IV
The writer of musical history is confronted at every point with the problem of classification. The men whom we have discussed can, though united by ties of nationality and even family, hardly be considered as of one school. We have taken them as the representatives of the North German musical art; yet, as we were obliged to state, Southern influence affected nearly all of them. Similarly, we should find in analyzing the music of the Viennese that a more or less rugged Germanism had entered into it. J. J. Fux (1660-1741), the pioneer of the ‘Viennese school’; Georg Reutter, father and son (1656-1738, and 1708-1772); F. L. Gassmann (1723-1774); Johann Georg Albrechtsberger (1736-1809); Leopold Hoffman (1730-1772); Georg Christoph Wagenseil (1715-1777); and Carl Ditters von Dittersdorf (1739-1799), who, with others, are usually reckoned as of that school, are all examples of this Germanism. Indeed, these men assume a historic importance only in the degree to which they absorb the advancing reforms of their northern confrères. All of them are indebted for what merit they possess to the great school of stylistic reformers who, about the year 1750, gathered in the beautiful Rhenish city of Mannheim, and whose leader, Johann Stamitz, was, until recently, unknown to historians except as an executive musician. His reappearance has cleared up many an unexplained phenomenon, and for the first time has placed the entire question of the origins of the Classic, or Viennese, style, the style of Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven, in its proper light. Much of the merit ascribed to Emanuel Bach, for instance, in connection with the sonata, and to Haydn in connection with the symphony belongs rightfully to Stamitz. We may now safely consider the Viennese school, like that of Paris, as an offshoot of the Mannheim school and shall, therefore, discuss both as subsidiary to it.
The Mannheim reform brought into instrumental music, as we have said, one essentially new idea—the idea of contrast. Contrast is one of the two fundamental principles of musical form; the other is reiteration. Reiteration in its various forms—imitation, transposition, and repetition—is a familiar element in every musical composition. The ‘germination’ of musical ideas, the logical development of such ideas, or motives—into phrases, sentences, sections, and movements, is in practice only a broadening of that principle. All the forms which we have discussed—the aria, the canzona, the toccata, the fugue, and the sonata—owe their being to various methods of applying it. Contrast, the other leading element of form, may be applied technically in several different ways, of which only two interest us here—contrast of key and dynamic contrast. Contrast of key is the chief requisite in the most highly organized forms, such as the fugue and the sonata, and as such had been consciously employed for practically two hundred years. But dynamic contrast—the change from loud to soft, and vice versa, especially gradual change, which, moreover, carries with it the broader idea of varying expression, contrast of mood and spirit, never entered into instrumental music until the advent of Johann Stamitz. It is this duality of expression that distinguishes the new from the old; this is the outstanding feature of Classic music over all that preceded it.
Johann Stamitz was born in Deutsch-Brod, Bohemia, in 1717, and died at Mannheim in 1757. In the course of his forty years he revolutionized instrumental practice and laid the foundations of modern orchestral technique, created a new style of composition, which enabled Mozart and Beethoven to give adequate expression to their genius; and originated a method of writing which resulted in the abolition of the Figured Bass. When, in 1742, Charles VII had himself crowned emperor in Frankfort, Stamitz first aroused the attention of the assembled nobility as a violin virtuoso. The Prince Elector of the Palatinate, Karl Theodor, at once engaged him as court musician. In 1745 he made him his concert master and musical director. Within a year or two, Stamitz made the court band into the best orchestra of Europe. Burney, Leopold Mozart, and others who have left their judgment of it convince us that it was as good as an orchestra could be with the limitations imposed by the still imperfect intonation of certain instruments. It was, at any rate, the first orchestra on a modern footing, whose members were artists, bent upon artistic interpretation. It is curious to read Leopold Mozart’s expression of surprise at finding them ‘honest, decent people, not given to drink, gambling, and roistering,’ but such was the reputation musicians as a class enjoyed in those days.[28]
We may recall how Jommelli introduced the ‘orchestral crescendo’ in the Strassburg opera. That he emulated the Mannheim orchestra rather than set an example for it seems unquestionable; for Stamitz had already been at his work ten years when Jommelli arrived. The gradual change from piano to forte, and the sudden change in either direction to indicate a change of mood, not only within single movements, but within phrases and even themes, was bound to lead to important consequences. While fiercely opposed by the pedants among German musicians, the practice found quick acceptance in the large centres where Stamitz’s famous Opus 1 was performed. These Six Sonatas (or Symphonies), ‘ou à trois ou avec toutes (sic) l’orchestre,’ were brought out in 1751 at the Concerts spirituels under Le Gros.[29] Stamitz’s ‘Sonatas’ were performed with drums, trumpets, and horns. Another symphony with horns and oboes, and another with horns and clarinets (a rare novelty), were brought out in the winter of 1754-55, with Stamitz himself as conductor. These ‘symphonies’ were, as a matter of fact, trio-sonatas in the conventional form—two violins and Figured Bass—such as had been produced in great number since the time of Pergolesi. But there was a difference. The Figured Bass was a fully participating third part, not depending upon the usual harpsichord interpretation of the harmony. The compositions were, in fact, true string trios. But they were written for (optional) orchestral execution, and when so performed the added wind instruments supplied the harmonic ‘filling.’ This means, then, the application of the classic sonata form to orchestral music, and virtually the creation of the symphony.[30]
While not, by a long way, parallel with the symphonies of Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven, these works of Stamitz are, nevertheless, true symphonies in a classic style, orchestral compositions in sonata form. They have the essential first-movement construction, they are free from the fugato style of the earlier orchestral pieces, and, instead of the indefinite rambling of passage work, they present the clear thematic phraseology, the germination of ideas, characteristic of the form. Their sincere phraseology, says Riemann, ‘their boldness of conception, and the masterly thematic development which became an example in the period that followed ... give Stamitz’s works lasting value. Haydn and Mozart rest absolutely upon his shoulders.’[31]
Following Stamitz’s first efforts there appeared in print a veritable flood of similar works, known in France as Simphonies d’Allemagne, most of them by direct pupils of Stamitz, by F. X. Richter, his associate in Mannheim, by Wagenseil, Toeschi, Holtzbauer, Filtz, and Cannabich, his successor at the Mannheim Pult. Stamitz’s own work comprises ten orchestral trios, fifty symphonies, violin concertos, violin solo and violin-piano sonatas, a fair amount for so short a career. That for a long time this highly interesting figure disappeared from the annals of musical history is only less remarkable than the eclipse of Bach’s fame for seventy-five years after his death, though in Stamitz’s case it was hardly because of slow recognition, for already Burney had characterized him as a great genius. Arteaga in 1785 called him ‘the Rubens among composers’ and Gerbert (1792) said that ‘his divine talent placed him far above his contemporaries.’