“ Die Allmacht is a song in the most exalted style of Beethoven, but executed with a technique which is utterly of the romantic school. God is praised by all his works, by the storm no less than by the devout heart in prayer. Each is expressed by Schubert in a musical passage of great beauty. Yet each section is but an inextricable part of the symphonic movement—for religious adoration is not a collection of separate feelings, but a great emotional synthesis. The music for Goethe’s wonderful ‘Wanderer’s Evensong’ is no less remarkable for the musical blending of shades of emotion. ”

“ No singer should attempt to sing one of Schubert’s songs in public without being familiar with most of these other lyrics.
Schubert reveals the folk genius in being able to achieve the highest beauty within the smallest compass. Such a snatch of melody as the first line of the ‘Litany’ is a work of pure genius. They say that the test of a picture is its ability to be ‘lived with.’ The same is true of a melody. The first line of the ‘Litany,’ as well as the whole of it, can be sung each day and never lose its charm. It has all the suave grace of a tune out of Italian opera. ”

“ This is no place nor time for the sadness of a conquered race that by the waters of another land hung up its harps, and refused to sing the songs of home. Here, on the contrary, may all the accumulated wealth of the beauty of song be joyously revealed to the people by the people, and for the people’s good.
No words can describe music. Talk of it as we may, only music can tell us of itself. How profound its appeal to the very essence of human nature! In the works that have been left to us we have a marvellous heritage. ”

“ But it is in the famous French ‘taste’ not to shout one’s message to the heavens. You do not appreciate the meaning of these melodies until you have come to know and love them, just as you do not appreciate the meaning of a child until you have come to know and love him. You must be on the alert, sensitive to catch the meaning of a whisper or a gesture. And, in addition to the meaning, you must learn to love the formal beauty of a French melody. No nation has carried perfection of form, even in the smallest things, to such a pitch as the French. ”

“ The singer must have a complete command over detail, must be conscious of the relations of each note he is singing. The beauty of these songs is that of perfect good taste. They do not obtrude themselves, they do not assume a higher value than they possess, they do not seek undue praise. They are restrained as a well-mannered hostess is restrained in talking of politics or religion to her guests. It is not that she is insincere, only that she feels it is not the time for unrestrained sincerity. Like a true gentleman of the world, these songs hate the too obvious. ”

“ Only the folk-composer and the highest conscious genius can achieve it.
We see the same genius in the final measures of ‘Death and the Maiden.’ The Maiden sees Death approaching, and begs him to pass by. He replies that he has not come to cause her pain. He is a friend and will give her peace and joy. And the music, a succession of the simplest chords, glides gradually into a major that seems to wring the tears by main force from the eyes. ”

“ Many a singer has been astonished by that old miracle of art—that if the notes are sung as written they will work their own magic. The composer has seen to that. If a song relies wholly on a ‘singer’s personality,’ the composer has failed. So in these songs pure intonation, just rhythm, and careful diction will interpret the poet truly. If the singer finds that with the observance of these values the songs do not express what they should, let him put them aside for a while. As his technical artistic powers grow he will find that the songs have grown along with them. ”

“ It is not to be believed, however, that, to whatever lengths this new musical Renaissance may go, the appeal of simple melody will ever want for an audience. The past has enough and to spare of song that we have not even tasted, much less digested. Let us set ourselves to teach the multitudes of the uninitiated rising generation all the beauties of the classics of song. They are as full as ever of worth and loveliness, and must form a part of the heritage of the generations yet unborn. ”

“ Never has emotion been shown more powerful, beauty more dignified, than in his symphonies. The art of music, as it passed from his hands into those of younger men, was a grand and universal instrument, equal to any emotional demand men might want to make upon it. But, if Beethoven had developed all these capacities in music, he had by no means used them all. Emotion in his music is that of the epic poet, broad and grand, rather than that of the lyricist, personal and subtle. He had developed his instrument to marvellous perfection. ”

“ The folk-song speaks for man in the mass; the art-song speaks for man the individual. For the folk-song, let us always remember, was composed not by an individual, but by a mass, each member of which may have contributed one or more of its beauties. If it had sung of a joy or sorrow which belonged exclusively to its original singer, it would have held no interest for other people and would have died with its composer. Those folk-songs were, of course, most popular which spoke for the interests and emotions of the greatest number of men. ”

“ But he has left us at least one hundred songs which are immortal. First of all, they are worth knowing for their wonderful stock of melodies, as pure and rich as any composer in the world has ever given us. The enchantment can hardly wear off with such melodies as those of ‘Praise of Tears,’ ‘The Trout,’ Du bist die Ruh, ‘The Linden Tree,’ ‘The Inn,’ ‘To Sylvia,’ ‘Litany,’ and ‘The Serenade.’
It is by no means the melody of the drawing-room. The dainty, snobbish grace of the French bergerette is foreign to Schubert. He seems anxious to sing with everybody. ”

“ Whatever has been written or is yet to appear, is a natural growth, and should be recognized as welling up from the unsounded depths of the human mind, as something to be used for the benefit, here and now, of young and old, male and female, rich and poor, well and ill—as a fruit ‘for the healing of the nations.’ When performed under proper circumstances, music—and particularly song, because it is so individual—has a power for good that is amazing. ”

“ It was natural that love should be the chief theme of their songs. And in Provence, the southeastern part of modern France, there arose toward the end of the eleventh century, the cult or institutions of the Troubadours. The Troubadours were primarily nobles, cultivating the arts as a pastime. But many men of lower rank also took up the fashion, winning their way through the beauty of their song. All that we regard as most typical of French art was in their music and verses—delicacy of wit and fancy, beauty of form, purity of diction. ”

“ This man was utterly absorbed in the Russian folk-song and based his style on nothing else. He had the faculty of genius which goes straight to the heart of something new and produces his result without seeming effort. Few musicians of the nineteenth century have spoken with so individual a voice. The world is only beginning to appreciate the greatness of his operas. As for his songs, they have made their way even more slowly, but where they are once known they are never forgotten. Moussorgsky’s many remarkable qualities are not to be set down in a single paragraph like the present. ”

“ In the whole list of Schumann’s songs there is hardly one whose words could be put into the mouth of a hero. By far the greater portion are pessimistic. What the poet remembers is a beguiling hour in the shade of a tree. What he looks forward to is a smile from his sweetheart. Every man tries to snatch his own small portion of happiness from this life—and generally makes a poor job of it. Nevertheless, a man usually tells more of the truth about himself when he is discouraged than when he is self-satisfied. ”

“ And some fairly general acquaintance with modern song literature is a necessity for the singer or the concert-goer. A singer can no more understand the songs she sings without at the same time being familiar with others than a student can understand the history of his own country without knowing that of foreign lands. For such a singer to appear in public as an interpreter is simply an insolence. If he ‘specializes’ in modern French songs, the more necessity for him to know old German. You can never appreciate any quality without knowing something of its opposite. ”

“ The innumerable joke songs of Italy present a peculiar problem to the singer. They must be sung with the most expert enunciation, with a fine technique that conceals all art, and with a spirit bursting with fun. Perhaps it would be truer to say that they are impossible to any but the Italian born and bred. Their purely musical value, it must be admitted, is usually slight; but they have none the less a high place in folk-song literature. It is only fair to say that the musicianship of the Italian songs is often careless and faulty. ”

“ In the greater part of his songs the inner notes do not serve merely for harmonic filling-in; they are parts of individual voices which are preserved in their integrity. In all these songs there is nothing ambitious or spectacular. But so deeply based is his musicianship that we may say that anyone who knows the Franz songs accurately knows in epitome the whole development of German classical music. Moreover, they are the finest of cultural exercises. For one who has learned to love the Franz songs has learned one of the most precious things music has to give—the art of listening. ”

“ Most concert-goers know only too well how little this principle is regarded among Lieder singers. Is there one singer out of ten who does not try to transcend his or her song? Is there one singer out of ten who would not rather have his or her hearers at the end of a piece exclaim: ‘A great singer!’ rather than ‘A great song!’ And to force their personalities to the foreground singers will abuse their songs from beginning to end. Often they do it intentionally, sincerely believing that this is the only kind of singing that is effective. ”

“ Their beauty is like the sunlight of an early spring morning, which illumines all things and exaggerates none. The words, though naïve and somewhat conventional in their continual playing with sentimental love, are not without their grace and beauty. And the music is remarkably varied. Among these songs we find lullabies, fanciful dialogues, dance songs, gentle laments, and delightful musical jokes. There is among them much less of pure convention than in the operas of the period, and at times there is a sensuous or emotional quality which seems to look forward many decades. ”

“ It rarely seems to be the prime object of the music. The prime object seems rather to be the giving of pleasure through the beauty of musical patterns. The music must not be obviously inappropriate to the words of an aria, but it is not thought of as expressing their sense in itself. The movements of a Mozart symphony may have for us some mild emotional connotation; but in the composer’s mind, in all probability, it was not the emotion which germinated the music, but the music which germinated the emotion. The music of the long period before Schubert was predominantly formal. ”

“ Though Fauré’s songs do not speak with the authority of genius they are extraordinarily fine in their deftness of handling, in their delicacy, in their unfailing sense of artistic fitness. Fauré, among the first of his generation, treated the accompaniment with respect. His piano parts are filled with interesting voices and gently stimulating movement. Each song has its individuality and style. The melody is sometimes truly eloquent, but too often partakes of the colorless nature of contemporary music. ”

“ But it is evident that Brahms bestows as much care upon this as upon his most elaborate lyric. There is not a single unusual or strained chord in the accompaniment. Yet there is not a measure without its elements of variety and interest. The gentle syncopation, as of the rocking of the cradle, is always present; always shows some motion and variety. Yet the whole song is managed without any straining for effect, without letting the varied accompaniment overshadow the simple melody. ”

“ The rejected lover hears from a distance the orchestra playing for dancing at the wedding of his beloved. The accompaniment is a waltz rhythm, with repeated notes deftly inserted to suggest perhaps the trumpets of the band. The waltz is steady and continuous. It has none of the sensuous softness, none of the simplicity and balance of phrase which we are accustomed to in popular waltzes. It tinkles on continuously, without an opportunity to draw a breath—and hence seems at first glance aimless. Instead of the engaging warmth we expect from waltzes, it gives a chilling effect. ”

“ We can no more deny the able musicianship of the later ones than we can deny the impressive beauty of the earlier. They are far from being repetitions of each other. This great variety, both in mood and in technical style, proves what a rich fund of ideas and artistic power the composer had to draw from. The technique of the later ones is about that familiar to us in the Strauss operas, a brilliant use of dissonance and rapid modulation combined with an extremely bold polyphony. ”

“ As to the impulse to song and to artistic creation in general they laid it to that mysterious thing, ‘inspiration.’
Schopenhauer’s theory has a modern ring and is excellent poetry even though it can hardly rank as science. He says that while the other arts—painting, sculpture, and architecture—represent the Idea, which is the reflection of the Will, music represents the Will itself. It is pure energy, the nearest thing that exists among men to the essence of reality. ”