John Lord - Beacon Lights of History, Volume 14 - The New Era

But while an eminent German critic wrote not long ago that "the music-drama of Wagner constitutes modern opera," it would be a huge mistake to make Wagnerism synonymous with modern music in general. Apart from the opera, there are several other very powerful currents, and while most of them can be traced to the first half of the nineteenth century, they are none the less modern. Their principal sources are Beethoven, Schubert, and Chopin, to whom we must add, in the second half of the century, Liszt.

The symphonies of Haydn and Mozart are like toy-houses compared with the massive architecture of Beethoven's. He not only elaborated the forms, but varied the rhythms, broadened the melody, and deepened the expression of orchestral music. In his works, too, are to be found the germs of romanticism, which others, notably Mendelssohn and Schumann, developed so fascinatingly in their best works. Most of Mendelssohn's compositions have had their day; but Schumann is still a force in modern music and will long remain so.

Brahms, the musical Browning, is, musically speaking, a son of Schumann and a grandson of Beethoven. While even Brahms did not escape the influence of Wagner, nor that of the romanticists Schubert and Chopin, still, in his essence, he represents reaction against modern romanticism and an atavistic return to the spirit of Beethoven. He has been, for decades, the idol of Wagner's enemies; yet, in truth, there was no occasion for opposing these two men, since they worked in entirely different fields. Brahms wrote no operas, while Wagner wrote little but operas. The real antagonist of Brahms is Liszt, who also worked only for the concert hall and who represents poetic or pictorial music (programme music), while Brahms stands for absolute music, or music per se , without any poetic affiliations.

While Schubert in his youth also came under the influence of his great contemporary, Beethoven, he soon emancipated himself completely from him, even in the symphony, in which, as Schumann pointed out, he opened up "an entirely new world" of melody, color, and emotion. His orchestration is more varied, euphonious, and enchanting than Beethoven's, and in this direction he did for the symphony what Weber did for the opera. By using the brass instruments pianissimo, for color instead of for loudness, he opened a path in which later masters, including Wagner, eagerly followed him. Schubert was also the first composer who revealed the exquisite beauty and the great emotional power of the freest modulation from key to key. His poetic impromptus for piano became the model for Mendelssohn's "Songs without Words," and the multitudinous forms of modern short pieces, while his melodious, dainty, graceful valses were the forerunners of the exquisite dance-music which subsequently made Vienna famous, and which reached its climax in Johann Strauss the younger, universally known as "the waltz king."

In all these respects, Schubert was epoch-making; and if the beautiful details he suggested to his successors up to the present day could be taken out of their works there would be some surprising blanks. Especially also is this true in the realm of lyric song, for, as everybody knows, he practically created the art song as we know and love it. The greatest of his immediate successors, Schumann and Franz, cheerfully admitted that they could never have written such songs as they gave the world but for Schubert, and the same confession might be made by the latest of the great songwriters, Grieg, Richard Strauss, and our American MacDowell. Schubert's best songs have never been equalled. They belong in the realm of modern music quite as much as Wagner's music-dramas and Liszt's symphonic poems.

Chopin is another composer who, although he died in 1849 (Schubert died in 1828), is as modern as the masters just named. He was as boldly original as Schubert, and as great a magician in the art of arousing deep emotion by means of novel, unexpected modulations. As an originator of new harmonic progressions he has had only three equals,–Bach, Schubert, and Wagner. Harmonies as ultra-modern as those of Wagner's "Parsifal" may be found in some of the mazurkas of Chopin. He was, as Rubinstein called him, "the soul of the pianoforte." No one before or after him knew how to make that instrument speak so eloquently. By ingeniously scattering the notes of a chord over the keyboard while holding down the pedal, he practically gave the player three or four hands, and greatly enlarged the harmonic and coloristic possibilities of the pianoforte. Liszt, Rubinstein, Paderewski, and others have gone farther still in the same direction, but he showed the way, and most of his pieces are as delightful and as modern now as they were on the day when they were written. He wrote a few sonatas, but the majority of his works are short pieces such as are characteristic of the modern romantic school.

Before Chopin modernized pianoforte music the world's greatest composers had been Italians, Germans, and Frenchmen. Chopin's father was a Frenchman, but his mother was a native of Poland, and he was born in that country. While his music has the French qualities of elegance and clearness (which every one admires in the works of Gounod, Bizet, Massenet, and other Parisian masters), in its essence it is Polish–a fact of special significance, for from this time on other nations than the three mentioned–especially the Slavic and Scandinavian–begin to play a prominent role in music. In this brief sketch only the greatest names can be considered,–such names as Rubinstein, Tschaikowsky, Dvorák, Grieg.

Rubinstein was not only one of the greatest pianists, but one of the most spontaneous and fertile melodists of all times. His frequently careless workmanship and his foolish, savage hostility to the dominant Wagner movement prevented him from enjoying the fruits of his rare genius. He felt that, had it not been for the all-absorbing Wagner, he himself might have been as popular as Mendelssohn. Although a Russian, there is little local color in his music, for the enchanting exotic melodic intervals in his "Persian" songs are Oriental in general, rather than Russian in particular. Similar exotic intervals may be found in the "Aïda" of Verdi, a pure Italian. Rubinstein, like Mendelssohn and Meyerbeer, was a Hebrew. His day will yet come, for his Dramatic and Ocean symphonies are among the grandest orchestral works in existence.

His countryman, Tschaikowsky, also was neglected during his lifetime; but since his death he has become, especially in London, almost as popular as Wagner; and deservedly so, for he was a genius of the highest type, less in his songs and pianoforte works than in his symphonies and symphonic poems, which include some of the most inspired pages in modern music. In some of his compositions there is a barbaric splendor which proclaims the Russian and delights those who like exotic novelty in music. Like all the Russians, Tschaikowsky was strongly influenced by Liszt; indeed, it may be said that in Russia Liszt was more potent in shaping the course of modern music than even Wagner.

Another Slavic composer, the Bohemian Dvorák, is of special interest to Americans not only because he is one of the greatest of modern orchestral writers (a colorist of rare charm), but because he presided for several years over Mrs. Thurber's National Conservatory of Music in New York, and there wrote that truly melodious and deeply emotional work, "From the New World," which has become almost as popular as Tschaikowsky's "Pathétique." His Bohemian rhythms have a unique charm.

Among the Scandinavian composers the greatest, by far, is Grieg, one of the most original melodists and harmonists of all times. His songs, in particular, are destined to immortality; they are among the very best written since Schubert. Of his pianoforte and chamber music, too, it can be said that everything is new, free from commonplace, and ultra-modern. He has written mostly short pieces, and for that reason has had to wait (like Chopin in his day) a long time for full recognition of his genius, the critics not having yet got over the foolish habit of measuring art-works with a yardstick. Like Chopin, moreover, Grieg has had the ill-fortune of having his most original and individual traits accredited to his nation and described as "national peculiarities." His music does contain such peculiarities; but it is necessary to distinguish between what is Norwegian and what is Griegian. Grieg's little pieces and songs are big with genius.