Lawrence Gilman

“ A solo violin, in a long and elaborate passage, introduces the Hero's beloved. She is pictured at first as capricious—a coquette; but the music grows more tender, more gentle; the full orchestra enters; the oboe sings an expressive melody; there are rapturous and passionate phrases for the strings [295] amid sweeping arpeggios in the harps, and the love scene reaches its climax. The mocking voices of the foe are heard remotely, like the distant croaking of night birds through an ecstatic dream: they are powerless to disturb the peace and felicity of the lovers. ”

“ As a typical expression of his fondness for nature and of the blissful and occasional reverent feelings which it stirs in him, the composer chose to present the emotions produced by a solitary walk through meadows and woods on a quiet summer afternoon, when the shadows grow long and longer, till they lose themselves in the dusk, and gradually turn into the early dark of night. Unlike Beethoven's Pastoral Symphony, the unconscious summer music of drowsy crickets and birds is not actually represented by instrumental equivalents. ”

“ With Tschaikowsky, here, as in the 'Manfred' symphony, the drum is the most tragic of instruments. The persistent drum-beat in this trio is poignant in despair not untouched with irony. Man says: 'Come now, I'll be gay'; and he tries to sing and to dance and to forget. His very gaiety is labored, forced, constrained, in an unnatural rhythm. And then the drum is heard, and there is wailing, there is angry protest, there is the conviction that the struggle against Fate is vain. Again there is the deliberate effort to be gay, but the drum once heard beats in the ears forever. ”

“ To achieve his end—to express all those varied emotions of anguish, terror, longing, despair, aspiration, triumph—he stops at nothing: he heaps dissonance upon dissonance, he writes in several keys at once, he assaults our ears with what would have seemed to the placid soul of Haydn the pandemonium of a mad-house. Yet, if he be a genius, we are swayed and enthralled. We even derive a double pleasure from this new kind of art-work, which is at once music and drama. ”

“ The strings sing the principal theme. After an allegro passage (some will find here the thought of the ascending lark) , there is a return to the serener mood of the opening; antique cymbals hint at the sparkle of the dew on the hay. The music keeps pace with the mounting eagerness and desire of the poet-lover; the excitement grows, reaching its climax in an effulgent outburst of the full orchestra, announcing the rising sun. ”

“ One after another the constantly intensified and impetuous music pictures the scenes of the ride, the 'cellos and other strings keeping up their figure. A gloomy dirge tells us of the funeral train, and a weird theme in triple time of the spectres' dance about the gibbet, accompanied by wild cries of the night birds. More and more furious grows the ride until the graveyard is reached, when, after a moment of silence following the transformation, a chorale strain is heard, with a sad and tender accompaniment. The wretched maiden has at last found rest. ”

“ The Introduction is the kernel, the quintessence, the chief thought of the whole symphony. [Tschaikowsky quotes the stern and threatening opening theme, announced by horns and bassoons, Andante.] This is Fate, the fatal power which hinders one in the pursuit of happiness from gaining the goal, which jealously provides that peace and comfort do not prevail, that the sky is not free from clouds—a might that swings, like the sword of Damocles, constantly over the head, that poisons continually the soul. This might is overpowering and invincible. ”

“ The third movement—the march-scherzo—is the excuse, the pretext, for the final lamentation. The man triumphs; he knows all that there is in earthly fame. Success is hideous, as Victor Hugo said. The blare of trumpets, the shouts of the mob, may drown the sneers of envy; but at Pompey passing Roman streets, at Tasso with the laurel wreath, at coronation of czar or inauguration of president, Death grins, for he knows the emptiness, the vulgarity, of what this world calls success. ”

“ It is hard to say whether the composer's emotion or his counterpoint is given freer rein here, for the work is remarkable both for the display of every technical resource and for the irresistible tempest of its passion.... The cheerful consolation of the second subject provokes a cyclonic outburst of grief; there is a furious climax of thrilling flutes and violins over a mad blare of brass, the while the cymbals shiver beneath the blows of the kettle-drum-sticks. An abrupt silence prepares for a fierce, thunderous clamor from the kettle-drums and the great drum. ”

“ This time they arouse Egmont from his reveries; and for the first time he seems to have a presentiment of the actual danger. But his vision of before has not yet left him. It still hovers about him, and even the repeated alarm will not shake it from his mind.
"For the third time the terrible chords resound with trumpets and kettle-drums thundering out from the orchestra fortissimo. At last the illusion is over. A cry of anguish escapes him. His fate is sealed. Death is his doom. In mute horror the people surround the scaffold of their idol and their heart-felt prayers ascend to Heaven. ”

“ These phantom shrieks of raging impotence are merged in the strange harmonies that lead to the returning motive of the Allegro frenetico. The terrible tumult of the damned is enhanced at the close by the thought of the loss of all hope—a final refrain of the Lasciate, an all-destroying lightning-blast, seems to reveal the horrid scene of torture in the bosom of the archangel of evil himself. The music here seems to rival the impression of Dante's graphic views and forceful lines upon our minds. ”

“ In this last part of his 'Impressions' the composer has attempted to paint a musical picture of Naples, its population, its wholly out-door life, its joyfulness.... At first we hear scattered vibrations: heat, light, the swarming crowd. It seems as if songs came from every street, dance rhythms, the amorous languor of violins, the amusing plunking of guitars. Calls answer to calls, military bands play proudly their brazen symphony; dancers strike the ground with their feet, carry the rocking rhythm of tarantellas from group to group. ”

“ He might think the passage for muted strings, for example, extremely beautiful, but he would not get from it such delight as I, who not only feel all the musical loveliness of the melody and the harmonies and the tone color, but see the lovers on the balcony and breathe the very atmosphere of Shakespeare's scene. I am richer than my fellow by two or three emotions in a case of this kind. My nature is stirred on two or three sides instead of only one. ”

“ When Penthesilea, instead of vanquishing the beloved hero, is overcome by him, even his love is hateful to her. The ideal which she cannot fully and without reserve make hers she must destroy. The god in her having been killed, the beast awakes. And thus, immediately after that enchanting scene where the lovers, for the first time and the last, have been revelling in mutual surrender and delight, she falls like a tigress upon the unsuspecting and weaponless man ”

“ Only the all-pervading woe remains impressively sounded forth, first by the oboe.... From every side the wail is repeated, ... bringing before us, as in a picture, the hands of the nation uplifted in prayer to Heaven, until it is lost in the unison of the first outcry, fortissimo.... Only one ray of hope remains—Egmont. But even his light-hearted nature seems imbued with anxiety for his oppressed country. His motive is as if bound in chains by the simultaneous repetition of sombre chords. In deep melancholy the violins repeat the motive, seeming to languish more and more. ”

“ The tone-poet clothes its proclamation in the musical apparel of a Funeral march. Emotion tamed by deep grief, moving in solemn sorrow, tells us its tale in stirring tones.
"Force robbed of its destructive arrogance—by the chastening of its deep sorrow—the Third Movement shows in all its buoyant gaiety. Its wild unruliness has shaped itself to fresh, to blithe activity; we have before us now this lovable, glad man, who paces hale and hearty through the fields of Nature." ”

“ To-day, as formerly and always, Orpheus, that is to say, Art, should spread his melodious waves, his chords vibrating, like a sweet and irresistible light, over those conflicting elements which rend each other and bleed in the soul of every one of us, as they do in the entrails of every society. Orpheus bewails Eurydice—Eurydice, that emblem of the Ideal engulfed by evil and suffering, whom he is allowed to snatch from the monsters of Erebus, to lead forth from the depths of Cimmerian darkness, but whom he cannot, alas! ”

“ There is no longer time for regret, and soon there will be no time for longing. It is the Carnival, and Don Juan drinks deep of wine and love.... Surrounded by women, overcome by wine, he rages in passion, and at last falls unconscious.... Gradually he comes to his senses, the themes of the apparitions, rhythmically disguised as in fantastic dress, pass like sleep-chasings through his brain, and then there is the motive of 'Disgust.' Some find in the next episode the thought of the cemetery, with Don Juan's reflections and his invitation to the Statue. ”

“ The verdict 'guilty' is thundered against the brazen-faced knave. The 'Eulenspiegel' theme replies calmly to the threatening chords of wind and lower strings. Eulenspiegel lies. Again the threatening tones resound; but Eulenspiegel does not confess his guilt. On the contrary, he lies for the third time. His jig is up. Fear seizes him. The Hypocrisy motive is sounded piteously; the fatal moment draws near; his hour has struck!... He has danced in air. A last struggle (flutes) , and his soul takes flight.
"After sad, tremulous pizzicati of the strings, the epilogue begins. ”

“ Love is the morning radiance of every heart; but in what human life have not the first ecstasies of awakening bliss been broken in upon by some storm whose cruel breath dispelled every fond illusion and blasted the sacred shrine? And what soul, thus sorely wounded, does not, emerging from the tempest, seek balm in the solitude and serenity of country life? Yet man will not long resign himself to the soothing quietude of nature ”

“ Now we have reached the point when the poet of the Divine Comedy, at the first song of paradise, stands on the edge of purgatory and catches the glow of the divine light, that his eyes as yet cannot directly bear. Art cannot paint heaven itself, but merely the earthly reflection in the soul that is turned towards the light of divine mercy. ”

“ There is no other feeling that can so bow down a lofty spirit.
"Here the main motive sounds as a choral hymn. A second theme is then sung lamentoso, in fervent self-reproach, in passive resignation, in unutterable grief. The fugue is the most fitting figure for the perpetual play of the feeling at once of retrospection and of hope. At the height of the fugue the main motive (of the choral hymn) rises proudly aloft, presently returns humbly and in contrition, and, broken by phrases of lament, dies finally away. Slowly the heavy clouds of inexpressible woe are lifted. ”

“ We behold those fearful depths that fall from one circle to the other, down to the most hideous torture, the delirium of despair. The Allegro frenetico paints the madness of despondency, the rage of the damned, their curses and maledictions. Without love or rest or solace, they are ever torn along to that region where the sins of carnal lust are atoned, [168] and a horrible hurricane whirls the condemned souls about in perpetual darkness.
"Here the tone poet halts. The storm abates; it ceases for a moment while are invoked the unhappy lovers, Paolo and Francesca da Rimini. ”

“ Again we hear, in the tubas, the uncouth and cacophonous phrase which voices the dull contempt of the benighted adversaries. Even the glorious achievements of the Hero's brain, his spiritual conquests, have won only envy and derision. The protagonist rebels mightily; there are passionate and tempestuous phrases, reminiscences of his theme, in the strings, horns, and wood-wind. But his mood quiets. Over a persistent tapping of the kettle-drum, the English horn intones a gentler version of his theme. ”

“ If the musician writes music to a play and invents phrases to symbolize the characters and to picture the events of the play, we are simply not listening to his work at all if we listen to it in the ignorance of his poetical scheme. We may hear the music, but it is not the music he meant us to hear"—which is simply a more telling and vivid statement of a truth which Berlioz enunciated more than three score and ten years ago in a prefatory note to his Symphonie fantastique: "The plan of an instrumental drama, being without words, requires to be explained beforehand. ”

“ We can easily see why it is that Elgar chooses out of a great system of idealistic writing to limit himself for once within the boundaries of childhood, just the thoughts and the dreams of youth, that wonderful period in life; after all, the thoughts and dreams of youth do not go further than the theories of manhood, and Sir Edward Elgar therefore reaches a point of interrogation which ranks among all those many questions which in music seem to us to continue, from the time of the Abate Martini, through the questionings of Gluck, past the art of Mozart and Schumann, right unto the present day. ”

“ Jaromir, in a wild burst of passion, seeks to approach Mlada, who disappears. Jaromir pursues her. The moon grows red. Subterranean thunder. Seized with terror, the shades of the dead disappear. Night birds wing their way across the stage. Evil spirits issue from all the caverns and crevasses—demons, spectres, and sorcerers come forth, and serpents and toads crawl out. Revels and dances of the spirits of darkness. From the midst of the infernal round, Chernobog arises, in the form of a black stag, with his followers. He evokes the souls of Jaromir and of Cleopatra, Queen of Egypt. ”

“ Is he not a splendid fellow? Vengeance on the whole human race! He gives vent to his rage (in a fortissimo of horns in unison followed by a pause) , and strange personages suddenly draw near ('cellos) . A troop of honest, worthy Philistines! In an instant all his anger is forgotten. But it is still his chief joy to make fun of these lords and protectors of blameless decorum, to mock them, as is apparent from the lively and accentuated fragments of the theme, sounded at the beginning by the horn, which are now heard first from horns, violins, 'cellos, and then from trumpets, oboes, and flutes. ”