Edward Baxter Perry

“ It is a distinctly Italian melody, with no pretensions to great depth or dramatic intensity, but simple, tender, and sweet, winning rather than commanding—a lyric of the sensuously beautiful type, but not to be despised, as it is a spontaneous product of the sunny-tempered, warm-hearted children of the South. It contains no hint of the Venice of mystery, of secret cruelty, of world-wide powers, of the Council of the Ten, that 220 masked midnight tribunal of former days; but breathes only of Venice the fair, in her moonlit beauty—of Venice, “the Bride of the Sea.” ”

“ The music, soft and muffled at first, like the toll of far-off bells, gradually grows in power and intensity as the procession advances, assuming more and more the heavy, measured, inflexible rhythm of a funeral march, and swelling at last to an overwhelming climax of passionate pain.
Then the procession comes to a stand by the open grave. After a brief pause, the sweet, plaintive trio melody enters, pure and tender as a prayer, touched and thrilled to warmth and pathos by memories of happier days ”

“ The second movement, calm, fluent, and sweetly melodious, full of rest and tranquil content, deals with the period after love’s victory, when hope has been fulfilled and the heart’s unrest has been transformed to peace and happiness, where life flows onward like a placid stream, its waters brightened and purified by the glad sunlight of perfect love and full-orbed happiness, its waves murmuring the old yet ever new refrain, the simple, natural, yet magically potent melody, to which the symphony of the universe is harmonized. ”

“ The laughter of the children at play, the distant strains of the guitar, the twitter of birds on the damp branches, would call forth from his soul melodies of indescribable sweetness and grace. But many also are so full of gloom and sadness that, in spite of the pleasure they afford, the listener is filled with pain. Some of his later tone-poems bring before us a sparkling crystal stream reflecting the sunbeams. Chopin’s quieter compositions remind us of the song of the lark as it lightly soars into the ether, or the gentle gliding of the swan over the smooth mirror of the waters ”

“ In a Liszt rhapsody, a cadenza should flash like a rocket, but in a Chopin nocturne it should glide with easy, undulating grace, should float like a wind-blown ribbon, a fallen rose-leaf. Too often we hear the ornamental passages in a lyric played as if they were wholly irrelevant matter, dropped in there by accident out of some other entirely different compositions,—a bit of vain, noisy display in the midst of a poetic dream, breaking instead of enhancing its charm, utterly incongruous. ”

“ Chopin is beyond dispute the Tennyson of the pianoforte. The same depth, warmth, and delicacy of feeling vitalizing every line, the same polish, fineness of detail, and symmetry of form, the same exquisitely refined, yet by no means effeminate, temperament are seen in both. Each shows us fervent passion, beyond the ken of common men, without a touch of brutality; intense and vehement emotion, with never a hint of violence in its betrayal, expressed in dainty rhythmic numbers as polished and symmetrical as if that symmetry and polish were their only raison d’être. ”

“ The development, with its complex, conflicting rhythms, its 115 resistless, tempestuous sweep, thrills with the excitement of sudden onset, the rush of charging squadrons, the battle cry of struggling hosts. The closing chords express a somber triumph, the proud but sorrow-shadowed elation of a hard-won victory, purchased by the blood of many a patriot comrade.
The second movement, the scherzo, gives us the triumphant return of our hero crowned with laurel, accompanied by the jubilant strains of martial music, and the glad acclamations of the crowd. ”

“ Liszt’s reputation in this country as a pianoforte composer has hitherto rested, in the main, upon his brilliant and popular operatic fantasies, a few of his études, and his unique and world-famous Hungarian rhapsodies; all of which, though effective and by no means to be despised, are, after all, only the bright bubbles tossed off in playful mood from the surface of his genius, like the globules that rise from the sparkling champagne. ”

“ It seems at first rather tame and colorless to our modern ears, accustomed to the ceaseless stress and din of complex and conflicting elements, warring together in the life and art of our own day; but if we can forget for a moment the intensity, the restless questioning and striving of the present and go back in spirit for a century or two to more normal conditions, we shall find this music restful and soothing as the green sweep of woods and meadows on a June morning in the country, after the glare and fever of a city ball-room. ”

“ I repeat, all art has for its mission the expression of life, all life; not the establishment or maintenance of standards either of morals or emotions; still less of mere forms of expression. Is not the gipsy maid, with her ungoverned caprices, her moments of exuberant gaiety, or passionate grief, just as much alive, hence as legitimate a theme for the artist, and certainly as interesting and romantic a subject for art treatment, as the staid German Hausfrau, or the frivolous American society girl? The beggar boy has been as ably painted, and is considered as artistic a figure as the king. ”

“ But perhaps we do not rightly appreciate the significance of the music. As it draws nearer and nearer, growing stronger with every moment, we begin to suspect that perhaps its very rudeness and primitive energy express more truthfully than more delicate, dreamy, finely shaded cadences could do, the idea that human love is one of the elemental forces of nature, underlying and antedating all the subtilizing refinements of civilization, and destined to outlast them, as the rugged granite of the northern mountains antedates and will outlast all the crystal palaces of taste and luxury. ”

“ The Chopin Berceuse (which is the French word for cradle-song) is a most unique as well as most ideally beautiful composition, standing alone in all piano literature, as regards its form and harmonic structure, the only one of its species. It is beyond all question or comparison, the finest cradle-song ever written for the piano, an exceptionally perfect example of that rare blending of spontaneous genius and mechanical ingenuity, for which Chopin was so preëminent, resulting in a work matchless in its originality, its suggestive realism, its delicacy of finish, and its poetic content. ”

“ Chopin used the name ballade in the sense in which it is employed in modern literature—to designate a short, poetic narrative, a miniature epic, as distinguished from the lyric, didactic, and dramatic forms of poetry. He intended the ballade in music to be a counterpart of the ballad in poetry, and his inventive genius and unerring taste supplied and perfected a form precisely adapted to the end in view; a form which is strictly akin neither to the rondo, the sonata allegro, nor the free fantasia, though having certain points of resemblance to all three, still less to any of the dance forms. ”

“ Once more the gentle first theme, followed by those imploring minor cadences and a repetition of the strong, courageous climax, and then the tempest breaks again with renewed intensity, the stress of desperate strife, the agony of terror, a seething, surging, rushing torrent of tone, as if men and demons were struggling for life in a swirling vortex, where the elemental forces of ocean and fire had met in a death-grapple. ”

“ When he had finished and the applause had subsided, one of the ladies was heard to remark, “What a pity that the piano is incapable of these effects! It is brilliant, dramatic, resourceful, what you will; but only the violin can stir the heart in that way.”
Chopin rose, bowing with one of his equivocal smiles, half-sad, half-playfully mocking, stepped to the piano and improvised this nocturne, a perfect reproduction of all the best violin effects, cantilena and all, including the double-stopping in the second theme, with a certain warmth and poetry added, which were all his own. ”

“ It is the song of Marguerite, sitting at her wheel, in the gathering dusk of evening, spinning mechanically from the force of long habit, but with her thoughts engrossed by memories of her lost happiness, her ruined life, and blighted future. The mood is one of overwhelming melancholy, of crushing despair, whose dark depths are fitfully stirred from time to time by a rebellious surge of passionate but hopeless longing, as her heart throbs to some passing recollection of departed joys and love’s fateful delirium. ”

“ The mood is one of glowing enthusiasm and ideal unselfishness, but subdued to a dreamy, half intensity, like sunlight through a fleece of summer clouds. The player should strive to produce in the melody the effects of a rich, mellow baritone voice, clearly, smoothly, musically modulated, warm, but never impassioned. The Minnesingers always accompany themselves upon the harp, and the harp effects used by Wagner in the orchestra have been retained, as a matter of course, by Liszt in the piano arrangement, and must be reproduced by the player with the utmost fidelity. ”

“ And why, I ask, is not the audible interpretation at the piano of a Liszt, a Rubinstein, or a Paderewski just as likely to be legitimate as the printed interpretation of a Bülow or a Lebert? Has not one artist as good a right to his conception as another? And in heaven’s name what possible reason is there for assuming, in regard to an intensely emotional composer and player like Beethoven, that the coldly, stiffly scholastic reading of his works is more in accordance with his original intention than a more warm and subjective one? ”

“ One moment the “Black Huntsmen” sweep by us across some open moonlit plain, with a wild haste, with the clang of saber, the ring of bugle, and the tramp of rushing steeds; the next they flit before us through the gloom of the forests, vague, mysterious, like the indistinct phantoms of war. The distinct imitation of the rhythmic beat of galloping hoofs, so frequent a device in descriptive music, is effectively utilized here in accompaniment, while the melody of the song, full of trumpet-like suggestions, is raid to consist in part of actual bugle calls which were used among Lützow’s raiders. ”

“ Solveig, a Norwegian maiden of Peer’s own village, the earliest and only worthy love of his life, whom he has deserted in a spasm of virtue, feeling himself unfit to remain with her, sits spinning at the door of a log hut, in a forest far up in the North. She is now a middle-aged woman, fair and comely, and as she spins she sings of her unfailing faith in Peer’s return, her own ever-constant love, and her prayers to God to strengthen and gladden her lover on earth or in heaven. ”

“ Heaven will surely guide and protect its faithful knights, and his lady bids him Godspeed, though with tearful eyes. From the castle court below, sounds of gathering troops and martial preparation rise to their ears, at first faintly, then with growing din and clamor, till a burst of trumpets greets the rising sun; the gates are flung open and, hastily descending, he takes his place at the head of his forces and they march away to the strains of inspiriting military music. ”

“ Thoughts, breath, pulses, flying feet, the murmur of voices, all existence has adapted itself to this waltz tempo, as to its normal element, and the very planets seem to swing through space in triple rhythm. The true waltz has but two moods, which touch the opposite poles of emotion—that of joyous elation and of dreamy languor. We may call them the Allegro and the Penseroso of the waltz. And Weber, in the “Invitation to the Dance,” has recognized this and woven his composition of but two themes, representing the contrasting phases of feeling described. ”

“ In the midst of the second warm and sinuous melody, we hear again the masculine voice, in less conventional accents, and the soft responses of the treble, through quite a colloquy, while the accompaniment keeps ever steadily to the undulating waltz movement, till the two voices merge gradually into the general murmur and are drowned in the flourishes of the orchestra, as our couple disappears in the whirl, with which the waltz, taking up again the first sparkling melody with accelerated pace, draws with increasing confusion to its close. ”

“ I refer to the series of progressive pictures carved on the friezes of many ancient Oriental and Grecian temples, portraying successive episodes in the life of some god, hero, king, or prophet. The central figure is ever the same, however attitude, action, mood, and environment may vary, to suit the stage of his story represented in each scene. No smoke of battle, strangeness of garb, or storm of emotion can so obscure or distort the familiar lineaments that they are not recognizable, though they take contour and expression from circumstances, those variations in the theme of life. ”

“ The musician should early accustom himself to grasp clearly the essential essence, the vital principle, of an artistic moment, a dramatic situation. For some such moment, mood, or situation, however vague or veiled, underlies every true art work; and unless the performer can perceive and comprehend this inner germ of meaning clearly enough to express it intelligibly, though it may be crudely, in his own words, he will find that many a hint has been lost upon him, and many a bit of knowledge, that might have been his, has escaped him. ”

“ The striking contrast between the first and second subjects should be maintained throughout, with greatest possible distinctness, and the closing chords must be given boldly, defiantly, like a challenge proudly flung to all the powers of darkness, to fate, no matter how adverse.
With the second movement comes a radical change of mood. The first impetuous vigor has been expended in the struggle; the first joy of combat and self-reliant consciousness of strength have ebbed away like a receding tide, leaving the soul exhausted, discouraged, but not despairing. ”

“ This scene of the drama, in spite of its solemnity and sadness, carries the fantastic to the extreme verge of the grotesque.
The illustrative music is cast in the mold of a “funeral march,” without trio and with but one well-developed theme. In it Grieg has emphasized only the somber and tragical aspect of the situation, ignoring entirely its touches of ghastly humor. The utter and crushing despair of a wrecked and disappointed life, of shattered hopes and unrequited and unappreciated maternal affection, sobs through its strains, enhancing the pangs of approaching dissolution. ”

“ But there is, I claim, a deeper interest and a higher pleasure to be derived from seeking, beneath the smoothly flowing harmonies and graceful, rippling embellishment, for the allegorical significance or suggestion mirrored in their clear depths, as scenes and faces are reflected in the tranquil stream, and which are rarely, if ever, wanting in the true art work.
The “theme and variations” in music, which owes its origin to the first crude attempts of early composers to elongate and develop a musical idea into a symmetrical art form, corresponds to a very early phase of another art. ”