VI
We have Richard Ford's testimony that Spain was not very musical in his day. The Reverend Henry Cart de Lafontaine says that the contemporary musical services in the churches are not to be considered seriously from an artistic point of view. Emmanuel Chabrier was impressed with the fact that the music for dancing was almost entirely rhythmic in its effect, strummed rudely on the guitar, the spectators meanwhile making such a din that it was practically impossible to distinguish a melody, had there been one. And all observers point at the Italian opera, which is still the favourite opera in Spain (in Barcelona at the Liceo three weeks of opera in Catalan is given after the regular season in Italian; in Madrid at the Teatro-Real the Spanish season is scattered through the Italian), and at Señor Arbós's concerts (the same Señor Arbós who was once concert master of the Boston Symphony Orchestra), at which Brandenburg concertos and Beethoven symphonies are more frequently performed than works by Albéniz. Still there are, and have always been during the course of the last century, Spanish composers, some of whom have made a little noise in the outer world, although a good many have been content to spend their artistic energy on the manufacture of zarzuelas—in other words, to make a good deal of noise in Spain. In most modern instances, however, there has been a revival of interest in the national forms, and folk-song and folk-dance have contributed their important share to the composers' work. No one man has done more to encourage this interest in nationalism than Felipe Pedrell, who may be said to have begun in Spain the work which the "Five" accomplished in Russia. Pedrell says in his "Handbook" (Barcelona, 1891; Heinrich and Co.; French translation by Bertal; Paris, Fischbacher): "The popular song, the voice of the people, the pure primitive inspiration of the anonymous singer, passes through the alembic of contemporary art and one obtains thereby its quintessence; the composer assimilates it and then reveals it in the most delicate form that music alone is capable of rendering form in its technical aspect, this thanks to the extraordinary development of the technique of our art in this epoch. The folk-song lends the accent, the background, and modern art lends all that it possesses, its conventional symbolism and the richness of form which is its patrimony. The frame is enlarged in such a fashion that the lied makes a corresponding development; could it be said then that the national lyric drama is the same lied expanded? Is not the national lyric drama the product of the force of absorption and creative power? Do we not see in it faithfully reflected not only the artistic idiosyncrasy of each composer, but all the artistic manifestations of the people?" There is always the search for new composers in Spain and always the hope that a man may come who will be acclaimed by the world. As a consequence, the younger composers in Spain often receive more adulation than is their due. It must be remembered that the most successful Spanish music is not serious, the Spanish are more themselves in the lighter vein.
I hesitate for a moment on the name of Martin y Solar, born at Valencia; died at St. Petersburg, 1806; called "The Italian" by the Spaniards on account of his musical style, and "lo Spagnuolo" by the Italians. Da Ponte wrote several opera-books for him, l'Arbore di Diana, la Cosa Rara, and La Capricciosa Corretta (a version of The Taming of the Shrew) among others. It is to be seen that he is without importance if considered as a composer distinctively Spanish and I have made this slight reference to him solely to recount how Mozart quoted an air from one of his operas in the supper scene of Don Giovanni. At the time Martin y Solar was better liked in Vienna than Mozart himself and the air in question was as well known as say Musetta's waltz is known to us.
Juan Chrysostomo Arriaga, born in Bilbao 1808; died 1828 (these dates are given in Grove: 1806-1826), is another matter. He might have become better known had he lived longer. As it is, some of his music has been performed in London and Paris, and perhaps in America, although I have no record of it. He studied in Paris at the Conservatoire, under Fétis for harmony, and Baillot for violin. Before he went to Paris even, as a child, with no knowledge of the rules of harmony, he had written an opera! Cherubini declared his fugue for eight voices on the words in the Credo, "Et Vitam Venturi" a veritable chef d'œuvre, at least there is a legend to this effect. In 1824 he wrote three quartets, an overture, a symphony, a mass, and some French cantatas and romances. García considered his opera Los Esclavos Felices so good that he attempted, unsuccessfully, to secure for it a Paris hearing. It has been performed in Bilbao, which city, I think, celebrated the centenary of the composer's birth.
Manuel García is better known to us as a singer, an impresario, and a father, than as a composer! Still he wrote a good deal of music (so did Mme. Malibran; for a list of the diva's compositions I must refer the reader to Arthur Pougin's biography). Fétis enumerates seventeen Spanish, nineteen Italian, and seven French operas by García. He had works produced in Madrid, at the Opéra in Paris (La mort du, Tasse and Florestan), at the Italiens in Paris (Fazzoletto), at the Opéra-Comique in Paris (Deux Contrats), and at many other theatres. However, when all is said and done, Manuel García's reputation still rests on his singing and his daughters. His compositions are forgotten; nor was his music, much of it, probably, truly Spanish. (However, I have heard a polo [serenade] from an opera called El Poeta Calculista, which is so Spanish in accent and harmony—and so beautiful—that it has found a place in a collection of folk-tunes!)
Miguel Hilarión Eslava (born in Burlada, October 21, 1807, died at Madrid, July 23, 1878) is chiefly famous for his compilation, the "Lira Sacra-Hispana," mentioned heretofore. He also composed over 140 pieces of church music, masses, motets, songs, etc., after he had been appointed chapelmaster of Queen Isabella in 1844, and several operas, including El Solitario, La Tregua del Ptolemaide, and Pedro el Cruel. He also wrote several books of theory and composition: "Método de Solfeo" (1846) and "Escuela de Armonía y Composición" in three parts (harmony, composition, and melody). He edited (1855-6) the "Gaceta Musical de Madrid."
There is the celebrated virtuoso, Pablo de Sarasate, who wrote music, but his memory is perhaps better preserved in Whistler's diabolical portrait than in his own compositions.
Felipe Pedrell (born February 19, 1841) is also perhaps more important as a writer on musical subjects and for his influence on the younger school of composers (he teaches in the conservatory of Barcelona, and his attitude towards nationalism has already been discussed), than he is as a composer. Still, Edouard Lopez-Chavarri does not hesitate to pronounce his trilogy Los Pireneos (Barcelona, 1902; the prologue was performed in Venice in 1897) the most important work for the theatre written in Spain. His first opera, El Último Abencerraje, was produced in Barcelona in 1874. Some of his other works are Quasimodo, 1875; El Tasso á Ferrara, Cleopatra, Mazeppa (Madrid, 1881), La Celestina (1904), and La Matinada (1905). J. A. Fuller-Maitland says that the influence of Wagner is traceable in all his stage work. (Wagner is adored in Spain; Parsifal was given eighteen times in one month at the Liceo in Barcelona.) If this be true, his case will be found to bear other resemblances to that of the Russian "Five," who found it difficult to exorcise all foreign influences in their pursuit of nationalism.
He was made a member of the Spanish Academy in 1894 and shortly thereafter became Professor of Musical History and Æsthetics at the Royal Conservatory at Madrid. Besides his "Hispaniae Schola Musica Sacra" he has written a number of other books, and translated Richter's treatise on Harmony into Spanish. He has made several excursions into the history of folk-lore and the principal results are contained in "Músicos Anónimos" and "Por nuestra Música." Other works are "Teatro Lírico Español anterior al siglo XIX," "Lírica Nacionalizada," "De Música Religiosa," "Músiquerias y más Músiquesias." One of his books, "Músicos Contemporáneos y de Otros Tiempos" (in the library of the Hispanic Society of New York) is very catholic in its range of subject. It includes essays on the Don Quixote of Strauss, the Boris Godunow of Moussorgsky, Smetana, Manuel García, Edward Elgar, Jaques-Dalcroze, Bruckner, Mahler, Albéniz, Palestrina, Busoni, and the tenth symphony of Beethoven!
In John Towers's extraordinary compilation, "Dictionary-Catalogue of Operas," it is stated that Manuel Fernández Caballero (born in 1835) wrote sixty-two operas, and the names of them are given. He was a pupil of Fuertes (harmony) and Eslava (composition) at the Madrid Conservatory and later became very popular as a writer of zarzuelas. I have already mentioned his Gigantes y Cabezudos for which Miguel Echegaray furnished the book. Among his other works in this form are Los Dineros del Sacristán, Los Africanistas (Barcelona, 1894), El Cabo Primero (Barcelona, 1895), and La Rueda de la Fortuna (Madrid, 1896).
At a concert given in the New York Hippodrome, April 3, 1911, Mme. Tetrazzini sang a Spanish song, which was referred to the next day by the reviewers of the "New York Times" and the "New York Globe." To say truth the soprano made a great effect with the song, although it was written for a low voice. It was Carceleras, from Ruperto Chapí's zarzuela Las Hijas de Zebedeo. Chapí was one of the most prolific and popular composers of Spain during the last century. He produced countless zarzuelas and nine children. He was born at Villena March 27, 1851, and he died March 25, 1909, a few months earlier than his compatriot Isaac Albéniz. He was admitted to the conservatory of Madrid in 1867 as a pupil of piano and harmony. In 1869 he obtained the first prize for harmony and he continued to obtain prizes until in 1874 he was sent to Rome by the Academy of Fine Arts. He remained for some time in Italy and Paris. In 1875 the Teatro Real of Madrid played his La Hija de Jefté sent from Rome. The following is an incomplete list of his operas and zarzuelas: Vía Libre, Los Gendarmes, El Rey que Rabió (3 acts), El Cura del Regimiento, El Reclamo, La Tempestad, La Bruja, La Leyenda del Monje, Las Campanadas, La Czarina, El Milagro de la Virgen, Roger de Flor (3 acts), Las Naves de Cortés, irce (3 acts), Aqui Hase Farta un Hombre, Juan Francisco (3 acts, 1905; rewritten and presented in 1908 as Entre Rocas), Los Madrileños (1908), La Dama Roja (1 act, 1908), Hesperia (1908), Las Calderas de Pedro Botero (1909) and Margarita la Tornera, presented just before his death without success.
His other works include an oratorio, Los Ángeles, a symphonic poem, Escenas de Capa y Espada, a symphony in D, Moorish Fantasy for orchestra, a serenade for orchestra, a trio for piano, violin and 'cello, songs, etc. Chapí was president of the Society of Authors and Composers, and when he died the King and Queen of Spain sent a telegram of condolence to his widow. There is a copy of his zarzuela, Blasones y Talegas in the New York Public Library.
I have already spoken of La Dolores. It is one of a long series of operas and zarzuelas written by Tomás Bretón y Hernandez (born at Salamanca, December 29, 1850). First produced at Madrid, in 1895, it has been sung with success in such distant capitals as Buenos Ayres and Prague. I have been assured by a Spanish woman of impeccable taste that La Dolores is charming, delightful in its fluent melody and its striking rhythms, thoroughly Spanish in style, but certain to find favour in America, if it were produced here. Our own Eleanora de Cisneros at a Press Club Benefit in Barcelona appeared in Bretón's zarzuela La Verbena de la Paloma. Another of Bretón's famous zarzuelas is Los Amantes de Teruel (Madrid, 1889). His works for the theatre further include Tabaré, for which he wrote both words and music (Madrid, 1913); Don Gil (Barcelona, 1914); Garín (Barcelona, 1891); Raquel (Madrid, 1900); Guzmán el Bueno (Madrid, 1876); El Certamen de Cremona (Madrid, 1906); El Campanero de Begoña (Madrid, 1878); El Barberillo en Orán; Corona contra Corona (Madrid, 1879); Los Amores de un Príncipe (Madrid, 1881); El Clavel Rojo (1899); Covadonga (1901); and El Domingo de Ramos, words by Echegaray (Madrid, 1894). His works for orchestra include: En la Alhambra, Los Galeotes, and Escenas Andaluzas, a suite. He has written three string quartets, a piano trio, a piano quintet, and an oratorio in two parts, El Apocalipsis.
Tomás Bretón
Bretón is largely self-taught, and there is a legend that he devoured by himself Eslava's "School of Composition." He further wrote the music and conducted for a circus for a period of years. In the late seventies he conducted an orchestra, founding a new society, the Unión Artística Musical, which is said to have been the beginning of the modern movement in Spain. It may throw some light on Spanish musical taste at this period to mention the fact that the performance of Saint-Saëns's Danse macabre almost created a riot. Later Bretón travelled. He appeared as conductor in London, Prague, and Buenos Ayres, among other cities outside of Spain, and when Dr. Karl Muck left Prague for Berlin, he was invited to succeed him in the Bohemian capital. In the contest held by the periodical "Blanco y Negro" in 1913 to decide who was the most popular writer, poet, painter, musician, sculptor, and toreador in Spain, Bretón as musician got the most votes.... He is at present the head of the Royal Conservatory in Madrid.
No Spanish composer (ancient or modern) is better known outside of Spain than Isaac Albéniz (born May 29, 1861, at Comprodon; died at Cambo, in the Pyrenees, May 25, 1909). His fame rests almost entirely on twelve piano pieces (in four books) entitled collectively Iberia, with which all concert goers are familiar. They have been performed here by Ernest Schelling, Leo Ornstein, and George Copeland, among other virtuosi.... I think one or two of these pieces must be in the répertoire of every modern pianist. Albéniz did not imbibe his musical culture in Spain and to the day of his death he was more friendly with the modern French group of composers than with those of his native land. In his music he sees Spain with French eyes. He studied at Paris with Marmontel; at Brussels with Louis Brassin; and at Weimar with Liszt (he is mentioned in the long list of pupils in Huneker's biography of Liszt, but there is no further account of him in that book); he studied composition with Jadassohn, Joseph Dupont, and F. Kufferath. His symphonic poem, Catalonia, has been performed in Paris by the Colonne Orchestra. I have no record of any American performance. For a time he devoted himself to the piano. He was a virtuoso and he has even played in London, but later in life he gave up this career for composition. He wrote several operas and zarzuelas, among them a light opera, The Magic Opal (produced in London, 1893), Enrico Clifford (Barcelona, 1894; later heard in London), Pepita Jiménez (Barcelona, 1895; afterwards given at the Théâtre de la Monnaie in Brussels), and San Antonio de la Florida (produced in Brussels as l'Ermitage Fleurie). He left unfinished at his death another opera destined for production in Brussels at the Monnaie, Merlin l'Enchanteur. None of his operas, with the exception of Pepita Jiménez, which has been performed, I am told, in all Spanish countries, achieved any particular success, and it is Iberia and a few other piano pieces which will serve to keep his memory green.
Juan Bautista Pujol (1836-1898) gained considerable reputation in Spain as a pianist and as a teacher of and composer for that instrument. He also wrote a method for piano students entitled "Nuevo Mecanismo del Piano." His further claim to attention is due to the fact that he was one of the teachers of Granados.
The names of Pahissa (both as conductor and composer; one of his symphonic works is called The Combat), García Robles, represented by an Epitalame, and Gibert, with two Marines, occur on the programs of the two concerts devoted in the main to Spanish music, at the second of which (Barcelona, 1910; conductor Franz Beidler) Granados's Dante was performed.
E. Fernández Arbós (born in Madrid, December 25, 1863) is better known as a conductor and violinist than as composer. Still, he has written music, especially for his own instrument. He was a pupil of both Vieuxtemps and Joachim; and he has travelled much, teaching at the Hamburg Conservatory, and acting as concertmaster for the Boston Symphony and the Glasgow Orchestras. He has been a professor at the Madrid conservatory for some time, giving orchestral and chamber music concerts, both there and in London. He has written at least one light opera, presumably a zarzuela, El Centro de la Tierra (Madrid; December 22, 1895); three trios for piano and strings, songs, and an orchestral suite.
I have already referred to the Valverdes, father and son. The father, in collaboration with Federico Chueca, wrote La Gran Vía. Many another popular zarzuela is signed by him. The son has lived so long in France that much of his music is cast in the style of the French music hall; too it is in a popular vein. Still in his best tangos he strikes a Spanish folk-note not to be despised. He wrote the music for the play, La Maison de Danses, produced, with Polaire, at the Vaudeville in Paris, and two of his operettas, La Rose de Grenade and l'Amour en Espagne, have been performed in Paris, not without success, I am told by La Argentina, who danced in them. Other modern composers who have been mentioned to me are Manuel de Falla, Joaquín Turina (George Copeland has played his A los Toros), Usandizaga (who died in 1915), the composer of Las Golondrinas, Oscar Esplá, Conrado del Campo, and Enrique Morera.
Enrique Granados was perhaps the first of the important Spanish composers to visit North America. His place in the list of modern Iberian musicians is indubitably a high one; though it must not be taken for granted that all the best music of Spain crosses the Pyrenees (for reasons already noted it is evident that some Spanish music can never be heard to advantage outside of Spain), and it is by no means to be taken for granted that Granados was a greater musician than several who dwell in Barcelona and Madrid without making excursions into the outer world. In his own country I am told Granados was admired chiefly as a pianist, and his performances on that instrument in New York stamped him as an original interpretative artist, one capable of extracting the last tonal meaning out of his own compositions for the pianoforte, which are his best work.
Shortly after his arrival in New York he stated to several reporters that America knew nothing about Spanish music, and that Bizet's Carmen was not in any sense Spanish. I hold no brief for Carmen being Spanish but it is effective, and that Goyescas as an opera is not. In the first place, its muddy and blatant orchestration would detract from its power to please (this opinion might conceivably be altered were the opera given under Spanish conditions in Spain). The manuscript score of Goyescas now reposes in the Museum of the Hispanic Society, in that delightful quarter of New York where the apartment houses bear the names of Goya and Velasquez, and it is interesting to note that it is a piano score. What has become of the orchestral partition and who was responsible for it I do not know. It is certain, however, that the miniature charm of the Goyescas becomes more obvious in the piano version, performed by Ernest Schelling or the composer himself, than in the opera house. The growth of the work is interesting. Fragments of it took shape in the composer's brain and on paper seventeen years ago, the result of the study of Goya's paintings in the Prado. These fragments were moulded into a suite in 1909 and again into an opera in 1914 (or before then). F. Periquet, the librettist, was asked to fit words to the score, a task which he accomplished with difficulty. Spanish is not an easy tongue to sing. To Mme. Barrientos this accounts for the comparatively small number of Spanish operas. Goyescas, like many a zarzuela, lags when the dance rhythms cease. I find little joy myself in listening to La Maja y el Ruiseñor; in fact, the entire last scene sounds banal to my ears. In the four volumes of Spanish dances which Granados wrote for piano (published by the Sociedad Anónima Casa Dotesio in Barcelona) I console myself for my lack of interest in Goyescas. These lovely dances combine in their artistic form all the elements of the folk-dances as I have described them. They bespeak a careful study and an intimate knowledge of the originals. And any pianist, amateur or professional, will take joy in playing them.
Enrique Granados y Campina was born July 27, 1867, at Lerida, Catalonia. (He died March 24, 1916; a passenger on the Sussex, torpedoed in the English Channel.) From 1884 to 1887 he studied piano under Pujol and composition under Felipe Pedrell at the Madrid Conservatory. That the latter was his master presupposed on his part a valuable knowledge of the treasures of Spain's past and that, I think, we may safely allow him. There is, I am told, an interesting combination of classicism and folk-lore in his work. At any rate, Granados was a faithful disciple of Pedrell. In 1898 his opera María del Carmen was produced in Madrid and has since been heard in Valencia. Barcelona, and other Spanish cities. Five years later some fragments of another opera, Foletto, were produced at Barcelona. His third opera, Liliana, was produced at Barcelona in 1911. He wrote numerous songs to texts by the poet, Apeles Mestres; Galician songs, two symphonic poems, La Nit del Mort and Dante (performed by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra for the first time in America at the concerts of November 5 and 6, 1915); a piano trio, string quartet, and various books of piano music (Danzas Españolas, Valses Poéticos, Bocetos, etc.).
New York, March 20, 1916.
The Land of Joy
"Dancing is something more than an amusement in Spain. It is part of that solemn ritual which enters into the whole life of the people. It expresses their very spirit."
Havelock Ellis.