IV
In 1843, when Schumann had made his first success as a song writer, he received from an unknown young man a batch of songs in manuscript. With his customary promptitude and sureness, he announced the young man in his journal, the Neue Zeitschrift für Musik. This man was Robert Franz, who, many insist, is the greatest song writer in the world, barring only Schubert.[92] Franz, it seems, had had an unhappy love affair, and had taken to song-writing to ease his feelings, having burned up all his previous compositions as worthless. Schumann did for Franz what he did for Brahms and to some extent for Chopin—put him on the musical map—and that on the strength of an examination of only a few early compositions. Through his influence Franz’s Opus I was published, and thereafter, steadily for many years, came songs from Franz’s pen. He wrote little other original music, save a few pieces for church use. His reputation refused to grow rapidly, for there was little in his work or personality on which to build réclame, but it has grown steadily. The student of his songs will discover a high proportion of first-rate songs among them—higher, probably, than in any other song composer.
Franz is one of those composers of whose work little can be told in print. It is all in the music. Unlike Schubert and Schumann, he limited himself in his choice of subjects, taking mostly poems of delicate sentiments, and avoiding all that was realistic. Unlike Schubert, he worked over his songs with greatest care, sometimes keeping them for years before he had fashioned them to perfection. His voice parts are, on the whole, more independent than Schumann’s. They combine perfect declamatory freedom and accurate observance of the text with a delicate finish of melodic grace. The accompaniments are in many styles. Broken chords he uses with distinction, so that the individual notes seem not only harmonic but melodic in their function. In him, more than in previous song writers, polyphony (deriving from his familiarity with Bach) plays a prominent part. He is a master in the use of delicate dissonance, and in some ways the poetry of his accompaniments looks forward to the ‘atmospheric’ effects of what we loosely term the ‘impressionistic school.’ He does not strike the heights or depths of emotion, but his music at times is as moving as any in song literature. Above all, he stands for the perfect and intimate union of text and music, in a more subtle way than was accomplished either by Schubert or Schumann.
Mendelssohn wrote many songs during his days of fame, which had a popularity far outshining that of the songs we have been speaking of. They sold in great abundance, especially in England, and fetched extraordinary prices from publishers. But by this time they have sunk pretty nearly into oblivion. They are polished, as all his work is, and have the quality of instantly pleasing a hearer who doesn’t care to listen too hard. Needless to say, their musicianship is above reproach. But their melody, while graceful, is undistinguished, and their emotional message is superficial.
Chopin, however, composed a little book of Polish songs which deserves to be immortal. They purported to be arrangements of Polish melodies together with original songs in the same spirit. As a matter of fact, they are probably almost altogether Chopin’s work. In them we find the highest refinement of melodic contour, and an exotic poetry in the accompaniments such as none but Chopin, at the time, could write. ‘The Maiden’s Wish’ is perhaps the only one familiar to the general public, and that chiefly through Liszt’s piano arrangement of it. But among the others there are some of the first rank, particularly the ‘Baccanale,’ ‘My Delights,’ and ‘Poland’s Dirge.’
In the intervals of his busy life Liszt managed to pen some sixty or more Lieder, of which a large proportion are of high quality. They suffer less than the other classes of his compositions from the intrusion of banality and gallery play. In them Liszt is never the poet of delicate emotion, but certain things he did better than either Schubert or Schumann. The high heroism, often mock, which we feel in his orchestral writing is here, too. He had command of large design; he could paint the splendid emotion. His ballads are, on the whole, among the best we have. In his setting of Uhland’s ‘The Ancestral Tomb,’ he caught the mysterious aura of ancient balladry as few others have. When there is a picture to be described Liszt always has a musical phrase that suits the image. And in a few instances, as in his settings of Der du von dem Himmel bist and Du bist wie eine Blume, he achieved the lyric at its least common denominator—the utmost simplicity of sentiment expressed by the utmost simplicity of musical phrase. It was a feat he rarely repeated. For in these songs he painted not only the picture, but also the emotion. In Mignon’s song, ‘Know’st thou the Land?’ he has put into a single phrase the very breath of homesickness. His setting of ‘The Loreley’ has already been mentioned. It could hardly be finer in its style. The preliminary musing of the poet, the quivering of a dimly remembered song, the flow of the Rhine, the song of the Loreley, the sinking of the ship, are all described. Still finer is ‘The King of Thule,’ which, with all its elaboration of detail, keeps to the sense of archaic simplicity that is in Goethe’s poem. In his settings of Victor Hugo, Liszt was as appropriate as with Goethe, and we find in them all the transparency of technique and the delicacy of sentiment that distinguishes French verse. In all these songs Liszt uses the utmost freedom of declamation in the voice part, with fine regard for the integrity of the text.
H. K. M.
FOOTNOTES:
[88] W. J. Henderson: ‘Songs and Song Writers,’ pp. 182 ff.
[89] Carl Friedrich Zelter, b. Petzow-Werder on the Havel, 1758; d. Berlin, 1832.
[90] Johann Rudolph Zumsteeg, b. Sachsenflur (Odenwald), 1760; d. Stuttgart, 1802.
[91] In 1796 at Löbejün, near Köthen. He was educated in Halle, patronized by King Jerome of Westphalia, Napoleon’s brother, and later became municipal musical director at Stettin. He died in Kiel, 1869.
[92] Originally his name was Knauth, but his father changed it by royal consent to Franz. He was born in Halle in 1815 and died there in 1892. He became organist, choral conductor, and university musical director in his native city. An assiduous student of Bach and of Handel, his townsman, he combined a contrapuntal style with Schumannesque sentiment in his songs, of which there appeared 350, besides some choral works. His critical editions of Bach and Handel works are of great value. Almost total deafness cut short Franz’s professional activity.
CHAPTER VIII
PIANOFORTE AND CHAMBER MUSIC OF THE ROMANTIC PERIOD
Development of the modern pianoforte—The pioneers: Schubert and Weber—Schumann and Mendelssohn—Chopin and others—Franz Liszt, virtuoso and poet—Chamber music of the romantic period; Ludwig Spohr and others.