III
If the certain chivalric romanticism of Weber’s music is hard to analyze, the special charm of Schubert’s is wholly elusive. We have to do with an utterly different nature. Weber was an aristocrat, a rover among wild companions, a hanger-on at the theatre for a while, if you will, but none the less of distinguished birth, of polished manners and of fine wit. Schubert was more than any other of the composers, even more than Haydn, a man of the people. He was happy to mingle with the peasants, happy to play hours at a time for their dancing. Beethoven is said to have modelled the music of the country people’s dance in the ‘Pastoral Symphony’ upon the music he heard played in a certain country tavern to which at one time he delighted to go. Brahms in his impoverished boyhood used to earn a few pence by playing for the sailors’ dancing in the taverns along the waterfront of Hamburg. But Beethoven regarded himself, as we have said, as the high priest of an exalted art; and Brahms was hardly less imperious. Yet Schubert, for all his ideals which rose ever and ever higher, for all the fact that he numbered acquaintances in the same aristocratic families which had seen Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven come and go, remained a man of the people, a singer in the sway of his art, a loveable, reckless, sentimental and affectionate boy.
All his music is lyrical. The song is never absent from his pianoforte works, no matter how instrumental parts of them may be. He is essentially a melodist. His rhythms have the lilt of a dance. These two elements are not disguised. They undergo no intellectual transformations. They are as obvious as in the folk-songs and dances of the country people with whom he loved to associate. Hence the almost complete lack of sophistication in his music, the naturalness which distinguishes it from all other music.
His harmonies are strange and warm. They lack the subtlety of Mozart on the one hand, the frankness of Weber on the other. They have not the expressive significance of Beethoven. They seem rather to go beside his music than to go under it. One listens through them, so to speak, as one might look upon a procession through a colored mist that now conceals, now discloses, that always plays magic tricks with the sight. Two harmonic procedures appear more or less regularly in his music. One is the interchange of major and minor, the other the bodily shifting of the harmonic fabric up and down the scale. The latter are changes rather than modulations. By reason of these unexpected, unaccountable harmonies, his music sounds now near, now far. One moment it is with us and familiar, the next it is aloof and strange.
Schubert’s hands were thick, his fingers short and fat. Though he was not an elegant or a polished player, he had great beauty of touch and a natural, easy fluency, especially in the rapid passages of his own works. Richard Heuberger, in his excellent book on Schubert, points to the fact that most of Schubert’s pianoforte music is written in keys that require the use of many black notes on the keyboard; and suggests, as one reason for this, that Schubert found it easier to play in such keys. It is generally admitted that the key of G major is the most difficult for the pianist.
Schubert’s pianoforte music comprises many long sonatas, two sets of impromptus, a set of short pieces called ‘Musical Moments’ and a number of waltzes and other dances. The sonatas are for the most part unsatisfactory as such. In such extended forms there is need of an intellectual command of the science of music, and a sense of great proportions, both of which Schubert lacked. Hence the separate movements, the first and even more often the last, are loose and rambling in structure, and too long for the work as a whole. There is so little cohesion in the group that one may in most cases take the individual movements quite out of it and play them with perfect satisfaction.
Not all the movements are over-long, and some of the sonatas can be enjoyed in their entirety. Perhaps the most satisfactory from the point of view of structure is that in A minor, opus 42. In this the first movement is admirably constructed, firmly knit, full of distinct contrast, and in the middle section well developed. The andante and variations is undeniably long, but the formal preciseness of the following movement and of the rondo succeeds in giving to the group a definiteness and balance which will pass muster.
A sonata in D major, opus 120, is considerably shorter, but is even from the point of view of form less satisfactory. The first movement reveals one of Schubert’s great weaknesses. It happens here to be almost inconsiderable, but it is none the less evident. This is the lack of ideas in the treatment of the development section. There are nine measures which give the impression that Schubert was content to keep his music going with makeshifts. We have nothing of any significance, a series of octaves in the left hand answered by a series in the right, and a full chord at the beginning of each measure, whereby a desired modulation from the key of C-sharp minor to that of A major is accomplished.
This is bare music. The passage is so short that it hardly mars the movement seriously, but unhappily other movements are nearly destroyed by the weakness at which this one hints. For example, the first movement of a sonata in A minor, opus 143, which contains themes that are truly inspired, breaks hopelessly adrift in the development section. The section is fatally long, too. And what does it offer to hold our interest? Only measure after measure of an unvaried dotted rhythm, for the most part in the right hand over chords which may be beautiful but are seemingly without any aim. Schubert either does not know what to do or he is utterly lost in dreaming.
This is real tragedy in music, the ruin of most beautiful ideas by a fatal weakness. The opening theme promises even more than that of the earlier sonata in the same key. It is most mysterious, most suggestive, the very best of Schubert. And the second theme is of unearthly beauty. But in this weak movement both are lost, both thrown away. The whole sonata suffers in consequence. The andante is not especially noteworthy, but the scherzo is a masterpiece, not only of expression, but of workmanship; and so is the final rondo.
Similarly, the sonata in B-flat major, written not long before he died, falls into a heap of ruins. The first theme of the first movement is matchless in beauty. Schubert is loth to leave it, we are loth to have it go. A strange melody in F-sharp minor does for a second theme, and this simply rambles on through sudden changes of harmony until it reaches the key of F major, only to give way to measure after measure of equally aimless wandering, with only figures to save the music from amorphousness. Note then a closing theme of perfect beauty! Play it with all tenderness, with all the delicate suggestion you can put into it, and still even this first section of the music is long and overbalanced. There is a wealth of poetry in it, even a great depth of feeling and a heart-moving sadness. It seems a sacrilege to decry it; yet there it stands, frustrate.
The development section is what one would expect, weak in structure. Yet the second part of it is strangely moving, from the establishment of the key of D minor to the return of the first theme. The life of the music seems held in suspense. There is only a steady hushed tapping of triads, measure after measure, swaying from D minor to F major and ever back again, with reminiscences of the rambling measures in F major of the first section, floating here and there like mist in a dull rain. Strains of the first theme drift by, there are low muffled trills on D. Finally, the tapping ceases, as rain might cease; a quiet scale, like drops from the branches of some wet tree, falls to a low trill, and, after a silence, the first theme comes back into the music.
One can hardly find sadder or more beautiful music than these measures, or than the lovely first theme; and yet the movement is strangely without form and void. The andante which follows it is overdrawn. The repetitions of the sections in A major might have been omitted to better effect; but there is no looseness of structure. The music is unspeakably sad, with the sadness of the songs of the Winterreise. The scherzo is flawless, the final rondo long but well sustained. Yet, by reason of the aimlessness of long measures in the first movement, the sonata as a whole is like a condemned building. And in this sonata, too, there is an intensity of mood that, except for the last movement, should succeed in welding the whole group together. Even the last movement is not entirely independent.
What is most lamentable in all this is that Schubert poured much of his most inspired music into the sonatas. Little of his music presents more intrinsically beautiful material. In no other of his pianoforte pieces did he show such a wide and varied control of the technical possibilities of the instrument. Yet all would seem to be of little or no avail. Many of the most precious of his poetic fancies lie buried in these imperfect works.
Though Schubert was not a virtuoso, he displayed instinct for and ingenuity in devising pianoforte effects. In the huge ‘Wanderer Fantasy,’ opus 15, he seems to have set himself the task of awakening the greatest possible resonance of the instrument. The big chords and arpeggios in the first movement are not, however, overpoweringly effective. The variations in the second are more successful. They certainly look impressive on the printed page, and the sound of the climax is gigantic. But the stupendous is not natural to Schubert on the whole. He is more of a poet than a virtuoso. The first movement and the scherzo of the sonata in D major, opus 53, are big in effect. The spacing and rhythm in the piu lento section of the first movement has been pointed out by Heuberger as significant. The vigorous first subject of the scherzo can make the piano ring. But in general Schubert shows at his best as regards pianoforte writing in more delicate measures, and in brilliant rather than massive and sonorous effects. The last movement of the sonata in A major, opus 120, is a good example of a piquant style of which he was master. Here the long scales terminating in chords high up on the keyboard are quite dazzling.
He was not especially original in accompaniment figures. One finds a great deal of mediocre Alberti-bass stuff. On the other hand, he is a master in weaving a more subtle sort of arabesque about his melodies, or over or below them. One sees this not far from the beginning of the adagio movement of the big fantasy opus 15, in the ornamentation of the Fantasia, opus 27, and in the Trio of the Scherzo in opus 147. The closing measures of the first section of the first movement of this sonata are very like Chopin. There are many passages of excellent free writing for the instrument, such as the C major section of the allegretto in opus 164. This, and, in another way, the second section of the minuet in opus 122, are very like passages in the Schumann Carnaval. On the whole his treatment of the pianoforte is more delicate and more distinguished than Weber’s.
Dr. Oskar Bie has remarked wisely in his history of pianoforte music that to one who has not a soft touch the beauties of Schubert’s music will not be revealed. It is particularly in lovely, veiled passages that he excels. Except for the final rondo almost all of the sonata in B-flat major to which we have referred is to be played very nearly pianissimo. The poetic and generous Schumann felt that in certain parts of the andante of the great C major symphony, a spirit from heaven might be walking through the orchestra, to which the instruments would seem to be listening. There are many passages in the pianoforte music which suggest such ghostly visitations, which whisper far more than speak. And in such places Schubert’s scoring will be found to be matchless, as delicate as Chopin’s, though less complicated.
In spite of the many inspired themes in the sonatas, and of the variety and richness of pianoforte effects with which they are often presented, the works are, as we have already said, too faulty or too weak in structure to hold a secure and honored place in pianoforte literature. It is vain to speculate on what Schubert might have done with the form had he lived longer. The last sonata is discouraging.
But in shorter forms there is no doubt that he was a supreme and perfect artist. The two sets of impromptus and the set of shorter pieces called the Moments Musicals are masterpieces. It is hardly an exaggeration to say that in them lie concealed the root and flower of the finest pianoforte literature produced during the next half century or more in Germany. Mendelssohn, Schumann, and Brahms owe immensely to them.
Each set of Impromptus consists of four pieces. The title was not given to them by Schubert, but was added by the publishers of the first editions, the Haslingers of Vienna. Schumann suggested that the first, second, and fourth of the second set might be taken as three movements of a sonata in F minor. The first of these is very much after the manner of the first movements of Schubert’s sonatas; but the first section is not repeated, and the section which at first might suggest a real development section is repeated entirely at the end of the piece.
The first impromptu of the first set is built on a single phrase. The quality of the music is legendary. A sharp preliminary G claims our attention, and then the story begins, pianissimo, a single voice, answered, as it were, by a chorus; and what this voice sings, or rather chants, is the burden of the rest. One might fancy the piece a series of variations but that there seems to be some story progressing with it. At times the theme is smooth and serene, as in the A-flat major section near the beginning, where it floats along over a rolling accompaniment. Later on it is passing through dark, wild forests. The agitated triplet octaves, inexorably on G, suggest the ‘Erl King.’ And so ever on, the same phrase, as if it were a lone soldier on his way through a land now wild and dreary, now sunny. During the last two pages the restless triplet figures are never still, and always they come back to beat on G. Just before the end the agitation stops, but still the G persists, in long octaves, and still the tramp of the soldier keeps on. What it may mean no one can tell. The impression is that the strange music continues on, long after our ears have heard it die away.
The second impromptu is for the most part in a light and happy vein. There is a constant flow of triplet figures, wonderfully graceful and sinuous, over the simplest of accompaniments. A sudden change of mood, an abrupt modulation, usher in a section in the nature of a trio. There is a bold melody, greatly impassioned, very much after the manner of Schumann; a breadth of style and a power wholly different from the light figure-work which has preceded it. But back to the lighter mood the music comes again, back to the flow of exquisite, light sound, only to be brought once more to a sudden check. There is a short coda of greatest vehemence and brilliance.
Here is salon music of a wholly new variety. It has nothing in common with the showy polonaises and rondos of Weber, nor yet with the sentimental nocturnes of Field. In fact, one would find it difficult to find its parallel elsewhere in the literature of pianoforte music, its strange combination of ingenuousness and grace and wild passion.
The third is in G-flat major, though it is perhaps better known in the key of G, to which Haslinger took the liberty of transposing it, much to the harm of its effect. It is in the nature of a reverie, akin to the nocturnes of Field in spirit, but far broader in plan and more healthy in sentiment.
Something of the airiness of the second impromptu is to be found in the fourth; but here the runs have an harmonic significance rather than a melodic. They are flowing chords, successive light showers of harmonies. The very sameness of the figuration adds to the charm, and does not, it may be added, take away from the difficulty. Only twice is the gentle vibration so produced interrupted for long; once to give way to a short melody, once during the long, impassioned middle-section in C-sharp minor.
What stands out in this group of pieces as a whole is the restraint in form, so lacking in the sonatas, and the fineness of pianoforte style. There is a great economy of writing. The piano is left to speak for itself; it is not often taxed to make music grand enough for the orchestra. In the second and fourth of the series an accompaniment is hardly more than suggested, except in the impassioned middle sections; yet the passage work is in no way of the virtuoso type. It has a refinement that is, apart from Bach, Mozart, and Chopin, unusual in pianoforte music. And what is ever worthy of notice in all the work of Schubert is the prevalent pianissimo. The spiritual visitor is ever present. One feels that Schubert was wholly lost in his music, that he surrendered himself utterly to the delight of sound, of softest sound. The four works are equally inspired. They are full of ecstasy, full of rapture.
The impromptus of the second set are not so invariably fine, yet as a whole they are a momentous contribution. The first and the fourth are longer and more elaborate than any in the first set, and consequently one feels in them the lack of proportion and control which weakened the sonatas. The third is, as a matter of fact, a series of variations; and they can hardly be said to suffer from any weakness. Rather they are exceedingly well done. However, better variations have been written—not, it may be remarked, by Weber—and the form is dangerously likely to prove stupid except in the hands of a man who has a special skill in it. There is necessarily lacking a chance for that spontaneity and freedom which one associates more with Schubert than with any other composer.
The last impromptu is conspicuous for a gay brilliance, perhaps a better brilliance than Weber revealed, but a less effective one. It suggests Liszt. Passages remind one of the Gnomenreigen. There can be no mistaking the Hungarian quality of the melodies, the mad, rhapsodical, Gypsy style.
The first impromptu contains more of the quality of the extraordinary Schubert; is perhaps too long, but is full of fine inspiration and romantic fancy. The opening theme is in ballade style, with a rather incongruous touch of conventionality here and there. The second theme is purely lyrical, though the persistent eighth-note rhythm in which it is presented gives it a spirit of restlessness. It is thrice repeated, and the figure-work in the high registers which adorns the third statement of it is effective and beautiful. The theme itself is silenced unexpectedly and the figure-work leads down again into the deep registers, where it flows in a hushed arpeggio figure. Over this a third theme is suggested, which, with its answer woven in the accompaniment, constitutes a distinct second section of the piece, releases a different mood. It is for the most part soft, yet it is strangely impassioned. It leads back again to the first theme and the whole is repeated, with a change only of key. At the end, the first theme once more adds a touch of the ballade. The two measures before the final chords have all the strange power of suggestion which one associates with Schubert, leaving one with the impression that the music has rather passed on than ended, as if the song, like that of the ‘Solitary Reaper,’ could have no ending.
There is no contemporary music with which one may compare these impromptus. They are not sentimental idylls like the nocturnes of Field, nor show pieces like the shorter works of Weber. They have nothing in common with the music of the contemporary virtuosi, nor with that of any virtuosi. They are extraordinarily rich in genuine musical worth, and, like all of Schubert’s music, in form or out of form, inspired. Even more remarkable are the six short pieces called ‘Musical Moments.’ Three of these are but two pages long; only one more than four. Each is wholly different from the others in mood. In all of them the pianissimo prevails. Schubert is whispering, not speaking. They are essentially pianoforte music, too. Though there is nothing elaborate in the style of them, not the slightest trace of a striving for new effects, yet it may be questioned if any German pianoforte music shows greater understanding of what one might call the secret and intimate qualities of the instrument.
There is practically no thickness of scoring. Only the trio sections of the first and last are open to even suspicion in this regard. There is no commonplaceness or makeshift in the accompaniments. The monotonous tum-tum of the third is necessary in the expression of the mood of dance and song which the piece embodies, of wild dancing and intensely emotional song, more than half sad. The workmanship of all is delicate, whether it be deliberate or instinctive. There is in all a great appreciation of effects of contrast, of loud and soft, which are the very first of the peculiarities of the instrument; an appreciation of the sonority, rich but not noisy, which the pedal allows; of the charm of soft and distinct passage notes, of vigorous, percussive rhythm. All is perhaps in miniature; but the six pieces are the essence of German pianoforte music, both in quality and style; the very root and stock of the short pieces of Schumann and Brahms by which they are distinguished.
As to the nature of the separate pieces, little need be said. They are pure music, perfect art. In the sound of them are their completeness and their justification. The first may suggest dreams. The figure out of which it is made is of the woodland. It suggests the horns of elf-land faintly blowing. It is now near, now far. As the notes of the bugle will blend in echoes till the air is full of a soft chord, so does this phrase weave a harmony out of its own echo that, like the sounds of a harp blown by the wind, is more of spirit than of flesh. Even in the trio something of this echo persists.
The remaining five keep us closer to earth, are of more substantial and more human stuff. Yet note in the second, in the second statement of the first theme after the first episode, how a persistent E-flat suggests again the ghostly visitor to which the music itself seems to listen. The third is, as has been suggested, a dance, soft yet half barbaric. Is the melody sad or gay? It is blended of both, like the folk-songs of the Slavs and the Celts, the character of which it breathes. One is tempted to ask if there ever was softer music than Schubert’s. The music enters its coda here thrice piano, and twice on its way to the end it grows still softer.
The fourth suggests a prelude of Bach, except for the trio, which again has the character of a folk-song and again is softer than soft. The fifth is a study in grotesque. Even here there are fine effects, such as the echo of the first phrases; but the general impression is of almost savage accents and harsh dissonances. The last has a touch of Beethoven, though the melodies are of the kind that Schubert alone has ever heard, and the harmonies here and there rise, as it were, like shifting, colored mist across the line of the music.
It cannot be said that the melodies and harmonies of either the Impromptus or the ‘Musical Moments’ are more inspired than those of the sonatas. Indeed, there are passages in the latter of more profound and more intense emotion than finds expression in the shorter pieces. But most of the sonatas are in ruins. Their beauties are fragmentary and isolated; whereas nearly all the Impromptus and all the ‘Musical Moments’ have a beauty and firmness of line and design as well as of content. For this reason they stand as the best of his pianoforte works; and of their kind they are unexcelled in music. They are genuinely beautiful music; they are perfectly suited to the piano, drawing upon its various qualities without showing them off; they are finished in detail, balanced and well-knit in structure. A new epoch in the art begins with them.
It should be mentioned that Schubert’s waltzes and other dances bear very clearly the stamp of his great genius. They are not elaborate. Much of their beauty is in their naïve simplicity. They gain nothing by being dressed up in the gaudy raiment which Liszt chose to hang upon many of them. They should be known and played as Schubert wrote them, not as profound or as brilliant music, but as spontaneous melodies in undisguised dance rhythms. They are, in fact, dance music, full of the spirit of merry-making, not in the least elegant or sophisticated. To our knowledge there is no other music of equal merit and charm composed in this spirit expressly for the piano. Schubert is unique among the great composers in having treated dance forms and rhythms thus strictly as dances.