hurdy-gurdy

33

German Song-Writers Before Schubert

man). The subject is somewhat similar, though
Beethoven's text is a comic mixture of German
and French :

Ich komme schon durch manches Land

Avec que la marmotte
Und immer was zu essen fand

Avec que la marmotte*
(the last line being repeated five times) ;

whereas Schubert's Leiermann moves us to
tears not only because " his tray remains al-
ways empty," but because of the heart-rend-
ing pathos of the exquisite music, which is in-
finitely superior to Beethoven's.

REICHARDT, ZELTER, AND ZUMSTEEG

While the great German and Austrian mas-
ters from Handel, Bach, and Gluck to Haydn,
Mozart, and Beethoven thus allowed their at-
tention to be almost entirely absorbed by works
of larger dimensions, there arose a class of
minor composers who did not scorn the Lied,
but carefully cultivated it. Unfortunately they
were only men of talent, while genius was re-
quired to raise the Lied to the same rank as
the opera, the sonata, and the symphony. They

*" I have wandered through many a land with my marmot and
have always got something to eat."

34

Reichardt, Zelter, and Zumsteeg

helped to create what the Germans call the
volksthiimliche Lied, which consciously aims at
the simplicity of the folk-song while not en-
tirely disdaining the acquisitions of art-music
in the accompaniments. Of these composers
the most important were Schulz (1747-1800),
Reichardt (1752-1814), Zelter (1758-1832) and
Zumsteeg (1760-1802). Schulz held that a mel-
ody should tit the words as a well-made dress
fits the body — as is the case in the best folk-
songs— and he was lucky in being able to avail
himself of the verses of some good poets, such
as Burger and Voss.

Reichardt also took the folk-song as his model,
insisting that song-composers should return to
it as the source of the Lied. He was the first
who made a specialty of Goethe's lyrics, of
which he set to music no fewer than one hundred
and twenty-five. Goethe himself had been much
influenced by the folk-poems, the charms of
which had been unveiled to him by Herder's col-
lections. Reichardt succeeded with his music
in heightening the charm of the more gay and
superficial poems of Goethe ; but for the expres-
sion of the deeper emotions his art did not suffice.
With all his merits, Reichardt cannot be classed
among the great song-writers. His intentions
and principles were excellent, but his melodic
faculty was weak ; he was not an inspired com-

35

German Song- Writers Before Schubert

poser. He lacked ideas ; and no music, be it a
song or a symphony, can become immortal un-
less it embodies original ideas.

Zelter was, like Reichardt, a personal friend
of Goethe. The cordiality of their relations is
attested by the number of letters exchanged
between them, making a collection of six
printed volumes. Goethe confessed that some
of Zelter's settings of his poems had an " inde-
scribable charm " for him, and he wrote to the
composer: " I may say that your melodies have
given birth to many a poem in my mind."
Goethe's admiration, however, counts for little ;
that he had no real appreciation of good music
is proved by this fact alone, that he preferred
the commonplace settings of his poems by Zel-
ter and Reichardt, not only to Beethoven's, but
even to Schubert's. It is, indeed, likely that
the chief reason why Goethe liked Zelter's
settings of his poems was that they were sim-
ple and did not distract attention from his
poems; whereas in Schubert the poem becomes
in importance secondary to the music. Zelter's
merits lay in his choice of good poems and in
carefully fitting together the melodic and the
word accents. But he had no inspiration,
lacked melodic and harmonic ideas, and, there-
fore, was not able to write any songs that have
more than a historic interest to posterity.

36

Spohr, Marschner, and Weber

Zumsteeg won the admiration of a much
better judge of music than Goethe, namely, of
Schubert himself. Spaun relates in his remi-
niscences that Schubert as a boy was deeply
affected by these songs and " declared he could
revel in them day after day." He used Zum-
steeg as a model when he wrote his first songs ;
but soon went far beyond him, because he had
genius and Zumsteeg only talent. Zumsteeg
ranks as the earliest ballad composer of distinc-
tion ; and Schubert followed him, for awhile, in
this direction.

SPOHR, MARSCHNER, AND WEBER

The three masters grouped together in this
section were born shortly before Schubert, and
all but one (Weber) survived him. They oc-
cupy a much higher rank in the world of music
than the men considered in the preceding sec-
tion; yet they, too, though they might have
profited by Schubert's example, did not con-
tribute anything of permanent value to the
world's treasures of songs. They were opera
composers who, like Mozart, reserved their best
ideas for their big stage works, their Lieder be-
ing little more than chips from their workshops.
Ludwig Spohr (1784-1859) wrote eleven operas,
one of which, Faust, held the stage till Gounod's

37

German Song-Writers Before Schubert

masterwork displaced it; his Jessonda is still
sung in Germany occasionally ; whereas his
songs, of which about a dozen books of half-a-
dozen each were issued, are not reprinted in
the popular editions of our time — which shows
that they have become obsolete.

Heinrich Marschner (1795-1861) published
about twenty sets of songs and half as many
sets of male choruses ; but these, too, are obso-
lete, and he is remembered chiefly as a connect-
ing link between Weber and Wagner. His best
opera, Hans Heiling, which still enjoys about
fifty performances a year in Germany, unmis-
takably influenced Wagner's Flying Dutchman.

Carl Maria von Weber (1786-1826) wrote ten
operas and ninety Lieder, ballads, and romances
for one or two voices, besides a number of part-
songs and cantatas. At the suggestion of Vog-
ler he studied the songs of the people, and this,
in the opinion of Dr. Spitta,* " enabled him to
hit off the characteristic tone of the Volkslied
as nobody had done before him." This may be
true, but I have not been able to find among
these songs one that equals the best real folk-

* Spitta's article on Weber in Grove's Dictionary of Music and
Musicians, vol. iv., pp. 421-423, gives the best and most detailed
account of Weber's Lieder that I know of. See, also, Reismann,
Gesch. d, deutschen Liedes, pp. 166 and 216, and R. Wagner, Ge-
tammelte Schriften, vol. iii., pp. 320-324.

38

Spohr, Marschner, and Weber

songs, or the best of the melodies in the folk
style which Weber created for his operas. He
is, therefore, himself to blame for the compara-
tive neglect which has overtaken his Lieder.
Max Maria von Weber declares, in the biogra-
phy of his father (vol. i., p. 189), that these songs
will be rescued from their temporary oblivion
when the world tires of the overladen and mor-
bid products of modern composers and returns
to the simplicity and greatness of true art. But
this is nonsense. Weber's songs, on the whole,
are less dry and trivial than those of Gluck,
Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven ; not a few in-
teresting details in them might be pointed out
(as in the Liebesgruss aus der Feme, which recalls
Euryanthe) ; but they are not songs to be placed
on the same shelf with those of Schubert, Schu-
mann, Franz, and other modern masters. The
fact that many of them were written with guitar
accompaniment is significant.*

* That Weber's songs, while not as popular as formerly, have
not become obsolete in Germany, is proved by the fact that the
best of them are still printed in the popular editions of Peters,
Litolff, and Breitkopf & Hartel. A complete edition, in two
volumes, is issued by Schlesinger of Berlin. The patriotic or
military songs, like the Schwertlied, set to KSrner's last poem, are
on the whole the most successful. The Wiegenlied foreshadows
Mendelssohn.

39

Ill

Schubert

HAD it not been for a lucky occurrence —
the marriage of a peasant's son, a hum-
ble Austrian schoolmaster named Franz Schu-
bert, to a young Silesian woman named Eliza-
beth Fitz, who was in domestic service in Vienna
as a cook (like Beethoven's mother) — it is prob-
able that the art-song would have languished
for many more years — possibly to our own day
— in the subordinate position in which the vari-
ous composers, discussed in the preceding pages,
had left it. The same result would have fol-
lowed if this union had not proved remarkably
prolific ; for Franz Peter Schubert was the thir-
teenth ot fourteen children born to his mother.
The date of his birth was January 31, 1797, and
he was the only one of the famous Viennese
school of composers (including Haydn, Mozart,
Beethoven) who was born in Vienna. His
mother died when he was fifteen, and his father
took another wife, by whom he had five more
children, three of whom grew up ; while of the

40

Schubert

fourteen by the first marriage five survived,
leaving eight mouths to provide for, besides the
father and mother.

To the present day schoolmasters are shame-
fully underpaid in most European countries,
and it is needless to say that Franz Schubert's
large family did not revel in wealth, his an-
nual income being, in fact, only $175 ! From the
cradle to the grave poverty was the companion
of the greatest of all song-writers ; but though
little Franz often went hungry and cold, this
did not prevent his musical genius from bud-
ding at an early age. Where he got that gilt
is as great a mystery as the origin of genius is
in general. Nothing is said of his mother hav-
ing been musical, and his father's accomplish-
ments in this line cannot have been remarkable,
inasmuch as, in playing the violoncello parts in
quartets at home he sometimes made mistakes,
unconsciously and repeatedly, until little Franz,
who had the viola part, suggested timidly to
his " Herr Vater" that "something must be
wrong."

As a boy of eleven Schubert sang soprano
solos and played the violin in the parish choir,
and four months before he reached his twelfth
year he entered the Convict, or Imperial school,
in which boys were trained for the Court-
chapel. Here he remained five years and re-

41

Schubert

ceived many of the musical impressions which
helped to form his taste. The boys had formed
a small orchestra, which he joined as one of the
violinists. His playing attracted attention at
once, and before he was fourteen years old he
was occasionally called upon to take the place
of the absent conductor. Apart from these
hours of music, life in the Convict was not par-
ticularly pleasant. The hungry boys never had
enough to eat, and the room in which they had
to practise was cruelly cold in winter. " You
know from experience," Franz wrote to his
brother in 1812, "that a fellow would like to
eat a roll or an apple or two, once in a while ;
all the more if, after a poor dinner, he has to
wait eight and a half hours for a wretched sup-
per." He then begs for an occasional penny,
and signs himself " your loving, poor, hopeful,
and once more poor brother Franz."

Music-paper was another thing for which
poor Franz would have had to go hungry, had
it not been for the kind aid of a friend. Before
leaving home Franz had already written songs
and instrumental pieces, which, however, he
destroyed as being mere experiments. In the
Convict he blushingly confessed to one of the
older boys, named Spaun, that he had already
composed a good deal, and that he would like
to write music every day if he could afford to

42

Schubert

buy the paper. Spaun took pity on him and
supplied him with what he needed. From that
time on his demands in this direction were
enormous. In the eighteen years from 1810 to
1828 he wrote at least 1,200 compositions, in all
departments of music.*

Shortly before Schubert reached his seven-
teenth year his voice changed, and he left the
Convict to return to his father's house. His
brother Ferdinand declared that Franz was
three times summoned to enlist in the army,

* The list of Schubert's compositions given by the late Sir
George Grove in his Dictionary of Music and Musicians (vol. Hi.,
PP- 37I-38i) is now superseded by the table of contents of the
complete edition of Schubert's works issued by Breitkopf & Hartel.
Grove's article on Schubert, which takes up sixty-two pages (double
columns) of his Dictionary, remains, however, the most complete
biography now in existence in any language, and will probably
remain so until the appearance of the great work on which Max
Friedlander is engaged, and some of the material for which has
been "printed as manuscript," as the Germans say. The scant
sources of information on which any biography of Schubert must
be based are given by Grove (p. 370) and Friedlander, and need
not be repeated here. To their lists should, however, be added
an excellent little biography by Niggli, in the Reclam edition.
I may also state that Spaun's Erinnerungen, which were ac-
cessible to Grove, Kreissle, and Niggli only in manuscript, are
now printed in La Mara's Classisches und Romantisches aus der
Tonwelt. An admirably written short sketch of Schubert by
John Fiske is incorporated in Professor Paine's Famous Composers
and Their Works; another one, in Elson's History of German
Song.

43

Schubert

and that it was to escape military service that
he decided to become a teacher in his father's
school. Others have conjectured that it was
his father who urged him to become a teacher
rather than a professional musician. However
that may be, it is obvious that a person who, as
early as the age of eleven, was referred to as
" a small boy in spectacles," would not have
made a good soldier ; and it certainly would
have been a crime to expose such a genius to
bullets. So, for three years, young Franz
drilled the alphabet into the heads of boys and
girls ; many of them no doubt dense enough, for
he often lost his patience and did not hesitate,
on occasion, to box a dunce's ears.

It seems almost incredible that amid this ex-
hausting drudgery, which would have used
up all the energy of an ordinary individual,
Schubert should have found time and incli-
nation to compose a vast amount of music.
In the year 1815 he wrote as many as one
hundred and thirty-seven songs, besides a large
number of instrumental works and several
operettas. The songs included the immortal
Erlking, Heidenroslcin, ScJidfers Klagelied and
Rastlose Liebe. That a mind capable of creating
such works of genius should have at last found
the drudgery of teaching reading and writing
insupportable, is not strange. In the spring of

44

Schubert

1816 we accordingly find him applying for the
position of teacher in a new music school at
Laibach, but he did not get it. The same re-
sult attended several other attempts to secure
positions, which he made in later years ; and
perhaps it was just as well that he always
failed. He disliked teaching of any kind, and,
like most men of genius, was unsuited for any
systematic, practical work. He was, in truth, a
born Bohemian ; and as a Bohemian he spent
the rest of his short life without any home of
his own, but living with his friends and boon
companions, some of whom assisted him, while
he, in turn, shared with them his scant earnings.
One of these friends, a university student
named Franz von Schober, appeared on the
scene at the most opportune time. Having
heard some of Schubert's songs, he was so de-
lighted that he at once took steps to make his
acquaintance ; and finding him overwhelmed
with distasteful school-work, he generously of-
fered him one of his rooms and otherwise helped
him, so as to enable him to devote more of his
time and energy to composition. For a few
years (1819-1821) Schubert roomed with an-
other friend, the poet Mayrhofer, returning later
to Schober, whose chum he remained during
the greater part of his life. For whatever these
friends and others may have done for him, he

45

Schubert

has repaid them a hundredfold by preserving
for all time their names, and, in the case of
Mayrhofer and others, a number of poems
which would have been consigned to oblivion
long ago but for the music set to them by
Schubert. Some of them, indeed, would never
have been written but for the stimulating influ-
ence of the composer on the poet.

The Bohemian life which Schubert enjoyed
doubtless had its drawbacks. His friends were,
like himself, mostly young bachelors who, hav-
ing no home, spent their evenings in taverns.
Schubert liked a good glass of wine, and he
was fond of the society of these young men.
Thus he was tempted to give up to conviviality
many a night that consideration for his health
should have induced him to spend in bed.
There is no evidence, however, that he was
wont to indulge to excess ; indeed, we know
from one of his letters (Kreissle, p. 320) that he
left a " reading club " when it degenerated into
a beer-and-sausage club. The chief harm that
came to him from his boon companions was
that while some of them were ready to help
him, others made unscrupulous use of his liber-
ality when he happened to have a few florins,
and this helped to keep his purse always empty.
In money matters he was, like Wagner, a child ;
squandering one moment, starving the next.

Schubert

In the last year of his life, when his first and
only concert had yielded him $160, he quite lost
his head, paying five florins to hear Paganini
and then going again because he wished to treat
his friend, Bauernfeld. This recklessness and
excessive conviviality were, however, his only
faults — faults which too often go hand in hand
with the artistic temperament.

Besides allowing him plenty of time for com-
posing, the unfettered life he led had other ad-
vantages to counterbalance the drawbacks men-
tioned. Musicians are apt to flock together and
talk shop and scandal by the hour; but among
Schubert's boon companions there were only a
few musicians, the others being officials, artists,
and poets, whose varied conversation could not
fail to widen the horizon of his thoughts. He
was known by the nickname of " Canevas " be-
cause it was his habit, whenever a stranger was
introduced to the circle, of asking " Kann er
was?" ("Can he do anything?"). Nor were these
meetings entirely given up to carousing. Read-
ing or declaiming was often in order ; and many
of Schubert's new songs were sung for the first
time on these occasions. And although the in-
formal club was not a musical one, and Schu-
bert was naturally of a retiring, timid disposi-
tion, nevertheless he was the centre of it, and
the meetings went by the name of " Schuber-

47

Schubert

tiads." These Schubertiads were sometimes
held at the residences of the members or their
friends. Occasionally the ladies were invited,
and there was dancing as well as singing-, Schu-
bert sitting at the piano and improvising those
lovely valses and other dance-pieces of which
many were afterward written down. One even-
ing a policeman entered and commanded the
dancing to stop because it was Lent — greatly
to the annoyance of Schubert, who exclaimed :
" They do that just to spite me, because they
know how I love to improvise dance music."

Up to this time Schubert had been compelled
to sing his own songs, and he had only a " com-
poser's voice." One of his great desires was to
make the acquaintance of the famous opera
singer Johann Michael Vogl. Schober, who
knew him, accordingly tried to interest him in
Schubert by telling him in glowing words about
the beauty of his friend's compositions. Vogl
answered that he had often heard of such prodi-
gies, but had always been disappointed ; and
that he was tired of music anyway and wished
to be left alone. But Schober did not leave him
alone, and finally persuaded him to go with him
to his rooms. Schubert was there, and after
an introduction, he sat at the piano and played
while Vogi sang several of his songs. " Not
bad," the tenor exclaimed dryly, after the first

48

Schubert

song (Augenlied}. Other songs, including Gany-
med and Des Schafer's Klage, seemed to please
him more ; but he went home without saying
much or promising to call again. On going
out, however, he tapped the young man on the
shoulder and exclaimed : " There is stuff in
you, but not enough of the comedian, the char-
latan; you squander your fine thoughts with-
out making the most of them." But the songs
haunted his memory ; he soon called again,
sang more of them, and ere long found himself
one of the most ardent admirers of this young
genius, whose music had cured him of " that
tired feeling," and awakened in him a new in-
terest in art.

Vogl was not free from the faults of opera
singers. When he told Schubert at their first
meeting that there was "not enough of the
comedian, the charlatan " in him, he meant that
Schubert did not sufficiently embellish his
songs for the sake of tickling the ears of his
hearers. He himself did not hesitate, in sing-
ing these chaste songs, to hang operatic tinsel
around them — with the best of intentions. Nor
did he hesitate to slightly alter or to transpose
the songs. But the statement made by Kreissle
that Vogl influenced the style of Schubert's
compositions is emphatically denied by Spaun.
" No one," he wrote in some biographic memo-

49

Schubert

randa made for his family in 1864, "ever had
the slightest influence on his method of compos-
ing, though attempts may have been made. At
the utmost he made concessions to the range of
Vogl's voice, but even that seldom and unwill-
ingly." In all other respects Vogl's influence
on Schubert can only have been good. He was
a man of general culture and wide reading, and
he must have called his friend's attention to
many a fine poem. In all probability, the two
men had many interesting discussions on the
subject of the relations of poetry and music.
Perhaps the following reflection which Vogl
wrote into his diary is an echo of these discus-
sions:

" Nothing shows so plainly the need of a good school of
singing as Schubert's songs. Otherwise, what an enormous
and universal effect must have been produced throughout
the world, wherever the German language is understood, by
these truly divine inspirations, these utterances of a musical
clairvoyance. How many would have comprehended, prob-
ably for the first time, the meaning of such expressions as
4 speech and poetry in music,' ' words in harmony,' ' ideas
clothed in music,' etc., and would have learned that the
finest poems of our greatest poets may be enhanced, and
even transcended, when translated into musical language."

The French sneer, bete comme un tenor, obvi-
ously did not apply to the man who wrote this,
and Schubert was lucky in having such a rare

50

Schubert

bird to sing his songs. Vogl was in great de-
mand in social circles, and he was thus in a po-
sition, which he put to the best use, of making
the public at large acquainted with these new
songs. Schubert often accompanied him on
the piano, and we may judge of the impression
on their lucky hearers from a sentence in a letter
written by him in 1825, to his brother Ferdi-
nand : " The manner in which Vogl sings and I
accompany, so that we seem to be one on such
occasions, is to these people something new and
unheard of." In another letter of the same year
he writes to his parents that after he had played
a movement from one of his sonatas some of
the hearers assured him that under his fingers
the keys sang like voices ; " which, if true,
makes me very glad," he adds with character-
istic modesty.

From one point of view it was lucky for
Schubert that he was modest, for apart from
the admiration of his friends there was little in
his experiences to encourage vanity. Spaun re-
lates that whenever Vogl or Schonstein* sang

* Baron von Schdnstein was another singer who introduced Schu-
bert's songs in the higher social circles. To him the Mulltrlieder
and other famous songs are dedicated ; and Schubert wrote in one
of his letters : "I am always delighted to hear Baron SchSnstein
sing." Liszt heard him in 1838, and wrote in the Gazette Afusi-
cale that Schubert's songs, as sung by the baron, had often moved

51

Schubert

Schubert's Lieder at social gatherings they were
overwhelmed with applause and thanks; " but
nobody took the least notice of the modest musi-
cian who had created these splendid melodies.
He was so accustomed to this neglect that it
did not trouble him in the least." It is, indeed,
related that on one occasion, to avoid the at-
tentions of the guests, he made his escape by a
back stairway.*

From another point of view this modesty and
indifference to praise proved a disadvantage.

Bescheidenheit ist eine Zier,
Doch kommt man weiter ohne ihr,

as a German humorist has remarked. A little
more pride and " push " would have been of
great benefit to Schubert. Among those who
took advantage of his diffidence and good nat-
ure were the publishers. For years they re-
fused to have anything to do with his songs,
notwithstanding the enthusiasm they had

him to tears. He praised SchSnstein for allowing himself to be
swayed by his emotions without thinking of the public, and re-
ferred to Schubert as "the most poetic musician that ever was."
But this was ten years after Schubert's death. It was the same
year that Schumann began to proclaim the genius of Schubert in
his musical journal, the Neue Zeitschrift fiir Musik,

* Sir George Grove has truly said that Schubert " was one o*f the
very few musicians who did not behave as if he thought himself
the greatest man in the world."

52

aroused in private circles; and subsequently
they pinned him down to the lowest terms, even
to the last year of his life. The Erlking was
composed in 1818. Five years later it was
offered to several publishers, who refused to
print it even without a royalty. Some of Schu-
bert's friends thereupon advanced the necessary
funds, the song was printed — the first of his
compositions to get into type — and in nine
months 800 copies of it were sold, the publisher,
Diabelli, receiving one-half of the proceeds.
Eleven other songs were now issued in rapid
succession, and proved so successful that the
shrewd publisher offered 800 florins for the
copyright of the twelve, and Schubert was
unwise enough to accept that sum. One of
these songs alone, the Wanderer, yielded to the
publishers 27,000 florins in the years 1822-1861.
Notwithstanding the success of this first
venture, the publishers were slow in assuming
further risks. Kreissle has printed a number
of letters from them which must have caused
Schubert many a pang of disappointment. One
publisher is too busy with Kalkbrenner's works;
another is afraid to risk anything on the efforts
of a "young and little-known" composer; a
third offers to print some of his pieces " on com-
mission ;" and all of them, to the end of his life,
profess to find his terms too high. He was

53

Schubert

glad to accept from $15 down to $2 for the
exclusive rights to a song, and sometimes much
less. Sir George Grove was told by Mr. Barry
(who had it from Lachner himself) that in the
last year of his life Schubert sent Lachner to
Hasslinger with the manuscripts of six of the
immortal Winterreise songs and brought back a
florin apiece for them — the florin being worth
at that time twenty cents!

Attempts made by Schubert during the last
three years of his life to interest foreign pub-
lishers— many of whom have since earned for-
tunes by the sale of these same songs — proved
futile. Three weeks before his death he re-
ceived a letter from Schott's Sons regretting
that some of his pieces which had been sent to
Paris had been found " too difficult for such
trifles." These " trifles " were the immortal
and epoch-making Impromptus, the progenitors
of the short pieces which are characteristic of
the romantic school.

It would be unfair, however, to put too much
blame on the publishers. They were but human,
like their companions. If, as Kreissle remarks,
the request, " do not make your compositions
too difficult to play or to understand," runs like
red thread through all the letters from publish-
ers, there were reasons for this. Schubert, like
all great geniuses, was in advance of his time.

54

Schubert

If the Viennese who heard Vogl or Schonstein
sing and Schubert play had no difficulty in un-
derstanding his music, it was otherwise with
the public at large, which was not thus favored.
Even in Vienna the critics blundered in cen-
suring Schubert for those very modulations and
other original features which we now admire
most.* From a practical point of view Vogl
was right when he said that Schubert was " not
enough of a charlatan and a comedian." He
wrote to please himself, not the public, and he
had to suffer, in consequence, like other geniuses
before and after him. He would sometimes say
jokingly that the state ought to support him,
in order that he might devote himself to com-
position, free from all care. Richard Wagner
often said the same thing about himself seri-
ously ; and when we consider what big sums
European governments expend on the training
of mediocrities in music schools, as well as on
the performance of operas (by composers who
are usually allowed to starve), this demand
seems the most rational thing in the world.
But how could the government know that

* One specimen must suffice. The critic of the Allgemeine
Musik Zeitung (March 21, 1821) wrote regarding the Geister-
chor that it was ' ' recognized by the public as a farrago of mu-
sical modulations and deviations from the rules; without sense,
order, or meaning."

55

Schubert

Schubert was a genius when the professional
musicians were so obtuse and indifferent?
Three years before Schubert's death, when the
list of his compositions was near one thousand,
Schober wrote :

• " So the Mullerlieder, too, have failed to make a sensation !
These curs have no feelings or judgment of their own, but
follow blindly where others lead. What you need is a few
critics, with big drums, to proclaim your name incessantly.
I have known insignificant persons who were thrust into
fame by this method ; why should it not be employed in the
case of one like you, who deserve it in the highest degree ?"

Notwithstanding his aversion to teaching,
which might have paid for his bread and butter
(while diminishing the freshness of his compo-
sitions), Schubert accepted an invitation in 1818
to go with the family of Count Johann Carl
Esterhazy to his country estate at Z61esz, in
Hungary, to teach his wife and two daughters.
He received forty cents per lesson, had plenty of
time to compose, and his sojourn in the coun-
try— which was repeated in 1824 — was of benefit
to his art as well as to his health ; it made him
acquainted with Hungarian folk-music, traces
of which occur in some of his works from this
time on.

As no man's life — particularly no musician's
life — seems complete without at least one love-
affair, imaginative historians, biographers, and

56

Schubert

newspaper writers have built up an elaborate
romance, in which Schubert is represented as
having been deeply in love with Caroline, the
younger daughter of Count Esterhazy, and
heart-broken because he could not marry her.
The basis for this romance is the assertion
made by Kreissle (who gives no authority for
it) that the Countess once jokingly reproached
Schubert for not having dedicated anything to
her, whereupon he replied : " Why should I ?
Is not everything I write dedicated to you?"
But a gallant teacher might easily say such a
thing to a pretty pupil without being frantic-
ally in love with her. The facts that Schubert
was a penniless music-teacher, and that the
Esterhazys, in their silly " aristocratic " pride,
did not invite him to their table, but made him
eat with the servants * (like Mozart in Salz-
burg), could not, of course, have prevented him
from falling in love with his pupil. But dur-
ing the first sojourn at the Esterhazy castle
Caroline was only twelve years old, and dur-
ing the second, when she was eighteen, there
is evidence that, though he may have admired
her, he cannot have been violently in love with

* See Friedlander's Beitrage zu finer Schubert Biographie and
Deutsche Rundschau, vol. 23, No. 5, for detailed evidence on all
these points.

57

Schubert

her. In letters of this period he bewails his
exile from Vienna and regrets that he allowed
himself a second time to be beguiled to the
Hungarian castle, where, he adds, "there is not
a single person with whom I can exchange a
sensible word." Such is not the attitude and
language of a lover. There is also a poem by
Schubert's friend Bauernfeld, which declares
that, though the composer was in love with
the countess, he soon transferred his affection
to another :

Verliebt war Schubert ; der Schiilerin
Gait's, einer der jungen Comptessen,
Doch gab er sich einer — ganz Andern bin,
Um — die Andere zu vergessen.

If further proof were needed, it would be
found in a confession made by Schubert one
day to Hiittenbrenner, who asked him if he
had ever been in love. Schubert replied that
he had loved one girl dearly, and for three
years had hoped to marry her, but had been
obliged to give her up because he was unable
to secure a remunerative position. This girl
was not pretty ; her face was covered with
smallpox marks, and she was not a countess,
but the daughter of a schoolmaster. We know
from several passages in Schubert's letters that
he had an eye for beauty in women ; but apart

58

Schubert

from this story of the schoolmaster's daughter
there is no evidence that he ever was really in
love ; certainly there is no particle of evidence
for the current belief, to which Rowbotham
has given the most extravagant expression,
that " the image of Caroline Esterhazy was
ever present in his mind to cheer him in his
lonely life and to offer him, if not the comfort
of hope, at least the consolation of delightful
woe."

No ; the tragedy of Schubert's life does not
lie in unrequited passion ; it lies in his early
death and the thought that it might have been
so easily prevented. All that was needed to
keep him alive was a little money to enable him
to take another vacation. He was a great lover
of nature, but, apart from his two summers with
the Esterhazys, there were only three occasions
in his life when he was able to make a trip — to
Salzburg and the Tyrolean Mountains ; perhaps
even these not being at his own expense. The
letters written on these excursions — when he
played and Vogl sang to the delight of their
hosts — abound in enthusiastic references to the
fine scenery, and give frequent evidence of the
bracing effects of the country air on his body
and mind. If he could have spent another
summer in these regions his life might have
been spared. Several extant letters by him

59

Schubert

and others prove that he had planned another
trip and that nothing but lack of funds pre-
vented him from leaving Vienna during the
unhealthy months. He needed an outing more
than ever, for he had been suffering for some
time from persistent headaches and giddiness.
Unable to leave the city, he changed his resi-
dence, by the doctor's advice, to a new house
occupied by his brother Ferdinand, in a suburb
whence he would be able to get away more
easily from the city on his afternoon walks.
Probably the water supplied to this house was
bad, for Schubert at once got worse. In Octo-
ber he went to Eisenstadt for three days and
was much better. Returning to the city the
unfavorable symptoms returned, the doctors
diagnosed typhoid fever, and he died a few
days later — November 19, 1828 — a victim of
poverty and lack of appreciation.

His last hours were agonizing to his brother.
Franz fancied, in the delirium of his fever, that
he had been put in a corner under the earth, and
he asked piteously : " Don't I deserve a place
above ground?" Ferdinand assured him he
was in his own room, but Franz declared : " No,
that is not so ; Beethoven is not here." A few
hours later he clutched at the wall and ex-
claimed : " Here, here is my end." They were
his last words. And thus passed away a genius

60

Schubert

of whom Grove has said truly and pathetically :
" There never has been one like him and there
never will be another."

His worldly possessions at the time of his
death were officially valued at about twelve
dollars. They included piles of musical manu-
scripts worth more than their weight in gold ;
but no one knew it, till Schumann came across
them ten years later and gave some of them to
the astonished world.

Money, money alone, was needed to prolong
the life of Schubert, the most spontaneous and
divinely inspired of all musicians. An extra
drop of bitterness is added to our sorrow over
his untimely death by the thought that there
was a man in Vienna who might have saved
him had he known him sooner. There can be
no doubt that if Beethoven had lived another
year the authority of his name and the active
interest he would certainly have manifested in
Schubert would have brought the young song-
writer the fame and the consideration which
would have enabled him to support himself.
But it was one of the links in the long chain of
Schubert's misfortunes that, although Beetho-
ven lived in the same city thirty years, he did
not, until a few months before his death, dis-
cover Schubert's genius.

When he was already too ill to continue com.

61

Schubert

posing, Schindler brought him about sixty of
Schubert's songs by way of diversion and with
the object of making him acquainted with the
young man's work. Beethoven was amazed
and delighted with these songs. For several
days he had them constantly in hand and ex-
claimed repeatedly : " Truly, Schubert has the
divine spark." He now was eager to see also
the operas and piano-forte works, but his illness
prevented him, and he could only express re-
grets at not having known Schubert sooner.
It is probable that his enthusiastic praise stimu-
lated Schubert, who worshipped him, to those
supreme efforts which enabled him to write his
greatest works after this time ; but it was too
late to derive much worldly benefit from Beet-
hoven's recommendation, for he followed him
into the grave eighteen months later. Beetho-
ven was, as we have seen, in his mind in the de-
lirium of his fever, not long before the end, and
it was his fervent wish that he might be buried
near that master, which wish was carried out
through the self-denial of his brother Ferdinand,
who secured a place for him only three graves
removed from Beethoven's.

In view of Schubert's great admiration for
Beethoven it is remarkable that his genius was
so little dominated by that master and that he
manifested such striking originality in all de-

62

Schubert

partments of music. The method of workman-
ship of these two composers, also, was utterly
dissimilar. Beethoven began, as a rule, with
the germ of a musical thought, often crude and
even commonplace, which he jotted down on
music-paper, subsequently altering it — in some
cases a dozen times or oftener — till at last it
assumed the finished form we admire ; whereas
Schubert, as a rule, improvised his composi-
tions, without any preliminary sketches. When
composing, he often seemed like one in a trance.
Vogl, in a page of his diary already referred to,
as well as in a letter to Stadler, refers to Schu-
bert's compositions as works produced in a
state resembling clairvoyance or somnambu-
lism ; and other friends, like Schonstein and
Schober, who had occasion to observe him in
moments of creativeness, received the same im-
pression. As Spaun writes :

" Those who were intimately acquainted with him knew
how deeply he was affected by his creations and how he
gave birth to them in pain. No one who ever saw him on
a forenoon while he was composing, with glowing face and
sparkling eyes, his very speech changed, resembling a som-
nambulist, will ever forget the impression. How, indeed,
could he have written these songs without being stirred in
his inmost soul ! In the afternoon, to be sure, he was dif-
ferent ; but he was tender and deep in his feelings, only he
did not like to expose them, but preferred to keep them locked
up within."

63

Schubert

Sir George Grove, who has shown a keener
and deeper appreciation of Schubert's genius
than any other Englishman, has well remarked :

" In hearing Schubert's compositions it is often as if one
were brought more immediately and closely into contact with
music itself than is the case in the works of others ; as if in
his pieces the stream from the great heavenly reservoir were
dashing over us, or flowing through us, more directly, with
less admixture of any medium or channel, than it does in those
of any other writer. . . . No sketches, no delay, no anx-
ious period of preparation, no revision appear to have been
necessary. He had but to read the poem, to surrender him-
self to the torrent, and to put down what was given him to
say, as it rushed through his mind."

Instances will be given presently of the
startling suddenness with which the music
suitable to a poem often sprang up in his mind
full-fledged, like love at first sight. He com-
posed as a bird sings in spring, or as a well
gushes from a mountain side, simply because
he could not help it. Spaun relates that Schu-
bert, when he slept in his room, often kept his
spectacles on his nose all night and as soon as
he woke up, without waiting to dress, sat down
and wrote the loveliest songs. Nothing could
stop the flow of his inspiration. It is related by
Randhartinger that one day he dashed down
the highly dramatic song The Dwarf, at a pub-
lisher's request, without having seen the poem

64

Schubert

before and without finding it necessary to in-
terrupt, while he was writing it, a conversation
he was engaged in. Even illness did not anni-
hilate his creative activity. Some of the Muller-
lieder were composed in a hospital. He wrote
simply for the pleasure of writing, and the
fact that he had to wait seven years before
any of his songs were printed did not in the
least check his creativeness. When Hiller once
asked him whether he wrote much, he replied :
" I compose every morning ; and when one piece
is done I begin another;" and Lachner relates that
after he had sung or played a new composition
he would often put it away and never think of
it again.

Not less astounding than his spontaneity
was his fertility, especially in his earlier years.
In 1815, at the age of eighteen, he wrote
one hundred and forty-four songs, which
fill up two volumes of the ten in the
Breitkopf & Hartel complete edition! The
number for the following year was one hun-
dred and ten. Six of the fine Winterreise songs
were written in one morning, and he is known
to have set to music as many as eight poems in
one day. Of his opera Fierrabras he composed
three hundred manuscript pages in a week,
a thousand pages in four months, with a num-
ber of songs and piano-forte pieces thrown in.

65

Schubert

One reason why Schubert's friends compared
him to a somnambulist was that he did not al-
ways remember in his normal condition what
he had written while in the state of " clairvoy-
ance." On one occasion he took some new
songs for inspection to Vogl. Happening to
be busy the tenor laid them aside. Examining
them subsequently, he came across one which
he liked particularly, but, as it was in an incon-
venient key, he had it transposed. A fortnight
later when Schubert made another call, Vogl
placed this copy before him and sang it. The
composer played the piano part, and at the end
exclaimed: "Look here! That's not a bad
song ! Whose is it ? "

While Schubert was undoubtedly the most
spontaneous of all musicians, the notion that he
practically shook his compositions from his
sleeves and never paid any further attention to
them, can no longer be upheld. The painstak-
ing researches of Friedlander and Mandyc-
zewski have shown that he resorted to revision
and filing much more frequently than has been
supposed. In the ten volumes of Breitkopf
& Hartel's complete edition there are six
hundred and three songs, and among them
no fewer than fifty-two which appear in
two versions. Two others were taken up
three times, and three — including The Trout

66

Schubert

and The Erlking — four times. Most of the sec-
ond and third versions are of songs written
before his twentieth year. But in some cases
he rewrote songs many years after their first
composition ; Nur wer die Sehnsucht Kennt
(Mignori), for instance, of which the first version
is dated 1815, the last 1827. In the later ver-
sions, and when the songs were sent to the
printer, he also carefully revised the expres-
sion marks.*

* In Max Friedlander's " Supplement " to the Peters edition
of Schubert's songs (7 vols., including 443 songs), and in Euse-
bius Mandyczewski's " Revisions-bericht " accompanying the
Breitkopf & Hartel edition (10 vols., 603 songs) the changes made
by Schubert in the different versions are carefully noted, and we
get from these volumes an insight into the workshop of his
genius, as we do into Beethoven's from the "sketches" published
by Nottebohm. But the critical labors of these editors do not end
there. They have done an inestimable service to the world by re-
storing the original text of many of the songs. Poor Schubert
was pursued by his misfortunes, even after his death. The chaste
simplicity of his melodies and the originality of his harmonies
were not appreciated by his contemporaries as they are now.
Even during his lifetime his friend, Vogl, as we have seen, used to
"adorn" his songs with operatic embellishments, following the
custom of the time, and convinced that he was doing him a good
service. After Schubert's death some publishers had the unhappy
thought of printing the songs with these stupid embellishments ;
and thus, for half a century or more, the grossest mistakes re-
mained in the various printed editions of even the most famous of
the songs. Nor were the publishers content with the superadded
operatic frills and furbelows. They marred many of the songs by

67

Schubert

Composers differ greatly in regard to the ma-
turing of their genius. At an age (thirty-one)
corresponding to that at which Schubert died,
Beethoven had conceived only the first two of
his symphonies; which might almost have been
written by Mozart, so little is there in them of
the true Beethoven. Wagner, at the corre-
sponding age, had written only the least Wag-

manufactured introductory bars, sometimes amazingly trivial and
inane. Nay, they did not hesitate, with a view of rendering the
songs more palatable to the public, to erase some of Schubert's
finest nuances in melody or accompaniment ; or to change his
bold, original harmonies to conventional chords. Misprints,
carefully reproduced, added to the confusion. Many of the
songs, furthermore, were, to their detriment, transposed to other
keys. It is true that Schubert was less particular in this matter
than his successor, Robert Franz ; being willing to allow a tem-
porary transposition in order to accommodate a singer. Yet he
had his reasons for writing a song in this or that key, and when-
ever a publisher begged him to choose an easier one, with fewer
flats or sharps, he used to reply (as Spaun informs us) that he
could not write otherwise, and that those who could not play his
piano parts as he had written them, might as well leave them
alone.

For detailed information on all these points see No. 43 of
Breitkopf & Hartel's Mittheilungen, and an article by Friedlander
on " Falschungen in Schubert's Liedern," in Chrysander's Vier-
teljahrsschrift fiir Mttsikwissenschaft, 1893, pp. 166-185.
Those who can read French, but not German, will find much perti-
nent information, together with a chronological list of Schubert's
603 songs (German and French titles), in Les Lieder de Franz
Schubert, by Henri de Curzon, Paris, 1899, pp. 112.

6S

Schubert

nerian of his works, up to Rienzi and the Flying
Dutchman. But Schubert wrote original and
immortal compositions as a mere boy of seven-
teen and eighteen, including Margaret at the
Spinning Wheel, the Rose on the Heath, the Wan-
derer's Night Song, and the Er Iking. He began
to write, as we have seen, several years sooner.
His first efforts were destroyed, the earliest sur-
viving song being dated March 30, 1811. It is
entitled Hagars Lament, and as Schubert was
only fourteen when he wrote it, we are not sur-
prised to find it a close imitation of the song on
the same theme written by the Stuttgart com-
poser Zumsteeg, whom (as we have already
said) he admired greatly. Like many of the
earlier songs (and not a few of the later ones),
it is very long — fifteen printed pages — while fre-
quent changes of tempo and rhythm, in which
he follows Zumsteeg, break it up into a dozen
movements. Soon, however, he learned to use
his own wings, and his flights grew bolder and
bolder. A few sketches have been preserved
which show that at this early period — the " ex-
perimental years" — he used to jot down the
melody, with the mere outlines of the piano
part, and then rewrite and elaborate the whole.
There are two ways of setting a poem to
music. One consists in adapting to the first
stanza or strophe of the poem a melody and ac-

69

Schubert

companiment which are repeated unchanged
in all the other stanzas, though there may be
a dozen or more of them. This is called a
strophic song — the typical folk-song. In the
other kind, which the Germans call a durch-
componirtes Lied, the music is " composed
through"; that is, while usually repeating the
same music in the main, the composer makes
more or less important changes in the melody
or accompaniment, accordingly as the mood
of the poem changes in the several stanzas.

Among the early songs of Schubert we find
good examples of both these kinds, but as the
through-composed song is the more artistic, he
favors that from the beginning. The first of his
realty great songs is of this kind. It is the
well-known Margaret at the Spinning Wheel
(dated October, 1814, and the thirty-first of the
preserved songs). Here we already find Schu-
bert's spontaneous flow of melody, with some
of his harmonic peculiarities ; while the whirl-
ing, monotonous figure of the accompaniment
picturesquely suggests the motion of the wheel,
dramatically interrupted by a few pensive
chords at the words " And oh, his kiss ! " — one
of those strokes of genius with which Schubert
was destined to show — like Wagner after him
— how greatly the effect even of the best poem
can be enhanced by sympathetic music.

70

Schubert

Among the one hundred and forty-four songs
ii the year 1815 there are (besides other gems
that I cannot stop to describe — like Rast/ose
Liebe* Ossian songs, etc.,) two world-famed
and perfect specimens of both the stroph-
ic and the through-composed kind — the ex-
quisite Rose on the Heather, simple as a folk-
song yet with the fragrance of individual
genius, and the Er Iking. The excellence of
these songs is the more remarkable when con-
trasted with other songs of this year. They
were written amid the drudgery of school
teaching, and it is not surprising that most of
them are mediocre, or worse. And yet, when
I play them over and begin to wonder how a
first-rate genius could have penned such stuff,
nearly always I come across a few bars which
change my question to " How could a mere
boy have had such a happy thought?" The
strangest thing about Schubert's genius is that
even in his later years we often find the com-
monplace and the sublime side by side. But
it must not be forgotten that the least interest-
ing of his songs are still superior to most of the
productions of his predecessors, be their names
Reichardt and Zelter or Gluck, Haydn, Mozart,

* Bauernfeld relates regarding this song that when it was com-
posed the paroxysm of inspiration was so fierce that Schubert
spoke of it years afterward.

71

Schubert

and Beethoven. He set the high-water mark
so high that he himself could not always
reach it.

The Erlking is probably the best known of
all the Schubert songs, having long been a fa-
vorite not only of vocalists but of pianists too,
in the masterly arrangement of Liszt* which
always evokes unbounded enthusiasm. Luckily
we know a good deal about this song. It was
composed toward the close of the year 1815, and
Spaun has told us how it happened :

" One afternoon I went with Mayrhofer to Schubert, who
was living at that time with his father in the Himmelpfort-
grunde. We found Schubert all aglow reading the Erlking

* Liszt showed his devotion to "the most poetic musician that
ever was " by acts as well as in words. He transcribed no fewer
than a hundred of the Schubert songs for the piano ; and by play-
ing them at his own concerts and enabling musicians who could
not sing to play them at home, he did a great deal toward making
them popular. In the second volume of her biography of Liszt
(Englished by Miss Cowdery), Lina Ramann has an interesting
chapter on this subject, in which she justly points out that Liszt
really established a new branch of art when he made these song-
transfers. The necessary alterations are mostly in the piano part
and they are so much in touch with the original that the com-
poser rarely suffers, while the transcription is in some cases even
more beautiful than the original — in Auf dent Wasser zu Singen,
for instance, the one song of Schubert's which seems to me better
adapted for a piano piece than a Lied. Liszt's arrangements were
received "with shouts of delight." He, like Schubert himself,
knew how to make the piano " sing under his fingers."

72

Schubert

aloud from a book. He walked up and down the room sev-
eral times, book in hand, then suddenly sat down and, as fast
as his pen could travel, put the splendid ballad on paper. As
he had no piano, we hurried over to the Convict, and there
the Erlking was sung the same evening and received with
enthusiasm. The old court-organist Ruziczka then played it
over himself, without the voice, in all parts carefully and ap-
preciatively, and was deeply impressed by the composition.
When some of those present objected to a dissonance that
occurs repeatedly, Ruziczka struck those chords and explained
how inevitable they seemed in view of the text, and how fine,
and how happily they were resolved."

The reference is, of course, to the discords
which are heard when the child, held in the
arms of its father as he " rides through night
and wind," expresses its fears of the Erlking, the
forest-haunting goblin. " Inevitable," indeed,
these dashing dissonances seem in this place,
but they were a new thing in music, and it took
the genius of Schubert to discover their inevi-
tableness. To appreciate the innovation we
have but to compare Schubert's Erlking with
the earlier setting of Reichardt, in which one
and the same commonplace melody is used for
the speeches of father and son, as well as for
the narrative. Schubert's whole atmosphere,
on the contrary, is dramatic : the coaxing Erl-
king, the terrified child, the soothing father,
have each a language of their own, different
from the narrative. And how realistically the

73

Schubert

piano impersonates the horse with those inces-
sant galloping triplets ! But the climax lies in
the dissonances first referred to. Wagner him-
self in his mature years could not have built up
a more ingenious dramatic climax than the eigh-
teen-year-old Schubert did in this ballad of
Goethe's. Note that the dissonance — C and D
with E flat — first occurs (forte) when the child
asks the father if he does not see the Erlking.
The second time, when the child asks the father
if he sees not the Erlking's daughters in their
gloomy haunts, it is an interval higher — D, E, F;
and finally, when the child cries, " My father,
my father, he seizes me now ! " we have a still
higher and more shrill dissonance — E flat, F,
G flat — sung and played fortissimo. The effect
is thrilling.*

* While these subtleties were the product of instantaneous inspi-
ration, other fine details were the result of reflection and revision.
Thus the alluring, soothing love-song of the Erlking, " Ich liebe
dick, mich reizt deine schone Gesta/t," was originally marked^ in
the manuscript, but Schubert subsequently changed it with a red
pencil to/>/, which is infinitely more appropriate and impressive.
On the other hand, it is not true, as some have surmised, that the
triplets in the piano part are an afterthought. The fact that one
of the manuscripts of the Erlking (at the Berlin Royal Library)
has

in place of

74

Schubert

Although the Erlking is No. 178 in the list of
Schubert's songs and was written in 1815, it
was not published till 1821, seven years before
his death. Though he had already written four
hundred songs at that date, the publishers would
have nothing to do with any of them, refusing
the Erlking on the ground that they " could not
expect it to succeed, because the composer was
unknown and the piano-forte part too difficult."
It was then, as we have seen, brought out by
subscription as opus i. It had already been
popular for some years in private circles, and
the publication soon increased its vogue. From
that time to the present all sorts of arrange-
ments have been made of it. His own brother
Ferdinand adapted it for solo voices, mixed
chorus and orchestra, and Berlioz subsequently
made an orchestral version. Hiittenbrenner

gave rise to this notion ; but the evidence collected by Friedlander
(" Die Erste Form des ErlkOnigs " in Chrysander's Vierteljahrs-
schrift, 1887, pp. 122-128; see, also, Albert B. Bach's The Art
Ballad, p. 107, for further evidence) leaves no doubt that the
quavers represent a later version, not intended, however, by any
means as an improvement on the more hurried and realistic trip-
lets, but as a convenience. A son of the tenor Earth informed
Friedlander that Schubert himself once accompanied this song for
his father in quavers, and when asked why he did not use the trip-
lets, replied, "I leave those to others, for me they are too diffi-
cult." It must be remembered that the pianos of that time did not
have the perfect mechanism of ours.

75

Schubert

went so far as to write an Erlking Waltz, which
seems to have annoyed Schubert; though he
himself used to amuse his friends by singing it
through a comb in the most tragi-comic way.
At other times he distributed the parts of the
father, son, and Erlking; singing one himself
while Vogl and some one else took the others.*
Among the gems of the year following the
£rl&ing(i8i6)a.re the third version of Schiller's
The Maiden's Lament — a gem of the romantic
mood — and the world-famed Wanderer, one
strophic, the other through-composed ; both of
them Schubert in every bar and far superior to
any song composed before him. Like the Erl-
king, the Wanderer was written at one sitting,
the reading of the poem having at once sug-
gested the music. The passage beginning with
the words, " Die Sonne diinkt mich hier so
kalt" was adopted by Schubert in 1820 as the
theme of the adagio in his C major fantasia for
piano-forte.

* Besides Schubert's setting of the Erlking there are at least
forty others ; but the only one worthy of being named on the same
day is Loewe's, which will be considered presently. An amusing
story is told by Friedlander of a worthy musician (church-com-
poser and Kapellmeister) named Franz Schubert, who appears to
have been mistaken by some one for the composer of Schubert's
Erlking; whereupon he wrote a letter to H artel protesting indig-
nantly against being insulted by having this bungling piece (Mack-
iverK) attributed to his pen !

76

Schubert

In some respects more wonderful even than
any of the songs so far named is Death and the
Maiden, of the following year (1817). No other
Lied has thrilled me so often as this one ; I
know none which conjures up a sombre mood
with such simple means. After the poor girl
has begged the " skeleton man " to pass her by
because she is so young, how full of gloomy
foreboding are the two bars leading over to the
second speaker — Death! And while he asks
her in soothing tones not to dread him, since
he has come not to punish, but to let her sleep
gently in his arms, his monotonous, cavernous
tones and the strange modulations tell us his
real intentions. Did ever music in a major
mood thus produce the effect of a weird minor?
Schubert knew the charm of this song as well
as any one. He knew, too, that it contained
within its few bars the germs of melodies and
harmonies capable of delightful expansion ; and
this task he fortunately undertook some years
later, when he made this song the theme of
the variations constituting the second move-
ment of his D minor quartet — the most inspired
set of variations in the whole range of music.*

* In my opinion Schubert is not only the greatest of all song-
writers, but also superior to all other masters in chamber-music —
in melodic fertility, harmonic originality, sensuous beauty of col-
oring, and appeal to the emotions. Epoch-making, also, are his

77

Schubert

I may add that one of Schubert's own brothers
committed the crime of cutting up the manu-
script into about a dozen pieces, which were
distributed among autograph fiends. Three
of these fragments have been recovered, and on
one of them was the date of the song, it having
been one of Schubert's good habits to write
down the day on which he completed a compo-
sition.

To the same year as Death and the Maiden
belongs another of the most popular songs,
The Trout, of which there are four versions.
The first manuscript has a large blotch of ink
over its first bars, and a few explanatory lines in

short pieces for piano-forte ; the most idiomatic compositions for
that instrument written before Chopin, and the forerunners of the
various short pieces which characterize the romantic school. In
these things, as in his modulations, Schubert is the father of the
romantic school. His general rank in music is a much higher
one than that usually assigned to him by historians. Rubinstein
proclaimed him one of the three greatest of all masters. But I
have no space to discuss this matter here. See my article on
"Schubert's Rank as a Composer," in the Philadelphia Etude,
May, 1900. In that article I also disposed of the ridiculous charge
that Schubert was not a master of polyphony. In the whole range
of musical biography there is not a more ludicrous and at the same
time pathetic incident than the resolution of poor Schubert, only a
few weeks before his death, to take lessons in counterpoint of
Sechter. The " friends" who urged him to do this may perhaps
be forgiven, since they had no way of hearing his instrumental
works ; but for modern writers to parrot their opinion is unpar-

78

Schubert

Schubert's handwriting at the bottom of the
page : " Just as I was about to hurriedly throw
on the sand, being somewhat sleepy, I seized
the inkstand and calmly emptied it. What a
calamity ! " On the next page he wrote :
" Dearest friend ! I am delighted to hear that
you like my songs. As a proof of my sincere
friendship I here send you another one, which
I have just now written at Anselm Hutten-
brenner's, at midnight." This song, also, was
used afterwards as a theme for variations, in the
quintet, opus 114.

A composer's best songs are not always the
most popular of them. In comparison with

donable. There are imitative passages in the chamber music and
symphonies, and in many of the songs too (think, e.g., of his
Weinen und Lachen, An die Thiiren -will ich schleichen, the
melodious bass in Aufenthalt, etc.) which show that Schubert's
genius taught him more about counterpoint, so far as it has any
musical value, than a thousand Sechters could have taught him.
As Dr. Dvorak remarked in an article which I helped him to write
for the Century Magazine (July, 1894), "though Schubert's
polyphony be different from Bach's or Beethoven's, it is none the
less admirable." If Schubert had added Bach's polyphony to his
own qualities he would have been like Robert Franz. But is
Franz a greater song- writer than Schubert because he is usually
polyphonic ? Dr. Riemann has some excellent remarks on contra-
puntal accompaniments in Schubert and others in his Katechismus
der Gesangscomposition (pp. 81, 87, 88, 91), a book which must
be warmly commended to all who wish to write songs or study
their anatomical structure.

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Schubert

many other Lieder, The Trout has enjoyed more
vogue than it deserves, and the same is true
of some other songs. Mr. Elson had good rea-
sons for writing in 1888 that Schubert's songs
were not even then " appreciated to their full
extent in America, where the musical bonbon,
the Serenade, is too often held to be the great-
est of the songs of this composer." To be
sure this serenade (^l Leise fliehen meine Lieder')
which belongs to the last year of the composer's
life (1828), is much better than ninety-nine
per cent, of the songs in vogue, but it is not one
of Schubert's best. The other serenade Hark,
Hark the Lark (1826) is a more favorable speci-
men of his muse, and in Liszt's arrangement
it has also become a favorite of concert pianists ;
Paderewski plays it inimitably.

The origin of this song illustrates the spon-
taneity of Schubert's genius. One afternoon
when he was sitting with some friends in a sub-
urban tavern, he saw a book lying on a table.
Turning over its leaves slowly, he suddenly
halted and exclaimed : " A lovely melody has
just come into my head ; if I only had some
music paper ! " One of his friends promptly
ruled lines on the back of a bill of fare, and
Schubert, undisturbed by the tavern noises,
forthwith jotted down the immortal song.

To the year 1825 belongs the popular Ave
So

Schubert

Maria, concerning which Schubert wrote in a
letter : " People were greatly astonished at the
devotion which I have thrown into the Hymn
to the Blessed Virgin, and it seems to have
seized and impressed everybody. I think that
the reason of this is that I never force myself
into devotion or compose hymns or prayers
unless I am really overpowered by the feeling;
that alone is real, true devotion."

The Mignon poems in Goethe's Wilhelm
Meister appear to have been special favorites of
Schubert; but here again the one best known
is by no means the best. Nur wer die Sehn-
sucht Kennt, which is included among the " Fa-
vorite Songs," is no doubt a beautiful song,
yet there is much less of inspiration and of the
true Schubert in it than in the two settings
of So lasst mich scheinen bis ich werde. The
first of these, dated 1821 (No. 395), is so ex-
quisitely musical and melancholy that it cannot
have been dissatisfaction with it that induced
Schubert to give the poem another setting
(No. 490) entirely different, in 1826. Robert
Franz included this second one in his collection
of Schubert songs, but not the earlier one ; at
which I am surprised, for they are both ravish-
ingly beautiful; pervaded by a euphony of
melody and harmony such as no one had at
command before Schubert. And what an un-

Si

Schubert

precedented feat — to give two immortal set-
tings to one song ! Nay, he even commenced
another one, which unfortunately remained a
fragment*. The other Mignon songs — Kennst
du das Land and Heiss mich nicht reden — are far
inferior to these, though the last-named is not
at all bad.

Many more of the songs deserve separate
mention, but the limitations of space compel
me to content myself with a few remarks re-
garding the famous song-cycles. The Pretty
Maid of the Mill is a series of songs based on a
group of twenty-five poems of that name by

* See Mandyczewski's Revisionsbericht, pp. 85-86. The songs
referred to may be found in vol. vi., p. 31, and vol. ii., p. 132
of the Peters edition (which, unfortunately, is not arranged chron-
ologically), and in vol. vi., p. 191, and vol. viii., p. 172 of the
chronological Gesammtausga.be of Breitkopf & Hartel. In this
edition there are no fewer than five versions of Nur -wer die
Sehnsucht Kennt. Every lover of German song ought to possess
one of these two editions. The best way to do is to go over all the
songs a few times, marking those which seem best, and thus sepa-
rating the wheat from the chaff. To amateurs who have not suffi-
cient faith in their own judgment, I cannot commend too highly the
Auswahl or selection of sixty-one Schubert songs made by
Robert Franz and published by Breitkopf & Hartel. Franz chose
particularly those songs in which both the poem and the music
are of a high order of merit ; omitting those in which the music too
far exceeds in value the verses. But this does not prevent his col-
lection from including the best songs ; for, as a rule, Schubert's
musical inspiration was proportionate to the merits of his poems.

82 •

Schubert

Wilhelm Miiller (the father of Professor Max
Miiller). The poems (five of which Schubert
omits) tell the story of a miller's pretty daugh-
ter who is loved by a young apprentice of her
father's trade, and who apparently loves him
too; but her fickle mind is changed by the ap-
pearance of a gay young huntsman. The first
ten songs present the various phases of the
young miller's courtship. In the eleventh —
Mine — he is at last able to proclaim that the be-
loved maid is his. But with the fourteenth the
hunter appears, exultation is displaced by jeal-
ousy and wounded pride ; and, convinced that
she is lost to him forever, the young miller
drowns himself in the brook, which in the last
song sings his lullaby.

Schubert was not the first to write a song-
cycle. Beethoven wrote one before him, a set-
ting of Jeitteles's " Liederkreis," An die feme
Geliebte — six songs of no great musical merit,
but having each its own music, with a reminis-
cence of the first in the last, and connected by
instrumental interludes. Schubert's Miiller-
lieder are not thus connected. The bond of
union here lies poetically in the story and mu-
sically in the picturesque piano part, which
constantly keeps before our eyes the brook
along which the whole tragedy is enacted.
" Rivulets dance their wayward round, and

83

Schubert

beauty born of murmuring sound " is every-
where. The brook plays almost as prominent a
part throughout the cycle as the galloping
horse does in the Erlking, an amazing variety
of rhythmic devices being used to make us ever
aware of its presence. "The brook and the
mill-wheel," writes Mr. Elson, " have mingled
their tones through the set, very much in the
same manner as a Leitmotiv runs through a
Wagnerian opera ; and it is astonishing to note
in how many different emotions Schubert has
pictured the sequestered stream."

The whole series of the Miillerlieder was com-
posed in one week, in 1823. The story of how
they happened to be written is characteristic of
Schubert's method of creating songs. When
Randhartinger, who had been one of Schubert's
schoolfellows, resided in Herrengasse, Vienna,
Schubert often called to take a walk with him.
One afternoon he failed to find his friend in,
but found on the table a volume containing the
Miillerlieder. After reading a few of them he
put the book in his pocket and went straight
home to compose. When Randhartinger re-
turned he missed the poems, which he himself
had intended to set to music, and on the follow-
ing morning he was surprised to find his book
on Schubert's table. " Do not be angry,"
pleaded Schubert; "the poems inspired me so

34

Schubert

that I had to compose music to them, and I
scarcely slept two hours last night, and now
you see the result. I have already seven poems
set to music. I hope you will like my songs ;
will you try them ?" Randhartinger sang them,
and forthwith gave up all idea of writing music
of his own for these poems.*

The Miillerlieder, though they did not attract
much attention when they first appeared, are
now sung more frequently at concerts, and
altogether have enjoyed a wider popularity
than any of the other Schubert cycles. Here
again popularity and merit are not synonymous.
Robert Franz admitted eleven of the twenty
Maid of the Mill songs into his select edition ;
and among those there are at least five (Wohin?
Morgengruss, Des Mutter's Blumen, Trockeuc
Blumen, Die Hebe Farbe) which are a joy forever;
yet none of them quite reaches the level of half
a dozen of the Winter Journey songs, which
represent Schubert at his very best.

The Winter Journey is based on another cycle of
poems by the same Wilhelm Mullen The twen-
ty-four poems do not, however, tell a continuous
story, as the Schone Miillerin does ; and Schu-
bert accordingly took the liberty of changing
the order in which they succeed one another.

* A. B. Bach, The Art Ballad, p. 105. Kreissle, p. 315.
85

Schubert

Nor did he compose them all at the same time.
They appeared in two groups of twelve each,
the first group being begun in February, 1827.
Half a dozen of them, Lachner tells us, were
written in one morning, and, as before stated,
Schubert received only twenty cents a piece for
them. The best numbers in this first group are
Gute Nacht (in which the transition from minor
to major at the words " Will dich im Traum "
is of ineffable beauty), Gefror'ne Thrdnen, Erstar-
rung, Der Lindenbaum, Wasserfluth, Irrlicht, and
Friihlingstraum.

It is in the second group of the Winter Jour-
ney songs, however, that Schubert, as I have in-
timated, reaches the high-water mark of his
genius. Die Post, Der greise Kopf, Im Dorfe, Der
stiirmische Morgen, and especially the last five —
Der Wegweiser, Das Wirthshaus, Mut/i, Die Ne-
bensonnen, Der Leiermann, would alone have
made him the greatest of all song-writers. They
are ineffably sad, like all that is best in art.*

* I shall never forget the day when I first heard these songs, as
a youth of fifteen or sixteen years of age. We were living in the
Oregon wilderness and one day my brother Edward received the
Winter Journey songs and sang the last twelve of them in the
evening. I was lying under a tree in front of the house, playing
with my dog, when those sad strains came to my ears. We had
had good music in our house ever since my childhood, but noth-
ing had ever affected me so deeply as these new melodies and
modulations. I buried my face in Bruno's fur and sobbed like a

86

Schubert

Schubert once wrote in his diary that " Grief
sharpens the intellect and strengthens the soul,
whereas joy seldom does anything for the one
and makes the other weak or frivolous." And
again : " My musical compositions are the prod-
uct of my intellect and my sorrows ; those which
were born of sorrow alone, appear to give the
world the most satisfaction." Though natural-
ly of a cheerful disposition he had his days of
depression, on one of which he wrote that he
wished every night when he went to sleep that
he might never awake again. The interesting
question arises whether the melancholy songs
of the Winter Journey are a record of personal
grief, expressing "the winter of his discontent,"
or whether the sad music is simply a reflex of
the sad words. His personal friends and biog-

child. To this day I cannot play them over without having tears
come to my eyes. Indeed, if tears are the deepest and most sin-
cere tribute to art, I must place Schubert above all other compos-
ers, for he has made me weep oftener than any other. His music
evidently had the same effect on his contemporaries. Spaun re-
lates that at Linz one day when Vogl sang and Schubert played,
the performance had to be stopped because, after some sad songs,
all the women and girls present were shedding tears and the men
could scarcely hold back theirs. When Hiller was a boy he heard
Vogl and Schubert in Vienna. He relates in his Kunstlerleben
that it was the deepest musical impression he had ever received,
and that tears coursed down the cheeks even of the veteran Hum-
mel. I have already cited Liszt's confession that the Schubert
songs often moved him to tears.

8?

Schubert

raphers have expressed contradictory opinions
on the subject. Spaun relates :

" For some time Schubert had been in a melancholy mood
and appeared to be depressed. To my question what was
going on he replied, ' You will soon find out.' One day he
said to me : ' Come to Schober's to-day, I'll sing you a cycle
of weird songs. I am anxious to know what you will say.
They have affected me more deeply than any of my other
songs.' When the time came he sang to us the whole of
the Winter Journey. We were quite dumfounded by the
gloomy mood of these songs, and Schober finally remarked
that he liked only one of them — the Lindenbaum. Schubert
replied : ' I like these songs better than any of the others, and
you will come to like them too.' He was right, for soon we
became enthusiastic over these melancholy songs, which Vogl
sang incomparably."

Mayrhofer and Kreissle also connect the mood
of these songs with personal disappointments ;
whereas Schober thinks that Schubert in this
case, as always, simply mirrored in his music
the mood of the poems. Probably the mourn-
fulness of these songs resulted from both these
factors combined ; but what is of even greater
interest is the question, "Why were these songs
so preeminently inspired ? " The answer is, I
think, to be found in the fact that Schubert
composed them immediately after a delightful
trip in the country lasting nearly two months;
during which he was happy among friends and

88

Schubert

admirers and laid in a good supply of energy
and creative power. He enjoyed himself so
much on this trip that he dreaded the idea of
returning to Vienna,* and it is probable that a
tinge of longing for the delights of the country
is mingled with the melancholy of the last songs
of the Winter Journey.

At the same time the gloom that pervades
Muller's poems would quite suffice to account
for the sadness of Schubert's music, which is
always a real Doppelgdnger of the poem he has
in hand. The first of the second set — Die Post
— depicts the anguish of soul resulting from the
failure of the coach to bring a letter from the
city where the beloved dwells. This song is in
major, and rather animated in tempo ; yet, as
Sir George Grove has remarked, " even in the
extraordinary and picturesque energy of Die
Post there is a deep vein of sadness." The
next number, Der greise Kopf, is the youth's
lament that the grave still seems so far off.
In Die Krdhe the youth fancies that a raven
has followed him from the town in the ex-
pectation of dining on his body. Im Dorfe
tells us of the end of all his hopes. Der Stiir-
mische Morgen — the stormy morning — is simply

* See his letter to Frau Dr. Pachler printed by Kreissle, pp.
402, 403.

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Schubert

the reflection outdoors of the winter in his
soul.

Sadder and sadder become the poems, more
woe-begone the music. Der Wegweiser shows us
the guiding post which points to the undiscov-
ered country from whose bourne no traveller
returns. It is heart-rending music, and one of
its sublime touches is the unchanging G of the
melody during the five bars in which the youth's
eyes stare fixedly at the sign-post. If possible
a still greater miracle of genius and sadness is
the next song — Das Wirthshaus. This " tavern "
is a cemetery which seems to invite the weary
wanderer ; but every room is taken and there is
no rest for him. Here again Schubert has writ-
ten in a major key a song more pathetic than
any other composer's minor keys. There is no
song I love more than this. Muth is an attempt
to shake off the snow and take courage. It is
a brisk song, but it is in a minor key ; a vain
effort, disconsolate, like all the others. Another
doleful Lied in a major key is the next, Die
Nebcnsonnen, a song, like the others, seemingly,
as inevitable as the air we breathe, yet absolute-
ly original in every bar. What the three suns
are is not clear from the poem. Max Miiller
wrote to Dr. Friedlander : " I share your belief
that the sun and the two eyes of the beloved
are meant. As these two suns shine no more,

QO

Schubert

he wants the third, the real sun of life, to go
down too."

The disconsolate climax of the cycle is
reached in its last song, Der Leiermann. In a
prose translation : " Yon, behind the village
stands the hurdy-gurdy player ; with stiffened
fingers he turns his crank. Barefoot on the ice
he walks, and never a copper is in his tray.
No one wants to hear him, no one looks at him ;
the dogs growl, yet he heeds them not, but in-
cessantly turns his crank. Shall I go with you,
strange old man? Will you accompany my
songs with your instrument?"

The hurdy-gurdy is an instrument with a
drone-bass of two tones a fifth apart. This drone-
bass Schubert imitates by repeating the notes
A E incessantly throughout the sixty-one bars
of the song, producing an ineffably melancholy
and realistic effect, which is heightened by the
equally characteristic melody. Though the
music is thus simply a mirror of the text, one
cannot help reading into it a bit of autobiog-
raphy— for did not Schubert, also, sing on in-
cessantly ; and did not his tray, too, remain for-
ever empty?

If anything could intensify the pathos of
these songs it would be the thought that Schu-
bert's last pen-strokes were made while revis-
ing the proof-sheets of them, a few days before

91

Schubert

his death ; and that this work must have cast an
additional gloom on his illness and may have
hastened the end; for brain- work is very inju-
rious to typhoid-fever patients.

While these Winter Journey songs were the
last that Schubert saw in print, they were by
no means the last he had composed. The
Leiermann was written about a year before his
death, and is numbered 540. After it he wrote
twenty-seven more Lieder, the last of the four-
teen included in the Swan-song group being
number 567. Some of the thirteen songs inter-
vening between the Winter Journey of 1827 and
the Swan song of 1828 do not reach a very high
level, but in the Swan-song group we not only
have Schubert again at his very best, but we
find him (like Wagner after Lohengrin) making
once more a new departure and creating still
another epoch in the evolution of the Lied;
opening up a mine in which, afterward, Schu-
mann and others delved and enriched them-
selves.

The name Schwancngesang was given to
Schubert's last fourteen songs by Hasslinger,
their publisher ; and owing to the appropriate-
ness of the title it has been retained. All but
the last of them (the Taubcnpost, dated October,
1828) were written in August, 1828, a month
forever notable in the annals of the Lied, for

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Schubert

seven * of these songs are among the very best
of Schubert's productions, and another one, the
Serenade, is the most popular of all his songs.

The first seven of these fourteen we owe in
a way to Beethoven. That is, the Rellstab
poems to which they are set were found among
Beethoven's papers and Schindler allowed them
to be taken away by Schubert, who, two days
later, brought back the music to Liebesbotschaft,
the Kriegers A/inung, and Aufenthalt. The last
named is one of those compositions which
caused Rubinstein to exclaim rapturously:
"Once more and a thousand times more, Bach,
Beethoven, and Schubert are the three highest
pinnacles of music." It is a song which, like
many others of the Schwanengesang and Winter-
reise groups, one can sing daily for years and
never tire of it, and which must send the cold
shivers down the back of any one who hears it
the first time — provided it is well sung and well
played. There is in it as superb an energy as in
the Erlking, and every one is delighted with the
animated and melodious bass, which imitates
the voice here and there with a canonic art that
old Sechter (who was to give Schubert lessons
in counterpoint shortly after this song was

• Aufenthalt, In der Feme, Der Atlas, Ihr Bild, Die Stadt,
Am Meer, Der Doppelganger.

93

Schubert

penned ! !) could not have attained after a hun-
dred years of pedagogics. The high G, eighteen
bars before the end, is as grand a climax as can
be found in vocal music ; and the most delight-
ful interlude I know of is the eight bars follow-
ing the words " bleibet mein Schmerz."*

In this song, as in many others, Schubert
soars far above his poet. There were moments
when his inspiration was so elemental and irre-
sistible that any poem he happened to have in
hand got the benefit of it. It is nevertheless
true that a fine poem did much to command that
inspiration. This is why so many of the Goethe
songs, beginning with Margaret at the Spin-
ning Wheel and the Erlking, are among his
best. And this is why each of the six Heine
songs in the Schwanengesang\ is a gem. They
are original in every bar in spite of the
five hundred and sixty songs preceding them,
and yet every bar has the initials F. S.
stamped on it. Emotionally these songs are
as wonderful as they are from a purely mu-
sical point of view. How different is the

* The A sharp in the sixth of these bars is one of those strokes
of genius which make the study of Schubert's songs a source of
ever-increasing delight. Only in the white heat of genius could
such a note as that A sharp have been written.

t Der Atlas, Ihr Bild, Das Fischermadchen, Die Stadt, Am
Meer, Der Doppelganger.

94

Schubert

gloomy, tragic, heaving agony of Der Atlas,
bearing on his shoulders the sorrows of a
world, from the tender pathos of the lover
who, in Ihr Bild, gazes at his beloved's picture,
as in a dream, and cannot believe that he has
lost her. In Die Stadt (The City) the poet is
being rowed away in a boat, and the rays of the
setting sun give him a final glimpse of the city
where his beloved dwells. In this song, as
Mr. Elson has remarked, "the steady plash of
the oar of the boatswain and the gray stillness
of the waters at eventide are pictured with
graphic power by a constantly recurring broken
chord." Am Meer gives us another splendid
portrayal of the sea. " Listen to the few chords
that introduce and close Am Meer," writes Mr.
Philip Hale. " They at once suggest a mood.
They speak of the sea at nightfall, and yet how
simple the main accompaniment! How simple
the structure of the song itself ! " *

With the exception of the Taubenpost, the last
two of the songs are Am Meer and Der Doppel-
gdnger — an interesting circumstance, because
they typify the two Schuberts. Am Meer is all

* Sir George Grove devotes an interesting paragraph (p. 367,
vol. iii., of his Dictionary of Music and Musicians') to the
various attempts made by Schubert to imitate sounds of nature in
his songs — fluttering leaves, leaps of a trout, bells, a post-horn,
the song of the nightingale, -etc.

95

Schubert

melody, in the piano part as well as in the voice.
One enjoys it more if one knows what the poem
is to which it is wedded, and one admires the
appropriateness of the music to the words.
Yet it is so complete as a piece of music that
one might play it forever as a mere piano piece
— a song without words — and be quite satisfied.
Not so with the Doppelgdnger. That grewsome
poem Schubert composed in such a way that it
needs the underlying poem as a complement as
imperatively as Wagner's later operas do. The
music enters into the minutest details of the
poem, not only verse by verse, but word by
word ; so that we have here an anticipation
not only of Schumann, but even of Liszt. To se-
cure this exact correspondence with the poem,
Schubert discards the flowing melody, of which
he was the supreme master, and uses for the
voice a sort of declamation or recitative, not un-
like Wagner's (who at that time was a boy of
fifteen). The singer's task here is, first of all,
to represent and interpret the poet, while to the
pianist are intrusted chords as weird, as thrill-
ing, as modern, as those which accompany the
music of Erda and Klingsor in Wagner's Sieg-
fried and Parsifal. Heine's poem brings before
our eyes a man who goes at night to gaze at
the house where his beloved used to dwell. In
front of the house, to his dismay, he beholds a

Schubert

pale man gazing at her window, wringing his
hands in agony ; and the moonlight shows him
that this other man is his own self — his double
(Doppelgdnger). Schubert's music, bar by bar,
would fit no other poem than Heine's grew-
some tale, and from this point of view — as well
as for the dramatic expressiveness of its chords
— this is the greatest of Schubert's songs. Had
he written no other, he would still be the
greatest of all song-writers. It is the most
thrilling, the most dramatic of all lyrics, and in
penning it Schubert helped to originate the
music of the future. Almost as much as in
Weber's Euryanthe might the germs of the
" Art-work of the Future " be found in the
Doppelgdnger.

In view of all these things one feels like cry-
ing out aloud in agony at the thought that
Schubert should have died just when a new
world of beauty was opening before him. If
he could have lived but one more year, to set
to music one more half-dozen or dozen of
Heine's poems! — which were just beginning to
appear at this time. Some have expressed in-
dignation at the epitaph which was put on
Schubert's grave : " Music has here entombed
a rich treasure, but still fairer hopes; " yet this
was literally true — more so than those who
wrote it could have realized. I am convinced

97

Schubert

that if Schubert had lived another thirty years
he would have anticipated all that is new in the
harmonies of Wagner, Liszt, Chopin, and Grieg.
As a creator he would have towered as high
above all other musicians as Shakespeare does
above all other poets. I am often haunted and
tortured by the words he spoke on his deathbed
to Bauernfeld: " Entirely new harmonies and
rhythms are in my head." But they were
buried in his grave unborn.*

The belief is still quite prevalent in America
and England that there is less melody in Ger-
man music than in Italian. Schubert alone
would utterly refute this notion. Of all melo-
dists the world has seen he was the most spon-
taneous, fertile, and inexhaustible. Rossini is
the prince of Italian melodists, and in 1828 no
one would have dreamed of ranking Schubert
as high as him. But what has become of Ros-
sini's melodies? With the exception of the Bar-

* If we take the last of all his songs, Die Taubenpost ( Carrier-
pigeon) and play the second half of the twelfth bar, with pedal,
we may possibly conjecture what line of development these new
harmonies would have taken. Has the reader ever asked himself
whom he would choose to be if a fairy permitted him to exchange
his own brain for that of any person of the past ? I have often
asked myself that question, and have invariably answered " Franz
Schubert." A man who with his genius began where he left off"
could do greater things than any genius, in any art, has ever ac-
complished

98

Schubert

ber of Seville and a few tunes from his other
works, age has staled and withered them ; where-
as, Schubert's melodies are as fresh and as mod-
ern as on the day they were born. Rossini's
tunes had the ornamental stamp of fashion, and
fashion is transient; whereas Schubert's melo-
dies have the lasting quality of chaste folk-
songs, with the added charms of the highest
harmonic art. Schubert liked Rossini's music;
but his instinct taught him a higher, nobler style,
which fashion cannot affect. At one time, as a
youth, he came under the influence of Salieri,
who tried to make an Italian of him, advising
him not to waste his efforts on the German
poets but to compose Italian stanzas. He did
compose a dozen or more songs to Italian
words,* but here he was like a fish out of water.
Mozart, as everybody knows, was at home
among the Italians ; and his vocal music, even
in the German Magic Flute, remains essentially
Italian. But Schubert was German to the core,
and it is marvellous that he should have sur-
passed the Italians — who hitherto had had al-
most a monopoly of vocal music — not only in
regard to the artistic union of verse and melo-
dy, but in the charm, flow, and variety of mel-
ody. Salieri's advice to Schubert that he should

* Printed in vol. x. of the Breitkopf & Hartel edition.
99

Schubert

" husband his resources of melody " was about
as useful as a warning to an artesian well not to
waste its water.

Schubert's harmonies and modulations are no
less original, spontaneous, and varied than his
melodies. Robert Franz called him a great har-
monic emancipator, and Dr. Riemann has well
said that " the entire Schumann and the entire
Liszt are in their harmonies an outgrowth
of Schubert." As harmonic innovators Bach,
Chopin, and Wagner are, in my opinion, the
only peers of Schubert. He does not, however,
like those masters, modulate habitually with the
aid of chromatic progressions, but simply drops
from one key into another in the most uncere-
monious, unprecedented, astonishing, and de-
lightful way. To him all keys are sisters or
cousins. Now modulation — unexpectedly pass-
ing from one key to another — is preeminently
the emotional element in music, and Schubert's
mastery of this element of expression explains
the power of his songs, above all others, to
evoke tears. Modulation, too, is the specifical-
ly modern element in music, and this is another
reason why Schubert's songs seem of to-day and
not of nearly a century ago. His modulation,
furthermore, brings together not only keys but
modes. With other composers, as a rule, a
song is either in major or in minor ; but with

Schubert

Schubert these two modes are twins that inter-
twine in nearly every song. And usually there
is a poetic as well as a musical reason for the
change from one mode or mood to another,
showing how closely Schubert followed the
spirit of his • poems. As Sir George Grove
has aptly said : " With Schubert the minor
mode seems to be synonymous with trouble,
and the major with relief ; and the mere men-
tion of the sun or a smile or any other emblem
of gladness, is sure to make him modulate."
All these harmonic and modulatory features
make it absurd to speak of the piano part of
Schubert's songs as " accompaniments," or to
play them as such. They are as important as
the orchestra is in Wagner's operas.

If anything could be more marvellous than
Schubert's melodic and harmonic spontaneity,
originality, and variety, it would be the singu-
lar appropriateness — one might almost say, in-
evitableness — of his music to the poem in every
case. Here his rare rhythmic faculty comes
into full play in devising suggestive figures or
modes of movement. And the miracle of it is
that the musical idea appropriate to a poem
came to him without trouble or reflection, near-
ly always like a flash of lightning. One day a
lady asked him to set to music a certain poem
which she gave him. He went to a window,

Schubert

read it over a few times, and exclaimed : " I
have it ; it is already completed and will be
quite good." In the preceding pages I have
related similar instances, all of them showing
how differently his brain worked from that of
most other composers, who usually needed
days, weeks, or months to incubate their ideas.
This spontaneity of conception and rapidity of
execution gave rise to the impression that he
jotted down songs as we write letters, without
ever revising them. This impression, which
was shared even by Kreissle and Grove, was
corrected, as I have before intimated, by Dr.
Friedlander, who showed that Schubert habit-
ually copied his songs and nearly always intro-
duced some changes and improvements in the
vocal as well as the piano part and the expres-
sion marks. This he continued to do even in
the songs of the last years of his life, including
the Winterreise and Sch^vanengesang cycles. Far
from being careless, Schubert was extremely
critical. In a letter to his brother (cited by
Kreissle, p. 329) he consoles himself over the
fate of some of his songs with the confession :
" only a few of them seemed to me good."
There is plenty of other evidence to show that
he knew better than any one else which of his
songs were mediocre. Could he have been
consulted by Mandyczewski, he would have

Schubert

doubtless advised him to omit many of the
songs in the ten-volume edition.

Nor is it true that he was uncritical in regard
to the choice of his poems, as has been assumed
hitherto. No doubt many of the poems he set
to music were unworthy of such an honor.
But these were poems he chose in order to
please friends, or because there happened to be
no other bottles at hand to put his new wine in.
Mandyczewski has truly said that " if we take
the works of all the poets he utilized it would
be impossible to make better selections for
musical purposes than those he made." He
further revealed his critical fastidiousness by
the way in which he omitted from a cycle a
poem, or from a poem a stanza, that seemed to
him unsuitable for musical alliance. Kreissle
relates an incident (p. 211) showing how stub-
born he was in regard to such details as the
placing of accents.* Each new poet — Schlegel,
Miiller, Platen, Ruckert, Rellstab, Heine — was
seized upon eagerly, and for each Schubert
found a characteristic musical atmosphere.
That he set only six of Heine's poems is due to

* He had a dispute with Umlauff, who thought that in the
Wanderer the accent should be " O Land, wo bist du ?"
whereas Schubert insisted, most properly, in making it ' ' wo list
du? "

103

Schubert

the fact that these poems did not begin to ap-
pear till shortly before his death.*

* Eighty-nine different poets and writers of verse were drawn
upon by Schubert. Goethe leads with 72 poems, followed by
Mayrhofer with 47, Schiller 46, Wilhelm Miiller 44, etc. Goethe,
whom Schubert did more to glorify than all his biographers and
commentators put together, did nothing to encourage or help the
struggling young composer. When the poet was seventy years
old Schubert sent him copies of several of his songs, together with
a letter, but Goethe paid no attention to them, thus confirming
his own diagnosis when he wrote (in 1796): " I am no judge of
music." The great dramatic singer Frau Schroeder-Devrient
(whom Wagner admired so much) succeeded, however, in arous-
ing him, at the age of 82, with her singing of the Erlking. The
aged poet kissed her on the cheek and exclaimed : " Thank you
a thousand times for this grand artistic achievement. I heard
this song once before, when I did not like it at all ; but when
sung in your way, it becomes a true picture."

104

IV

German Song- Writers After Schubert

LOEWE AND THE ART-BALLAD

WE have seen that Schubert was born three
years before the end of the eighteenth
century, the thirteenth child of a poor school-
master; that his first published work was the
Erlking; that he became famous preeminently
as a song-writer, and failed with his operas.
By a singular coincidence it happened that on
November 30, 1796, just two months before
Schubert's birth, there appeared in this world,
as the twelfth son of a poor schoolmaster, an-
other boy whose first published work included
a setting of the Erlking, who became famous
chiefly as a song-writer, and failed with his
operas. This boy was Johann Carl Gottfried
Loewe. He, too, was a most prolific composer,
but he had seventy-two years to live and work
while Schubert had only thirty-one. The list
of his works includes 6 operas, 17 oratorios,
about 400 ballads and other songs, besides a large

105

German Song-Writers After Schubert

number of works for chorus, orchestra, organ,
and piano.

Loewe had the advantage over Schubert of
enjoying a regular position as organist and con-
ductor, and of being able to sing his own songs
on concert tours, which took him as far as Eng-
land. At some of his concerts he appeared in a
fourfold capacity — as ballad-singer, pianist,
orchestral conductor, and composer. His
voice, a tenor, had an unusual compass, and was
quite at home in the baritone region. He
played his own accompaniments, and his enun-
ciation of the words was remarkably distinct.
Nor was he the only one who sang his songs
well. Senfft von Pilsach, Krolop, Friedrichs,
and, above all, Henschel and Gura, brought
them forward and helped to secure for them
considerable popularity. Then came a time of
reaction, so that Dr. Gehring wrote, in 1880,
that " his music, like Reichardt's, has gone by
forever." More recently, however, strenuous
efforts have been made to revive an interest in
his works.*

*In England Albert B. Bach wrote a book, The Art Ballad:
Loewe and Schubert, of which several editions were printed in a
few years. In 1898 the " Harmonic " of Berlin brought out a
book by Heinrich Bulthaupt, which tells the story of Loewe's life
and describes his principal works. These books, with an autobio-
graphic sketch, constitute the literature on the subject; and to
1 06

Loewe and the Art-Ballad

While Schubert did not write many ballads,
and those mostly in his early years, Loewe made
a specialty of -this species of song ; and of all his
compositions these alone have survived. The
word ballad, unfortunately, has been used to
designate a number of entirely different things.
Its original meaning was " dance-song " (from
the Italian ballata). In England, where so-called
" ballad concerts " are in our time devoted to
all kinds of popular songs indiscriminately,
ballad meant a dance-tune as late as the seven-
teenth century. To-day we have not only vocal
ballads but ballads for piano, violin, or orches-
tra, in which there is no trace of dance-music.
The poets have added to the confusion by an
inconsistent use of the word ballad.* In this
volume we are concerned with the meaning of
ballad in the realm of song only ; and here a
glance at a typical ballad, like the Erlking, tells
us more than pages of esthetic discussion.

them I must refer those who, after singing over the ballads con-
tained in the "albums " or selections issued by various publishers,
feel enough interest to pursue the matter. Enthusiasts will, of
course, procure the complete edition of his songs by Breitkopf &
Hartel, in seventeen volumes. Elson's History of German Song
(pp. 210-214) contains an excellent analysis of Loewe's method of
composing.

* See Bulthaupt's remarks on this subject, in the first chapter of
his book on Loewe.

107

German Song-Writers After Schubert

That song has a dramatic element in so far as
the Erlking, the father, and the child, are heard
to speak in melodies of their own ; yet it is not
really dramatic, but epic, because we hear them
only through the medium of the narrator. In
other words, a ballad is a song based on a nar-
rative (epic) which may introduce various dra-
matic, as well as lyrical elements, and which
usually has a background of romantic scenery.
The German poets originally got the subjects
for their ballads from the British poets. In
the south the place of the ballad is taken by the
more lyrical "romance " ; the French romance
being usually a sentimental love-song.

Though Loewe failed as an opera-composer,
his ballads show that he had a genuine dramatic
vein, which is revealed in the often striking
harmonies of his piano parts, as well as in the
effective treatment of the voice. What he lacked
was the divine gift of imperishable melody —
that wealth of ideas which has made Schubert
immortal. He had melodies enough in his
storehouse to furnish forth, perhaps, forty songs ;
but not four hundred. In his case, as in so
many others, less would have been more.
There is something almost amateurish in the
way in which he introduces a theme or two and
keeps on repeating them, with slight changes in
rhythm and harmony, throughout an intermi-
108

Mendelssohn

nable ballad. In many cases several themes fol-
low one another like a mosaic without any at-
tempt at elaboration or organic union. Yet
with all these defects, there are among these
songs a considerable number that deserve to be
better known ; such ballads as Henry the Fowler,
Harald, Edelfalk, Der Fischer, The Clock, Der
Noeck, The Moorish Prince, Oluf, Odiris Ride
over the Sea, and, above all, Edward and the
Er Iking*

MENDELSSOHN

Never was a name more appropriately chosen
than that of Felix Mendelssohn. Felix means
lucky or happy ; and certainly Mendelssohn
was the luckiest, and had every reason to be
the happiest, of all composers. Not only was
he, as the son of wealthy parents, able to travel
and do whatever he pleased, but throughout

* It is unfortunate for Loewe that some of his champions, like
Albert Bach and Bulthaupt, should have tried to prove not only
that his Erlking is a splendid composition — which it surely is —
but that it is even superior to Schubert's. It is possible to main-
tain that the Erlking's song is more seductive and uncanny in
Loewe — though I think the hushed pianissimo accompaniment
makes Schubert's more so ; but how anyone can contend that the
galloping of the horse is more realistic, the outcry of the child more
agonized in Loewe than in Schubert, quite passes my comprehen-
sion. But why these odious comparisons ? Both the Erlkings
are masterpieces.

109

German Song- Writers After Schubert

his life (1809-1847) he enjoyed a popularity far
exceeding that of his superiors. In this very
prosperity, however, lay the greatest danger to
his genius. His music, like his life, is all sun-
shine ; and eternal sunshine is apt to prove mo-
notonous. There are no clouds, no frowning
cliffs, no dark abysses, in his songs. They are
smooth, elegant, symmetrical, gentlemanly,
polished ; but never deep, sad, pathetic, or
tragic. Schubert found that his friends liked
his sad songs best ; but Mendelssohn had no oc-
casion for sad songs. Look through the whole
list of them — more than six dozen — and you will
not find one the sentiment of which is much
more than skin-deep. They are, in truth (like
the songs of Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, and
Weber), the poorest of all his productions, far
inferior to his instrumental works — notably his
immortal overtures. Yet so popular was he in
his day, so eagerly did the shallow public ac-
cept everything that came from his pen, that
these shallow songs enjoyed for decades a much
greater vogue than the infinitely more inspired
songs of Schubert, Schumann, and Franz.

The inevitable reaction has perhaps carried
the pendulum too far as regards Mendelssohn's
music in general ; but not too far as regards his
songs, most of which stand hopelessly con-
demned by their own mediocrity. Only six or

1 10

Mendelssohn

seven of them deserve their former vogue —
On the Wings of Song, the Winterlied and Sonn-
tagslied, the Volkslied (" Es 1st bestimmt in Gottes
Rath "), Gruss, O Jugend, O Schone Rosenzeit, and
the Venetianisches Gondellied. These are fresh,
individual, tuneful, and charming. In the oth-
ers one finds here and there a pretty melodic
curve, or a piquant harmonic progression ; but
for the most part they are aggravatingly trivial
and insipid ; reminding one by their painful
dearth of ideas of the productions of those other
song-writers of the Berlin school, Reichardt
and Zelter. Some of Mendelssohn's songs are
instrumental in character, and there is usually
too much conscious striving for symmetry and
popularity — too much small talk. The earlier
songs are the best. In his later ones,* as Rob-
ert Franz has pointed out, " there is no naivete^
nothing but smooth, polished, elegant workman-
ship— no passion, but only the semblance of it."
He is, as Mr. Elson remarks, " never grand or
soul-stirring " ; he makes symmetry an end
rather than a means ; and " his song-subjects
seem to have been chosen in such a manner that
the music should generally be more important
than the words." Mr. Elson and Sir George

* The Peters edition of Mendelssohn's songs has an appended
Textrevision by Max Friedlander, with the dates of the songs.

Ill

German Song-Writers After Schubert

Grove contend that Mendelssohn did good by
preparing the public taste to appreciate the
deeper song-writers of Germany. There may
be something in this. At the same time his ex-
cessive popularity (in England this was posi-
tively grotesque) for a long time kept greater
names off the concert programmes — as Brahms
does to-day.

SCHUMANN

Schumann's music, like Mendelssohn's, is
autobiographic. While Mendelssohn's songs
are all sunshine, one does not have to sing
many of Schumann's to realize that his life was
often darkened by mists and storm-clouds. He
was neither wealthy nor was his genius appre-
ciated at its true value ; and he fought many
battles with obtuse critics and shallow Philis-
tines, not so much in his own behalf as for the
sake of other men of genius who were unduly
neglected. In this volume we are concerned
with only one of the serious episodes in his life
— his courtship. To most men the period of
courtship is the heyday of life ; but the course
of Schumann's love did not run smooth. In
1836, at the age of twenty-six, he found himself
enamoured of Clara, the daughter of his piano
teacher, the eminent Friedrich Wieck. The

112

SCHUMANN.

Schumann

father did not favor the suit, because he did
not believe that a romantic dreamer like Schu-
mann, who had up to that time devoted himself
to art for art's sake, without much regard for
pecuniary profits, would be able to support a
wife in comfort. Schumann thereupon tried
to improve his worldly affairs by transfer-
ring his musical paper, the Neue Zeitschrift, to
Vienna ; but the venture proved a failure and
he returned to Leipsic. The uncertainty
whether he would be able to call Clara his own
lasted four years. Wieck remained obdurate,
although by 1840 Schumann's income amounted
to about a thousand thaiers a year. The case
was at last, in accordance with the German
custom, brought before the courts, which, after
much vexatious delay, decided in favor of the
young couple, and they were married on Sep-
tember 12, 1840.

It was during this period of alternating hopes
and doubts * that Schumann wrote his best
music for piano, as well as for the voice. Up
to the year 1840 he had composed only for the
piano; and the letters to Clara of the years 1838

* His letters keep us informed regarding his heart affairs. On
November 15, 1836, for instance, he writes to his sister-in-law
Theresa : ' ' Clara loves me as fondly as ever ; but I have resigned
her forever." And again, a year later: "The old man is not yet
willing to give up Clara, to whom he clings most closely."

113

German Song-Writers After Schubert

and 1839 contain abundant indications that she
was in his mind all the time : " I have buried
myself in the dream-world of the piano and can
play and talk about nothing else but you," he
wrote. On February 19, 1840, we find him in a
new field : " I am now writing nothing but
songs, great and small," he says to a friend. " I
can hardly tell you how delightful it is to write
for the voice, as compared with instrumental
composition ; and what a tumult and stir I feel
within me when I sit down to it. I have brought
forth quite new things in this line." Three
days later he writes to Clara : " Since yesterday
morning I have written twenty-seven pages of
music (something new), of which I can tell you
nothing more than that I laughed and wept for
joy in composing them." It was the famous
song-cycle Die Myrthen (Myrtle WreatJt) opus
25, which he dedicated to his " beloved bride."
In sending her his " first printed songs " (Lieder-
kreis, opus 24), the following month, he wrote :
" When I composed them my soul was within
yours. Without such a bride, indeed, no one
could write such music — which I intend as a
special compliment." And again, on May 15,
he writes to his bride : " Once more I have
composed so much that it seems almost un-
canny. Alas! I cannot help it; I could sing
myself to death, like a nightingale. Twelve
114

Schumann

Eichendorff songs I have written ; but these I
have already forgotten and have commenced
something new."

This was his state of mind throughout the
year when he married, and the result was more
than a hundred songs, including the best he
ever wrote. They were published as groups,
or cycles ; among which must be named (i) the
Liederkreis, opus 24, his first printed songs, nine
in all, two of which — Ich wandelte unter den
Bdumen and Mit Myrthen und Rosen — are gems ;
(2) Myrthen, twenty-six songs, the best being
Die Lotosblume, Lass mich Hun am Busen hangen,
Du bist wie eine Blume, and Der Nussbaum ; (3) the
Eichendorff Liederkreis, to which belong the su-
perb Waldesgesprdch and the FruJtlingsnacht ; (4)
the Kerner cycle, opus 35, twelve songs, of which
the best are Wanderlust, Frage,Stille Thrdnen-* (5)
the Frauenliebe-und-Leben — Woman 's Love and
Life — (with the superb Er, der Herrlichste von
At/cn,a.nd Seit ich ihn gesehen); (6) Dichterliebe —
Poet's Love — (which includes the best of all his
songs — Ich grolle nicht, besides the admirable
Im wunderschonen Monat Mai, Ein Jiingling liebt
ein Mddchen and Ich hab' im Traum geweinet) ; (7)
the Liebesfruhling (Springtime of Love) cycle, the

* Robert Franz thought that opus 35 included Schumann's best
songs. He liked them better than the Frauenliebe-und-Leben
cycle.

"5

German Song-Writers After Schubert

best two numbers of which ( Warum willst du
And' re fragen ? and Liebst du um Schonheit?] as
well as Er ist gekommen, were written by Clara,
who therewith placed herself at the head of all
song-writers of her sex. The suspicion that
Schumann may have assisted her, is silenced by
the fact that the first-named song — the best of
the three — does not suggest his style so much as
Mendelssohn's. Liebst du um Schonheit is more
Schumannish, and the opening bar, which re-
curs again and again, is a stroke of genius
that haunts the memory delightfully.

Clara Schumann's edition of her husband's
songs, published by Breitkopf & Hartel, com-
prises (with her own three) two hundred and
forty-eight numbers. It is in four volumes and
the songs are printed in the order of their ap-
pearance. A critical study of them makes it
only too obvious that Felix Drasseke was right
when he said that Schumann began genius
and ended talent. The seventeen songs I have
referred to all belong to the year 1840, and so
do the only others besides them that seem to me
to have the gift of eternal youth — Sonntags am
Rhein,Anden Sonnenschein, and the famous ballad
The two Grenadiers. Among the one hundred
and nineteen songs of the third and fourth vol-
umes there is only one — Er isfs — that rises
above mediocrity. To understand this we
1 16

Schumann

must know that after 1840, with a few unim-
portant exceptions, he did not write any more
songs till nine years later; a time when the cere-
bral disease to which he succumbed in 1856 had
already weakened his creative power and re-
duced his genius to talent. This terrible afflic-
tion enables us to comprehend the lack of ideas
in these later songs and their triviality, which
otherwise would seem inexplicable in a man so
critical as Schumann was. It lessens our won-
der at the fact that one who adored Schubert as
he did, should have been willing to place before
the world such utterly commonplace new set-
tings of the Mignon songs, which his idol had
clothed with eternal music ; and it makes us
forgive even the chalk-and-water insipidity
of his Lieder-Album for children, opus 79.
Hans von Billow was right when he declared
that the ipsissimus Schumann was the early
Schumann, up to opus 50. Schumann seemed
to have a presentiment of his fate when he de-
clared, after the great song-harvest of 1840, that
he was satisfied with what he had done and
could not promise that he would produce any-
thing further in that line.

It has been assumed for a long time that
Schumann, coming after Schubert, and benefit-
ing by his example, must necessarily represent
a higher phase in the development of the Lied.

German Song-Writers After Schubert

He is supposed, in particular, to have assumed
a more critical attitude toward the poems he
set to music and to have increased the sig-
nificance and importance of the piano part.
We have seen, however, that Schubert's al-
leged uncritical attitude toward poets and po-
etry is largely a figment of the imagination ;
and, on the other hand, the eminent historian
Ambros has pointed out that Schumann is by
no means impeccable, but was guilty of some
gross lapses of taste.* One great advantage
Schumann had. Surviving Schubert by twen-
ty-eight years, he had a whole new generation
of poets to draw upon ; above all, Heine, who
became the favorite of lyric composers from the
moment of his appearance shortly before Schu-
bert's death,f because of his terse form and in-
tense emotionalism. Schumann made a special-
ty of him ; but so, no doubt, would Schubert
have done, had he lived longer; and I must say
that, much as I admire the emotional realism of

* See W. A. Ambros, Robert Franz, 1872, p. 13 ; or his Bunte
Blatter.

f Challier's bibliography of songs, which was published in 1886,
includes more than 3,000 settings of Heine poems. Goethe comes
next with 1,700. The other lyric poets lag far behind. Of Heine's
individual poems Du hist wie eine Blume had had (at that date)
160 settings by different composers; Ichhab1 im Traum geweinet
and Leise zieht durch mein Gemiith, each 83 ; Ein Fichtenbaum
iteht einsam, 76 ; Ich weiss nicht was soil es bedeitten, 37.
118

Schumann

Schumann's settings of some of Heine's songs,
I wonder at his failure to be inspired by others
he attempted (which could not have happened
to Schubert) ; and none of them — not even Ich
grolle nicht, one of the most superb songs ever
written — seems to me quite so inspired as four
of Schubert's six Heine songs : Der Atlas, Ihr
Bild, Am Meer, and Der Doppelgdnger. There
is a spontaneity and an inevitableness about
these that Schumann never quite attains, even
at his best.

More incorrect still than the notion that Schu-
mann " displays a more finely cultivated poetic
taste than Schubert," is the assertion made by
Dr. Philip Spitta, in his otherwise excellent
analysis of the characteristics of Schumann's
songs,* that " with Schubert and Mendelssohn
we may very properly speak of the piano-forte
part as an ' accompaniment,' however rich and
independent it occasionally appears. But with
Schumann the word is no longer appropriate, the
piano-forte asserts its dignity and equality with
the voice ; to perform his songs satisfactorily
the player must enter fully into the singer's part
and the singer into the player's, and they must
constantly supplement and fulfil each other."

* Grove's Dictionary of Music and Musicians, vol. Hi., pp.
411, 412.

IIQ

German Song- Writers After Schubert

As a matter of fact, all this applies to Schubert
quite as much as to Schumann. Already in his
' earliest period we find songs like Margaret at
the Spinning Wheel and the Erlking in which the
piano-forte part is quite as important as the
voice ; and to call the piano-forte parts of the
Schwanengesang and Winter reise songs "accom-
paniments," is an absurdity.

Reissmann comes nearer the truth when he
says that in Schumann the piano part " gains a
predominance over the voice which it has not in
Schubert's works." There are few Schubert
songs to which we could apply what he says of
many of Schumann's : that the vocal part is
" the mere skeleton into which the piano ac-
companiment first breathes the breath of life."
Robert Franz once said to Waldmann that some
of Schumann's songs, like Waldesgesprdch and
Dein Bildniss wunderbar, are " piano pieces pure
and simple, with a superadded vocal part." A
German critic has gone so far as to say that
Schumann's songs are " piano-forte studies with
accidental vocal accompaniments." This is an
obvious exaggeration ; yet Schumann himself
regretted that his musical ideas were usually
" piano-thoughts" ; and this was due, no doubt,
to the fact that for ten years, until he began
to write songs, he had composed solely for the
piano.

120

Schumann

Perhaps we can hit the nail on the head by
saying, that whereas in Schubert the vocal and
piano parts are of equal importance, in Schu-
mann the piano often predominates. It must
be remembered, however, that Schumann's vo-
cal style, like Schubert's, is variable. In some
cases we have the tuneful simplicity of a folk-
song ; in others we have melodies " projected
in bold and soaring lines " ; in many Schumann
applies the declamatory principle of which
Schubert gave so perfect an example in the
Doppelgdnger. This declamatory style enables
a composer to follow the poet word by word
and the hearer to understand the poem dis-
tinctly ; and it is therefore in the sphere of lyric
song what Wagner's " speech-song " is in the
music-drama.

Though we have seen that only twenty of
Schumann's two hundred and forty-five songs
are of the highest order of merit, these
twenty are so superlatively good that they
will always insure him a place in the front
rank of song-writers. Specialists and stu-
dents will, of course, find interesting details
of vocal treatment, harmony, and rhythm in
many of his other songs. Schumann was fond
of syncopations and anticipations, which give
his rhythms and harmonies a unique interest.
His pictorial or descriptive power does not

121

German Song- Writers After Schubert

equal Schubert's : he never could have penned
the Erlking. On the other hand, he had a hu-
morous vein, which Schubert lacked, and which
ranges from " students' joviality " to " Heine's
bitterest irony," as Dr. Spitta remarks, with
slight exaggeration. He was particularly suc-
cessful in reproducing in music that "mixture
of humor and tragedy " which is characteristic
of Heine. Several of his songs give musical
expression to "that mirth of Heine's which
seems always on the verge of tears," as Mr.
Fuller Maitland remarks.* In his use of
"germs of ideas to give the impression of a
vague, dreamy, veiled sentiment," he is also
unique. That he had the mystic veneration of
the German romanticists for all the phases of
nature is made manifest in many of his songs.
All the best traits of his genius are united in
Ich grolle nicht. I am aware that some have
affected to sneer at this song because it is so
popular. But popularity in the case of a com-
poser like Schumann, who never stoops to con-
quer, is a sign of merit, not of demerit. Indeed,
Schumann has been more lucky than some other
song-writers in winning the widest popularity
for his best effusions.

* Page 67 of his Schumann, which remains the best short trea-
tise on that master in any language.

Franz

FRANZ

Robert Franz (1815-1892) is another com-
poser who, like Schumann, was inspired by love
to write immortal songs. It came about in this
way. He reached his fourteenth year before
anything had happened to indicate that he
might be destined for a musical career ; except
that in school an irresistible instinct had led
him — instead of singing in unison with the other
children — to add an alto part to the choral mel-
odies ; an accomplishment for which, however,
the stupid teacher actually and repeatedly pun-
ished him ! In his fourteenth year he came
across an old-fashioned piano, or spinet, in the
house of a relative; and this, as he relates in an
autobiographic sketch, decided his fate. His
mother succeeded in persuading his father to
buy the instrument and to get a cheap teacher
for him. There was little to be learned, how-
ever, from the teachers of Halle, and Franz's
mind was moreover too individual to benefit
much from formal instruction. His main
sources of musical information and culture were
the organ performances in church ; and after he
had acquired some skill on that instrument we
find him running from church to church to take
the organist's place in playing a choral stanza
123

German Song-Writers After Schubert

or two. The works of the great masters kin-
dled in him an enthusiasm that led him to try
his own hand at composition ; but, as he was
ignorant of the theory of harmony and counter-
point, the results were such that, as he after-
ward remarked, if a young man came to him
with such productions he would advise him to
choose anything but music for a profession.

His father, though adverse to the idea of his
adopting the career of a musician, consented to
give him a chance, and sent him for two years
to Dessau to study with Friedrich Schneider.
He returned with more immature compositions
in his trunk, while his efforts to secure a re-
munerative position had failed. His friends
and relatives had no sympathy with one who
seemed bent on throwing himself away on what
they looked down on as a "breadless" art; so
he had to seek consolation in the study of
his favorite composers. These were Bach,
Handel, and Schubert, whose works he pored
over with feverish enthusiasm. Comparison of
their finished productions with his own juvenile
efforts disgusted him so thoroughly with the
latter that he threw them into the fire; and for
a period of six years he had not the courage to
write anything more. Despair had taken pos-
session of him and his musical career seemed
ended.

124

FRANZ.

Franz

This was the situation early in the year 1843.
A powerful impulse was needed to restore his
self-confidence, to reawaken his creative energy.
It came in the form of romantic love, which has
ever been the chief source of the fine arts. He
fell in love with Luise G., the daughter of a
well-to-do physician. She was his pupil, and it
seemed at first as if music had united their
hearts. But the time came when he found that
she was not to be his. It was under the in-
fluence of these experiences, hope followed by
what seemed an irreparable loss, that the songs
embodied in his opus i, and dedicated to this girl
were written. When he composed them he
had no thought of publication. They were
merely the effusions of a full heart. But his
friends urged him to get them printed, and the
result is charmingly related by him in a letter
to his friend Weicke, dated July 18, 1843:

' ' Within the last six months I have become a composer ;
how it happened, I do not know. So much is certain :
nearly every day has brought forth a new song. You can
imagine what a blessing that may prove. Now my neigh-
bors put it into my head that these songs were good. I was
disinclined to believe this and therefore sent a number of
them for inspection to Schumann. He not only made me
still more puffed up by his approval, but he gave them,
without my knowledge or desire, to a publisher, and they
have been printed. Just think of it : ' Lieder by Robert
Franz,' etc. Every corner-stone must laugh loud in its en-

125

German Song-Writers After Schubert

thusiasm ! Were I to tell you all the flattering and gratifying
experiences I have had in reference to my productions, it
would smack much of vanity. One thing, however, I can-
not suppress in my joy : Mendelssohn has written me a long
letter and told me things which surely are seldom said to
any one. He is full of joy and amiability ... I send you
a copy of my songs, and expect a detailed, sound critique ;
tell me the truth bluntly, it will do no harm, and I shall be
more grateful than if you write me flatteries honoris causa."

Mendelssohn had written to him " May you
give us many, many more works like this,
as beautiful in conception, as refined in style,
and as original and euphonious ; " while Schu-
mann wrote for his Neue Zeitschrift a review
of the twelve songs first issued, wherein he once
more revealed his keen instinct for discovering
genius. He pointed out that these songs mir-
rored the new spirit in poetry, and illustrated
the progress which the Lied had made since
the days of Beethoven: " Genuine singers, en-
dowed with poetic taste, are required for their
interpretation," he wrote ; " they are most en-
joyable when sung in solitude and in the twi-
light." " Were I," he concludes, " to dwell on
all the exquisite details, I should never come to
an end ; true music-lovers will discover them
for themselves."

Unfortunately, a musician cannot live by
praise alone. Pecuniary profit there was none
from these songs. Indeed, Franz once declared
126

Franz

that he had practically made a present to the
world of half of his Lieder. To support himself,
he had to play the organ at a local church and
give music-lessons at the university, where he
was also appointed musical director later on
(1859). In this way he might have earned his
bread and butter to the end of his life had it not
been for a physical infirmity which grew upon
him and finally incapacitated him for all work.
Physiologists tell us that the children of aged
parents are peculiarly liable to all sorts of de-
generate nervous conditions, such as epilepsy,
insanity, blindness, and deafness. Now, Robert
Franz's father had committed the indiscretion
of marrying after he had passed his sixtieth
year ; and Robert's fate corroborated the phys-
iologists. Before he was thirty years old his
nervous system and his hearing had become
somewhat impaired. In 1848 he married Marie
Hinrichs, and not long after his marriage a
serious accident occurred. He was at the
Halle railway station, waiting for the train to
Leipsic, when suddenly the shrill whistle of a
locomotive sounded close by. It seemed to
pierce his ears, as he afterwards related, and
for a time he could hear nothing but a confused
buzzing. A few days later his hearing returned,
but the highest tones were gone and never
came back ; and from that time on one tone
127

German Song- Writers After Schubert

after another, down the scale, vanished forever.
In 1864 his ears were painfully affected if he
only wrote music. In 1867 he was obliged to
give up his positions as organist and conductor ;
he was suffering at that time from such fright-
ful hallucinations, especially at night, that his
friends feared he would become insane. The
year 1876 found him totally deaf, and three
years later his right arm became paralyzed
from the shoulder to the thumb.

When I visited him in July, 1891, all but the
first two fingers of both his hands were para-
lyzed. He could shake my hand, but not press
it. He expressed his regret that he was abso-
lutely deaf and that I would have to write on
a slate whatever I wished to say. " America
again! " he exclaimed, after reading what I had
written. " Most of my friends seem to be
Americans. I do not say this as a mere polite
phrase, but because it is actually true. I assure
you that of every six letters I receive, five are
from America or England. . . Other na-
tions are proud of their authors and composers
— look at France, England, and Italy — but the
Germans ignore theirs till they are dead, and
then they erect statues to their memories."*

* A full account of the very interesting talk I had with him
appeared in the Century Magazine for June, 1893, under the head
of "An Hour with Robert Franz."

128

Franz

It cannot be denied that a full knowledge of
the shabby treatment accorded by contempora-
ries to Bach, Mozart, and Schubert had not yet
taught the Germans to give up their idiotic
maxim that the only true genius is a dead
genius. It was only the men of genius, like
Schumann, Mendelssohn, Liszt, and Wagner,
that were able to appreciate Franz's genius.
" Some of the Berlin critics," he said to me,
" have a theory that I do not compose my own
songs, but hire a somnambulist, who dictates
them to me, and that I then hypnotize him again
to correct the manuscript — the crudest cut of
all !" The Brahms clique looked down on him as
a " dilettante !" But it was not the direct at-
tacks so much as the policy of Todschweigen —
persistent ignoring — that hurt his feelings and
kept his tray (like that of poor Schubert and
his Leiermann) forever empty. Luckily, in 1867,
when he was obliged to give up his work, he
received a pension of $150 a year for his editing
of the works of Bach. Incredible as it may
seem, this pension was taken away from him
ten years later, when he was totally deaf. He
would have had to spend the rest of his life in a
poorhouse had not, in the meantime, generous
friends and admirers taken steps to keep the
wolf from the door.

The Leipsic publisher, Constantin Sander —
129

German Song-Writers After Schubert

who knew that Franz had been obliged to change
his residence repeatedly to more humble quar-
ters, but whose efforts to help him by trying to
create a greater demand for his songs had been
unavailing — conceived the plan of getting up a
subscription in behalf of the deaf, paralyzed
composer. The prime mover in the affair was
Baron Senfft von Pilsach, the director of a life-
insurance company in Berlin, and well known
as an amateur concert and opera singer. He
enlisted the aid, first of all, of Liszt, and subse-
quently of Joachim, Niemann, Gura, Vogl, and
other eminent artists. Concerts were given in
various cities, and the most gratifying pecun-
iary success attended them. Members of the
nobility and others added their contributions,
and between November, 1872, and May, 1873,
the sum of thirty thousand thalers (nearly
$25,000) was raised ; sufficient to enable the
composer to spend the rest of his days in com-
fort. America contributed a good part of the
gift,* which was made available to Franz on
his fifty-eighth birthday.

* America, indeed, may be said to have shown the way, for as
early as 1867 a concert was given in Boston which yielded $2,000
for the benefit of Franz. Boston — to its eternal honor be it said —
was one of the first cities in the world that had a realizing sense
of his genius, thanks to the missionary labors of Otto Dresel, S. B.
Schlesinger, B. J. Lang, G. Osgood, and others. John S. Dwight
130

Franz

Baron Senfft von Pilsach had the best of rea-
sons for trying first of all to secure the aid of
Liszt, not only because of the prestige of his
name, but because he had previously exerted
himself in Franz's behalf, with that noble gener-

made excellent translations of some of the poems which Franz had
set to music, and Oliver Ditson brought out an edition in two vol-
umes, admirably selected, and embodying some of these transla-
tions— a selection concerning which Franz himself wrote in 1879:
"I am convinced that this volume will succeed in revealing my
tendencies to art-loving Bostonians and others " — the value of
which is further enhanced by foot-notes quoting the characteriza-
tions of individual songs made by Liszt, Ambros, and others.
Otto Dresel (1826-1890), the high priest of the Franz cult in
Boston, was a life-long friend of Franz, though he left Germany
in 1848. Mr. W. F. Apthorp has drawn an admirable picture of
the relations of these two men, and of their characteristics, in his
Musicians and Music- Lovers, under the head of " Two Modern
Classicists." " Neither of the two," he says, " gave anything to
the world without its passing through the ordeal of the other's
criticism." And they were both extremely critical. Dresel
wrote a large number of songs, but kept them in his portfolio for
constant revision ; and not till shortly before his death could he
make up his mind to publish a few of them. In 1892 Breitkopf &
Ha'rtel reprinted these, with some others, making a collection of
twenty songs, with German and English text. Four of these are
admirable, and will delight every lover of Franz. All of them
betray that master's influence in every bar. O Listen, my Darling,
is rather too obviously inspired by Franz's exquisite Wonne der
Wehmuth, but it is a fine song all the same. Maudis as effective
for singers as it is interesting musically, while Moonlight and the
pathetic The Flowers all are Faded are songs that Franz himself
might have been proud of.

German Song-Writers After Schubert

osity which distinguished him from most other
musicians. It grieved his soul that such won-
derful songs as Franz's should be so completely
ignored, and he therefore made up his mind
to help him with his pen as he had helped
Wagner and others.* He repeatedly requested
Franz to send him some biographic data for an
essay, and Franz at last consented, forwarding
him, in 1855, a sketch which takes up eleven
pages of the first volume of the letters to Liszt
by eminent contemporaries.f Liszt made the
best possible use of this sketch in an essay
which gives a masterful analysis of Franz's
genius $ and overflows with enthusiasm. Franz
was deeply moved by it, and in thanking Liszt
for his services as interpreter and missionary,
he expressed the belief that even the Berlin and
Cologne critics would now sound their trum-
pets in his praise. But while Liszt's essay and
other pamphlets by Ambros, Schuster, and
Saran, which appeared about the time the fund
was being collected, no doubt won many new

*See my Wagner and his Works, vol. i., p. 391, vol. ii., p. 16.

f Brief e hervorragender Zeitgenossen an Liszt. Breitkopf &
Hartel, 1895. The two volumes include twenty-six letters from
Franz.

\ It appeared first in the Neue Zeitschrift fur Musik, then in a
pamphlet, and was finally embodied in vol. iv of Liszt's Gesammelte
Schriftcn.

132

Franz

admirers for these songs, the professionals and
the public at large had no more idea when
Franz died on October 24, 1892, that the world
had lost the greatest song-writer since Schu-
bert, than Schubert's contemporaries had that
he would be recognized as the greatest song-
writer of all time. Mr. Apthorp speaks of " the
exceedingly few obituary notices on Franz
that appeared in German newspapers shortly
after his death ;" and I was amazed and dis-
gusted by the same phenomenon.

Some honors had indeed come to Franz in
the last years of his long life (as in the case of
Schopenhauer, whose tirades against obtuse
contemporaries and the policy of maintaining a
conspiracy of silence he greatly relished) ; but
it remains for the twentieth century to do full
justice to his genius. When Dr. Hueffer wrote
his volume on The Music of the Future he quite
properly devoted a chapter in it to Franz.
Yet, in spite of the neglect he suffered, and his
physical infirmities, Franz exclaimed one day
that he had been a happy man nevertheless ;
for he enjoyed his creative work and the edit-
ing of the works of Bach and Handel, and
he enjoyed the love of his family. He was
deeply attached to his wife ; and when I vis-
ited him, a few months after her death, the
tears rolled down his cheeks as he talked of
133

German Song-Writers After Schubert

her and showed me the songs she had writ-
ten*.

It was at the time of his marriage to Marie
Hinrichs that Franz had obtained the sanction
of the law for the name which he had borne
ever since his childhood. His father's family
name was Christoph Knauth, but as he had a
brother who was engaged in the same business,
and their letters consequently were often mixed
up and created trouble, his acquaintances
dubbed him " Christoph Franz," and he ac-
cepted the name. This explanation, which the
composer himself gave in a letter to Otto Less-
mann, disposes of the legend that " Robert
Franz" was a pseudonym which vanity had led
him to adopt by way of indicating that he was
the heir of Robert Schumann and Franz Schu-
bert. This intimation used to arouse his ire,'
though, on the other hand, he frankly acknowl-
edged the great obligations he was under to
those composers. With the same frankness he
maintained that if he had profited by their ex-
ample, he had also taken pains to avoid their
faults. And he was right. Among his two
hundred and seventy-nine songs there are fewer
mediocre ones than among those of either

* They appeared in print under her maiden name, Marie
Hinrichs.

134

Franz

Schubert or Schumann. He not only threw
his early efforts into the fire, but throughout his
life he followed the Horatian maxim of keeping
his productions in the desk for years, taking
them out now and then and giving them the
benefit of his ripening judgment. With merci-
less severity he eliminated everything that
seemed to him likely to prove ephemeral, and
kept on retouching the manuscript as long as
a single bar was capable of improvement in
the vocal or piano part. The result of this proc-
ess was, as he himself wrote to Osterwald in
1885, that in many cases the final product bore
but little resemblance to the song in its first
shape.* In another letter he wrote that a
critical consideration of his artistic develop-
ment was rendered impossible by his method of
revising : " My opus I I consider no better and
no worse than my opus 52. Among all the
collections there are only three (op. 23, 27,
33) which were published soon after they had
been written. In all the others, old and new
songs are mixed up."

When Franz's last song collections (op. 51
and 52) appeared in print some fancied that
they discovered Wagnerian traits in one or two

* He liked to see a clean manuscript, and therefore rewrote a
whole Lied whenever he made a few changes in it. Some of the
songs were thus copied two, three, and even four times.

German Song-Writers After Schubert

of them ; * but Franz showed that these were
really among his first songs, written in the early
forties and kept in the desk several decades ; so
that any resemblance must have been a coin-
cidence. In 1850 Franz heard Lohengrin, and
was so much impressed with itf that he dedi-
cated his opus 20 to its composer. It is strange
that Franz should have ever cared for Wagner's
music, for he hated the drama, with or without
music, went to the theatre only once in all his
life, and confessed that Mozart's operatic music
unfolded its full significance to him only in the
concert hall. In after years he did express his
dislike of the later music-dramas of Wagner ;
though, as he had never heard them (the year
of his total deafness coincides with that of the
first Nibelung performances at Bayreuth), this
dislike was little more than a protest against
the great ado made over opera, while lyric song
was so shamefully neglected.

Wagner, on his part, always was a great ad-
mirer of the Franz songs ; and when Franz
visited him at Zurich, in 1857, he showed him

* See Waldmann's Robert Franz, Gesprdche aus Zehn Jahren,
1894, which contains the records of many interesting conversa-
tions with Franz during a period of ten years.

f See my Wagner and His Works, vol. i., pp. 259-263; and
further details concerning Franz and Wagner in the German
edition of the same work, vol. i., pp. 245-248.
136

Franz

his musical library, which contained, besides
the works of Bach and Beethoven, nothing but
Franz's songs. " He sang and played a couple
of my songs for me,'* Franz relates, "Die Wid-
mung and Ja, du bist elend — the latter being his
favorite song. And how he did sing, declaim-
ing them with the greatest pathos, quite dra-
matically. ' You must write operas,' he then
said to me ; but any one who has penetrated
deeply into my songs knows that the dramatic
element in them is naught, nor is it intended
to be found in them."

Wagner and Franz represent the extremes in
modern music, Wagner being the greatest
dramatic composer of the century, Franz the
greatest lyric composer since Schubert. There
are many other differences between them.
Wagner was the most modern of the moderns ;
whereas Franz gravitated toward the times of
Bach, the mediaeval choral, and folk-song.
Wagner's harmonies are chromatic, his form
new and irregular ; while Franz's harmonies are
diatonic, his form traditional and symmetrical.
And yet the extremes meet. There are points
of contact between the two masters which may
be considered even more important than their
differences. They are best summed up in the
following extract from one of Franz's letters
to Liszt (dated September 29, 1855), which
J37

German Song-Writers After Schubert

might have been quite as well written by
Wagner :

" The poet furnishes the key to the appreciation of my
works ; my music is unintelligible without a close appreciation
of the sister-art : it merely illustrates the words, does not pre-
tend to be much by itself. ... As a rule, my song is of
the declamatory order, and becomes cantilena [flowing mel-
ody] only where the feeling is most concentrated. The word
is steeped in the tone, or forms, as it were, the skeleton
which the sound clothes as its flesh. Therefore, it is easy to
sing my songs, if the vocalist saturates himself with the poem
and thus endeavors to reproduce the musical content."

Many of Franz's songs are, like parts of
Wagner's operas, beautiful if played on the
piano alone, simply weaving in the vocal part.
Liszt has translated a number of Franz's best
songs into the most polished pianistic idiom.*
But however delightful these songs may be as
simple piano pieces, to get their full beauty the
vocal part must be added. Without the voice
they charm, with the voice they move to tears.
Read one of the poems alone, play the music
alone, and then perform them both together;
and you will realize that poetry and music com-
bined are a greater emotional power than either
of them alone. Bearing this in mind, we can

* See the Breitkopf & Hartel edition of Liszt's song transcrip-
tions.

138

Franz

understand the importance of the fact that
modern lyric song has achieved "a fusion of
poetry and music which can hardly be carried
to a higher pitch of intimacy," as Franz puts it
in a letter to Mr. Apthorp. And thus we see
that, different as were their methods and aims,
Wagner and Franz achieved the same results
in their respective spheres.

Franz could not, like Wagner, write his own
poems ; but he did the next best thing in select-
ing such verses as were best suited for a mar-
riage with music — poems which suggest more
than they express. Judging by the number of
times he reverted to them, his favorite poets
were Heine and Osterwald, followed by Burns,
Lenau, Eichendorff, Mirza-Schaffy, etc.* While
Schubert liked picturesque poems, verging on
dramatic action, Franz looked for the concise
expression of moods. As Liszt has said, he
was, above all things, a " psychic colorist." His
favorite subjects were love and nature in their
diverse moods ; and he loved above all things
poems which give expression to mixed moods
of joy and sadness, or else to that melancholy

* Details regarding Franz's relations to poets and poetry may
be found in Prochazka's admirable biography of the master (Leip-
sic : Reclam), to which I am indebted for many of the facts em-
bodied in this chapter ; in Waldmann's book, and in the essays of
Liszt and Ambros.

139

German Song-Writers After Schubert

resignation which his own experiences had
taught him.

It is characteristic of him that among the
poems of Heine he avoids those in which the
sentimental mood is disturbed by an ironic final
verse. In Burns he avoids the poems that
verge on coarse realism. " My musical expres-
sion," he wrote to Liszt, "partakes of the nature
of the sensitive plant, and avoids, as far as pos-
sible, all rude material contact." This sensitive-
ness is a feminine trait in his art, and there is
also a feminine tenderness in his songs such as
we find rarely in other composers, excepting
Schubert and Chopin. There is in his songs,
in the words of Mr. Apthorp, " that native rev-
erence for purity and beauty that we find in the
English love-poems of Elizabeth's day. No
lover can be too passionate to- sing them, no
maid too pure to hear them."

Franz told Waldmann that Mendelssohn, who
was pleased with his first songs, gave him up
after the appearance of opus 4, which showed
that he did not intend to follow in his footsteps.
To Dresel Mendelssohn once said that there
was no melody in Franz's songs. He meant, of
course, no instrumental tune ; for, as Wagner
has pointed out, it was customary in those days
to consider as melodies only such vocal tunes
as could also be " fiddled and blown and ham-
140

Franz

mered on the piano." As the first object of
vocal music is to make the poem intelligible
to the hearer, it is to Franz's credit that he
avoided such " melody " in favor of a more
declamatory style. Louis Ehlert has aptly
pointed out that Brahms's songs " are not
always planned for a human voice with piano-
forte accompaniment ; for frequently the latter
might be replaced by an orchestra or quartet,
and the former by a 'cello or oboe. This is
sometimes true of Schumann, rarely of Schu-
bert, never of Franz ; and therefore, in this
respect (but not in the matter of absolute in-
ventiveness) I hold Franz to be the greatest of
all song-writers." This is the true vocal point
of view. At the same time, there is plenty of
flowing melody in Franz's songs, and there
have been singers, like Lilli Lehmann, who
have taught us that the declamatory song of
Franz and Wagner can be sung as smoothly
and insinuatingly as the Italian bel canto. To
Waldmann Franz said one day :

" If any one understood the bel canto of the Italians it was
Handel ; him I studied and took for my model. Therefore,
my Lieder are genuine vocal music. Old Garcia expressly
declared that of all German songs mine are the best suited
to the voice." *

* Emanuel Garcia, one of the most eminent teachers of the Ital-
ian method in the nineteenth century. Jenny Lind was one of his
141

German Song-Writers After Schubert

If there were no flowing vocal melody at all
in the Franz songs — which is very far from be-

pupils. Why have the great singers been so much slower in
mastering the Franz style than the pianists were in mastering
Chopin and Schumann ? Indolence appears to be one reason. As
Liszt remarks sarcastically, it would be too much to ask the lead-
ing singers to enlarge their repertory by learning new songs.
Concert singers, says Ambros, hunt through the volumes of his
songs seeking for some that end with loud, high notes which, like
the old Roman vos plaudite, are an appeal for applause. But Franz
avoids such claptrap devices ; he is much more apt to have a song
end with a quiet postlude for the piano; and that annoys the
singers. In a letter to Mr. Apthorp, Franz refers to the " bound-
less vanity of professional singers," and declares that "these
gentry never care for the thing itself, but only for their own per-
sonal success." In most cases this is only too true. The concert
singers have yet to learn the lesson which has been taught to their
colleagues of the operatic stage, who used to scorn Wagner's
music because they found in it no loud final notes, no embellish-
ments, no monopoly for the voice, which they fancied were essen-
tial to the securing of applause. They have lived to learn that the
public reserves its warmest applause for the Wagner singers ; and
they will live to learn that those who attend song-recitals are more
pleased with songs that are in themselves beautiful, like the best
of Schubert's, Franz's, or Grieg's, than with those which merely
serve to show off the singer's voice. During seventeen years of
professional service as a critic I have hammered away at this sub-
ject. One eminent singer, whom I had censured for always
singing Brahms and never Franz, begged leave to come to my
residence and have me point out some of my favorites. I did so ;
he sang them and was much applauded. Then he went back to
Brahms. Another famous singer, Plunkett Greene, once conde-
scended to put a Franz song on his programme. It received more
applause than anything else he sang, and had to be repeated.

142

Franz

ing the case — they would still be among the
most melodious of all Lieder, because the piano
part is all melody. It is nearly always poly-
phonic, that is, it is melodious in every part — in
the bass and the middle parts as well as in the
treble. Such melodic miniature-work can be
found only in the scores of Bach and Wagner;
and it is largely owing to it that, as Schumann
wrote, we never cease discovering exquisite de-
tails in these songs. One might say that Franz
was a polyphonic Schubert — what Schubert
might have been had he known the works of
Bach and studied them with the same devotion
as Franz did. Franz spent many of the best
years of his life writing what are called " addi-
tional accompaniments " to Bach and Handel
scores;* and thus his mind became thoroughly

But he never sang any more Franz, at least in New York ! Lilli
Lehmann has set a good example by her Franz recitals in Ger-
many, which were as great a success financially as artistically.
If I have not had much success in persuading singers, I am glad
to say, on the other hand, that I have received many letters from
amateurs who have thanked me for calling their attention to such
treasures as these songs — and this recalls what Franz once said
to Dr. Waldmann : "What do I care if a song of mine happens
to be applauded in a concert-hall ! I could show you hundreds of
letters thanking me for the peace, consolation, and gratification
my songs had given the writers."

* A full list is given in Prochazka's little book on Franz, pp.
149-153. It cannot be too highly commended to the attention of the
directors of choral societies. For a clear account of his object in

M3

German Song-Writers After Schubert

saturated with their styles, so that there is
hardly one of his songs which does not show
what company he has kept. How thoroughly
Bach had become second nature to him is
shown vividly, e.g,, in Lenau's Der scJiwere
Abend, the piano part of which, as Ambros has
wittily remarked, looks, for all the world, as if
Bach had sat down and composed a Franz song
by way of expressing his gratitude for all that
Franz was to do for him.

It may be said that the soil out of which
Bach's best music grew was the stately Ger-
man church choral; and this, too, exerted a
great influence on Franz's art. The first en-
during musical expression made on his mind
was at the age of three, when he heard Luther's
choral A Fortress Strong is our Lord blown on
trombones from the top of a church tower, as
was the delightful custom in those days on
festive occasions or at funerals. Chorals were
also regularly sung at his home in the evening,
and he heard them and played them in church,
until they became part of the very tissue of his
mind. To this wholesome tonic influence we
owe many of the finest harmonies in his piano
parts, and such superbly emotional songs as

" filling out the gaps left by the old composers in their scores "
see Apthorp's Musicians and Music Lovers, pp. 227-249. Cf.
Prochazka,88, 103

144

Franz

Widmung, Leise zieht durch mein Gemtith and
Bitte. As a matter of course Franz does not re-
tain the monotonous movement of the church
choral, but gives it the rhythmic variety which
it had originally before the hymn-writers sim-
plified it.

Beside the polyphony and the chorals there
was still another mediaeval trait which Franz
assimilated and incorporated in his style — the
church modes. As the reader is aware, modern
music is based on only two modes — major and
minor. Like the Greeks, the early mediaeval
composers had no harmony, but they had a
greater variety of modes than we have, that is,
scales differing in regard to the position of the
semitones. These — the church modes — were
found difficult to manage when music became
harmonic, and were therefore displaced by our
major and minor modes. But there are still
traces of them in Bach, and Franz's study of his
chorals and other works * had its effect on his
own work — quite unconsciously, for, as he told
Waldmann, he was not aware of it till a friend
said to him one day, " Why, this song is written
in a Greek scale." " If you will look through

* Every student of music should own a collection of Bach's
chorals and play them daily as the best of all means of educating
the harmonic sense. They are in the Peters, Breitkopf and ofher
editions.

German Song- Writers After Schubert

my Lieder" Franz added, "you will find a num-
ber of them, perhaps twenty, especially among
the old folk-songs, that are written in these
scales." He himself, he says, was not aware
that the Lotosblume of opus I is partly in major
and minor, partly in a church mode, till Schaffer
called his attention to it. Others are Zu Stras-
burg auf der Schanz (Doric), Konntst du mein
Aeuglein sehn and Es klingt in der Ltift ur alter
Sang (both Phrygian). But the quaintest of
these Lieder with an ecclesiastic atmosphere is
Es ragt der alte Eborus, one of the most delight-
ful of all his songs, which I have played a hun-
dred times and shall never tire of ; though I fear
it will always remain caviare to the general.*

Notwithstanding these mediaeval features in
Franz's music, he is anything but reactionary.
The church modes have been used by such
ultra-modern masters as Liszt and Grieg; and as
for chorals and the polyphonic interweaving of
melodies, where can you find these mediaeval
traits more effectively used than in the " music
of the future " — notably Wagner's Die Meister-
singer? The simple truth is that there were in
Bach important factors of musical evolution
which the monophonic school — Haydn, Mozart,

* It may be found in vol. ii., p. 44, of the Franz Album, Kist-
ner edition. See, on these songs, Prochazka, p. 40; Saran, p.
26.

146

Franz

Beethoven — had neglected, and which re-
mained to be developed in the last half of the
nineteenth century, after the discovery had
been made that old Bach was really a romanti-
cist. The peculiarity of Franz lies in this that,
while he absorbed this old romanticism more
completely than any one else, he was in other
respects one of the most modern of moderns.
Songs like Im Mai, Der Schnee ist zergangen,
Rastlose Liebe and Meerfahrt show how carefully
he had studied the pianistic idiom of Chopin —
a point which previous writers have not suffi-
ciently emphasized. * Chopin taught him the
use of " scattered " or broken chords, the tones
of which can only be united with the aid of the
pedal, the result being ravishing new harmonies
and tone-colors. Schubert would have been
intensely interested in these new harmonies.
The euphony of his piano parts is much en-
hanced by the use of the modern tone-sustain-
ing pedal ; but in Franz's songs the pedal is as
absolute a necessity as in Chopin's music. Yet
what Chopin taught him was merely the way
of doing it. He did not copy his music, for
his own imagination was inexhaustible in the
discovery of new ways of distributing chords.

* His touch is said to have been similar to Chopin's (Prochazka,
p. 70). He had not much execution, but, like Schubert, could
make the keys sing.

»47

German Song-Writers After Schubert

To musicians this constitutes one of the su-
preme charms of his art.

There is another harmonic feature which
would have interested and thrilled even Schu-
bert— his modulations. Franz knew very well
that " as a rule modulation determines the emo-
tional development much more than the melody
does," for these are his own words, written in a
letter to Liszt. Some of his most original mod-
ulations occur toward the end of Das ist ein
Brausen und Heulen. Of the many other in-
stances that might be referred to, let me call
attention to one only. Can anybody sing or
play Ich hab" in deinem Auge* without having
all his nerves tingle with delight when he comes
to the harmonies accompanying the words und
wie die Rosen zerstieben, Ihr Abglanz ewig neu —
especially at ewig (eternal), where the music
seems to come through a sudden opening in
heaven ?

Like Wagner, furthermore, Franz always had
an emotional reason for his modulations and did
not seek them for mere effect — as so many pres-
ent-day song-writers do, merely to make their
accompaniments piquant. The same is true of
the other factors of his art. As Liszt has point-
ed out, " the choice of the key, of the measure,

* Printed in vol. ii., p. 66, of the Ditson edition.

148

Franz

of the rhythm, the figure of accompaniment, the
conduct of the voices on the monophonic or
polyphonic side, never appear accidental or ar-
bitrary," but grow out of the structure and the
mood of the poem. Hence it was that he ob-
jected so violently to transpositions of his songs
into other keys. " When I am dead," he wrote
to the publisher Sander, " I cannot do anything
to prevent this ; but as long as I live I shall
fight against it ; ". and Prochazka says that
when some publishers nevertheless issued edi-
tions of transposed Lieder, Franz protested vig-
orously, repudiating all responsibility and even
the authorship of the songs in that form. The
reader will understand this attitude if he will
transpose some of the songs — especially those
in five or six flats or sharps — into other keys.
It seems like altering the colors of a painting.
" Transposing," he explained to Waldmann,
" cannot do any harm in the case of songs in
which the vocal part is everything, the accom-
paniment mere harmonic padding ; but that is
not the case with my songs. They are writ-
ten for low soprano and should be sung as
written."*

* Franz was, of course, right, yet half a loaf is better than no
bread, and amateur contraltos will find these songs enchanting
even when transposed, though they may have lost some of their
peculiar emotional atmosphere and beauty of tonal coloring'.
149

German Song-Writers After Schubert

While Franz was preeminently modern in his
use of modulations, as well as in his idiomatic
piano style and his declamatory treatment of
the vocal part, there are some other modern
aspects of music in which he diverged from his
contemporaries. Though he lived in an age of
dramatic music, the dramatic style had no al-
lurements for him. He not only declared that
the opera is " a lie," but in his own field he had
no use for such a thing as a dramatic ballad.
His songs, as we should expect under such cir-
cumstances, are usually short and strophic, few
of them being through-composed in the dra-
matic manner. In other words, instead of writ-
ing new music for each stanza of a poem, he
prefers to repeat the same music, introducing,
however, slight changes in melody or harmony
where an emotional modulation in the poem
calls for them, and these changes are often of
striking beauty. Like Chopin, he is particu-
larly fond of introducing dainty nuances in the
final bars of a piece, and many of his post-
hides are of ravishing effect, too. To Schu-
bert, Chopin, Schumann, and Franz belongs
the honor of having abolished the monoto-
nous, stereotyped manner of ending composi-
tions which the German " classical " school
had imported from Italy.

Tone-painting is another modern trait with
. 150

Franz

which Franz had little sympathy. Compare,
for instance, the opening bars of his splendid
song, Das ist ein Brausen und Heulen, with
Liszt's transcription of the same for piano, and
note how much more realistic the suggestion
of autumn wind and rain is in Liszt's version
than in the original. In Ach wenn ich nur ein
Imniclien war (Oh, were I but a little bee) the
accompaniment has an almost buzzing charac-
ter, and there are a few other instances of re-
alism ; * but, as a rule, Franz does not try to
suggest visible things, but to paint moods, as
Beethoven said he did in the " Pastoral Sym-
phony."

In one respect Franz labored under a delu-
sion which some of his admirers seem to share..
One of his favorite ideas was that whereas
Schubert is always Schubert, his own songs —
especially those which resemble simple folk-
songs and are set to Russian, Bohemian, Nor-
wegian, or Scotch poems — sound like the songs
of those countries. He was mistaken. It is
possible to discover in some of Schubert's songs
traces of the Hungarian music which he heard
during his two sojourns with the Esterhazys ;

* Regarding his Voruber der Mai, he said to Waldmann : "You
will see that in the accompaniment there is always a note a third
above the melody. It is as if the melody went along under a
leaden roof in accordance with the mood."

German Song-Writers After Schubert

but Franz is always Franz, and always German.
I cannot find any traces of local or national
color in these quasi-folk-song's of his; though
some of them are otherwise charming. His
settings of the poems of Burns not only do
not suggest Scotch music, but they are by no
means among his best productions. Success in
reproducing local and national color is one
of the peculiarities of modern music, and
Franz's failure in this direction marks a third
trait in which he differed from his contempo-
raries.

While Franz thus has his shortcomings as
well as his merits, there is a point of view from
which he ranks above all other song-writers.
The proportion of good songs to poor ones is
much larger in his case than in that of any other
composer. Many of Schubert's songs (partly
owing to the fact that such a large number
of them were written before he was out of his
teens) are of interest only to special students of
the development of his genius ; while among
Schumann's two hundred and forty-five songs
we found only twenty that can be called first-
class. Franz wrote only thirty-four more songs
than Schumann, two hundred and seventy-nine
in all ; but among those there are ten times as
many good ones as in Schumann's list. I once
took vol. i. of the Ditson edition of Franz and
152

Franz

prefixed a star to all the songs in it that em-
body ideas which will make them live. Count-
ing them, I found that I had marked forty-eight
out of the fifty-five songs in the book; and nine
of them seemed to me so superlatively good
that I marked them, Baedeker style, with
two stars.* This volume, to be sure, contains
selections ; but the proportion of great songs is
not much smaller if we take them in regular
order.

If Schumann was compelled to write regard-
ing the first twelve songs of Franz, that were
he to dwell on all the exquisite details he would
never come to an end, it is obviously impossi-
ble in the limited space at my command to
even hint at the beauties of the complete list
of his two hundred and seventy-nine Lieder.
On many of them I feel tempted to bestow su-
perlatives of praise; but, after all, is it not
infinitely better to sing the songs than to write
or read about them ? The wisest thing I can
do is to advise every one to get the Ditson,
Peters, and Breitkopf & Hartel editions, go
over the whole collections, mark the best songs
and sing them over and over again. Those
who have never done this will marvel at the

* These nine are Ein Friedhof, Widmung, Im Walde, Fur
Musik, Das ist fin Brausen und ffeulen, Im Mat, Bitte, Ich hab
in dienem Auge, Derjunge Tag trwacht.

153

German Song-Writers After Schubert

treasures buried amid these pages,* as well as
at the obtuseness of Franz's contemporaries
who had no use for these treasures, and wanted
him to write bigger things — as if art were to
be measured with a yardstick. He wrote few
songs during the last twenty years of his life.
Why should he have written more, since so
little interest was shown in the large number
he had already produced ?

BRAHMS

Hamburg gave birth to two of the most pop-
ular composers of the nineteenth century —
Felix Mendelssohn (1809), and Johannes Brahms
(1833). Brahms, too, might have borne the
name of Felix, for he also was specially favored
by fortune. He was only twenty years old
when Schumann once more took up his rusty
critical pen and astonished the world by an-

* Some of the songs are not yet issued in the albums. The two
Kistner albums do not include opus 52, issued by the same pub-
lishers in sheet-music form, in which I have marked Wolle Keiner
mich fragen with two stars. A few others of my two-star songs
are : Entschluss, Ich will meine Seele tauchen (with a wondrous
tenor melody in the piano part), Es ragt der alte Eborus, of opus
43 (Kistner, vol. ii. ), Wonne der Wehmuth, Es hat die Rose sick
beklagt, Die Scklanke Wasserlilie, WandV ich in dem Wald
des Abends (Ditson, vol. ii.); Madchen mit dem rot hen Miind-
chen (Peters, vol. i.).

154

Brahms

nouncing the advent of a genius of the first
order, born, Minerva-like, in full armor and
destined to lead music into new paths. The
letters written by Schumann about this time *
(when his growing mental infirmity had com-
pelled him to give up his position as musical
director at Diisseldorf) leave no doubt that his
enthusiasm for young Brahms and his works
was sincere, and not inspired by jealous eager-
ness to find a new rival to Wagner, as some
have suspected. Nevertheless, Wagner was
responsible, indirectly, for much of the noto-
riety won by Brahms. Notwithstanding the
hyperbolic indorsement of Schumann, Brahms
did not come into vogue at once, and it was not
till it occurred to his admirers to pit him against
Wagner that he began to loom up as a big
man. The leader of this movement was the
influential and witty Viennese critic, Dr. Hans-
lick, Wagner's most rabid opponent, who put
Brahms on his banner and for decades bestowed
on him the most " preposterous overp raise." f
In England another violent enemy of Wagner
and intimate friend of Brahms, Joachim, cham-
pioned Brahms's cause and helped him to a
temporary vogue, which made it appear as if he

* See H. Reimann's biography of Brahms, p. 8. Berlin, 1900.
f See an admirable note on the genesis of the Brahms cult, in
J. F. Runciman's Old Scores and New Readings, pp. 241-247.

155

German Song-Writers After Schubert

had taken the place of Felix Mendelssohn.
Thus it came about that all those who hated
Wagner — a large number in those days —
flocked about the new banner. Brahms him-
self, being endowed with a keen sense of hu-
mor, knew that many of his pretended admirers
did not understand his music at all; and he
once fooled one of these hypocrites by making
him roll his eyes in ecstasy over a vulgar Gungl
march which he played for him as his own
composition. What with these and his many
sincere admirers, Brahms had a large follow-
ing; and when he died in 1897 he left two
hundred thousand florins ($80,000), the profits
on the sale of his compositions.

It was a very clever bit of strategy thus to
pit Brahms against Wagner, for it gave him a
prominence which otherwise he would never
have had. From any other point of view it
was palpably absurd to oppose these two men
to each other; for there was absolutely no occa-
sion for rivalry between them. They worked
in entirely different fields, Wagner bestowing
all his attention on opera, while Brahms de-
tested opera almost as much as Franz did, and
wrote symphonies, songs, and chamber-music.
The men properly to oppose to Brahms were
Franz and Rubinstein. In chamber-music
Brahms holds his own against any modern
156

Brahms

rival ; but his symphonies, while cleverly con-
structed, have not one tithe of the ideas to be
found in Rubinstein's Dramatic and Ocean sym-
phonies, and the same lack of ideas we note
in his songs, as compared with Franz's. Yet
Brahms's symphonies and songs are to-day on
all concert programmes, while Franz and Ru-
binstein are neglected. But it will not remain
so. There was a time when Hegel was so pop-
ular that the Berlin students used to crawl
through the windows to make sure of getting a
seat in his lecture-room ; while Schopenhauer —
who had more ideas than all other German phi-
losophers put together — was ignored. To-day
Schopenhauer's works are scattered broadcast
in hundreds of thousands of volumes, while
Hegel has become a mere name and it is diffi-
cult to get copies of his works. Read Brahms
for Hegel, Franz for Schopenhauer, and you
will have a glimpse of the music of the future.
Ideas alone confer immortality on works of
art ; and genius might be defined as the faculty
for originating ideas. Form is only the dress
for ideas. Brahms was a great dress-maker —
a musical Worth. No one ever knew better
than he how to cut and shape musical gar-
ments and to trim them with elegant varia-
tions. But his faculty for originating ideas
was weak and, therefore, he is not an immortal.

157

German Song-Writers After Schubert

The art of dress-making can be taught and
acquired, but ideas come from heaven. There
is no formal defect in the songs of Reichardt,
Zelter, Zumsteeg that could have prevented
them from living always. They have perished
because so few ideas were embodied in them ;
and for the same reason Brahms's songs will
perish, when the finish of their dress no longer
attracts attention. I do not deny that there
are many interesting details in these songs
— quaint rhythmic combinations, often original,
and fine harmonies which, however, can usually
be traced back to Bach, Schubert, Chopin, Schu-
mann, and sometimes to Wagner. But his mel-
odic faculty is lamentably weak. Tchaikovsky
doubtless went too far when he wrote * that
Brahms was altogether incapable of melodic in-
vention. I could point out some new melo-
dies in his works, several of them of ravishing
beauty, but there are not enough of these to
atone for the melodic barrenness and triviality
of the others. No doubt there is in his songs
plenty of broad, flowing melody calculated to
please the singers as well as the audiences-, nor
do I deny that Brahms's melody is, as Professor
Niecks puts it, " distinguished by purity, sim-
plicity, naturalness, and grace." What I main-

* Musikahsche Erinnerungen, p. 34.

158

Brahms

tain is that it is not new, not original. To come
across a new Schubert or a Franz song is like
seeing a new kind of a flower, whereas Brahms's
melodies are only new tints or slight variations
of flowers you have seen a hundred times be-
fore. In other words, his melodies — and usual-
ly his harmonies too — are like the musical small-
talk of Mendelssohn, provokingly trite and com-
monplace. I am often amazed that he should
have been willing to pen and print such mean-
ingless twaddle. But he did not write in vain,
for there is a surprisingly large number of per-
sons who cannot tell the difference between mu-
sical small-talk and music which embodies new
ideas. Many even prefer the small-talk. They
do not care if a melody is original, so it be sing-
able and loud enough, and not too much buried
in the piano part. Such persons may derive
much pleasure from Brahms," while, on the other
hand, musical experts cannot fail to admire his
technical virtuosity, which puts him on a level
with the great masters.

Brahms wrote one hundred and ninety-six
songs for one voice, with piano-forte, to verses
by fifty-nine different poets. He was careful in
the choice of his poems, but unable to infuse
their moods into his music. Emotional charac-
terization is a thing rarely to be found in his
songs. He seems to have but one mood for

German Song-Writers After Schubert

love, for nature, for joy, for sorrow ; and usual-
ly the feeling is but skin-deep. His admirers
often place him above Schumann ; but, as Pro-
fessor Niecks asks pertinently, " Do we find in
his music Schumann's glow of feeling, fragrance
of poetry; in short, his magic of romance?"
I cannot agree with Dr. Reimann that Brahms's
best works are his songs. To me they seem his
least successful efforts. He was an instrumen-
talist by nature, not a born writer for voice.
His vocal part is often conceived instrumental-
ly; and like the old "classical" writers, to
whom he hearkens back so much, he adapts
the verses to his music rather than vice versa,
as is done by the true song-writer, who, as
Franz said, " makes the music grow out of the
text." In one thing only does Brahms surpass
Franz : in " liberating the melody," to quote
Dr. Reimann, " from the monopoly of the tra-
ditional four-bar formation of periods."

The most popular of the Brahms songs are
not always the best. Singers favor them be-
cause they show off their voices to advantage.
Perhaps the one most frequently sung is the
Vergebliches Stdndchen, which appears to me as
commonplace in its music as it is indelicate in
its verses. The Sapphische Ode and Feldeinsam-
keit are not much better musically ; nor can I
understand the admiration which many profess
1 60

Jensen and Others

for the Magellonen cyclus. Liebestreu is a good
song and Wie bist du meine Konigin is better still ;
but the best by far of all his songs, in my opin-
ion, is the Minnelied. * Concert singers neglect
it, because its chief beauty is in the piano part.
But it is an adorable song, which I love almost
as much as my Schubert and Franz favorites.
I have often been told by Brahmsites that I
should live to like all his music after hearing it
oftener. But the more I hear it the less I like it,
with the exception of a few things, like this Min-
nelied, which I loved at first hearing.

JENSEN AND OTHERS

Unlike Brahms and Mendelssohn, Adolf Jen-
sen (1837-1879) enjoyed less than his just share
of popularity and prosperity. His short life
was a perpetual struggle against poverty and
ill health ; and it is pathetic to read of his great
disappointment at not being able to hear the
first performance of Wagner's Meistersinger in

* Printed in vol. iii. of the Ausgewdhlte Lieder ; Berlin : Sim-
rock. German, English, and French words. The German pub-
lishers of Brahms have not yet issued any comprehensive albums,
but only groups of five to fifteen. An album of twenty-seven se
lected Brahms songs, with excellent English translations of the
text, is published by Novello, Ewer & Co. This includes only the
earlier works, op. 3-19.

161

German Song-Writers After Schubert

Munich, simply because the opera was post-
poned and he had not the means to remain
longer.* His enthusiasm for Wagner belongs,
however, to a later period in his life. His first
thirty-five songs were written under the in-
fluence of Schumann — whom he adored and
corresponded with — and of whom they are often
reminiscent. During a sojourn of two years
(1858-59) in Copenhagen he was intimate with
Gade, and thus came more or less under Men-
delssohnian influences; while Schubert had
been one of his first favorites. Though he
wrote many pieces for the piano-forte, some of
them of great charm and worth, he was, like
Schubert and Franz, led to the Liedby a special
instinct ; and the songs he wrote — about one
hundred and sixty in number — constitute the
bulk of his work.

Together with other modern song-writers, he
has been accused of making his piano parts too
difficult and too prominent in relation to the
voice ; but this is an error. He was a born
composer for the voice; and, like Schubert, he
could not help making even his piano pieces
songs without words. I agree with Mr. Elson
in thinking that "Jensen's songs will take
higher rank than has hitherto been accorded

* See my Wagner and His Works, vol. ii., 137.
162

JENSEN.

Jensen and Others

them." Dr. Riemann goes so far as to say that,
" with far more justice than Robert Franz,
Jensen must be pronounced the heir of Schu-
mann as regards the Lied ; though he cannot be
accused of being an imitator. '

Jensen's activity as a song-writer may be
divided into two periods, roughly representing
the years before and after Wagner had taken
possession of his soul. One of his songs, which
everybody knows, is Lehn deine Wang' an meine
Wang (Oh ! press thy cheek against my cheek).
This has been charged with over-sentimental-
ity; but I cannot see anything maudlin i« it.
It is sound music, full of healthy emotion, the
melody effective, and the harmonies as stirring
as those in Schumann's Teh grolle nicht, to which
it is not in any way inferior. It is one of my
favorite songs, and it should be marked in a
song-Baedeker with two stars. It appeared in
opus i, dedicated to Louis Ehlert. Among
other works of the ante- Wagner period may be
mentioned the love-songs of opus 6, embodying
personal experiences and emotions, the seven
" Spanish " songs of opus 4, and the Hans songs,
opus ii, which Hans von Billow considered the
best of his songs up to 1863. Among these
early songs — and the later ones, too — there are
not a few that must be called mediocre ; but
the excellence of the others atones for them.

163

German Song- Writers After Schubert

In the year of the first Bayreuth festival Jen-
sen wrote to a friend regarding Wagner : " The
art-work of this man has occupied my attention
for years, and almost absorbed me." In 1870
he had secured a copy of Tristan und Isolde,
and, as he wrote to a friend, " for a week I rev-
elled in ecstasy over it without getting to the
end of the first act." Concerning his own songs
embodied in op. 40 and 41 he wrote: "In
these songs you will seek in vain for the former
gushing Jensen, who is no more. Earth grips
me once more. My great, venerated master,
Richard Wagner, lies deep at the bottom of my
heart." The Lieder which specially benefited
by the influence of Wagner are the Dolorosa
and Gaudeamus groups, op. 30 and 40, and the
English songs of op. 49-53. Wagner's superb
harmonies did not allure him to copy them;
they rather served as a stimulus to original
work, and assisted in the development of a
dramatic vein which had always existed in him
and which sometimes suggests Schubert.

This dramatic style is particularly noticeable

in the Cunningham and Scott ballads, included

'among his English songs, which he wrote at

Graz. These English songs must be specially

commended to amateurs and professionals.

They are settings of seven poems by Burns,

seven by Moore, four by Cunningham, six by

164

Jensen and Others

Scott, six by Tennyson and Felicia Hemans —
thirty in all.* By way of illustrating Jensen's
conscientiousness, Niggli informs us f that when
he composed these songs he consulted four
translations, besides the originals. He was par-
ticularly proud of these songs, which he re-
ferred to in 1877 as " my last and grandest ex-
cursion in the land of song."

It was the dramatic impulse in Jensen that
made him usually avoid strophic repetition and
compose his verses in detail. Another respect
in which he differed from his contemporary,
Franz, was that, as he confessed in one of his
letters, he had not much belief in the special
characteristics of the keys ; and, therefore, did
not seriously object to transpositions of his
songs for a lower voice. He preferred, how-
ever, to do the transposing himself, altering the
chords so as to make them sound well in the
lower position.

With Jensen we have entered the Wagnerian

* Some of the best of them are included in the 12 Lieder tind
Gesange von Jensen in the Hainauer edition (German and English
words). Particularly good are My heart is in the Highlands,
When through the Piazzetta, Reno gently here, my gondolier,
Slumber Song, and The Village Chime. The album in the Peters
edition contains earlier songs — Lehn deine Wang,' seven of the
" Spanish," etc.

t Adolf Jensen, von Arnold Niggli. Berlin, 1900. This is the
only book so far written on Jensen.

165

German Song-Writers After Schubert

period of German song. Before considering
that period, a word must, however, be said con-
cerning the minor composers of the preced-
ing epoch which we have been considering
in this chapter. Nearly every German com-
poser wrote some Lieder, even those who, like
Meyerbeer and Raff, are known almost exclu-
sively by their operas or their instrumental
works. Some composers, like Abt, Proch,
Kiichen, Gumbert, enjoyed for a generation or
two a great vogue with their songs, which
occupy a place half-way between the folk-
song and the artistic Lied. Sentimentality,
tunefulness, and sprightly rhythms are their
specialties. Of the four named Abt is the
best. His When the Swallows Homeward Fly
is almost as well known everywhere as Home
Sweet Home.

The songs of such writers as Lachner, Haupt-
mann, Dorn, Rietz, Reinecke, Eckert, Cursch-
mann, Reissiger, come for the most part under
the head of what Wagner called Kapellmeister-
musik: music such as every conductor is ex-
pected to write to show that he knows his trade ;
though he may not have an idea in his head.
On a somewhat higher level are the songs of
such men as Kirchner and Taubert ; yet their
productions, too, were ephemeral. They have
had their day and can never be revived, though

1 66

Wagner, Strauss, and Others

their best productions may be saved from the
general wreck.*

WAGNER, STRAUSS, AND OTHERS

When Richard Wagner was twenty-six years
old he went to Paris in the expectation of win-
ning fame and fortune there, as Gluck, Meyer-
beer, and other Germans had done. The Pari-
sians, however, had no use for him ; and during
the two years and a half he spent in their city
he was often on the verge of starvation.f In
every way possible to a musician he tried to
earn his daily bread, but failed in almost every
effort. Seeing that composers who had not a
tithe of his talent prospered by the writing of
songs, he tried his luck in that line, too. The
result was a setting of Heine's The Two Grena-
diers, Ronsard's Dors mon enfant, and Victor
Hugo's Attente. He hoped that these songs
might be sung in salons, and perchance occa-
sion some manager to ask him to write an opera.

* A good idea of the Lieder under consideration may be obtained
by securing one or more of the collections published by Breitkopf
& Hartel. No. 290 contains one hundred songs by forty com-
posers, No. 384 one hundred songs by forty-one composers. Nos.
180 and 352 are similar collections.

f For details of the pathetic story see my Wagner and his Works,
vol. i., pp. 65-92.

167

German Song-Writers After Schubert

But no singer, manager, or publisher paid the
least attention to them ; and he was finally com-
pelled to offer them to the editor of a periodical
in Germany for a maximum sum of $4 apiece.

Heine himself made the French translation of
his The Two Grenadiers for Wagner. Schumann
has often been praised for his " happy thought "
in introducing the Marseillaise in his setting of
the same poem ; but the happy thought was
Wagner's ; his song was composed in 1839 while
Schumann's was not given to the world till
1844. Schumann, however, assigns the French
patriotic air to the singer, while Wagner has it
only in the accompaniment, and his setting of
the poem is in most other respects inferior to
Schumann's. More meritorious, with some
characteristic Wagnerian touches, are the other
songs named. In the year following these he
composed some peculiarly lugubrious music to
Der Tannenbaum, a poem by Scheuerlein, which
shows us a boat on a lake, with a boy in it, who
asks a stately fir-tree on the shore why it looks
down on him so gloomily ; and the fir-tree re-
sponds: " Because already the axe is on its way
to cut me for your coffin." *

More than twenty years later (1862) Wagner

* This song is issued with the three French ones in Ftlrstner's
edition. The five songs of 1862 are printed (with German and
English words) by Schott.

168

Wagner, Strauss, and Others

composed five songs entitled, Der Engel, Stehe
Still, Im Treibhaus, Schmerzen, Trdume. The
first and fourth have some interesting modula-
tions, without being otherwise remarkable. In
the second half of Stehe Still we get into the
midst of Tristanesque harmonies, while Im
Treibhaus and Trdume are sketches for Tristan
und Isolde, resembling the sketches great paint-
ers make for pictures. These two songs are
charming and are often sung in concert-halls.

It was not by these Lieder, however, that
Wagner exercised his sway over the song-writ-
ers of the second half of his century. If Schu-
bert influenced the opera by his Lieder, Wagner,
conversely, influenced the Lied by his operas —
notably Lohengrin, Tristan und Isolde, and Die
Meister singer. Many a song-writer of our time
— and not only in Germany — has evidently
studied the Tristan score (usually in Hans von
Biilow's version for piano-forte and voice) as
enthusiastically as Jensen did. Love remains,
as it always was, the favorite theme of song-
composers ; and as Tristan und Isolde gives ex-
pression to both the tenderness and the irresisti-
ble ardor of this passion in a way that no pre-
vious composer had approximated, it was inevi-
table that it should help to create a new style
of love-lyrics. Die Meister singer, on the other
hand, showed the way to a new humorous treat-

169

German Song-Writers After Schubert

ment of the Lied. Wagner's influence on the
Lied is everywhere manifested in the adoption
of his wonderfully original and expressive har-
monic and modulatory system, as well as in the
declamatory use of the voice after his manner,
and in the tendency toward a detailed dramatic
treatment of the text, giving every word its
due — a tendency which reached its climax in
Liszt.

Of the German song-writers who have won
distinction since the death of Wagner the most
interesting and important is Richard Strauss.
He is still a young man, having been born in
Munich in 1864; yet he is to-day the most
widely discussed, the most highly lauded, and
the most cordially abused of living composers.
This is owing chiefly to his symphonic poems,
in which programme music goes beyond even
Berlioz and Liszt, and the orchestration of
which out-Wagners Wagner in complexity
and lavish display of color. As a song-writer
he has come much into vogue in recent years ;
yet most of his admirers will be surprised to
hear that he has already written about fifty
Lieder. *

The first thing that strikes one about these

* They are beautifully printed in sheet-music form Cwith Ger-
man and English words) by Jos. Aibl in Munich.
170

Wagner, Strauss, and Others

songs is their difficulty, and the composer's
predilection for unusual keys. The Vienna
publishers who used to object to Schubert's,
piano-forte parts and beg him to use easy keys
with no more than three flats or sharps, would
stand aghast at Richard Strauss, whose pages
sometimes look like a .wilderness of flats and
sharps, with the head of a note timidly peeping
out here and there. Familiarity, however, soon
breeds contempt for these accidentals ; while
the songs grow more and more beautiful. The
art of tonal coloring, which is so noticeable in
the orchestral works of Strauss, is also applied,
as far as possible, to his piano-forte parts. He
is fond of surging arpeggios sweeping the key-
board up and down, and producing harmonies
so rich and glowing that one often feels tempted
to keep the pedal down longer than necessary,
and linger on the resulting chord just to enjoy
its euphony. Schubert was the first who in-
dulged in chords alluring by their euphony —
color for color's sake — but he never dreamed of
such orchestral glories in the piano-forte, of such
arpeggios, and commingling of weird harmo-
nies. Here are harmonies not anticipated by
Bach, Chopin, or Wagner ; harmonies beyond
the daring of even Liszt and Grieg.

Some of these harmonies — or discords — are
frankly ugly, but they are characteristic, and we

German Song- Writers After Schubert

soon get to love them as we do faces that have
more character than beauty. We look for
something more than beauty in a man's face —
why not also in a man's music ? Yet beauty
there is, too, in these songs — sometimes in allur-
ing abundance, as just stated ; nor is it confined
to the piano part. Elaborate as the piano part
is, it does not swamp the voice, which stands out
as boldly as in Wagner's music-dramas when
they are properly sung and played* These songs
are not much easier for the singer than for the
pianist, and they are not for bungling amateurs.
Serious music-lovers may as well begin with
some of the easier ones — such as Morgen, Ach
Lieb\ ich muss nun scheiden, Brett iiber mein Haupt
dein schwarzes Haar, Die Nacht, Nachtgang, Ach
weh mir ungluckhaftem Manne — which also hap-
pen to be among the best. The appetite will
soon grow for what it feeds on, and those who are
not afraid of technical difficulties will have a rich
menu to chose from. As regards the poems, it
is self-evident that the writer of the Zarathustra
programme makes some novel experiments in
the Lied too. Among the songs in the comic

* Our eminent Wagnerian soprano, Mme. Nordica, has also
shown herself an admirable interpreter of Richard Strauss. Her
singing of the Serenade — one of his best songs — was one of the
most enjoyable features of the musical season 1899-1900 in New
York.

172

Wagner, Strauss, and Others

vein I may mention Herr Lenz and Fur funfzehn
Pfennige.

Beside Strauss two other eminent contempo-
rary conductors have written good Lieder — Felix
Mottl and Felix Weingartner. Mottl has written
about a score of songs, among which the sombre
ones have found most favor. More attention has
been paid to the Lied by Weingartner, who has
written already more than seventy songs — a con-
siderable number for one who was born as late
as 1863, and who has also written several operas
and orchestral works. His ballads enjoy great
and deserved popularity. Schlanke Lilien, Schif-
ferliedcken, Fruhlingsgespenster, Wallfahrt nach
Kevlaar, Post im Walde, are among his best songs.
But the limits of our space do not permit of our
dwelling in detail on these or on the many in-
teresting songs written by Raff, A. von Fielitz,
Eugen D' Albert, Carl Goldmark, Alexander
Ritter, Albert Fuchs, Robert Kahn, M. Pliid-
demann, H. Behn, Hans Hermann, Hugo
Wolf, A. Wallnofer, Hugo Kaun, Max Reger,
J. Rheinberger, Hugo Reichenberger, Otto
Naumann, R. Buck, Bruno Oscar Klein, who
has written some excellent songs and properly
belongs to the German-American group ; etc.*

* Some information concerning most of these may be found in
an article by H. Kretzschmar ' Das deutsche Lied seit dem
Tode Wagner's," Jahrbuch der Musikbibliothek Peters, 1898.

173

V

Hungarian and Slavic Song- Writers

GLANCING at the table of contents of this
book and noticing how many more pages
are devoted to the German song-writers than
to those of all other countries combined, a read-
er might easily think that a disproportionate
amount of attention had been given to the Teu-
tons. But that is not the case. As Liszt has
remarked, " the Lied is poetically and musically
a product peculiar to the Germanic muse." It
is significant, as H. Ehrlich has said, that "Lied
is the only purely German word in musical par-
lance ; opera, oratorio, aria, symphony, quartet,
sonata, concerto, are imported words ; but Lied
is quite German. It is also untranslatable.
French and English concert announcements
and criticisms now nearly always use the word
Lied, because ' air ' does not mean the same thing
at all." Nevertheless, many of the best Lieder,
or art-songs, have been written by non-Ger-
mans; but they can all be traced back to Ger-
man influences. Liszt, Rubinstein, Tchaikov-
174

Liszt

sky, Dvorak, Grieg, MacDowell, and others,
probably would have written no Lieder at all,
or quite different ones, had not Schubert, Schu-
mann, and Franz preceded them as pioneers in
this new and delightful field of music.

LISZT

Were I writing a book on folk-song, Hungary
and some of the Slavic countries — especially
Russia, Poland, and Bohemia — would claim
much of my time and space ; but as this is a
history of art-song — and a mere sketch at that
—mention can be made of the principal com-
posers only : Liszt in Hungary, Rubinstein and
Tchaikovsky in Russia, Chopin and Paderewski
in Poland, Dvorak in Bohemia. Hungary has
given birth to many eminent musicians, such as
Bihary, Lavetta, Czermak, Erkel, Heller, Dop-
pler, Remenyi, Joseffy, Joachim, Vagvolgyi,
and Goldmark ; but the only song-writer among
them who can be ranked with the great Ger-
mans is Franz Liszt (181 1-1886). In his capacity
as song-composer Liszt might, indeed, have been
classed with the Germans, for nearly all of his
Lieder — fifty-one out of about sixty — were com-
posed to German texts. It is one of the great
achievements of Liszt to have introduced Mag-
yar melodies and rhythms and gypsy-like prna-

175

Hungarian and Slavic Song-Writers

mentation into art-music more successfully than
any one else ; but his instinct told him that
those traits were more suitable to instrumental
than to vocal music ; and we find accordingly
among his songs only two that have a marked
Hungarian flavor : Isten Veled (Farewell') and The
Three Gypsies, which, also, like several others ot
the songs, exists with an orchestral accompani-
ment and has become tolerably familiar in our
concert-halls. The music gives as graphic a
description as the poem of the three favorite
Bohemian ways of " smoking, sleeping, and fid-
dling life away."

It is not known exactly when Liszt began to
compose songs. The best of them belong to
the Weimar period, when he was in the full ma-
turity of his creative power. There are stories
of songs inspired by love while he lived in Paris ;
and he certainly did write six settings of French
songs, chiefly by Victor Hugo. These he pre-
pared for the press in 1842. While less original
in melody and modulation than the best of his
German songs, they have a distinct French
esprit and elegance which attest his power of
assimilation and his cosmopolitanism. These
French songs, fortunately for his German ad-
mirers, were translated by Cornelius. Italian
leanings are betrayed by his choice of poems by
Petrarch and Bocella ; but, as already intimated,
176

LISZT.

Liszt

his favorite poets are Germans : Goethe, Schil-
ler, Heine, Hoffmann von Fallersleben, Uhland,
Riickert, and others. Goethe — who could not
even understand Schubert, and to whom Liszt's
music would have been pure Chinese — is fa-
vored by settings of Mignon s Lied (Kennst du
das Land], Es war ein Konig in Thule, Der du -von
dem Himmel bist, Ueber alien Gipfeln ist Ruh, Wer
nie sein Brod mit Thranen ass, Freudvoll und leid-
voll (two versions).

Mignon was the second of his German songs,
and it is the most deeply emotional of all the
settings of that famous poem. Longing is its
key-note ; longing for blue-skyed Italy with its
orange-groves, marble treasures, and other de-
lights. One of the things which Wagner ad-
mired in Liszt's music was " the inspired defi-
niteness of musical conception " which enabled
him to concentrate his thought and feeling in
so pregnant a way that one felt inclined to ex-
claim after a few bars, " Enough ! I have it all."
The opening bar of Mignon 's Lied thus seems to
condense the longing of the whole song ; yet,
as the music proceeds, we find it is only a pre-
lude to a wealth of musical detail which colors
and intensifies every word and wish of the
poem.

The King of Thule is a ballad which would be
heard a dozen times in our concert halls every

177

Hungarian and Slavic Song-Writers

season, if singers were more enterprising and
intelligent in ascertaining what is good and
what the public would be sure to like. Liszt's
songs are neglected by most concert-singers
because in them the piano-forte part shares the
honors too much to suit the notions of these
vain persons regarding the importance of show-
ing off their best notes. If they would take the
pains to enter thoroughly into the spirit of his
music, and try to be one with the pianist (as
Vogl was with Schubert), they would find that
the audience — as it does at Wagner's operas —
would no longer discriminate between the voice
and the " accompaniment," but would applaud
the singers for the fine effect of the combination.
To be sure, it takes an artist to play Liszt's
piano parts properly. Those who have been
so lucky as to hear Mr. Georg Henschel and
his wife play and sing a Liszt song will never
forget the treat — and the lesson. Regarding the
KingofThule, I may add that it is exceptionally
effective and " grateful " for an intelligent
singer.

All of the six settings of the Goethe poems are
gems, and Dr. Hueffer quite properly gave each
of them a place in his collection of Twenty Liszt
Songs* Concerning the Wanderer s Nightsong

* Published by Novello, Ewer & Co., with Dr. Hueffer's ad-
mirable English version. The selection is a good one, but as it

178

Liszt

(Ueber alien Gipfeln ist Ruh), Dr. Hueffer has
well said that Liszt has rendered the heavenly
calm of the exquisite poem by his wonderful
harmonies in a manner which alone would se-
cure him a place among the great masters of
German song. " Particularly the modulation
from G major back into the original E major at
the close of the piece, is of surprising beauty."
For composers of musical lyrics Schiller
wrote much fewer available poems than Goethe.
But Schubert owed to him one of his finest
songs — The Maidens Lament. Next to him,
as an illustrator ot Schiller, I feel inclined to
place Liszt, who is at his best in his settings of
three poems from William Tell: The Fisher Boy,
The Shepherd, and The Alpine Hunter. Liszt,
like Schubert, favors poems which bring a scene
or a story vividly before the mind's eye ; and he
loves to write music which mirrors these pic-
torial features. Schubert's Mullerlieder seemed
to have exhausted the possible ways of depict-
ing in music the movements of the waters; but

includes only a third of the songs, vocalists should also get the
Gesammtlte Lieder, published by Kahnt (German words). Dr.
Hueffer has written a few good pages on Liszt's songs in his
Wagner and the Music of the Future (pp. 277-286), in which the
elaborate comparison of Liszt's and Franz's way of treating the
same poem — Heine's Am Rhein — is particularly instructive. A
detailed description of Liszt's songs (fifty pages) has been written
by Bernhard Vogel, and printed by Kahnt (1887).

179

Hungarian and Slavic Song-Writers

listen to the rippling arpeggios in Liszt's Fisher
Boy, embodying the acquisitions of modern pia-
nistic technique. The shepherd's song brings
before our eyes and ears the flower-meadows
and the brooks of the peaceful Alpine world in
summer; while the song of the hunter gives us
dissolving views of destructive avalanches and
appalling precipices, with sudden glimpses,
through cloud-rifts, of meadows and hamlets at
dizzy depths below. Wagner himself, in the
grandest mountain and cloud scenes of the
Walkiire and Siegfried, has not written more
superbly dissonant and appropriate dramatic
music than has Liszt in this exciting song.

Heine was a personal friend of Liszt, and as
a matter of course, some of his poems, too, were
adorned with Liszt's music — six of them —
Lore ley, Am Rhein, Vergiftet sind meine Lieder,
Du bist ivie eine Blume, Morgens steJi tcli auf. und
frage, Ein Fichtenbaum steht einsam. They all
abound in exquisite details of melody and har-
mony ; but I can stop to speak of one only —
Loreley — the first of his German songs. It is
not only beautiful, musically, but it admirably
illustrates Liszt's general method as a song-
writer, and enables us to look back, as from a
height, over the whole evolution of the song.

The charm of the fully developed mediaeval
folk-song lies, as we have seen, in the close
1 80

Liszt

sympathy between the words and the music,
both expressing the same mood. At the same
time, when we examine into the matter more
closely, we find that the correspondence is only
a general one, and does not extend to details.
There is only one melody, which is repeated
stanza after stanza, no matter how much the
story may change. Thus it may happen in a
long ballad that the same music is used to illus-
trate successively scenes of love and hatred, of
peace and war ; which, of course, is inartistic.
// is here that the art-song improves on the folk-
song by adopting the method of through-com-
posing : making the music change as the words
change. Schubert was the first who realized
the full importance of this method, and em-
bodied it in immortal songs. But he does not
often go so far as to resort to word-painting —
making the music follow individual words — and
he usually retains the concise strophic form.

In these respects Liszt goes beyond Schubert
and his followers, and represents the extreme
development of the tendency which differen-
tiates the art-song from the folk-song. He not
only makes the music adopt the hue of each
significant phrase and word, but in his best and
most elaborate songs he ignores the strophic
form of the poem — as Wagner gave up the
symmetrical airs and other set forms that used
181

Hungarian and Slavic Song- Writers

to make up the operatic mosaic — and gives us,
in place of that symmetrical form, a continuous
musical plot from the structure of which all re-
mains of the original dance-form of the folk-
song are eliminated — for it is well known that,
originally, all vocal music was dance-music.

Loreley presents a striking instance of Liszt's
method. It is no wonder that his novel treat-
ment of Heine's famous poem should have
aroused surprise — nay, indignation ; for hith-
erto the Germans had always sung this poem to
Silcher's popular air, which was repeated with-
out change in the six stanzas. Even that early
champion of the " music of the future," Dr.
Hueffer, while admitting the beauty and ex-
pressiveness of Liszt's song, declared that for
such a poem Silcher's simple tune seemed more
appropriate than Liszt's elaborate dramatic
treatment of the subject. I cannot agree with
him. Heine's poem is, indeed, as simple as any
strophic folk-song ; but, after all, what gives it
its poetic value is not its metric structure and
rhyme, but its subject. It presents a series of
poetic pictures : a complete miniature drama is
enacted before our eyes ; and Liszt translates
this into music. His pensive opening bars are
a prelude to the poet's query why he feels so
sad to-day, and why a legend of old times
keeps lingering in his mind. Then we get a
182

Liszt

vision of the calmly flowing Rhine, with gently
undulating music; and in the twilight we be-
hold the maiden sitting on the rocks, combing
her golden hair. She sings a song which has
a strange melody — a most seductive song in
Liszt's version. The boatman passing in his
skiff below is entranced ; a wild longing seizes
his soul ; he gazes fixedly at the maiden above,
heedless of the dangerous rocks about him ; and
her song is to blame if the waves at last engulf
him with his boat.

By converting this miniature tragedy into a
music-drama, Liszt has done infinitely more
than Silcher did with his changeless air,
pretty though it is. He shatters the strophic
form ; but what a wealth of beauty and emotion
he gives us in return ! In place of Silcher's
unchanging air — a genuine folk-song — he
gives us several melodies of, at least, equal
beauty ; and, the most important point of all,
while Silcher's tune, like other folk-songs, has
only the simplest and most commonplace ac-
companiment, Liszt makes use of all those
harmonic and modulatory acquisitions which
enable the composer to express the deeper and
more subtle emotions, and which constitute the
second and greatest advantage of art-music over
folk-music. For these various reasons, though
each is charming in its way, I would not give
183

Hungarian and Slavic Song-Writers

Liszt's Loreley for a dozen like Silcher's. It
symbolizes the difference between music which
has only melody, and music which adds to mel-
ody the infinitely varied charm and emotional
power of harmony. The melody of folk-songs
has delighted and influenced some of the great-
est composers — men like Weber, Haydn, Schu-
bert, Liszt, Chopin, Dvofak, Grieg — but all
these masters have written greater things than
folk-songs, because they had the resources of
harmony as well as of melody to inspire them.
With Liszt the development of the Lied
reached its end, apparently. Other composers
have since written beautiful and great songs;
but they are important and valuable only as
emanations of individual genius, not as mark-
ing new phases in the evolution of song.

RUBINSTEIN

When Liszt's songs were first printed they
were generally reviewed unfavorably, so far as
they received any notice at all. The attitude
of the critics was summed up in the advice of
one of them — that young composers should
study them in order to find out " how not to do
it." Anton Rubinstein (1830-1894) was another
composer with whom the Philistine critics were
never satisfied. But while the hostility toward
184

RUBINSTEIN.

Rubinstein

Liszt was due chiefly to his daring innovations,
especially in matters of form and harmony,
Rubinstein came under the ban for quite differ-
ent reasons. He hated the music of Liszt and
Wagner as the devil hates holy-water; and he
was a good deal like Mendelssohn — a roman-
ticist with a strong leaning toward the classical
schools of the past. Why, then, was he abused
by these same critics ? Because, as they said,
he was so careless in his workmanship, and did
not sufficiently file his pieces. As Professor
Niecks has said, " he seems to be always im-
patient to finish a thing."

It is quite true that Rubinstein was not a
flawless artist ; and that, if genius is the capacity
for taking infinite pains, he was not a genius.
But if this definition were true, every German
professor would be a genius. In reality, genius
is very rare among German professors. But if
genius is, as I have defined it, the faculty for
creating new ideas, then Rubinstein was not
only a genius, but a genius of a very high
order. In the realm of harmony he was less
original than some of his contemporaries ; but
as a fertile melodist he has had few equals at
any time. He was a good deal like Schubert
in both his merits and his faults ; and 1 suspect
that he had himself in mind when he wrote that
" God made woman, undoubtedly the most
185

Hungarian and Slavic Song-Writers

beautiful of created things, but full of short-
comings; he did not file at her, being convinced
that her faults would be annulled by her
charms. So it is with Schubert ; his melodies
atone for all blemishes, if there really are any."
Rubinstein is right. The constant critical
harping or parroting on Schubert's real and
fancied shortcomings has for a long time
blinded the world as to his very high rank.
Too frequent insistence on Rubinstein's unde-
niable faults has had the same effect in his case.
Here lies the explanation of a great mystery.
The public loves, above all things, melody, and
Rubinstein is brimful of melody ; why, then, is
he not heard oftener in our concert-halls? He
is neglected there, I answer, not because the
public does not want him, but because the
professionals, with their minds fixed on his
(absurdly exaggerated) imperfections, refuse to
perform him. I know from long experience
that whenever his works are given they are
enthusiastically applauded ; yet the perform-
ers perversely hold back, intimidated, ap-
parently, by the critics. But Rubinstein's
day will come. It would have come ere this,
had it not been for his blind and foolish rage
against Wagner, the idol of our time, which
prejudiced many and deterred them from ex-
amining his own works.

1 86

Rubinstein

Songs being short, Rubinstein had less temp-
tation in them than in his larger works for
" getting impatient " and doing slovenly work
in patches. Consequently it is here that we
find many of his brightest inspirations. Not
all of his one hundred and fifty-five songs, by
any means, are inspired ; a considerable pro-
portion, as in the case of Schubert and Schu-
mann, should never have been printed. But the
number of good ones is large, and the best of
them have a charm which should be proclaimed
from the house-tops. Everybody, of course,
knows the superb The Asra, Yellow Rolls at my
Feet, and A Flower Thou Resemblest; but these
are no better than a score or two of the others.
The most quaint and original of them all are
comprised in opus 34, in which are set to music
twelve Persian poems of Bodenstedt (" Mirza-
Schaffy ").* These are remarkable not only for
their melodic freshness and interesting piano
parts, but for their piquant Oriental coloring

* They are included (German and English words) in Kistner's
Rubinstein Album ; also in Augener's collection of fifty-eight Ru-
binstein songs (same languages). Seven of them are in the
Novello Rubinstein album, with Dr. Hueffer's admirable trans-
lations into English. Three further volumes of Rubinstein's
songs are published by Senff. Attention should also be called
to Rubinstein's duos, many of which are admirable and most
effective for private or public performance.

187

Hungarian and Slavic Song-Writers

as revealed chiefly in the unusual melodic in-
tervals. Hans von Billow thought it strange
that Rubinstein should have been able to con-
ceive in his own mind such " Persian " coloring.
But Rubinstein did not originate these quaint
intervals and turns ; they are characteristic of
Oriental music in general, the song of the priest-
ess in Verdi's A'ida being a charming instance.
Rubinstein's Hebrew blood made it the more
easy for him to assimilate such Orientalism. It
is needless to name the other gems, such as the
delightful Spanish Ring Thou My Pandero, or
The Dew Drops Glitter, The Earth at Rest, The
Angel, Good Night, The Tear, Spring Song, Morn-
ing Song, the songs of opus 72, etc. Every sing-
er, amateur or professional, owes it to himself
and to his hearers to have them in his repertory.
In my opinion a composer like Rubinstein,
whose workmanship is sometimes careless, but
who bubbles over with ideas, is infinitely supe-
rior to a Brahms whose workmanship is flaw-
less but who has an idea only once a month.

TCHAIKOVSKY AND DVORAK.

The Oriental coloring in some of Rubinstein's
songs did not save him from being dubbed
a " German " by the Chauvinists of the neo-
Russian school. Nor did Peter Iljitch Tchaik-

188

Tchaikovsky and Dvorak

ovsky (1840- 1 893) escape the terrible accusation
of not being a genuine Russian in his music.
There is, indeed, less of the national Russian
flavor in his music than in that of the neo-
Russians — Cui, Borodin, Rimsky-Korsakoff,
Balakireff, and others. But like Rubinstein,
he differs from these neo-Russians in having
genius ; and for that reason we must give him a
paragraph here. Few are aware that he wrote
a large number of songs — eighty-four, or, in-
cluding sixteen chansons enfantines, just one
hundred.* They cover the whole period of his
creative activity, the first group being opus 6,
the last opus 73 ; and, as in the case of most com-
posers, the later ones are much superior to the
earlier ones.f My favorite among them all
occurs in opus 65. It is as simple as a folk-song
— indeed it has the flavor of a true Russian folk-
song — but the harmonic genius of the composer
of the Pathetic Symphony is evident in every bar.
It is almost as sad as that symphony, and its title
is Enttauschung (Disappointment). Among

* See the Catalogue Thematique, published by Jurgenson,
Moscow.

f Most of the Tchaikovsky songs are still published singly or
in groups of six, seven, and twelve, by Flirstner, Drahtner, and
others, with German and Russian or German and English words.
The Novellos publish a selection of twenty-four, Englished by
Lady Macfarren, which is a good one to begin with.

189

Hungarian and Slavic Song- Writers

others I may mention the Spanish Serenade,
Why so Pale Are the Roses, None but a Lonely
Heart (very fine), The Song that You Sang Long
Ago, Canary Bird, Invocation to Sleep, The Czars
Drinking-House.

While greatly admiring many of Tchaikov-
sky's songs, I admit that I do not think that, as
a rule, he has given us his best in them ; having
reserved his most original and pregnant musical
ideas for his orchestral works, which to-day are
second in popularity to none. The same criti-
cism applies to another deservedly popular com-
poser of our time, the Bohemian Dr. Antonin
Dvorak (born in 1841). His New World sym-
phony (written during the years that he pre-
sided over Mrs. Thurber's National Conserva-
tory in New York) and many of his other
orchestral works bubble over with fresh and
bright melody and novel harmonic progressions;
but, like Wagner, he seems to need the glowing
color-possibilities of an orchestra to stimulate
his fancy to its finest flights. He apparently
discovered this himself, as songs are much more
numerous in his early period — the opus numbers
from 2 to 17 include twenty-seven Lieder —
than in the later ones. At the same time there
is much that is attractive in some of these songs,
and it is unfair to neglect them. In the Novello
album of sixteen Dvorak songs special attention
190

Chopin and Paderewski

may be called to Go Forth, My Song, Naught to
My Heart Can Bring Relief, Rest in the Valley, The
Cuckoo, Visions of Heaven, Like to a Linden Tree. In
most of his songs DvoHk writes like a German
rather than like a Bohemian. He laid on more
ethnical coloring in his Gypsy Songs, which won
immediate popularity, and in which he uses the
quaint gypsy rhythms and melodic intervals
with great success. It is a pity he has not
written more specifically Bohemian songs.

CHOPIN AND PADEREWSKI

Poland is preeminently the land of pianists,
and Polish music seems to us rather instru-
mental than vocal in character, on account of
its peculiar intervals and exotic dance rhythms.
Yet we owe to Poland a score or so of the most
delightful of all songs. When Chopin was a
boy he often listened to the songs of the peas-
ants, wondering who had created them. To-day
the Polish peasants sing many songs which they
attribute to him, probably incorrectly. The only
ones certainly written by him are the Seventeen
Polish Songs embodied in opus 74. Professor
Niecks makes the amazing assertion in his work
on Chopin (vol. ii., p. 271) that these songs
may attract the attention of the lover and stu-
dent of Chopin's music, but that they add

191

Hungarian and Slavic Song-Writers

" little value to Chopin's musical legacy; " and
he refers to Nos. i, 5, 8, 4, and 12, as being de-
cidedly commonplace. I say, on the contrary
that if The Maiden s Wish and the Bacchanal are
commonplace, then every folk-song ever written
in any country is commonplace. More spon-
taneous, fresh, charming folk-melodies were
never conceived anywhere. No. 5, What a
Maiden Likes has, I admit, little merit ; nor do I
care for No. 7, The Messenger. But No. 8, My
Beloved is not uninteresting, and in No. 12 (My
Delights) we have one of the most impassioned
and dramatic lyrics ever created. It is one of
my favorite songs ; and I once saw a young lady
faint, overcome by the intense emotion em-
bodied in it. In all music, lyric or dramatic,
the thrill of a kiss has never been expressed so
ecstatically as in the twelve bars included in
the cresc. sempre piu accelerando*

* It would seem incredible that any one should pronounce such
a master-song " decidedly commonplace," were it not for the fact
that Niecks's two volumes are full of such preposterous opinions.
It is, indeed, a calamity that the task of writing the most elaborate
work on the life and compositions of Chopin should have fallen
into such hands. His book will have to be superseded by another
of the same scope ; the sooner the better. Mr. Huneker's Chopin :
The Man and His Music, is much more commendable ; but it
gives a mere sketch of the life, and there is, therefore, room for an-
other and exhaustive volume. I may add that Liszt — whose taste
in making selections from the works of others is universally ad-

192

Chopin and Paderewski

Though there are only seventeen Chopin
song's, their emotional range is wider than that
of not a few composers who have written more
than a hundred. Some, as just stated, are as
simple as folk-songs. To this class belongs, also,
No. 2, Spring. The plaintive No. 3 is less tune-
ful, but nearly as simple. The Bacchanal is as
full of animal spirits as a German students' song,
and the accompaniment is harmonically inter-
esting. More delightful still is the accompani-
ment of No. 6, especially on the last page ; while
the melody has the flow, breadth, and variety
of Schubert at his best. Broadly melodious,
too, is No. 8 ; while No. 9, though entitled A
Melody, gives more the impression of an ardent,
pathetic recitative with an accompaniment that
Schubert or Wagner could not have made more
dramatic. Highly dramatic, also, is the treat-
ment of No. 15, representing a storm in the for-
est, and of No. 10, The Horseman before the Bat-
tle. In great contrast to these is No. 14, The
Ring, in slow waltz-time — perhaps the most
popular of these songs. There is national color
and realism in the Lithuanian Song, No. 16; No.
13 is appropriately named Melancholy. There
is melancholy, too, and beautiful melody in No.

mired, even by those who do not like his own music — included in
his transcriptions for piano solo of six of Chopin's songs two of
those which Niecks sneers at — My Delights, and the Bacchanal.

193

Hungarian and Slavic Song- Writers

1 1 ; but the music does not match the grewsome-
ness of the text — Two corpses: one a soldier,
dying in the forest amid the croaking of crows
and the howling of wolves ; the other his sweet-
heart, dying at the same time in the town to the
booming sound of the church-bell. What this
song lacks in agony may be found in the last of
the set of seventeen, Poland's Dirge, perhaps
the most funereal song in existence, and at the
same time full of fascinating musical detail.
The poems for these songs were contributed by
several of Chopin's Polish friends.

If Chopin's charming songs are not so widely
known even now — half a century after his death
— as they deserve to be, this is due in part to the
peculiar attitude of the world in regard to spe-
cialism. If a man is expert and great in one
thing, it is difficult to persuade people that he
can be great in some other line too. The world-
wide renown of Liszt and Rubinstein as pia-
nists stood in the way of their being accepted as
composers. Chopin soon gave up playing in
public and became famed as a composer — for
the piano alone, however, wherefore his songs
were overlooked, though they are stamped with
the same traits of genius as his mazurkas, valses,
and polonaises.

Like his great predecessors, Ignace Paderew-
ski (born in 1860) is destined to suffer for a time
194

Chopin and Paderewski

as a composer, because of his great fame and
popularity as a pianist. Yet he has written a
number of beautiful and characteristic pieces
for piano — as well as for the orchestra, which
his countryman, Chopin, neglected. His op-
era has not been produced at the date of this
writing, but he has composed half a dozen songs
(opus 1 8), which I had the pleasure of hearing
him play on my piano before they were printed.
Though he simply hummed the melody, the
songs seemed strangely beautiful to me. It is
said that when the famous English tenor, Mr.
Lloyd, was asked to sing these new songs in
London, he hesitated at first ; no doubt from
fear that such a pre-eminent specialist at the
piano would not know how to write for the
voice. But as soon as he had glanced at them
he gladly accepted the invitation, and they were
much relished by the audience.

The poems which Paderewski selected for
these six songs are by Mickiewitz.* In the first
of them — My Tears Were Flowing — there is less of
the Polish atmosphere than in most of his music.
In the second, Wandering Along, there is more
of it, especially in the prelude, which is almost
as quaint as his delightful Cracovienne. No. 3,

* In the edition printed by Edward Schuberth & Co. , New York,
the English version is by Mrs. Helen D. Tretbar.

195

Hungarian and Slavic Song-Writers

My Sweetest Darling, is a setting of the same
poem which Chopin used for My Delights.
There is less eagerness in the osculatory climax
of the new setting; but it is a charming love-
song nevertheless. In Over the Waters, which
shows us rocks, clouds, flashes of lightning, mir-
rored in the water, the composer relies on pure-
ly musical means, without attempting word-
painting after the manner of Liszt. Ah ! What
Tortures has less the character of personal grief
than of that national zal peculiar to Poles and
embodied in their mazurkas. This melodious
and simple song might indeed be called a ma-
zurka for the voice. Mr. Lloyd, at the concert
referred to, recognizing its popular character,
used it as an encore piece. Another dainty
love-song, in the Anacreontic style — Were I a
Ribbon — concludes this first group of six; which
it is to be hoped will be followed by many
others.

196

VI

Scandinavian Song- Writers

AFTER Switzerland, Norway is the favorite
playground of European tourists; but
while Switzerland has done nothing of impor-
tance for music, Norway has produced a num-
ber of original composers ; including Grieg,
Kjerulf, Nordraak, Svendsen, Tellefsen, Selmer,
Schjelderup, Sinding, whose works seem to
mirror the mountains and fjords, the meadows
and forests, of their picturesque country. If
we add to these the Swedish Lindblad, Soder-
mann, Emil Sjogren, and the Danish Hart-
mann, Heise, Horneman, Gade, and Lange-
M uller, we have a notable list. It would be
interesting to examine the songs of some of
these, as there is much to commend in them ;
but the exigencies of space compel me to con-
fine myself to the king of the Scandinavian
composers, Edvard Grieg (born 1843).*

* Unlike some other composers of the first rank, Grieg has a
warm sympathy for his younger contemporaries, notably Sinding,
Lange-Mttller, and Sjogren. To Binding's songs he attaches

«97

Scandinavian Song-Writers

GRIEG

In telling the story of Schubert's life I stated
that the charm of his music — his spontaneous
melodies and emotional harmonies — cured the
operatic tenor Vogl of the tired feeling which
is so apt to overcome professional musicians,
and gave him a new interest and enthusiasm
for his art. In 1843 there was born at Bergen,
Norway, another song-writer who has the gift
of toning up the most blast musician. A trip
through Grieg's music is like a tour of Norway
for one who has never seen the scenery peculiar
to that country ; and it has the same bracing,
stimulating eSect on the nerves, the brain, and
the heart. When I had revelled in the music
of Chopin and Wagner, Liszt and Franz, to the
point of intoxication, I fancied that the last
word had been said in harmony and in melody ;
when lo! I came across the songs and piano-
forte pieces of Grieg, and once more found my-
self moved to tears of delight.

much importance. " He has been accused," he writes, "of being
too Wagnerian, but that, in my opinion, is a shallow judgment.
In his songs in particular he is all Sinding. Especially inspired
are his settings of Drachmann's poems. Lange-Mtiller and Sjtt-
gren also are extremely poetic and refined song-writers, the first-
named suggesting his Danish origin, while the other is more cos-
mopolitan."

198

GRIEG.

Grieg

Grieg has indeed created the latest, the most
modern, atmosphere in music. His harmonies
are more bold and daring even than those of
the dauntless reformers just named, and they
are entirely his own ; while his melodic font
seems as inexhaustible as Schubert's. Before
I became acquainted with the music of Grieg
I ranked Franz as second to Schubert among
all the song-writers. Now 1 have my doubts
in regard to the second place. When I hear
Franz I think he ought to keep it; when I hear
Grieg I think it belongs to him.

Grieg has been much more lucky than were
Schubert and Franz in winning contempora-
neous fame and popularity. His countrymen,
instead of decrying him, as the Germans do
their men of genius, feel proud of him ; and the
Norwegian Government has granted him, since
1874, an annual pension of 1,600 crowns ; which,
with the income from his works, has enabled
him to apply all of his strength — of which
there is not much, as he has been a sufferer
from a pulmonary complaint ever since 1860 —
to composition. Never, surely, was a more
praiseworthy disposition made of public funds.
In England his popular acceptance has been
hastened by the concerts he has given there
with the aid of his wife, Nina Grieg, who has
occasionally helped him by her soulful inter-

199

Scandinavian Song-Writers

pretations of his songs, as Clara Schumann
helped her husband by playing his piano-forte
music. It is likely, too, that Grieg found it
easier to strike a sympathetic chord in Eng-
land, because he is partly of British descent —
his great - grandfather, who wrote his name
Greig, having been a Scotchman. Grieg's
mother, however, was a Norwegian, and from
her he inherited his national tendencies, as
Chopin did from his Polish mother.

While Grieg has thus won his way to the
hearts of cultivated amateurs, the professionals
and the public at large hardly realize as yet his
exalted rank as a composer. Once more we
are confronted with the spectre of Jumbo.
" Grieg has written no symphonies, oratorios,
or operas ; ergo he cannot be one of the great-
est composers ! " As I have already discussed
this ridiculous habit of measuring genius with a
yardstick (p. 18), I need not dwell on it again.
Instead of sneering at Grieg for writing, apart
from some chamber-music, only short pieces
and songs, we ought to congratulate him and
ourselves that he was willing to put his best
ideas into these short forms, refusing to follow
the bad example of Haydn, Mozart, and Bee-
thoven, Gounod and Bizet, of treating them in
Cinderella fashion, keeping all their happy
thoughts for longer works. As long as an

Grieg

artist does write a song, he ought to be asked
to give us his best in it; and if he does, he
ought to get credit for it. A painter can
give us his best quite as well in a canvas a
foot wide as in one that covers a whole wall.
In fact, artists are apt to esteem a paint-
ing more highly in inverse proportion to its
size.

Another misconception that has retarded the
full appreciation of Grieg is the confusing of
the national traits in his music with those that
are the product of his individual genius. It is
quite true that he is a nationalist. At one time
he was in danger of being metamorphosed into
a German ; but luckily his strong individual-
ity made him rebel against the pedantries of
Moscheles and his other teachers at the Leipzig
conservatory. He sought refuge in the music
of Schumann, Chopin, and Wagner; and finally
returned to Norway, where he came under the
salutary influence of the Norwegian composer
Nordraak, who became his intimate friend and
adviser. " It was as though scales fell from my
eyes," wrote Grieg. "Through him, for the
first time, I became acquainted with the north-
ern folk-song and learned to understand my own
nature."

The loving study of the folk-song of his coun-
try could not but affect his style and thought

201

Scandinavian Song-Writers

This folk-music is healthy and robust, often
rugged as the bold rocks that overhang the
fjords, and it delights in abrupt changes; its
rhythms are irregular and capricious, the ton-
ality uncertain and vacillating ; and there is a
preference for the minor mode and quaint inter-
vals. In all these respects Grieg's music re-
minds one of the folk-songs of his country ; but
while his compositions are unmistakably Nor-
wegian, it is important to remember that there
is much more of Grieg in them than of Norway.
The melodies, though redolent of their native
soil, are emphatically his own — you do not find
such enchanting melodies even among Norwe-
gian folk-songs — and still more unmistakably
his own are his bold and fascinating harmonies;
for folk-music in its primitive state has no har-
monies at all, whereas Grieg's music, as I have
already remarked, represents the very latest
phase in the evolution of harmony.* His

* It has been noted by some commentators that Grieg, like
Liszt and Franz, occasionally makes use of the ecclesiastic modes
which preceded our major and minor in the evolution of harmony,
and which sound like innovations in modern music. Grieg writes
to me, however, that so far as these church modes occur in his
compositions — which is not often — they were employed by him
almost unconsciously. On the harmonic side of music he has
found a special charm, ever since his student days, in chromatic
progressions. Bach, Mozart, and Wagner were his teachers in
this respect. " Wherever these immortal masters express the

202

Grieg

modulations are as unique, as unexpected, as
abrupt, yet as natural, as Schubert's ; and they
have the same power of moving us to tears.
As in the case of Chopin, imitators have copied
these individual peculiarities of Grieg's genius
without any thought of robbing his beehives,
but simply under the delusion that they were
helping themselves to the common stores of
wild honey.

The commentators, also, failed to distinguish
between what is national and what is individual
in his music, and thus accused him of " speak-
ing a local dialect instead of the world-language
of music," when in reality he was simply ex-
pressing musical ideas in an original way — his
own individual style. He is a " mannerist," not
in the sense of being addicted to " uniformity
of manner, especially a tasteless uniformity,
without freedom or variety ; " but in the sense
of having " an exceptionally characteristic mode
or method." In this latter sense the greatest

deepest feelings," he writes, "I have found that they show a
preference for chromatic progressions, each one in his own way.
With these as a basis I gradually developed my own conception
of the significance of the chromatic element. Many of my songs
illustrate my method — for example, A Swan (Album III., No. 30),
and especially No. 33, Geschieden. See also the Ballade, op. 24."
"The realm of harmony," he declares on another page, "was
always my dream-world."

203

Scandinavian Song- Writers

geniuses are the greatest mannerists. We need
to hear only a bar or two of Grieg's music to
say " That's Grieg ! " and the same is true of
the music of Bach, Beethoven, Schubert, Cho-
pin, Wagner ; but not of the minor men like
Pleyel, Lachner, Hummel, Macfarren. A first-
class genius is as unmistakable in his music as
in his face.*

Turning now to details, can anyone hear that
exquisite song, The First Primrose, without be-
ing moved by a thrill of delight like that which
must be felt by a naturalist when he first comes
across a bird of paradise, with its gorgeous plu-
mage so different in pattern and coloring from

* It is high time to protest against the injustice which has so
long been done Grieg of crediting all that is most charming in his
music to the national muse. "How delightfully Norwegian !"
amateurs and professionals are apt to exclaim, when they ought
to say, "How delightfully Griegian." Nothing could be more
absurd than the current notion that Grieg simply gave an artistic
setting to national melodies, as Liszt and Brahms did in their
Hungarian rhapsodies. Among his seventy works there are, be-
sides two volumes of piano-forte arrangements of popular songs,
only three (notably op. 30, 35, and 64) in which he has incorporated
Norwegian melodies ; all the others are his own. Solvejg** Lied is
obviously a conscious imitation of the national music, but it stands
almost alone in this respect. On the whole there is probably
more of the Norwegian coloring in Grieg's piano-forte music than
in his songs ; but the more we study Norwegian folk-song and the
Northern composers before Grieg, the more we are astounded at
his originality.

204

Grieg

that of all other birds ? When I first heard it, I
was affected as I was when I saw my first Mari-
posa Lily in California. The lily seemed too
beautiful for reality, and the song seemed like
the celestial music we sometimes hear in our
dreams. A more glorious, original, yet simple
song was never written. It has the tenderness
of the primrose, the freshness of spring, the
buoyancy of youth. It is a song the mere
thought of which sometimes brings tears to
my eyes, and it is one of many in the Grieg
collection that have that effect. It is print-
ed in the third volume of the Peters edition,
with which I advise everyone unfamiliar with
Grieg's genius to begin. In my copy of this
volume every one of the twelve songs has a
star, while the primrose song and two others —
A Swan and The M instrel's Song — I have marked
with two stars. A Swan, perhaps even more
than The First Primrose, is Grieg in every bar.
Sing it over a few times, and if it does not
give you the Grieg fever, which will make you
try all of his hundred and twenty songs, and
then eagerly look to Bergen for more — you have
not a musical soul. What a superb climax,
what a world of feeling in the two bars when
this swan, silent all its life, sings at last ! The
art with which Grieg has embodied in his music
the deeper meaning of Ibsen's poem, is marvel-
205

Scandinavian Song- Writers

lous.* No less remarkable is the realism with
which the romance of the love-incantation and
regret in Ibsen's The Minstrel's Song is mirrored
in Grieg's music; this, too, has a stirring
climax at the end. This same volume also con-
tains the popular Solvejg's Lied. It is a beauti-
ful song, but not one of the very best.

The fourth volume of the Peters edition (the
official and best edition, with English versions
by F. Corder) is even a more remarkable treas-
ury of song than the third. Eight of the twelve
songs in it I have marked with two stars — The
Youth, Springtide, The Wounded Heart, By the
Riverside, A Fair Vision, The Old Mother, On the
Way Home, Friendship. They embrace a wide
range of emotional expression, and the music
of all is enchanting. What melodic breadth,

* Within a few years A Swan has become one of the most pop-
ular of his songs. It was sung at a Colonne concert in Paris,
about ten years ago, by the Belgian vocalist Grimaud, with orches-
tral accompaniment under the direction of the composer, who was
delighted with the big dramatic accents with which he brought out
the tragic import of the poem and the music. He would have
been as deeply impressed could he have heard it as interpreted in
New York by Mme. Nordica, who sings it with the emotional
power which her perfect mastery of Wagnerian song has taught
her. It is one of the most popular songs in her repertory. Grieg
wishes to call attention to the fact that the words " Ja da — da
sangst du" (At last thou sangest) are to be sung " sempre /. if
possible even with a crescendo, and by no means diminuendo and
piano."

206

Grieg

what exquisite tenderness, what superbly swell-
ing harmonies and entrancing modulations in
Springtide ! By the Riverside is one of the best
songs to study the peculiar melodic intervals
and harmonies of Grieg. Every bar seems to
have the five letters of his name stamped on
it, and the charm of this original musical phys-
iognomy grows on you like the expression of a
face that indicates character as well as beauty.
The same may be said of The Old Mother, which
is one of the most quaintly and originally me-
lodious of all the songs, and well illustrates
Grieg's way of dropping from one key into an-
other and from minor to major, like Schubert,
yet quite unlike him too.

The Youth is one of those songs which indi-
cate that despair in the Far North where the sun
does not rise for months every year, must be a
more hopeless feeling than elsewhere. A Ger-
man might write such a song, but not an Italian
or a Frenchman. But even a German could
hardly realize the depth of despair and the
agony expressed in the song which is named
Friendship, but should be called False Friend-
ship. " False all friends are," the poet con-
cludes, because one has stolen away another's
chosen spouse. The strange, weird harmonies
give the effect of an intensified minor. Among
Grieg's songs this one occupies the same place
207

Scandinavian Song-Writers

as the Doppelgdnger does among Schubert's. It
is one of my favorites. Poignant grief has never
been expressed more bitterly. Were it not in
three-four time it might be used as a heart-
rending funeral march.*

No composer seems to have been able to write
more than one piece of this kind. Grieg, how-
ever, has a counterpart of that dolorous song in
his At the Bier of a Young Woman. The exquisite
beauty and tenderness of the music to the words
(beginning a bar ahead) " Oh, that death should

* Album IV. (my references are always to the Peters edition)
contains undoubtedly the best collection of Grieg's songs. Here
we breathe the air of his native country. In these songs, which
differ from all the preceding ones, he struck a tone of Norwegian
Volksthiimlichkeit which was new at the time. " I was all aflame
with enthusiasm, " he writes, "when I became acquainted in the
spring of 1880 with the poems of Vinje, which embody a deep
philosophy of life, and in course of eight to ten days I composed
not only the songs contained in the fourth volume, but others by
the same poet which are not yet in print. A. O. Vinje was a
peasant by birth. He attempted with his prose works to enlighten
the Norwegian people, and these writings, together with his
poems, gave him a great national importance." Of the songs re-
ferred to, Nos. 38 and 39 — Spring and The Wounded— have been
published also in an arrangement for string orchestra with the title
Zwei Elegische Melodien. In this version they have gained great
vogue outside of his country. The profound melancholy of the
poems explains the solemn strains of the music, but as there are
no verses to go with the orchestral version of these pieces, he
deemed it advisable to elucidate them by giving them the more
significant titles of Last Spring and Heart-wounds.
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Grieg

stray on the flowery way, break a blossom so
fair ! " would alone place Grieg in the first rank
of song-writers. And there is still another,
The Mother Sings (in opus 60) — a mother bewail-
ing her child in the grave — in which the grief
is expressed in overwhelmingly agonizing har-
monies.

What Schumann said of Franz (that, were
one to dwell on all the interesting details, one
would never come to an end) must be applied
to Grieg too. I have spoken of only two or
three of the albums or collections, and there are
sixteen of them.* They are not all of equal
value, though each contains good numbers.
Volume v., in which At the Bier of a Young
Woman is incorporated, includes also another of
the very best songs, one that I would not part
with for all the Lieder Brahms wrote — yet I am
obliged to listen to Brahms songs at every con-
cert while I have never heard From Monte Pincio
sung in public. It is difficult even for a hard-
ened critic to write about such a song without
" gushing " like a school-girl. Play the opening
chords and ask yourself if Schubert himself
could have conjured up the atmosphere and

* All short and cheap, by the way. It was wise in Grieg to in-
corporate all his works in the Peters edition, thus making it pos-
sible for even poor students and music-lovers to buy them.
209

Scandinavian Song-Writers

mood of sunset more exquisitely and concisely
than Grieg has done here in four bars. Note
at the end of the page how the face of the music
assumes a sombre expression at the comparison
of the mountain in the pale light to " the face of
the dead." Here Grieg is a word-painter in
music as literal as Liszt ; and again on the sec-
ond page following, where " mountain horns
sound above," an entrancing strain which oc-
curs again at the end of the song, morendo — like
an echo dying away. The gay melody (vivo)
which repeatedly interrupts the other themes,
and the melodic strain first heard to the words
" bounds sweetly near us" — all this is indescrib-
ably beautiful; but it must be played with
consummate expression. Grieg has noted the
expression marks minutely ; but a genuine
musician does not need them, for this music,
like all the supreme products of genius, tells
its own emotional story to capable inter-
preters.

It is impossible in the limited space at my
command to more than mention a few more of
my favorites. / Love Thee, composed in 1864,
when German influences still prevailed, sounds
as if Grieg had undertaken to write a Schumann
song, and succeeding in equalling him at his
best. This Lied in the German manner is set
to a Scandinavian poem (Andersen). Among

210

Grieg

the six songs of opus 48, on the other hand, there
are two to poems by the Germans, Geibel and
Uhland, in which the music reveals Grieg's in-
dividuality in every bar. The first is a pensive
love-song, the second is like a merry folk-dance.
These are two-star songs.* The one-star songs
are too numerous to mention. Besides these
there are some that seem mediocre in compari-
son, though most other writers might feel proud
of them. Very few are really commonplace, for
Grieg abhors the commonplace as Chopin did.
Harmonic progressions wear off like the im-
pressions on coins; but Grieg's harmonies are
ever new, like coins fresh from the mint — and
most of them gold. The last set of his songs,
quite recently issued as opus 67, contains at least
four gold coins of a high denomination — The
Mountain Maid, The Tryst, Love, and An Evil
Day. The picture on these coins is unmistaka-
bly Grieg in every case.

For the autumn of 1900 Grieg has ready a

* One of Grieg's best songs is the Prologue of Aus Fjeld und
Fjord, opus 44. In 1886 he received a visit from the poet Drach-
mann and the two made an excursion to the Norwegian mountains.
One day they became acquainted with some charming women who
at once inspired poet and composer to utter their sentiments in a
joint song. The epilogue the composer intends to alter in a future
edition, omitting the banale strain Aztf der Aim da giebts Ka
Sund, which he had used because the poet had sung it as he had
heard it in the Tyrol.

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Scandinavian Song- Writers

further collection of songs which, as he in-
forms me, are of a cosmopolitan character.
The underlying poems are by the Danish Otto
Benzon. Among the earlier songs we find the
names of two other Danish poets who inspired
some of Grieg's best Lieder, and with whom
he was personally acquainted — Hans Christian
Andersen and Drachmann. During the Leip-
zig period (1858-1862) German poems were
utilized, and on his return to his native country
the Norwegian Bjornsen, Ibsen, Vinje, Rolfsen,
Paulsen, Munch, and others inflamed his fancy.
Bjornsen and Ibsen reflect in their works the
influence of the national legendary lore, with
its melancholy and its power of " saying much
in a few words ; " and these same traits are
reflected in Grieg's music, which is always
concise and pregnant with meaning. " The
fundamental trait of Norwegian folk-song, as
contrasted with the German is," in the words
of Grieg, "a deep melancholy, which may sud-
denly change to a wild unrestrained gayety.
Mysterious gloom and indomitable wildness —
these are the contrasts of Norwegian folk-
song " — and, he might have added, of much of
his own music.

Like all the great song-writers, Grieg is an
enthusiastic admirer of good poetry, and he has
too much respect for what he admires to make

212

Grieg

of it a mere scaffolding for his music. When he
composes, his prime object seems not so much
to write music as to do justice to the poet's subt-
lest intentions. To make the poem stand out
prominently, to emphasize its meaning — that
is evidently his object. To appreciate the con-
scientiousness with which he has carried out
this principle, one must be able to sing his songs
in the language of the poems. Translations,
however good, can never quite take the place
of the originals. A good translator must not
only have a thorough command of language,
but must be an expert musician — a combination
rarely found. As translations go, those of
Grieg's songs are by no means among the
worst; but of course they cannot give one a
correct idea of Grieg's declamation — the coin-
cidence of his melodic accents with the poetic
accents, which is as conscientious as in Wag-
ner's music-dramas.

Grieg is an ardent admirer of Wagner,
while he dislikes the intriguing Wagnerites and
the imitators who try to say, in their own way,
what Wagner said a thousand times better be-
fore them. There are no echoes of Wagner's
ideas in his songs; but he frankly admits that in
the songs of his second period, and still more in
those of the third, he endeavored to learn from
Wagner how to perfect his declamation. In
213

Scandinavian Song-Writers

some cases, as for example in the prologue of
opus 44, he almost adopted the recitative style.
But on the whole he feels no inclination to fol-
low in the path of the modern German song-
writers. He does not care to have the melodic
element transferred mainly to the piano, and
does not sympathize with the endeavors to en-
graft Wagner's operatic style on the Lied.
" The lyrical Dramatik of the Lied" he writes,
" must, in my view, always be entirely differ-
ent from that of the music-drama."

Some of Grieg's songs, like some of Franz's,
seem too intime to be sung in a hall before a
mixed public. It all depends, however, on the
interpreting artists. A few years ago, Grieg
tells me, he was dismayed to find his Cradle-
song (Album, vol. i., No. 7) in a Leipzig Gevvand-
haus programme. This song seemed to him ab-
solutely impossible in the concert-hall. But —
the vocalist was Johann Messchaert, and Arthur
Nikisch sat at the piano. After a few lines had
been sung, a great silence prevailed in the hall.
The composer's hopes began to rise, because
the performance was so incomparably beautiful.
And when the last bar had been sung, the au-
dience expressed its satisfaction in an outburst
of prolonged applause. Courage and talent
combined had won a signal triumph.

If the state of Grieg's health had permitted,
214

Grieg

many such triumphs might have been won in
the concert-halls of Europe and America by
himself and his wife, and the world would have
become familiar sooner with some of his most
fascinating Lieder, As it was, only a few song-
recitals were given by the two, in Christiania,
Copenhagen, Leipzig, Rome, Paris, and Lon-
don; but those who were privileged to hear
these, described them as unique, artistic events.
That the composer should reveal the poetic de-
tails of the piano parts as no else could, was to
be expected ; but everyone was surprised that a
singer who had not been heralded as one of the
shining lights of the stage, nevertheless out-
shone most of those lights, especially in the in-
telligence and sympathy with which she entered
into the intentions of the composer, while giving
the poem its due as well as the music. Frau
von Holstein, wife of the composer Franz von
Holstein, and a personal friend of Mendelssohn
and Schumann, once declared that Mme. Grieg's
singing reminded her of Jenny Lind's in its cap-
tivating abandon, dramatic vivacity, soulful
treatment of the poem, and unaffected manner,
unlike that of the typical prima donna. Ed-
mund Neupert sent her one volume of his Etudes
with the inscription, " To Mme. Nina Grieg,
whose song is more beautiful and warmer than
that of all others." Ibsen, after hearing her in-
215

Scandinavian Song-Writers

terpret his poems as set to music by Grieg,
whispered, shaking the hands of both, the one
word : " Understood." Tchaikovsky heard her
sing Springtide (Album, vol. iii., No. 38) in
Leipzig, and tears came to his eyes. Subse-
quently he sent her his own songs, with a cor-
dial dedication.

Mme. Grieg made her last public appearance
in London, about two years ago, when she also
sang for Queen Victoria at Windsor. Now she
only sings for her husband and his friends. He
regrets deeply that so few had the opportunity
to hear her when her voice was in its prime.
At that time he hardly realized her superiority
to the average professional singer. It seemed
to him a matter of course that one should sing
so beautifully, so eloquently, so soulfully as she
did. Yet her talent was not wasted. It in-
spired Grieg to renewed efforts. His best songs
were written for her ; they embody his personal
feelings, and he confesses that he could no more
have stopped expressing them in songs than he
could have stopped breathing. It is an interest-
ing case, showing how conjugal affection may
be an inspirer of the arts, quite as well as the
romantic love which precedes marriage. In
the songs of the second period (beginning, say,
with the Album, vol. iii.) experts will notice a
greater longing for depth and inclination toward
216

Grieg

reverie. His wife's interpretations gained cor-
respondingly in soulfulness. The third, or pres-
ent, period appears almost like a combination
of the two preceding ones, but enriched by new
experiences.

217

VII

Italian and French Song-Writers

ITALY, commonly supposed to have been the
1 cradle of song and the natural conservatory
of singers, has contributed nothing of impor-
tance to the treasures of the Lied or lyric art-
song. This may seem strange at first sight, yet
it is easily explained with reference to national
peculiarities of taste. The Italians, of course,
have always had their folk-songs of all varieties ;
and some species were intermediate between
folk-music and art-music. There is no trust-
worthy collection of old Italian folk-songs, how-
ever ; and there is reason to suspect that many
which are supposed to be such are really oper-
atic melodies that have passed from the stage
to the people. These tunes satisfied the popu-
lace, while the educated lovers of music were
interested only in the elaborate operatic arias
and despised the simple short songs; wherefore,
there was no temptation for the composers to
write them, or, if they did write any, to put
their happiest thoughts into them.
218

Italian and French Song-Writers

In these respects the conditions were similar
to those which, as we have seen, prevailed in
Germany, and which prevented the composers,
up to Schubert, from writing great Lieder. In
Italy, however, there were additional reasons
for the absence of good art-songs. The Italians
have at all times shown an extreme partiality
for melody, at the expense of everything else.
If the " words " given to the composers to set
to music did not fit their tunes, so much the
worse for the words ; and they were apt to be
buried anyway amid the rank profusion of
vocal embroideries. The harmony, too, was a
mere " side show," and was kept as simple and
conventional as possible. Now, since harmonic
elaboration and the close union, in accent and
sentiment, of the music with the words are the
very essence of the Lied, it is obvious why
Italian musicians have done so little for it.

Apart from the considerations here advanced
there was no reason why such composers as
Rossini, Donizetti, and Verdi should not have
written good Lieder and plenty of them. They
had the requisite genius, not only melodic but
harmonic, to do it; and Verdi, in particular,
has in his last operas shown as great a respect
for the texts underlying his music as Wagner
ever did. In our time two of the younger
operatic composers, Mascagni and Leoncavallo,
219

Italian and French Song-Writers

have written sets of songs; but they are pain-
fully empty, and were probably done chiefly
with an eye to their German admirers — just as
the songs of such men as Tosti, Arditi, Denza,
Mattei, and Mariani are written chiefly for
English and American singers. These are
drawing-room ditties, rather than Lieder. A
man who might have written real Lieder is
Liszt's friend, Sgambati, but he lacks the
creative faculty. I have seldom heard a
Lied by an Italian that I would care to hear
again.

Passing on to France we get into a different
atmosphere. Whereas the melody-intoxicated
Italian pays little more attention to the words
of a song than if the human voice were a flute,
the Frenchman is as much interested in the
poem as in the music, if not more so. The
conditions are therefore more favorable here
for a genuine Lied. Yet we must not look for
real Lieder in France. We found them, to be
sure, in Russia, Scandinavia, and Hungary ;
but the writers of them had all been to school
in Germany, and Liszt had a German mother.
The French have countless chansons and ro-
mances, but they lack the depth of the German
Lied both in the poem and the music ; as Liszt
has remarked, there is no Sehnsuch, no Gemiith,
in them — none of the soulfulness, the senti-

220

Italian and French Song-Writers

mental yearning and romanticism, which are
essential to the Lied. Nor can it be said that
French composers have taken the lyric song so
seriously as the Germans have since Schubert's
day. France has produced no great song-
specialists like Schubert, Franz, and Jensen ;
and while most of her great opera composers
of the nineteenth century, and even before,
wrote pretty romances too, they seldom deigned
to put their best ideas into them.

When a Frenchman writes an opera, or a
book, he usually has something interesting to
say. But in going over hundreds of French
songs by famous writers, for the purpose of
forming an opinion at first hand, I have been
struck painfully by the rarity of good ones.
Many are dainty, pretty, rhythmically piquant ;
but few are deep, or harmonically original and
moving ; while the majority consist of empty
verbiage, musically speaking.

Take those of Berlioz, for instance. Wagner
declared that Berlioz had taught the world how
one can, by the clever use of orchestral colors,
hide the lack of ideas. This is quite true, and
it is in the songs of Berlioz where the orchestra
usually does not lend its aid, that the weakness
of his inventive faculty is made most obvious.
In the beautifully printed collection entitled
" 33 melodies pour chant et piano a une on plusicurs

221

Italian and French Song-Writers

voix et c/ioeur," there is not one that I should
call an interesting song ; though there are
pleasing details in some of them, and the
technique is ingenious. As a song-writer Ber-
lioz is a French Brahms.*

It was not Berlioz's fault that new ideas so
seldom came to him, though we may chide him
for not reserving any of those he had for his
romances. What is more surprising is that a
composer like Bizet, who lavished such a profu-
sion of enchanting new ideas on his opera Car-
men and his L Arlesienne music, should have
acted so niggardly toward his lyrics. The Span-
ish serenade (Ouvre ton cozur] alone seems quite
worthy of the composer of Carmen ; it has the
same quaint spirit, the same piquant melody,
and delightfully exotic accompaniment; also,
what we so rarely find in a French song, a me-
lodious bass and imitative passages in the ac-
companiment. Two other good songs are the
Rfoe de la bien-aimte with dreamy music, and
J'aime toujours. In general, Bizet's melody is
fresher, his harmonies much more interesting,

* As the above title of the Richault edition of thirty-three songs
by Berlioz indicates, some of them are for two or more voices, in
some cases with chorus. The complete edition of Berlioz's works,
now being printed by Breitkopf and Hartel, will include five
songs for two or three voices, eleven with chorus, and twenty-six
for one voice with piano-forte.

222

Italian and French Song-Writers

*

than those of most of the French masters ; but
how he could have ever written such school-
girl harmonies as the opening bars of Le Gascon,
passes my comprehension.

Gounod wrote a considerable number of
songs, both in France and especially during
his sojourn in England, where, according to A.
Hervey, the Maid of Athens, The Fountain mingles
with the River, Oh ! that we two were maying, The
Worker, and There is a green hill far away, have
become specially popular. Gounod is another
man of undoubted genius who makes one
wonder that the same pen which wrote the in-
spired music of an opera like Faust, should have
been capable of perpetrating such banalite's as
make up the substance of most of his songs ; in
which the piano parts seldom rise above the
level of guitar accompaniments, and the intro-
ductory bars, instead of foreshadowing the
poetry, serve only as a means of giving the
singer his pitch. Most of his songs are mere
drawing-room music. Piquant details one finds
here and there, but no pregnant ideas. The
Serenade seems to me the best of these songs.
The Valley and Aubade also have merit. The
Ave Maria has been much abused, and it was, of
course, a bit of vandalism to take Bach's delight-
ful prelude and utterly mar its character by
adding to it a melody which requires the prel-

223

Italian and French Song-Writers

*

ude to be taken, as Franz said, at least three
times as slowly as it ought to be. At the same
time the combination makes an undeniably in-
teresting song which thousands have enjoyed
who would otherwise never have heard of
Bach.

Of the songs of Saint-Saens only two have
interested me — La feuille de peuplier and Plainte.
Saint-Saens is as thorough a musician as any
that Germany has produced ; even Wagner and
Liszt were astounded at his feats in playing the
MS. score of an opera like Siegfried at sight.
His songs betray his mastery of technique, but
he begrudged them ideas like those which
charm us in his orchestral works; hence he
claims only passing mention in a book on the
Lied.

In the songs of Delibes there is nothing quite
equal to the best things in his operas and bal-
lads ; but he betrays German influences more
plainly perhaps than any other French song-
writer, and there is much charm in some of
his lyrics, notably in Arioso, The Nightingale,
Regrets, Good-Day, Suzanne, and the Bird-
Catcher.

More than a hundred songs were written by
Godard, and among them an unusual propor-
tion of good ones. Floriaris Song is charming —
better than any song of Gounod or Bizet. Next
224

Italian and French Song-Writers

in merit of those in Schirmer's album is A
Flower in Exile. The Arabian Song is as
quaintly exotic as Rubinstein's Persian Lieder.
Other good ones are Sweet Lassie, Love, Song
of the Shepherd, Farewell, Naught Else, and The
Traveller, a splendidly dramatic ballad.

Massenet's songs are among the best pro-
duced in France. Adieu, for instance, has a
spontaneous melodic flow, and the harmonies
are not so bald as in so many French songs —
including some of his own. Sleep, friend, To
the dead one, and October roses may be mentioned
as among the good ones. But the gem of them
is the deservedly famous Ele"gie, in which the
melody is not only attractive but emotional,
while the accompaniment is made interesting
by imitative touches.

Among the best-known writers of French
songs are two women, Augusta Holmes and
Cecile Chaminade. Augusta Holmes (who was
born in Paris, of Irish parents) has written
more than a hundred songs. I have not been
able to find any evidence of inspiration in them.
The same must be said of the large number of
songs written by Mile. Chaminade. I have
seen a newspaper paragraph to the effect that
" statistics of the music-trade inform us that
more of her works are sold to-day than of any
other composer for the salon," and I have read
225

Italian and French Song-Writers

that she has written "melodies surprisingly
fresh, harmonies startling in originality." The
person who wrote this must have been star-
tlingly unfamiliar with the better kind of song-
literature. If Mile. Chaminade had written
" harmonies startling in originality " she would
not be the most popular "salon" composer, but
would be neglected by the masses, like Schu-
bert, Franz, and Grieg. She owes her popu-
larity to the fact that she writes down to the
level of those who prefer skim-milk to cream,
because it is easier to digest. When her har-
monies do deviate from the beaten paths they
are apt to be clumsy and amateurish. Nor are
her melodies fresh and original. She usually
maunders along in a platitudinous way that
makes me wildly impatient. Many of her
songs are effective for the singers, who there-
fore favor them ; but I have not found one to
which I would attach a star as a badge of excel-
lence, unless it be the Serenade Sevillane. Mile.
Chaminade's face is said to have " a boyish
look," and there is no specific feminine tender-
ness in her songs — a trait which she shares with
other female composers, who seem to lack both
true femininity and the virile faculty of creating
ideas. For the combination of these traits we
must go to men — to Schubert, Franz, Grieg,
Chopin, MacDowell. Strange how much more
226

Italian and French Song-Writers

original and fascinating women are in litera-
ture than in music ! *

* I refer, of course, only to the creative side of the art. As in-
terpreters, especially in vocal music, women are quite the equals of
men, and first-class sopranos are much more abundant than tenors
of the same rank. As listeners, too, and patrons of music, women
are far ahead of men. A glance at any concert-hall — in America,
at any rate — shows that if it were not for the women there would
be no concerts.

227

VIII

English and American Song- Writers

AS late as 1875 the eminent musical critic of
the London Times, Dr. F. Hueffer, la-
mented the "almost total absence of what
might be called artistic song " in England.
The cause of this seemed to him to lie partly in
the prevailing extent to which English popular
poetry took the narrative form of the ballad,
partly in the atmosphere of the music-hall, and
partly in the overpowering influence of Men-
delssohn and his imitators. No doubt each of
these suggestions contains a part of the truth ;
yet the main reason why there are no English
songs is that England has produced no com-
posers of the first rank. Apart from the operas
of Purcell and the oratorios of Handel, the
operettas of Arthur Sullivan are the only pro-
ductions of England that can be put in line
with the best work of their kind done on the
continent. Sullivan has written songs too —
more than seventy — but the real Lied was as
much beyond him as grand opera, and his pro-
228

English and American Song-Writers

ductions are mere drawing-room songs, which
accounts for their great popularity. Had Eng-
land produced a man like Grieg, he would
have been strong enough to overcome the ad-
verse influences noted by Hueffer, and he
would have found plenty of suitable English
lyrics to stimulate his genius.

Since Hueffer wrote his plaint there has been
some improvement as regards the art-song. A
number of talented and thoroughly trained
musicians have endeavored to shake off the
Mendelssohn yoke and to breathe a more brac-
ing atmosphere than that of the music-hall :
the result being a series of songs that deserve
the attention of others than the English ; while
to the English they appeal with special force
because they do not have to be sung to awk-
ward and ludicrous translations of foreign verse,
but are set to popular English poetry. Among
the composers to be named here are Goring
Thomas, Stanford, Hubert Parry, Cowen, and
Mackenzie.

The early death of Goring Thomas is to be
greatly deplored, as he had written some charm-
ing songs, among them Hope, Spring is not Dead,
The First Rose, Serenade, Winds in the Trees, the
exquisite Chanson d'Avril, and, best of all, A
Summer Night — a first-class song in every re-
spect, with novel ideas, plenty of melody, a
229

English and American Song-Writers

varied accompaniment and a passionate climax.
Villiers Stanford, who has made a valuable
collection of fifty Irish melodies and whose
Shamus O'Brien, imbued with the genuine spirit
of Irish folk-music, is the most delightful opera
ever written on the British isles — has also com-
posed a number of excellent Lieder, of which
La Belle Dame Sans Merci is the best known.
Among Cowen's songs there would be more
good ones had he written fewer. Hubert
Parry's songs are musicianly always, and some
of them betray the influence of Brahms ; while
his treatment of the piano-forte part is in the
best German manner. Mackenzie also sounds
the Brahms note, especially in O Roaming Wind.
Better songs are Spring is not Dead, The First
Rose, and especially Hope, which is admirable.
There are many other English song -writers
from Sterndale Bennet to Amherst Webber
and Coleridge-Taylor who might be consid-
ered ; but, so far as my experience goes, their
productions have not done anything to create
a national or individual school of song.

The American composer is coming rapidly
to the front. It is not likely that if the centen-
nial celebration of our independence had oc-
curred a quarter of a century later, it would
have been deemed necessary to go abroad, even
to a Richard Wagner, for a festival march. It
230

English and American Song-Writers

is related that when Mme. Essipoff wanted, in
1876, to make up a programme of American
compositions, she experienced difficulty in find-
ing the requisite number of pieces coming up
to the required standard. She would have no
trouble now. Arthur P. Schmidt, of Boston,
has issued a " Portrait Catalogue of American
Compositions " — a pamphlet of fifty-two pages
made up entirely of the list of pieces by one hun-
dred and eighteen different composers, seven of
them being women — Mmes. Beach, Hood, Lang,
Lavallee, Rogers, Spencer, and Wood. But
this list is far from being exhaustive. Many
American composers have works printed by
Ditson, Schuberth, Schirmer, and other pub-
lishers, while the John Church Company, of
Cincinnati, has issued a book called Laurel
Winners, which contains biographic sketches of
thirty composers who are represented on their
list. With the limited space at my command
it is obviously impossible for me to consider
the works of all these men and women, and we
must content ourselves with a bird's-eye view
of the situation.*

* A book by Rupert Hughes, specially devoted to American com-
posers, will appear about the same time as this volume. Having
seen the proof-sheets, I can commend it as an admirable and much-
needed work. Mr. Hughes went so far in his conscientious efforts
to arrive at just estimates as to examine even manuscripts. He is

231

English and American Song-Writers

The first American composer whose works
evince a musical scholarship worthy of the great
Germans, while being at the same time imbued
with creative fancy and individuality, is Profes-
sor John K. Paine, of Harvard. His best work
must be sought in his compositions for orches-
tra, which display a thorough mastery of his art
and combine classical outline with the romantic
spirit. Toward the song he has obviously felt
no strong penchant, for he has written only six
Lieder. These, however, deserve to be better
known ; especially Moonlight, which is a charm-
ing song, and the Matin Song. There are dainty
touches in A Bird upon a Rosy Bough, while Early
Spring Time has a peaceful, almost religious
character, suggesting the composer's sacred
works. Professor Paine has also exerted a
wide and salutary influence on music in Amer-
ica through his pupils.

Prominent among these is Arthur Foote, one
of the leaders of the Boston school of compos-
ers. He has written — among other things —
about forty songs, the most successful of which
have been Irish Folk-Song, I'm Wearing awa\ On
the Way to Kew, In Picardie, Love me, if I Live,

in some cases more liberal with praise than I feel inclined to be ;
but I admit that, in the case of living composers, who get so
little recognition for their labors, such a disposition is more than
pardonable.

232

English and American Song-Writers

Elaine s Song, The Eden Rose. Those which Mr.
Foote himself likes best — and my judgment co-
incides with his — are On the Way to Kew, In
Picardie, My True Love hath My Heart, Roumanian
Song, and four German songs to poems from
Baumbach's Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen. Mr.
Foote thinks — and here I again agree with him
— that the popularity of songs depends very
largely on their being taken up by concert-
singers. He informs me that the two of his
songs which have had the widest sale — Irish
Folk-Song and I'm Wearing awa — were both
written in less time and more easily than almost
any others. Mr. Foote is a great admirer of
Franz, and some of his lyrics betray the salu-
tary influence of that master, though not so
strongly as Otto Dresel's do. In his poetic se-
lections he has wisely shown a strong predilec-
tion for the old English writers.

Another pupil of Professor Paine and a prom-
inent song-composer of the Boston school is
Clayton Johns. In his songs, too — of which
there are about a hundred — I have noted here
and there a touch of Franz — as in Ask whence
comes Sadness. His Winter Journey seems like a
dainty Russian folk-song, simple and plaintive.
A good song is Were la Prince Egyptian. The
general level of Mr. Johns's songs is quite high,
and he probably owes his popularity partly to
233

English and American Song-Writers

the fact that he knows how to write accompani-
ments that are simple without being bald.

G. W. Chad wick, who, since 1897, has been
director of the New England Conservatory of
Music, has written about seventy-five songs,
among which are some of the most original
produced in America. In answer to some ques-
tions I asked, he wrote : " I cannot say that I
have any particular favorites, for the ones I used
to like best I have heard so much that I get very
tired of them ; especially when they are done
backwards, as they often are. The ones which
seem to be sung the most are Allah, Before the
Dawn, Oh ! Let Night Speak of Me, The Sweet
Wind that Blows, Du bist wie eine Blume, Bedouin
Love Song. I think that personally I like my little
folk-song Love and Joy, sixteen measures long,
as well as any. I do not know whether you
would include such an ambitious thing as my
ballad Lochinvar, for baritone and orchestra,
but I have some reason to think that it is as
characteristic as any of my works."

Allah is deservedly the most popular of Chad-
wick's songs. It is not only a good song, but a
great one, which should be in every singer's
repertory. It may have seemed presumptuous
on Chadwick's part to set to music Thou Art
Just Like a Flower, after so many eminent for-
eign masters had done it ; but his music is as
234

English and American Song-Writers

charming as any that that much-composed song
has called forth. Among the others which I like
particularly are Nocturne, Song from the Persian,
Serais' Song, Request, Bedouin Love Song, Green
Grows the Willow, He Loves Me.

The most popular of American composers
and song-writers is Reginald De Koven. Of
his fifteen operettas, several have been remark-
ably successful, Robin Hood alone having been
sung about 3,000 times in ten years. He has
written about one hundred and thirty-five
songs, of none of which fewer than 5,000 copies
have been sold ; while of Oh ! Promise Me
more than 1,000,000 are in circulation. Such
remarkable success, of course, could not have
been won had not De Koven been willing to
write songs in the operetta and drawing-room
styles; but it would be unjust to brush him
aside with that remark, as envious detractors
would like to do. His memory, no doubt, is
obvious in some of his pieces, as it is in that of
most composers ; but he has a vein of his own
which yields an abundant supply of fresh mel-
ody, and he knows, too, how to render an ac-
companiment piquant and attractive. Next to
Oh ! Promise Me, the best known of his songs
are A Winter Lullaby, Indian Love Song, For
this, I Promise Thee, A Recessional, My Love Will
Come To-day, Past and Future. " Generally
235

English and American Song-Writers

speaking," Mr. De Koven writes to me, " my
own favorite songs have been those that sold
the least."

Ethelbert Nevin is another composer of the
New York group whose songs have won a wide
popularity. Rupert Hughes calls him " a fer-
vent worker in diamonds," and it is certainly
true that he is careful as to details, his harmo-
nies being seldom commonplace, and often rich
and agreeable. His songs are very singable,
too, but his melodic vein lacks variety ; so that
the singing of a number of his songs in succes-
sion creates a sense of monotony. Among the
best of his productions are Autumn Sadness,
'Twas April, Recall Our Love, Airly Beacon, and
Dites Moi, which sounds particularly American.

Among the composers residing in New
York there are, too, Henry Holden Huss and
Edgar Stillman Kelley, whose songs are not so
widely known as they deserve to be, partly be-
cause so few of them are in print ; though both
of them have written others which, it is to be
hoped, will soon be published. These songs are
better than many that are known to all. Singers
are singularly slow in finding out what is good
or they would ere this have put on their reper-
tories Huss's They that Sow in Tears, Spring,
Just Like a Lovely Flower (still another fine set-
ting of the favorite Heine poem), The Jess mine
236

English and American Song-Writers

Bushy for they are not only good music, but, at
the same time, very effective for concert-hall
and parlor performance — which cannot be said
of all songs of their grade of excellence. As
for Kelley, he first became widely known
through his The Lady Picking Mulberries, which
is written in the pentatonic scale and has won
the approbation of Chinese experts, as well as
Occidentals. He lived some years in San
Francisco, where he had excellent opportun-
ities for studying Chinese music. But this is
merely a bit of local color. Apart from it,
Kelley has a remarkably original vein of
thought and expression. Of his songs, those
most sung are the six included in his opus 6
and entitled Phases of Love. But his best songs
are his settings of Poe's Eldorado and Israfel,
opus 8, dedicated to Robert Franz, who wrote
the composer an appreciative letter.

Many good songs — and thousands of medio-
cre and trashy ones — have been written by other
American composers — more than a hundred of
them ; but I can do no more here than merely
give the names of a few whose songs have at-
tracted more or less attention — H. W. Loomis,
Horatio Parker, Van der Stucken, Gilchrist,
Hadley, Gerrit Smith, Homer N. Bartlett,
Rubin Goldmark, C. B. Hawley, H. Millard,
Victor Harris, Whitney Coombs, Homer A.
237

English and American Song-Writers

Norris, G. W. Marston, Victor Herbert (who,
though born in Ireland and educated in Ger-
many, has become thoroughly Americanized
and now writes the best and most popular of
operettas), Bruno Oscar Klein, Sebastian
Schlesinger, Walter Damrosch (these three
born in Germany), George Osgood, Isidore
Luckstone, and Edward J. Finck.*

MACDOWELL

Were I asked to name the two greatest living
song-writers I should say Edvard Grieg and
Edward MacDowell. There is a certain affin-
ity between these two composers, traceable, no
doubt, to their Scotch ancestry. Grieg and
Wagner are the only composers whose influ-
ence can be distinctly traced here and there in
MacDowell's songs ; but it is no more than a har-
monic atmosphere which he breathes in common
with them when he gets into certain emotion-
al spheres. His ideas are always his own and
there are plenty of them. One thing that Mac-

* When I was a student at Harvard I used to play 'cello and
piano duets with one of Longfellow's daughters. One day I
played my brother's Curfew Bells (" Solemnly, mournfully "),
and the poet, who occasionally came in to listen to our music, re-
marked that he liked it better than any other setting of his poems
he had heard. It was published by Ditson.
238

MACDOWELL.

MacDowell

Dowell has in common with Grieg and Wagner
is what one of his pupils has aptly called an im-
pression of " outdoorness." As James Huneker
has remarked, " MacDowell is fond of the open
air. For him always the heather and the wind
that sweeps across it, the crags of the high-
lands and the bonny blue of the sky." The
sultry atmosphere of the hot -house never
breathes from his music, but always the bracing
air of the shady forest with its fairy life, or the
sunlit field with the birds above. It is music
that is full of ozone and originality. MacDow-
ell is undoubtedly a genius — " not," as Philip
Hale once wittily remarked, " a Boston genius,
but a real genius."

Thinkers are rare in all departments of mental
activity, and thinkers in tones rarest of all ; but
MacDowell is a thinker ; you can see it in the
portrait included in this volume, as well as you
can hear it in his music ; and with the faculty
of meditation he unites the still rarer gift of
originating ideas. Rossini was once asked what
were the main requisites for a great singer.
" First, voice," he replied ; " secondly, voice ;
thirdly, voice." From his florid point of view
he was right. But there is a higher point of
view, particularly for composers. If I were
asked what are the three first requisites of a
great composer, I should answer, " First, ideas;
239

English and American Song-Writers

secondly, ideas ; thirdly, ideas." Form and pol-
ish, to be sure, are important, too ; but those can
be taught to any conservatory pupil, whereas
ideas come from heaven and cannot be created
except by a brain born, to create them. Mac-
Dowell has such a brain, and that is why he is
a genius ; not a mere imitator and echo, like
most of his colleagues. At the same time his
music is always moulded and polished with in-
finite care ; and he has the same horror of the
commonplace that Chopin, Wagner, and Grieg
have manifested. A regiment of soldiers could
not make him write a stale melody or a platitu-
dinous succession of chords, such as constitute
the stock in trade of most song-writers. One of
the greatest charms of his music is that where
you expect a certain chord as almost inevitable,
he surprises you with quite another one. He
has the faculty, peculiar to the highest order of
genius, of evoking tears in the listener with a
single chord or modulation. He never writes
unless he has something new and interesting to
say, and when he has said it he stops. A slow
and hard worker himself, he wonders at the
fertility of some of his colleagues who seem to
shake compositions from their sleeves. But if
these colleagues followed his example of writing
only when they had something new to say, they
would never write at all.
240

MacDowell

It would be difficult to decide which are the
most beautiful and important of MacDowell's
compositions, his thirty-nine songs, his much
more numerous piano-forte pieces, or his works
for the orchestra in which he shows, on a large
scale, the same exquisite color-sense that so
charms us in his piano-forte parts and pieces.
Here we are concerned with his songs along.
The first of his compositions which he has con-
sidered worthy of perpetuation in print are the
Two Old Songs marked as opus 9. The first
of these, though a setting of Burns's " Ye banks
and braes o' bonnie Doon," has rather the Ger-
man than the Scotch atmosphere, and the open-
ing bars vaguely suggest those of Liszt's Kennst
du das Land. It is a beautiful song, and its
spirit is indicated by the expression-marks
(which the composer, as usual, has carefully
noted in English) " Slow, with pathos, yet sim-
ply." No one could hear the second number
of opus 9 without knowing that it is a slumber-
song, and takes us into "misty dreamland."
This emotional realism is characteristic of Mac-
Dowell's songs in general.

Less original and characteristic than the two
referred to are the five songs that make up opus
ii and 12. There are many interesting details
in them, but the leading ideas are not individual
enough to make the accidental loss of these

241

English and American Song-Writers

songs — as that of most of the others would
be — irreparable. After this group there is a
long interval during which the piano and the
orchestra engaged the composer's attention,
and it is not till we reach opus 26 that we come
across another group — six songs entitled From
an Old Garden, the verses by Margaret Deland.
"That's MacDowell ! " we exclaim as soon as
we begin the first one, The Pansy ; and when
we have heard the last and perhaps the best of
them, The Mignonette, we conclude that a love-
lier group of flower-songs has never been raised.
MacDowell has not set to music Du bist wie
eine Blume, but he has written songs that are
like flowers. The Clover suggests Schubert.

The Cradle Hymn, opus 33, is tender and
simple without being specially new ; while its
companion, Idyll, is one of the most original
and fascinating of all the songs. " Lightly,
daintily, not too slow," it trips along, telling
how a bumble-bee kissed a bluebell, with har-
monies quite a la Tristan and Isolde — and why
not?— at the words "Ah! surely, they're
lovers." In My Jean the music is as Scotch in
every bar as the poem itself.

Special attention must be called to the song

preceding this one — Menie — which is the saddest

of all the MacDowell Lieder and one of the very

best. I know of nothing in the whole treasury

242

MacDowell

of songs, from Schubert to Grieg, more ex-
quisitely melancholy, more ravishingly tender,
than the chords which translate into music
the words "when nature all is sad like me."
" Sadly, despondently," the whole song is
superscribed ; and though the despondency is
supposed to be caused primarily by the scorn
that's in a maiden's eye, a sympathetic listener
guesses that it may also be, in part, that feeling
of discouragement and despair which comes to
a man of genius when he creates a thing of such
subtle beauty that, as he instinctively realizes,
it will be born to blush unseen for a long time,
if not forever.

The most popular of the MacDowell songs at
present is Thy beaming eyes. It fully deserves
its vogue, for it is a splendid song, though not
quite equal to Menie, or some of the later ones.
It is the third in the group of Six Love Songs,
opus 40. Perhaps its being less unlike the
songs of other composers has caused it to be
taken up sooner than some of the others by the
public, which is almost as shy of strangeness
as children are. The remaining songs of this
group are all good, though they do not reveal
any new phase of the composer's fancy.

Original and fascinating as are many of the
songs so far considered, they are all surpassed
by those comprised in the collection entitled

*43

English and American Song- Writers

Eight Songs (opus 47), which cannot be too
highly commended to those who are not yet
aware or convinced that MacDowell belongs in
the very front rank of song-writers. For three
of them — songs of trees and birds and brown
eyes and love — MacDowell has written his
own poems, which have the same imaginative,
romantic character as his music. The first of
these, The Robin Sings in the Apple Tree, with its
subdued note of woe, is one of the most charm-
ing of modern love-songs, to which concert-sing-
ers and amateurs have taken a great fancy of
late. Confidence is a poetic refutation of the no-
tion that love can die, enforced by the eloquence
of fresh, buoyant music which puts the scoffers
to flight. The third, The West Wind Croons in
the Cedar Trees, is another of those songs which
have the initials E. A. M. stamped on every
bar. MacDowell does not attend many con-
certs or operatic performances, for the reason
that he fears being influenced unconsciously by
the music of other composers. The song just
named is one of many that prove the wisdom
of this policy. It does not suggest any other
composer, but is as original as a new orchid
found by an explorer in a Brazilian forest.

Two of the lyrics in this collection are after
Goethe, and both are surpassingly fine. In
the Midsummer Lullaby how beautifully the
244

MacDowell

music mirrors the silver clouds in the drowsy
air, and the swaying reeds and rushes of
Goethe's poem! More delightful still is In
tJie Woods, a song of surprising freshness — as
inspired as a Shakespearean lyric. Listen to
those "la la la's" on page 13, and again on the
next page, with the wondrous underlying har-
monies and the airy, tripping measures follow-
ing, and say if you know anything more ex-
quisite in all musical literature ! Yet even this
does not yet represent the climax of Mac-
Dowell's genius as a song-writer. That we
find among the three of these Eight Songs which
are set to poems by W. D. Howells. These
poems are remarkably well suited for musical
treatment; and MacDowell, so far as I am
aware, was the first to discover them for this
purpose. The folk-song Is it the Shrewd
October Wind? is the most beautiful of Mac-
Dowell's songs in the Scotch vein. Among all
real folk-songs is there one which is more deeply
pathetic than this? especially in the last line,
where the girl, whose lover has left, on the
lonely threshold cowers down and cries. In
the deepest grief there is a sweet relief in tears ;
and the composer seems to have had that in
mind when he suddenly changed from minor to
major in the last chord, at the word "cries" —
a most subtle touch of musical psychology.

245

English and American Song-Writers

Through the Meadows is another of those utterly
MacDowellesque songs, the individuality and
charm of which the pen can no more describe
than a camera can reproduce the splendors of a
sunset. But the greatest of these eight songs
is The Sea, which James Huneker has justly
called " the strongest song of the sea since
Schubert's Am Meer." The rare poetic art
with which Howells brings before our eyes the
picture of the lover sailing away to sea, while
the beloved stands on the shore and cries;
followed by the picture of the wreck, and the
lover lying asleep, far under, dead in his coral
bed — is duplicated in the music, which shows
a marvellous gift of emotional coloring in its
harmonies, and is, in all other respects, a perfect
song. It is not only the best of these Eight
Songs, it is the best of all the MacDowell songs,
of all American songs, one of the best hundred
songs ever written, the world over. I shall
never forget the eagerness and the delighted
surprise with which Paderewski read it over
when I made him acquainted with it.

To New York City belongs the honor of
having given birth, in 1861, to the composer
who has placed American music, so far as the
Lied and the piano-forte are concerned, on a
level with the best that is done in Europe.
MacDowell got his musical education partly at
246

Mac Do we 11

home, partly in Paris, and partly in Germany,
where one of his teachers was Raff, who
strengthened his natural inclination toward
pictorial romanticism in music — programme-
music in the most poetic sense of the word.
In 1889 he returned to America and took up
his abode in Boston, where he continued to
compose and teach till 1896, when he accepted
an appointment as professor of music at Co-
lumbia University.* His summers he spends
with his musical, critical, and sympathetic wife
— who is a great comfort and aid to him — near
Peterboro, New Hampshire. Not far from his
house, buried in the dense woods, is a log-cabin
whence wonderful harmonies are sometimes
wafted by the breezes. Here MacDowell has
composed among other things his delightful
Woodland Sketches and Sea Pieces for piano, as
well as the last seven of his Lieder — the Four
Songs of opus 56 and the Three Songs of opus 58,
for which he also wrote the admirable poems,
the quality of which may be judged by the fol-
lowing, entitled Sunrise :

Sunrise gilds the crested sea

That mocks grim Oban's might ;

But at his feet sways sullenly
A ship that died 'the night.

* A sketch of MacDowell's life by the author of this volume
was printed in the Century Magazine of January, 1897.

247

English and American Song- Writers

The ocean's breast doth throb no more

For such a wreck as she.
The rocks gnaw at her broken heart ;

The sun shines pit'lessly.

It is lucky for the cause of American music
that MacDowell decided — it was merely a
question of choice — to become a composer, in-
stead of a professional poet. We have had sev-
eral great poets ; but the poetic quality in our
music had been rare until he came. It animates
all of these last seven songs. Several of them
— like Constancy, Old Lilac Bushes, A Maid Sings
Light, and Long Ago (which is like a genuine
folk-song, with the added harmonies of an artist)
will please all persons of taste at a first hear-
ing, while improving, like all good music, on
repetition. Others, like As the Gloaming Shad-
ows Creep and A Winsome Morning Measure,
have deep and subtle charms which only inti-
mate acquaintance reveals, and then we love
them like dear friends. One of my favorites is
No. 2 of opus 56 — The Swan Bent Low to the
Lily. It illustrates, like many others of these
thirty-nine songs, the combination of feminine
tenderness with passionate manliness which is
characteristic of MacDowell. There is a su-
perb virility and vigor in all his music and
yet his favorite expression-mark is " tenderly."
These expression-marks in MacDowell's music
248

MacDowell

must be observed most carefully if the singer
and the player are to reveal its essence. It
always has a vocal melody that charms by its
own freshness and beauty ; yet how much its
eloquence is enhanced if the pianist knows how
to accent the emotional harmonies! Modern
taste craves the " bite " of frequent dissonance ;
yet this must not exist for its own sake, but
only as a spice for the melody — as it does in the
songs of Edward MacDowell.

Few persons realize how young an art music
is. Youngest of all its branches is the art-song.
The time between Schubert and MacDowell
is less than a century, yet what treasures of
genius we have been able to glance at in the
pages of this monograph !

249

INDEX

ABT, 166

Accompaniments : of Trouba-
dour songs, 13 ; in Beetho-
ven's songs, 31 ; in popular art
songs, 35 ; Weber's, 39 ; Vogl
& Schubert, 51; transposing,
68, 149 ; in Schubert, ico, 102 ;
and Schumann, 118-121 ; in
Franz, 147-152; in R. Strauss,
170-172 ; in Liszt, 178 ; in
Grieg, 203

d' Albert, E., 173

American song-writers, 230-249

Art-song — see Lied

Australians, aboriginal, 5

BACH, A. B., 85, 106, 109
Bach, J. S., 19, 20, 143, 145, 146,

U7

Ballads, 107

Beethoven, 21, 28-34, 61-63, 83
Berlioz, 221
Bird-song, 3, 9
Bispham, David, 142
Bizet, 222
Brahms, 141, 154-161, 188

CAFFARELLI, 17
Chadwick, G. W., 234
Chaminade, Cecile, 225-227
Chopin, 147, 191-194

Chorals, 14
Curschmann, 166
Curzon, 68

DB KOVEN, R., 235
Delibes, 224
Donizetti, 17
Dresel, O., 131
Durchcomponirt, 70, 181
Dvorak, 79, 190

EHLERT, 141

Ehrlich, H., 174

Elson, 43, 84, 95, 107, in, 162

Engel, C. , 10

English song-writers, 228-230

Esterhazy, 56

FIELITZ, 173

Finck, E. J.. 86, 238

Fiske, John, 43

Fletcher, Alice, 4

Folk-song. 7-16, 35, 180-184, 201-
204, 210

Foote, Arthur, 232

Franz, Robert : edits Bach and
Handel, 21, 144 ; and Schubert,
79, 82, 100; on Mendelssohn,
in, 140; on Schumann, 115,
120 ; section on, 123-154 ; early
influences, 124 ; Schumann and

251

Index

Mendelssohn, 125, 126; deaf-
ness, 127, 128 ; an hour with,
128 ; ignored by contempo-
raries, 129 ; a generous gift,
130; America's share, 130, 131 ;
his friend Dresel, 131 ; his wife,
J33> J34 1 number of songs,
134 ; critical, 135 ; and Wag-
ner, 136-139 ; his name, 134 ;
art-principles, 137, 138, 140 ;
bel canto, 141 ; attitude of sing-
ers, 142 ; melodic miniature
work, 143 ; chorals, 144 ; church
modes, 145 ; influence of Cho-
pin, 147 ; modulations, 148 ; ob-
jects to transpositions, 149 ;
not a dramatic composer, 150 ;
tone-painting, 150 ; not a local-
colorist, 151 ; proportion of
good songs, 152
French song-writers, 220-227
Friedlander, Max, 22, 43, 66, 67,

75, 76, 90, 102, ill
Fuller-Maitland, 122

GERMAN song-writers, 22-173

Gluck, 18, 21-24

Godard, 224

Goethe, 27, 32, 35-37, 81, 104

Goldmark, C., 173

Gounod, 223

Gregorian chant, 7, 14

Grieg, Edward, 198-217

Grieg, Nina, 214-216

Grove, Sir G. , u, 43, 52, 54, 6l,

64, 95, 102, in
Gumbert, 166

HALE, PHILIP, 95, 239
Handel, 19, 20

Haydn, 21, 24-26

Heine, 96, 97, 103, 118, 122, 139,

180

Herbert, Victor, 238
Holmes, Augusta, 225
Howells, W. D., 245
Hueffer, F., 133, 178, 228
Hughes, Rupert, 231, 236
Huneker, J., 192, 239, 246
Hungarian song-writers, 174-184
Huss, H. H., 236

ITALIAN song-writers, 218-220

JENSEN, A., 161-165
Johns, Clayton, 233

KELLEY, E. S., 236, 237
Klein, B. O., 173, 238
Krehbiel, H. E., 10
Kucken, 166

LEHMANN, LILLI, 141

Lied: art-song and folk-song,
3-21, 181-184, 201-204 ; why
neglected before Schubert,
Preface, 18-20 ; Gluck's re-
forms, 23 ; Vogl on, 50 ; stro-
phic and through-composed,
70, 181 ; form and ideas, 31,
157-159, 181-184, 239,240; bal-
lads, 107 ; bel canto in, 141 ; in
France, 220 ; in England, 228 ;
a German product, 174 ; in
Italy, 218; and passim

Lind, Jenny, 3, 141

Liszt, 51, 52, 71, 132, 148, 175-
184

Loewe, 105-109

252

Index

MACDOVVBLL, 238-249

Mackenzie, 230

Mandyczewski, 66, 67, 82, 102

Mascagni, 219

Massenet, 225

Mastersingers, 9

Melody : in Italian opera, 16, 17 ;

German vs. Italian, 98-100
Mendelssohn, 109, 112
Minnesong, 9
Mottl, Felix, 173
Mozart, 21, 26-28

NATIONAL song, literature of,

10

Nevin, E., 236
Niecks, F., 160, 185, 191-193
Niggli, 43. i65
Nordica, Lillian, 172, 206

PADBREWSKI, 194-196

Paine, J. K., 10, 43, 232

Parker, H. , 237

Parry, H., n, 230

Piano parts in songs — see under
Accompaniments

Poetry : and real vocal music, 3,
4 ; of savages, 5, 6 ; in Italian
opera, 16-18 ; in Haydn's
songs, 24 ; German folk-songs,
35 ; Schubert's attitude to-
ward, 103, 104, 119 ; ballads,
107, 108 ; in Mendelssohn, in ;
in Schumann's songs, 118-120 ;
in Franz's, 138-140 ; in Grieg's,

212, 213

Polyphonic song, 15, 16
Prochazka, 139, 143
Purcell, 18

RAFF, 166
Reger, Max, 173
Reichardt, 34
Reimann, H., 155, 160
Reinecke, 166
Reismann, 120
Rheinberger, J., 173
Riemann, H., 7, 79
Rockstro, 8, 9
Rossini, 17, 97
Rubinstein, 184-188
Runciman, J. F., 155

SAINT-SAENS, 224

Savages, songs of, 4-6

Scandinavian song-writers, 197-
217

Schlesinger, S. , 238

Schneider, 9

Schubert : admires Zelter, 37 ;
chapter on, 40-104 ; boyhood,
41-43 ; books and articles on,
43 ; as school teacher, 44 ; early
songs, 44, 69 ; a " Bohemian,"
45-47 1 friends, 45, 48 ; " Schu-
bertiads," 47 ; improvises dance
music, 48 ; meets Vogl, 48 ;
at the piano, 51 ; modesty, 52 ;
Erlking, 53, 67, 69, 71-76, 109 ;
and his publishers, 53, 54;
Wanderer, 53, 76, 103 ; critics,
54. 55 1 Mitllerlieder, 56, 65,
82-85 ! love-affairs, 56-59 ; real
tragedy of his life, 59; praised
by Beethoven, 61 ; moments
of creativeness, 63, 64 ; The
Dwarf, 64 ; Winterreise, 65 ;
fertility, 65 ; number of songs,
66, 67 ; The Trout, 66, 78, 80 ;
Mignon songs, 67, Si, 82 ; re-

253

Index

vises his songs, 66, 67 ; editor-
ial corrections, 67 ; transposi-
tions, 68 ; Margaret at Spin-
ning- Wheel, 69, 70 ; Rose on
the Heath, 69 ; Death and the
Maiden, 72, 77 ; rank as a com-
poser, 78 ; Dvorak on, 79 ;
Serenade, Hark, hark, the
Lark, 80 ; Ave Maria, 80 ;
editions of songs, 82; Winter-
Journey cycle, 85-92 ; high-
water mark of genius, 86;
moves to tears, 86, 87 ; still an-
other epoch, 92 ; Sviansong
group, 92-97; epitaph, 97;
what died with him, 98; as a
melodist, 98-100 ; harmonic in-
novator, original modulations,
loo, 101 ; spontaneity, 101 ;
not uncritical, 102-104 • choice
of poems, 103 ; ballads, 107 ;
compared with Schumann, 117-
120 ; Rubinstein on, 186

Schumann, Clara, 116

Schumann, Robert : 112-122 ;
courtship and love, 112-115 '•
joy in song-writing, 114; best
twenty songs, 115, 116; from
genius to talent, 117 ; compared
with Schubert, 117-120 ; ro-
manticism, 122 ; Two Grena-
diers, 168

Silcher, 183

Sinding, 197

Singers : attitude of, toward
songs, Preface, 142, 178 ; early
Italian, 17 ; Vogl and Schubert,
49-51, 67 ; Nina Grieg, 216 ;
Lehmann, 141 ; Nordica, 172,
206

Slavic song-writers, 184-196

Songs : of birds, 3 ; of savages,
4-6 ; folk-songs, 7-16 ; of trou-
badours, 9; mediaeval accom-
paniments to, 13 ; national, lit-
erature of, 10 ; first writers of,
12 ; folk-songs in the church,
14 ; for piano, Preface, 71, 138 ;
and passim ; see Lied

Spaun, 43, 63, 64

Spohr, 37

Stanford, Villiers, 230

Strauss, Richard, 170-173

Strophic songs, 70, 181

Sullivan, Arthur, 228

TAUBKRT, 166
Tchaikovsky, 158, 188-190
Thomas, Goring, 229
Through-composed songs, 70,

181

Tosti, 220
Troubadour songs, 9, 12, 13

VOGL, J. M., 48, 49, 66

WAGNER : prize song, 9 ; on
folk-song, 15 ; and Franz, 136-
139 ; and Brahms, 155, 156 ;
influence on Jensen, 164 ; on
later song-writers, 169 ; his own
songs, 167-170 ; on Liszt, 177

Waldmann, 139

Weber, 38, 39

Weingartner, F., 173

Wodehouse, Mrs., 10

Wolf, Hugo, 173

Women in music, 225-227

ZELTER, 36
Zumsteeg, 37, 69

254

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