II
Meanwhile two truly great musicians availed themselves of what was being everywhere around them brought to light. These are Carl Maria von Weber and Franz Peter Schubert. Both are perhaps most closely associated with developments outside the sphere of the pianoforte; the one with the growth of the national, romantic German opera, the other with the first glorious burst of artistic song. Yet the pianoforte works of both were destined to exert a powerful influence upon the subsequent work of the great German composers of later generations, upon Mendelssohn, Schumann and Brahms; and besides these upon Franz Liszt as well.
Weber died in London, whither he had gone to superintend the first performances of his opera Oberon, in 1826, about forty years of age. Schubert died in Vienna in 1828, only thirty-one years old. Both were much younger than Beethoven, but both were his contemporaries, and both, moreover, owed much to his influence. The expanded form and warm feeling of their sonatas show this unmistakably. On the other hand, neither was truly at his best in this long form. The cast of their genius led them to new paths, put them in sympathy with other forms, affiliated them more with the new than with the old. Their sonatas are a breaking down, a crumbling; measures and pages in them, however, stand out amid the ruins like foundation stones for the music to come. Their shorter pieces seem not at all related to the classical music of the Viennese period, to have nothing in common with the music of Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven.
Of the two, Weber is far more the virtuoso. There are many pages of his music which are little more than effect. Furthermore, in his combination of pianistic effect and genuine musical feeling, he composed pieces which even today are in the repertory of most pianists, and which this permanence of their worth has led historians and critics to judge as the prototype of much of the pianoforte music of the nineteenth century, chiefly of concert music. Yet in the expansion of pianoforte technique Weber invented little. To him belongs the credit of employing what was generally common property in his day for the expression of fanciful and delightful ideas.
The list of his pianoforte works is not very long. It includes several sets of variations, some dances, four big sonatas, two concertos, and the still renowned Konzertstück in F minor, and several pieces in brilliant style, of which the Polacca in E major, the Polonaise in E flat, and the famous ‘Invitation to the Dance’ are the best known.
Let us look over the variations. In such a form composers have usually shown the limits and the variety of their technique. The resources which Weber can call upon to vary his theme are not very numerous, not very original. His plan is almost invariably to announce his theme simply and then dress it up in a number of figures. The theme itself undergoes no metamorphosis, as we have seen it do in the variations of Bach and of Beethoven. It is unmistakable in all the variations. It is always clearly a groundwork upon which garlands are hung, which is never for long concealed.
Of the nature of these figures and garlands little need be said. Opus 6 is a set of variations on a theme from the opera ‘Castor and Pollux,’ written by his friend and teacher, the famous Abbé Vogler. The first five variations are hardly in advance of the work of Handel. The sixth, however, presents an interesting use of broken octaves and is very difficult. The seventh presents the theme in octaves in the bass, and the eighth is the theme unmistakable, in the form of a mazurka.
Opus 7 is a set of seven variations on a theme in C major. The fourth of these presents some difficulties in wide chords for the left hand. Weber’s fingers were very long and slender and broad stretches were easy for him. The fifth is built up of sweeping figures that mount from the low registers to the high in brilliant effect. This sort of climbing crescendo is to be found again and again in Weber’s work. It is undoubtedly effective, but points to no intensive development of pianoforte technique. The sixth variation presents the theme in form of a chorale, a presentation which may still delight those who ever, conversely, find something marvellous in the rendering of ‘Nearer, My God, to Thee’ in rag-time. The seventh is a Polacca, very brilliant and full of thirds and arpeggios in contrary motion.
Seven variations on a popular Romanza were published as opus 28. The fifth has some interesting passages of broken sixths which are modern enough in sound, but which can be found in other music of the time. Then there is a Funeral March, in which upper and lower registers of the instrument are contrasted in a series of imaginary orchestral effects. The seventh demands a light, active wrist. It is a series of rapid double notes, sometimes for both hands, in an excellent ‘étude’ manner, of which Weber had already made use in the delightful Caprice, opus 12. In such work we have perhaps the model for most studies in the special technique of the wrist, perhaps also of the fifth number of Schumann’s ‘Symphonic Variations.’
There is, in addition, a set of variations on a Bohemian melody, opus 55, equally ordinary. A set published as opus 40 is perhaps the most pretentious and likewise the most varied. Here we have in the first variation some open, flowing counterpoint in which the theme is pretty well disguised; in the second some effective whirring figures for the left hand; in the third some brilliant broken octaves and double notes. The fourth is in the style of a fugue, pianissimo. The fifth furnishes sharp contrast. The eighth is very brilliant and the last is in Spanish style, which seems to depend upon a lavish use of triplet turns.
What one can hardly fail to observe is the great similarity in all his passage work. Two styles of runs he uses in nearly all his pieces. One is as follows:
![[PNG]](#4545014759173569793_p186_score1.png.id-4157608721296322941.wrap-0.html.html){kind=link}
The other is what one might call an over-reaching figure, in this manner:
![[PNG]](#4545014759173569793_p186_score2.png.id-996799428916004592.wrap-0.html.html){kind=link}
Sometimes, as well as over-reaching the chordal harmony at the top, he anticipates it by a chromatic step at the beginning, thus:
![[PNG]](#4545014759173569793_p187_score.png.id-4568017738141998847.wrap-0.html.html){kind=link}
With such and similar figures, with scant variety, page after page of his music is filled. His passage work seldom makes demands upon more than the simplest harmonies. Long runs are generally clearly founded on the simple scale. In rhythms he shows little subtlety.
This general stock in trade of pianoforte technique has become hopelessly old-fashioned. Thus the once blindingly brilliant Polacca in E major, the grand polonaise, the rondo, and such pieces, now sound almost laughable. In the Polacca one hears the thumping tum-tum figures, this time heavy chords monotonously repeated, that we have spoken of in the concerto of Hummel. However, the brief section in B major must give us pause. There the genius Weber speaks, the composer of Der Freischütz, the man who prepared the orchestra for Mendelssohn and Wagner. The long crescendo leading back to the main theme foreshadows Schumann.
In the sonatas there is a great deal of very good music. The quality of the ideas in them is often golden. Moreover, there are many passages of startlingly good writing for the pianoforte. The first, in C major, was published in 1812, as opus 42. The first theme is announced mezza voce, after two preliminary measures of highly dramatic character. The theme itself has something of the quality of a folk-song, a touch of the martial, as well, a theme that at once endears itself to the hearer as the melodies of Der Freischütz endeared themselves to all Germany. But, then, note the over-reaching figure which now appears in the transitional section, and later, clamped to a definite harmonic sequence, does for the second theme in G major. One cannot but enjoy it, yet Hummel is not more mediocre. The theme and variations which constitute the slow movement are not conspicuous; but the syncopations in the minuet, the perverse avoidance of the measure accent, cast a shadow forward upon Schumann and Brahms. The effect of the hushed triplets in the trio is orchestral. The famous rondo, in perpetual motion, scarcely calls for comment.
The second sonata, in A-flat major, must become precious to one who troubles, in these days, to study it. The quality of the themes in the first movement is rare and beautiful. The mysterious tremolo which alone accompanies the announcement of the first theme, points to that imagination in Weber which later developed the orchestra so richly. There is something orchestral about the whole work, not only about this sonata either. But his orchestral treatment of the piano is as different from Beethoven’s as the scoring of his overtures is different from that of Beethoven’s symphonies. There is a sensuous element in the beauty of sounds which is lacking in Beethoven; a quality which stirs the imagination to picture strange lands and countries, dim, mysterious forests, strange moods of moonlight. It is romantic music, it is picture music. The passage work at the end of the first section, which really serves in place of a second theme, is superb. It is in the main nothing but a series of arpeggios, sometimes with anticipatory notes in his conventional and elsewhere often tiresome manner, sometimes over-reaching; but the full chords in the left hand, a sort of rich strumming, gives it all a buoyancy, an essor, which can hardly be paralleled. The return to the first theme at the end of the development is again orchestral. So is the whole treatment of the andante and variations; orchestral in the sense that it suggests instruments of various tone-colors, or rather that it almost brings the colors out of the piano itself. The minuet is wonderfully gay, suggesting Schumann again. The sonata may be taken as a whole as the best of Weber’s works for the piano.
The last two sonatas, published in 1816 and 1822, contain very beautiful passages. The final rondo of the former, in D major, is astonishingly modern. The wide spacing of the figure work which constitutes the main theme, its sharp accents, the broad sweep of its plunges and soarings, the happy waltz swing of the second episode, the irresistible charm with which two melodies are combined, above all, the unflagging vigor of the whole movement, these must give joy to all pianists and all listeners. The minuet of the last sonata must have been well known to Brahms.
The four sonatas are all very long works. They all consist of four movements, all but the last in the conventional order of allegro, andante, minuet, and rondo. In the last the minuet follows the opening allegro. It might well have been called a scherzo. The breadth of plan suggests Beethoven. There have not been lacking critics who judged the sonatas greater than those of Beethoven. No one today would be likely to make such a misjudgment. They lack the splendid compactness, the logical balance of the sonatas of Beethoven. The treatment of the triplex form is rambling and loose. There is hardly a suggestion of organic unity in the group. But there is splendid music in them, a fine healthy vigor, an infusion of spontaneous, genuine folk-spirit. And what they possess that is almost unique in pianoforte music is a sort of narrative quality, difficult if not impossible to analyze. They suggest romantic tales of chivalry, of love and adventure. To say they are dramatic implies an organic life which they have not. They are perhaps histrionic. They suggest the illusions of the stage. Yet there is withal a free, out-of-doors spirit in them, something wholly objective and healthy. They are not the outpourings of perfervid emotions. They are not the lyrical outburst of a mood. They are like brilliant tapestries, like ancient chronicles and cycles of romantic legends.
For at least two of his most famous works in another field we have been furnished tales. To be sure, there is not much to be said of the popular ‘Invitation to the Dance.’ The introduction and the end alone are program music; but they put the waltz into a frame which adds much to its charm. Here is a romanticist at work, a teller of stories in music. No composer for the pianoforte has had just his skill. The old narrative stories of Kuhnau, Bach’s lively little Capriccio, Beethoven’s sonata opus 81, afford no prototype. Neither do the little pieces of Couperin. What Weber gives us is something different. It is not a picture, not a representation, it is somehow the thing itself.
As for the waltz, it is too well known to need comment. The technical art of which it makes use is surprisingly small. A few runs, a few skips, a few variations in the steady waltz-accompaniment, these are all. But the work has always been and always will be captivating, from the charming, delicate conversational interchange between the gallant and his selected partner, which forms the introduction, to the same polite dialogue which tells us we have come to the end.
The Konzertstück in F minor is a much bigger work. We quote from Grove’s Dictionary the translation of the story which it tells: ‘The Châtelaine sits all alone on her balcony, gazing far away into the distance. Her knight has gone to the Holy Land. Years have passed by, battles have been fought. Is he still alive—will she see him again? Her excited imagination calls up a vision of her husband lying wounded and forsaken on the battlefield. Can she not fly to him and die by his side? She falls back unconscious. But Hark! what notes are those in the distance? Over there in the forest, something flashes in the sunlight; nearer and nearer, Knights and Squires with the cross of the Crusaders, banners waving, acclamations of the people, and there—it is he! She sinks into his arms. Love is triumphant. Happiness without end. The very woods and waves sing the song of love. A thousand voices proclaim his victory.’
Probably the music which Weber wrote to this story of olden days has had as great a measure of popular admiration and acclaim as any piece that has ever been written for the pianoforte. Much of it is beautiful. The opening measures for the orchestra are equal to any of the pages from Der Freischütz or from Euryanthe; the solo passages for the pianoforte which follow have a fine breadth; the march theme, which, pianissimo, announces the return of the Crusaders is effective, rather in the manner of Meyerbeer, a fellow-student with Weber at the feet of the Abbé Vogler. On the other hand, much of the display work given to the pianoforte is hopelessly old-fashioned. We have the Weber staples again, the tum-tum bass, the close-rolling arpeggios repeated endlessly, the busy little figure before mentioned, which here, as in the famous Rondo in C, scampers from low to high. The final motives, which represent universal joy, are trivial, banal. Even the glissando octaves have now only the shine of tinsel, and much is sadly tarnished. But on the whole there is a fresh spirit in the work, an enjoyment, frank and manly, in the brilliancy of the pianoforte; an abandonment to the story, that still may carry a listener along.
Weber’s pianoforte works have astonishing individuality in spite of the commonplaceness of the stuff which he often brings in, either to fill them up or to add brilliancy. There is an effusion in most of them of manly vigor that never becomes weakened into sentimentality, and there is a great deal of romance in the chivalric strain. His harmonies are simple, though often richly scored, and he is a master of the art of suggestion by silence. His melodies have the stamp of the Teutonic folk-song. Though some years of his youth and manhood were spent in Prague and in Vienna, he assimilated practically nothing of the Slavic characteristics which can be found in the music of Haydn and Schubert, even in that of Brahms. He made use of the entire keyboard in relatively huge dynamic effects, and he had, as we have said, an almost unique power to bring forth suggestions of orchestral coloring.
His compositions are not architectural as Beethoven’s are. They suggest great canvases, full of color and movement. Thus the pianoforte sonatas seem to manifest the same quality of imagination which was able to make of the overtures to his operas brilliantly colored fantasies, after which Mendelssohn and Wagner shaped their art. And it is worthy of note that the same stereotyped figure work which plays such a part in his keyboard music is abundantly evident in these overtures. The figures out of which the allegro sections of the overture to Oberon are made are just such figures as one will find in the pianoforte sonatas, variations and concertos.
No subsequent composer down to the present day has procured from the pianoforte the special kind of mysterious, colorful effects which Weber was able to procure therefrom; but both Schumann and Brahms are clearly indebted to him for more general and more technical procedures. In connection with this it may be mentioned that by comparison with Chopin, the perfect, the pianoforte music of both Schumann and Brahms often appears orchestral. And it may be added that Chopin was not especially familiar with Weber’s work.