II
Nearly all the qualities of romantic music find their beginnings in Beethoven. But it is not always easy to disentangle the romantic from the classical element in his music, and for convenience we begin the history of the romantic period with Schubert and Weber. For the specific and conscious tendencies of romanticism first showed themselves in the fondness for smaller free pianoforte forms, which Beethoven cultivated not at all, if we omit his historically negligible Für Elise and one or two other pieces of the same sort. Beethoven’s later sonatas, while romantic in their breaking through the classic form and seeking a more intense emotional expression, are rather the prophets of romanticism than its ancestors.
When Schubert dared to write lovely pieces without any reference to traditional forms he began the history of romantic piano music. This he did in his lovely Impromptus, opus 90, and the famous Moments musicals, both published in the year of his death, 1828. The Impromptus were not so named by the composer, but the title can well stand. They are essentially improvisations at the piano. They were written not to suit any form, nor to try any technical task, but simply because the composer became fascinated with his musical idea and wanted to work it out, which is true (theoretically at least) of all romantic music. In the very first of the Impromptus, that in C minor, we can almost see Schubert running his fingers over his piano, timidly experimenting with the discovery of a new tune, his childlike delight at finding it a beautiful one, and his pleasure in lingering over lovely cadences and enharmonic changes, or in working out new forms for his melody. The very first note—the octave G struck fortissimo—is a note for the pianoforte and not for clavichord or harpsichord. For it is held, and with the damper pedal pressed down, so that the other strings may join in the symphony in sympathetic vibration. And throughout the piece this G seems to sound magically as the dominant around which the whole harmony centres as toward a magnet. In other words, we are meeting in this first Impromptu our old Romantic friend, sensuous tone. The pleasure which Schubert takes in repeating the G, either by inference or in fact, or in swelling his chords by the use of the pedal, or in drawing out melodic cadences, or in coaxing out the reverberating tones of the bass, or in letting his melodic tone sound as though from the human voice—this, we might almost say, marks the discovery of the pianoforte by the nineteenth century. And it is equally romanticism’s growing realization of itself.
All the impromptus are of great beauty, and all are unmistakably of Schubert. They have the fault of improvisations in that they are too long, but if one is in a leisurely mood to receive them, they never become a bore. The Moments musicals are still more typical of Schubert’s genius—some of them short, ending suddenly almost before the hearer is aware that they have begun, but leaving behind a definite, clear-cut impression like a cameo. They are the ancestors of all the genre pieces of later times. Each of them might have a fanciful name attached, and each has the directness of genius. Schubert’s sonatas are important only in their possession of the qualities of the Impromptus and Moments musicals. They are filled with beauties, but as sonatas—as representatives of classical organization and logic—they are negligible. Schubert cannot resist the charm of a lovely melody, and, when he finds one, the claims of form retire into the background. Certain individual movements are of high excellence, but played consecutively they are uneven. The ‘Fantasia’ in C minor (containing one of the themes from Schubert’s song, ‘The Wanderer,’) is a fine imaginative and technical work, but its freedom of form is of no historical importance, as Mozart wrote a long fantasia in C that was even more daring. The dances, likewise, have no significance in point of form, being written altogether after the usual manner of the day (they were, in fact, mostly pot boilers), but they contain at times such appealing beauty that they helped to dignify the dance as a type of concert piano music. The ability to create the highest beauty in parvo is distinctive of the romantic movement, and Schubert’s dances and marches have stimulated many another composer to simplicity of expression. The influence of them is evident in the Carnaval and the Davidsbündler Tänze of Schumann. Liszt elaborated them and strung several together for concert use, and the waltzes of Brahms, who, more perhaps than any other, admired Schubert and profited by him, are derived directly from those of Schubert.
Liszt may be quoted once more, in his rhetorical style, but with his sympathetic understanding that never misses the mark: ‘Our pianists,’ he says, ‘hardly realize what a noble treasure is to be found in the clavier music of Schubert. The most of them play him through en passant, notice here and there repetitions and retards—and then lay them aside. It is true that Schubert himself is partly responsible for the infrequent performance of his best works. He was too unconsciously productive, wrote ceaselessly, mingling the trivial and the important, the excellent and the mediocre, paying no heed to criticism and giving his wilfullness full swing. He lived in his music as the birds live in the air and sang as the angels sing—oh, restlessly creative genius! Oh, faithful hero of my youthful heaven! Harmony, freshness, power, sympathy, dreaminess, passion, gentleness, tears, and flames stream from the depths and heights of your soul, and in the magic of your humanity you almost allow us to forget the greatness of your mastership!’
Along with Schubert, Weber stands as the progenitor of the modern pianoforte style. (The comparative claims of the two can never be evaluated.) Here, again, it was Liszt who chiefly made the importance of the man known to the world. He took loving pains in the editing of Weber’s piano works late in his life, and, with conscientious concern for the composer’s intention, wrote out amplified paraphrases of many of the passages to make them more effective in performance. The absolute value of these works, especially the sonatas, is much disputed. It is customary to call them structurally weak, and at least reputable to call them indifferent in invention. Yet we are constantly being reminded in them that their author was a genius, and the genius who composed Der Freischütz. Certainly they deserve more frequent performance. As sonatas, they are, on the whole, more brilliant and more adequate than Schubert’s. Single movements, such as the andante of the A flat sonata, opus 39, can stand beside Beethoven in emotional dignity and tender beauty. But, whatever is the absolute musical value of these works, they are an advance on Beethoven in one particular, the quality which the Germans describe with the word klaviermässig—suited to the piano. For Beethoven, with all the daring of his later sonatas, got completely away from the harpsichord method of writing only to write for piano in orchestral style. He never began to exhaust the qualities of the pianoforte which are distinctive of the instrument. Weber’s writing is more for the pianoforte. Especially Weber enriched piano literature with dramatic pathos and romantic tone coloring, with vigorous harmony and expressive song-like melody. The famous ‘Invitation to the Dance’ shows him at his best, giving full play to his love of the simple and folk-like tune, separating the hands and the fingers, and slashing brilliant streaks of light and shade in the piano keyboard. The famous Konzertstück, a great favorite of Liszt, and the concerto, once the rival in popularity of Chopin’s, are rapidly slipping back into the gloom of a forgotten style. As show pieces they pointed the way to further development of pianoforte technique; but that which made them brilliant is now commonplace, the stock in trade of even third-rate pianists; and the genuine emotional warmth which has made much of Schubert’s pianoforte works immortal is absent in these tours de force of Weber.
Historically Schubert leads the way to the piano style of Schumann, and Weber to that of Liszt, and both in company to the great achievements of the romantic period. But their style is a long way from modern pianoforte style—much more closely related to Beethoven than to Chopin. The dependence on the damper pedal for harmonic effects, the extreme separation of the notes of a broken chord, the striving for excessive power by means of sympathetic vibrations of the strings, and, in general, the pointillage use of notes as spots of color in the musical picture, are only in germ in their works. The chorale method of building up harmonies by closely adjacent notes still continues to the detriment of the best pianistic effect. But in the work of the composers immediately following we find the qualities of the piano developed almost to the limit of possible effect.