Music Trade Review

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THE MUSIC TRADE REVIEW
TRANSCENDENTAL HUSIC.
I think that the refined and sensitive
artistic mind naturally recoils from the
vulgarly obvious and clear in art; it pre-
fers the vague and suggestive shadowy
visions which incite the dreamer's own
mind to the work of creation, rather than
hurl facts at it. This is particularly the
case during the enthusiastic years of stu-
dentship, and is probably the reason why
the art of composition is hard to learn and
so hard to teach. In the dissection of
one's vaguest artistic imaginings into dead
fragments of mathematical shape, in the
building up by icy law and passionless
principle a vital emotional form, there is
something 1 incongruous, something repug-
nant to the youthful artist. He finds it
hard, even impossible, to believe that his
untaught efforts are quite valueless, and
that ideas will only come when the lan-
guage to express them has been mastered.
As Browning so beautifully describes a
young poet:
"At first I sang as I in dreams have seen
Music wait on a lyrist r for some thought,
Yet singing to herself until it came."
Transcendental music is indeed music
waiting "for some thought." If the stu-
dent's intellectual faculties are not—how
shall I say?—on friendly terms with his
artistic faculties, if he persists in believ-
ing that art is a heavenly inspiration, not
amenable to gross theories of A and B, he
is in danger of becoming a confirmed tran-
scendentalist. The gift of an extremely
fine ear (which is the same thing as " a
talent for music") may save him, but if he
has only a moderate musical capacity, and
ideas do not easily present themselves, or
differentiate themselves from non-ideas,he
is of the stuff of which transcendentalists
are made. This is the kind of a man who
says—having written something unusually
crude—"That is how I imagined it, and I
can't alter it." Why, your real or properly
educated musician can put his thought in
a hundred different lights, and what we
call his genius lies in the swiftness and
certainty with which he can decide which
is the best. The young man who cannot
alter what he has written should be made
to write variations constantly until he
learns to rule his ideas—not let them rule
him. People who try to work in a fine
frenzy are, in fact, "duffers." Only this
vulgar epithet is suitable to so vulgar a
class. Not that the fine frenzy itself is
bad or anything but a lofty emotion; with-
out enthusiasm and poetic ardor, our com-
positions would come down to the igno-
minious level of the exercise cantata, than
which there is no lower artistic depth; but
the musician must not trust to his feelings
for assistance in composition.
Critics-
they are, none better, but nothing else.
Comparison with the works of your great
predecessors is your only beacon-light, yet
a transcendentalist said to me once—"I
don't want to hear any more music for fear
of being influenced by it and so writing
what is not original." It was useless to in-
quire of such a wrong-headed creature
what his idea of original music was, but I
did ask him if he thought he
could have written better if he
had never heard or known of
any music whatever, and he
said, "Yes." Certainly if he
composed anything under those
circumstances it would be more
interesting than are his present
works. But, it will be argued,
there are certain men who can-
not be reproached for not hav-
ing studied, who yet write
vague or transcendental music
deliberately and of malice afore-
thought.
What shall be said
of these? Truly these men
may have studied, but that they
have studied enough is what I
absolutely deny. A person
with the hand of a laborer, ill-
formed and stiff, can be brought
to play the pianoforte by ju-
dicious and long training: one
of the very greatest of present-
day pianists is an instance in
point. But others with his de-
fect, lacking the resolution to
overcome it, remain with a
wooden touch all their lives.
XAVER SCHARWENKA,
Berlioz, with all his artistic The noted pianist who will be soloist at three of the Chickering Concerts.
temperament, can have had
but little, if any, natural gift
for composition.
He studied hard, but ignoring all sense and meaning, like the
under protest. Is it not unnatural that he tyro's first chaotic attempt to compose an
should never have learned to play any in- oratorio. In the one case the obscurity
strument decently? How can a man com- comes from a too great amount of ideas, in
pose who cannot improvise? He studied the other from an almost total lack of these
hard, but if he had studied ten-times necessary articles. The great masters, in-
harder his compositions would assuredly deed, are on rare occasions obscure; but
have been at least twice as clear. Liszt, as we feel the force of Poe's words, says a
a boy, seems to have shown considerable writer in an exchange, when we contem-
aptitude for composition, but he never plate, say, the slow movement of Beetho-
tried to develop it; consequently his ven's Pianoforte Concerto in G, the most
music, poetic in conception, gorgeous in shadowy thing he ever wrote. The means
coloring, is often deficient in aim and con- taken to attain this intentional and ex-
struction. To say that Liszt wrote with- quisite dreaminess of outline are obvious;
out plan would be incorrect. He took two it is a glorified recitative,a poetic dialogue
or three-minute phrases—often some one between the solo instrument and the or-
else's—and endeavored to build with them chestra. Actual shape, beyond this, it has
a large design ; but how can ideas be am- none; but the phrases follow one another
plified and expanded without the aid of in natural sequence, as opposed to the
other ideas? Wagner is sometimes ob- hysterical breakings off and recommence-
scure—never incoherent. The vaguest ments in another key of, say, Liszt's"Ham-
thing he ever wrote was a concerted piece let," or even "Les Preludes." Chopin
in the third act of "Lohengrin," always shows how the utmost refinement of poeti-
omitted in performance. The wildest cal sentiment is not incompatible with the
scenes in the "Nibelung Ring" and "Par- simplest of dance forms,and his rare lapses
sifal" become perfectly intelligible with a into obscurity {e.g., the first movement of
little careful study. Yes, the great mas- the Violoncello Sonata) are only caused by
ters are sometimes obscure, but there is his struggling with a task beyond his pow-
just the difference between them and the ers, like a young poet trying to write a
transcendentalists as exists between, say, sonnet and getting hopelessly hampered
Browning and Blake. "Sordello" is hard by the required rhymes.
©
to understand, but it has a simple story
SARCASfl.
hidden beneath a crushing wealth of de-
Baron Haussmann was a fellow pupil
tail, like a symphony by Brahms. "The
with
Berlioz at the Paris Conservatory, then
Mental Traveler" sounds like poetry, but
under
the direction of Cherubini. Berlioz
it is the work of one writing by ear and
{Continued on page T6).
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