III

In the meantime, as the musical world has moved forward in respect to structure from the symphony to the symphonic poem, followed by its logical sequence the tone-poem, in which the elements of various forms have been incorporated, so has there been progress and even revolution in the technical material of music itself. Dargomijsky was probably the pioneer in using the whole-tone scale, as may be seen in the third act of his opera 'The Stone Guest,' composed in 1869. Rimsky-Korsakoff elaborated on his foundation as early as 1880 in his opera Sniégourutchka. Moussorgsky showed unusually individual harmonic tendencies, as the first edition of Boris Godounoff before the revisions and alterations by Rimsky-Korsakoff clearly demonstrate. After casual experiments by Chabrier, d'Indy, and Fauré, Debussy founded an original harmonic system, in which modified modal harmony, a remarkable extension of whole-tone scale chords, the free use of ninths, elevenths and thirteenths are the chief ingredients. Dukas has imitated Debussy to some extent, Ravel owes much to him; both have developed independently, Ravel in particular has approached if not crossed the boundaries of poly-harmony. Scriabine, following the natural harmonic heritage of the Russians, has evolved an idiom of his own possessing considerable novelty but disfigured by monotony, in that it consists chiefly of transpositions of the thirteenth-chord with the alteration of various constituent intervals. What he might not have accomplished can only be conjectured, since his career has been terminated by his sudden death. Although Richard Strauss has greatly enlarged modern harmonic resource, his results must be regarded on the whole as a by-product of his contrapuntal virtuosity. In his treatise on harmony Schönberg refers to his 'discovery' of the whole-tone scale long after both Russians and French had used it, but it is noteworthy that Schönberg arrived at the conception of this scale and its chords with an absolute and unplagiaristic independence.

The most recent developments affecting the technical character of music are poly-harmony, or simultaneous use of chords in different keys, and free dissonant counterpoint. Striking instances of the former type of anarchic experiment may be found in the music of Igor Stravinsky, whose reputation has been made by the fantastic imagination and the dramatic sincerity of his ballets 'The Bird of Fire,' Petrouchka, 'The Ceremonial of Spring,' and 'The Nightingale.' In these he has mingled Russian and French elements, fusing them into a highly personal and extremely dissonant style, which in its pungent freedom and ingenious mosaic of tonalities is both highly diverting and poignantly expressive. Stravinsky is one of the most daring innovators of to-day, and both his dramatic vitality and the audacity of his musical conceptions mark him as a notable figure from whom much may be expected.

If Maurice Ravel, as shown in his ballet Daphnis et Chloé, was a pioneer in poly-harmony, Alfred Casella, of Italian parentage but of French education, has gone considerably further. Similar tendencies may be found in the music of Bartók, Kodály and other Hungarians.

It seemed formerly that Strauss had pushed the dissonant contrapuntal style as far as it could go, but his style is virtually conventional beside that of the later Schönberg. Schönberg has already passed through several evolutionary stages, but his mature idiom abjures tonality to an incredible extent, and he forces the procedures of free counterpoint to such audacious disregard of even unconventional euphony that few can compass his musical message. Time may prove, however, that tonality is a needless convention, and it is possible to declare that there is nothing illogical in his contrapuntal system. It lies in the extravagant extension of principles of dissonance which have already been accepted. It is indubitable that Schönberg succeeds in expressing moods previously unknown to musical literature, and it is conceivable that music may encompass unheard-of developments in this direction, just as poly-harmony has already proved extremely fruitful.

The developments of poly-harmony and dissonant contrapuntal style prophesy the near inadequacy of our present musical scale. Busoni and others have long since advocated a piano in which the sharps and flats should have separate keys. As music advanced from the modes to the major and minor keys, and finally to the chromatic scale, so the necessity for a new scale may constitute logically the next momentous problem in musical art.

Within recent years, the barriers of nationalism have become relaxed. An almost involuntary interchange of idioms has caused music to take on an international character despite a certain maintenance of racial traits. Eclecticism is becoming to a certain extent universal. Achievement is too easily communicable from one country to another. In some respects music was more interesting when it was more parochial. To prophesy that music is near to anarchy is to convict one's self of approaching senility, for the ferment of the revolutionary element has always existed in art. Since the time of Wagner and Liszt, however, musical development has proceeded with such extreme rapidity as to endanger the endurance of our traditional material. Poly-harmony, dissonant counterpoint and the agitation for a new scale are suspicious indications. Disregarding the future, however, let us realize that the diversity and complexity of modern music is enthralling, and that most of us can readily endure it as it now is for a little longer.

Edward Burlingame Hill.

May, 1915.

CONTENTS OF VOLUME THREE

CHAPTERPAGE
Introduction by Edward Burlingame Hill[vii]
I.By- and After-Currents of the Romantic Movement[1]
Introductory; the term 'modern'—The 'old-romantic'
tradition and the 'New German' school—The followers of
Mendelssohn: Lachner, F. Hiller, Rietz, etc.; Carl Reinecke—Disciples
of Schumann: Robert Volkmann; Bargiel, Kirchner
and others; the Berlin circle; the musical genre artists:
Henselt, Heller, etc. (pianoforte); Jensen, Lassen, Abt, etc.
(song)—The comic opera and operetta: Lortzing, Johann
Strauss, etc.—French eclecticism in symphonic and operatic
composition: Massenet—Saint-Saëns, Lalo, Godard, etc.
II.The Russian Romanticists[37]
Romantic Nationalism in Russian Music—Pathfinders;
Cavos and Verstovsky—Mikhail Ivanovich Glinka; Alexander
Sergeyevitch Dargomijsky—Neo-Romanticism in Russian
music; Anton Rubinstein—Peter Ilyitch Tschaikowsky.
III.The Music of Modern Scandinavia[59]
The rise of national schools in the nineteenth century—Growth
of national expression in Scandinavian lands—Music
in modern Denmark—Sweden and her music—The
Norwegian composers; Edvard Grieg—Sinding and other
Norwegians—The Finnish Renaissance: Sibelius and others.
IV.The Russian Nationalists[107]
The founders of the 'Neo-Russian' nationalistic school:
Balakireff; Borodine—Moussorgsky—Rimsky-Korsakoff, his
life and works—César Cui and other nationalists, Napravnik,
and others.
V.The Music of Contemporary Russia[137]
The border nationalists; Alexander Glazounoff, Liadoff,
Liapounoff, etc.—The renaissance of Russian church music;
Kastalsky and Gretchaninoff—The new eclectics: Arensky,
Taneieff, Ippolitoff-Ivanoff, Glière, Rachmaninoff and others—Scriabine
and the radical foreign influence; Igor Stravinsky.
VI.Musical Development in Bohemia and Hungary[165]
Characteristics of Czech music; Friedrich Smetana—Antonin
Dvořák—Zdenko Fibich and others; Joseph Suk and
Vitešlav Novák—Historical sketch of musical endeavor in
Hungary—Ödön Mihálovich, Count Zichy and Jenö Hubay—Dohnányi
and Moór; 'Young Hungary': Weiner, Béla Bartók
and others.
VII.The Post-Classical and Poetic Schools of Modern Germany[201]
The post-Beethovenian tendencies in the music of Germany
and their present-day significance; the problem of
modern symphonic form—The academic followers of
Brahms: Bruch and others—The modern 'poetic' school:
Richard Strauss as symphonic composer—Anton Bruckner,
his life and works—Gustav Mahler—Max Reger—Draeseke
and others.
VIII.German Opera after Wagner and Modern German song[238]
The Wagnerian after-current: Cyrill Kistler; August
Bungert, Goldmark, etc.; Max Schillings, Eugen d'Albert—The
successful post-Wagnerians in the lighter genre: Götz,
Cornelius and Wolf; Engelbert Humperdinck and fairy
opera; Ludwig Thuille; Hans Pfitzner; the Volksoper—Richard
Strauss as musical dramatist—Hugo Wolf and the
modern song; other contemporary German lyricists—The
younger men: Klose, Hausegger, Schönberg, Korngold.
IX.The Followers of César Franck[277]
The foundations of modern French nationalism: Berlioz;
the operatic masters: Saint-Saëns, Lalo, Franck, etc.;
conditions favoring native art development—The pioneers
of ultra-modernism: Emanuel Chabrier and Gabriel Fauré—Vincent
d'Indy: his instrumental and his dramatic
works—Other pupils of Franck: Ernest Chausson; Henri
Duparc; Alexis de Castillon; Guy Ropartz.
X.Debussy and the Ultra-Modernists[317]
Impressionism in Music—Claude Debussy, the pioneer
of the 'atmospheric' school; his career, his works and his
influence—Maurice Ravel, his life and work—Alfred
Bruneau; Gustave Charpentier—Paul Dukas—Miscellany;
Albert Roussel and Florent Schmitt.
XI.The Operatic Sequel to Verdi[366]
The musical traditions of modern Italy—Verdi's heirs:
Boito, Mascagni, Leoncavallo, Puccini, Wolf-Ferrari, Franchetti,
Giordano, Orefice, Mancinelli—New paths; Montemezzi,
Zandonai and de Sabbata.
XII.The Renaissance of Instrumental Music in Italy[385]
Martucci and Sgambati—The symphonic composers:
Zandonai, de Sabbata, Alfano, Marinuzzi, Sinigaglia, Mancinelli,
Floridia; the piano and violin composers: Franco
da Venezia, Paolo Frontini, Mario Tarenghi; Rosario Scalero,
Leone Sinigaglia; composers for the organ—The song
writers: art songs; ballads.
XIII.The English Musical Renaissance[409]
Social considerations; analogy between English and
American conditions—The German influence and its results:
Sterndale Bennett and others; the first group of independents:
Sullivan, Mackenzie, Parry, Goring Thomas,
Cowen, Stanford and Elgar—The second group: Delius and
Bantock; McCunn and German; Smyth, Davies, Wallace
and others, D. F. Tovey; musico-literary workers, musical
comedy writers—The third group: Vaughan Williams, Coleridge-Taylor
and W. Y. Hurlstone; Holbrooke, Grainger,
Scott, etc.; Frank Bridge and others; organ music, chamber
music, songs.
Literature for Vols. I, II and III[445]
Index for Vols. I, II and III[491]

ILLUSTRATIONS IN VOLUME THREE

The Garden Concert; painting by Watteau (in colors)Frontispiece
FACING
PAGE
French Eclectics (Lalo, Massenet, Saint-Saëns, Godard)[30]
Russian Romanticists (Glinka, Dargomijsky, Rubinstein, Tschaikowsky)[48]
Edvard Grieg[90]
Jean Sibelius[104]
Neo-Russian Composers (Moussorgsky, Balakireff, Borodine, Rimsky-Korsakoff)[122]
Contemporary Russian Composers (Rachmaninoff, Glazounoff, Rebikoff, Glière)[150]
Bohemian Composers (Smetana, Dvořák, Fibich, Suk)[178]
Hungarian Composers (Count Zichy, Jenö Hubay, Dohnányi, Moór)[192]
Modern German Symphonic and Lyric Composers (Mahler, Bruckner, Draeseke, Wolf)[202]
Richard Strauss[214]
Max Reger[226]
Modern German Musical Dramatists (Humperdinck, Thuille, Pfitzner, Goldmark)[246]
Modern French Composers (Chabrier, d'Indy, Charpentier, Ravel)[298]
Claude Debussy[334]
Contemporary Italian Composers (Mascagni, Wolf-Ferrari, Puccini, Zandonai)[372]
Modern British Composers (Bantock, Sullivan, Parry, Elgar)[424]

MODERN MUSIC

CHAPTER I
BY- AND AFTER-CURRENTS OF THE ROMANTIC MOVEMENT

Introductory; the term 'modern'—The 'old-romantic' tradition and the 'New German' school—The followers of Mendelssohn: Lachner, F. Hiller, Rietz, etc.; Carl Reinecke—Disciples of Schumann: Robert Volkmann; Bargiel, Kirchner and others; the Berlin circle; the musical genre artists: Henselt, Heller, etc. (pianoforte); Jensen, Lassen, Abt, etc. (song)—The comic opera and operetta: Lortzing, Johann Strauss, and others—French eclecticism in symphonic and operatic composition: Massenet—Saint-Saëns, Lalo, Godard, etc.

The term 'Modern Music,' which forms the title of this volume, is subject to several interpretations. Just as in the preceding volume we were obliged to qualify our use of the words 'classic' and 'romantic,' partly because all such nomenclature is more or less arbitrary, partly because of the fusion of styles and dove-tailing of periods which may be observed in the history of any art, so it now becomes necessary to define the word 'modern' in its present application.

Now 'modern' may mean merely new or up-to-date. And in that sense it may indicate any degree of newness: it may include the last twenty-five years or the last century, or it may be made to apply to contemporaneous works only. But in another sense—that generally accepted in connection with music—it means 'advanced,' progressive, or unprecedented in any other period. Here, too, we may understand varying degrees of modernity. The devotees of the most recent development, impatient of the usual broad application of the term, have dubbed their school the 'futurist.' In fact, any of these characterizations, whether in a time sense or a quality sense, are merely relative. Wagner's disciples, disdainful of the romanticists, called his music the 'music of the future.' Now, alas, critics classify him as a romantic composer! Bach, on the other hand, long popularly regarded as an archaic bugaboo, is now frequently characterized as a veritable modern. 'How modern that is!' we exclaim time and again, while listening to an organ toccata or fugue arranged by Busoni! Beethoven, the great classic, is in his later period certainly more 'modern' than many a romanticist—Mendelssohn, for instance, or even Berlioz—though only in a harmonic sense, for he had not the command of orchestral color that the great and turbulent Frenchmen made accessible to the world.

The newness of the music is thus seen to have little to do with its modernity. Even the word 'contemporary' gives us no definite clue, for there are men living to-day—like Saint-Saëns—whose music is hardly modern when compared to that of a Wolf, dead these twelve years, or his own late countrymen Chabrier and Fauré—not to speak of the recently departed Scriabine with his clavier à lumière.

But it is quite impossible to include in such a volume as this only the true moderns—in the æsthetic sense. We should have to go back to Beethoven with his famous chord comprising every degree of the diatonic scale (in the Ninth Symphony), or at least to Chopin, according to one interpretation. According to another we should have to exclude Brahms and all his neo-classical followers who content themselves with composing in the time-honored forms. (Since there will always be composers who prefer to devote themselves to the preservation and continuation of formal tradition, this 'classical' drift will, as Walter Niemann remarks, be a 'modernism' of all times.) Brahms has, as a matter of fact, been disposed of in the preceding volume, but the inclusion in the present volume of men like Volkmann, Lachner, etc., some of whom were born long before Brahms, calls for an apology. It is merely a matter of convenience, just as the treatment of men like Glinka and Gade in connection with the nationalistic developments of the later nineteenth century is merely an expedient. Such chronological liberties are the historian's license. We have, to conclude, simply taken the word modern in its widest and loosest sense, both as regards time and quality, and we shall let the text explain to what degree a composer justifies his position in the volume. We may say at the outset that all the men reviewed in the present chapter would have been included in Volume II but for lack of space.

In Volume II the two great movements known as the classic and the romantic have been fairly brought to a close. Brahms and Franck on the one side, Wagner and Liszt on the other, may be considered to have concluded the romantic period as definitely as Beethoven concluded the classic. Like him, too, they not only surveyed but staked out the path of the future. But no great art movement is ever fully concluded. (It has been said by æsthetic philosophers that we are still in the era of the Renaissance.) Just as in the days of Beethoven there lived the Cherubinis, the Clementis, the Schuberts (as regards the symphony at least) who trod in the great man's footsteps or explored important by-paths, in some respects supplemented and completed his work; so there are by- and after-currents of the Romantic Movement which also cannot be ignored. They are represented by men like Lachner, Ferdinand Hiller, Reinecke and Volkmann in Germany; by Saint-Saëns, Massenet and Lalo in France; Gade in Denmark.[1] Some of their analogous predecessors have all but passed from memory, perhaps their own works will soon disappear from the current répertoire. Especially in the case of the Germans (whose country has certainly suffered the strain of over-cultivation and over-production, and which has produced in this age the particular brand known as 'kapellmeister music') is this likely. But it must be borne in mind that these composers had command of technical resources far beyond the ken of their elder brothers; also that, by virtue of the more subjective qualities characteristic of the music of their period, as well as the vastly broadened musical culture of this later day, they were able to appeal more readily to a very wide audience.

The historical value of these men lies in their exploitation of these same technical resources. They thoroughly grasped the formulæ of their models; what the pioneers had to hew out by force, these followers acquired with ease. They worked diligently within these limits, exhausting the possibilities of the prescribed area and proving the ground, so to speak, so that newcomers might tread upon it with confidence. They were not as uncompromising, perhaps, as the pioneers and high-priests themselves and therefore fused styles that others thought irreconcilable. What seemed iconoclastic became commonplace in their hands. Thus their eclecticism opened the way for new originalities; their very conservatism induced progress.