III
Chopin is second to no composer as a harmonist. In this respect, it now seems he stands directly in line with Bach and Mozart. The fabric of the music of all three is chromatic; but it is usually so delicately woven that its richness is accepted almost unconsciously by the listener. Like Bach, Chopin wanders where he will in the harmonic field. Like Mozart, he is ineffably graceful and subtle. The foundation of his music is a series of widely varied, yet blending chords. He is rarely startling. His modulations are swift and flashing; but they seldom if ever seem abrupt.
On the whole his music has few conspicuously unusual chords. The crashing dissonances just before the end of the Scherzo in B minor are exceptional. So are the wild bursts in the prelude in D minor. But there are sequences of chords which, when analyzed, show an amazing boldness. For example, the opening measures of the scherzo in the B-flat minor sonata; the middle section of the study in C minor; the swirl of chords before the coda in the F minor Ballade; the long modulating passage between the A major and E-flat major portions of the G minor Ballade; the whole of the study in broken chords; and countless others.
He is fond of shifting the harmony down through chromatic steps, as in the prelude in E minor and the mazurka, opus 17, No. 4. Rushes of chromatic sixths and fourths, such as are in the E minor concerto, at the beginning of the great polonaise in A-flat major, and the scherzo of the B-flat minor sonata, are effects of color more than of harmony. But he gets magnificent harmonic effects by sending wide, whirring chords through half-steps down or up the scale, as in the first meno mosso section of the scherzo in C-sharp minor, or in the cadenza-style passage of the study, opus 10, No. 3. Yet again, before the return of the first motives in the study, opus 25, No. 6, there is a long cascade of diminished seventh chords. Sometimes he leads his music through broader progressions, which are in effect diatonic. The dropping of the music from its dramatic height in the C-sharp minor portion of the ballade in A-flat major, the long descending play with the triplet motive in the middle section of the second scherzo, and all the second part of the scherzo in the B-flat minor sonata offer examples of this bold harmonic stride.
One may take up a handful of Chopin’s music almost at random and find signs of his harmonic boldness, and there is hardly a line of it which does not reveal his ever subtle power over chromatic alterations. This is so fine and really so ever present as almost to defy analysis. Yet one or two pages in which it is unusually suggestive may be cited. All the first part of the scherzo in B minor, particularly the second section of it, is but a play with chords which, but for the unpleasant connotation of the word, might almost be said to writhe, so are they twisted and interwoven by a ceaseless alteration of their fundamental notes. By reason of this same chromatic litheness, both the study in C major, opus 10, No. 7, and the coda of the second ballade take on a shimmer of harmonic light.
The chromatic scale has often been used for a sort of windy or surging effectiveness in pianoforte music. Witness the first movement of Beethoven’s concerto in G major, Weber’s Rondo in C major. But rarely in any music has it been used so melodiously as in Chopin’s. Sometimes it is but a strand over which other strands are woven, as in the colossal Étude in A minor; but even more remarkable are those cases in which he contented himself with the unadorned scale. The studies in A minor, opus 10, No. 2, and G-sharp minor, opus 25, No. 6, rest upon the ordinary familiar chromatic scale, perhaps the gaudiest of the virtuoso trappings; yet even the first of these, in its frankly étude manner, has an uncommon beauty, and the second has more than an earthly charm. Neither study depends upon a vague, windy effect. Both demand rather a distinct touch. We have then a chromatic scale in which the separate notes are constantly audible throughout the entire piece, a chromatic scale, turned by some alchemy of which Chopin alone possessed the secret, into graceful melody.
It is in a sense this power in Chopin to turn every note to melody that is the secret of the perfection of his style. We may pass over his characteristics in the broader melody. These, like the qualities of Bach’s, Mozart’s and Schubert’s melodies, are of an essence that escapes words. The metaphor is perhaps sickly—but one may as well attempt to catch firmly in words the fragrance of flowers. But the power over a more subtle melody, what one might call an inner melodiousness, is so striking in Chopin that it may not be passed at least without special comment. Bach and Couperin possessed the same kind of skill; and this, though manifested in almost radically different forms, and applied upon a wholly different instrument, makes their music unqualifiedly welcome upon the modern pianoforte. In the case of Chopin, it was brought to bear upon our own instrument, and wrought the perfect style for pianoforte music, a style which conforms to the special qualities in the instrument of which we have elsewhere spoken at length. (See Introduction.)
In Chopin accompaniment figures for the piano are brought to their highest perfection. It may be fundamentally his choice of harmonies that gives them a richness not to be found so generally in any other music for the instrument. Here must lie the secret of the beauty of certain passages, like that of the melodious second theme in the scherzo in B-flat minor, where the accompaniment is only a series of chords, the movement or rolling of which is not at all unusual. But in the formation of figures there is often a distinction peculiar to Chopin alone.
First one notices the wide spacing of the notes, the avoidance of all thickness such as often makes the pianoforte music of Brahms unsatisfactory from the point of view of the pianist. By means of these widely spaced figures he obtains a sonority of after-sounds from the piano in which the overtones and sympathetic vibrations play a great part. It is never muddy or thick. There are many pages of his music which show group after group of these figures employed to give only a shimmering, not a distinct harmonic background to the melody which he wishes to set forth. One remembers the nocturnes in C-sharp minor and D-flat major, the study in A-flat major, opus 25, No. 1, and countless passages in other works.
Frédéric Chopin.
After the portrait by Ary Scheffler.
These undulating figures are no more than the Alberti bass, developed to suit the piano. To the student they offer little more than an example of wholly satisfactory spacing of notes on the keyboard. But Chopin is rarely so simple. In almost all his accompaniments based on broken chords he introduces something of an independent spirit. This shows itself either in the suggestion of an inner melody which here and there joins richly with the chief subject; or in the accentuation of certain notes of harmonic significance. In neither case does the accompaniment take on a definite line, as it so often does in the music of Brahms. Particularly in the latter case, the accompaniment is still vaguely sonorous, the separate notes not more distinct than they must be to preserve a sense of gentle or vigorous movement.
It must not be supposed that these notes, which accentuate harmonic coloring, are literally to be emphasized. They are rarely marked with accent signs. But Chopin has so placed them at the height of the figure that they must stand out, even if played more lightly than the notes with which they are associated. The accompaniment of the second theme in the sonata in B minor, especially the later portions of it where it is broken into groups of sixteenth notes, offers proof of a subtlety in awakening a sensuous volume of sound out of the piano which is at once vague and distinct, that can hardly be matched.
As for the flashes of counter-melodies, of hidden strands of music which enrich his accompaniments, we approach here into one of the mysteries of Chopin’s genius. It is in suggesting these that the technique of the pianist frequently fails. There is need of a touch at once pointed and yet often as gentle as a breath. Sometimes these magical notes are at the extremity of a wide space. Chopin has written a study—opus 10, No. 9—which deals almost wholly with this difficulty. Again they are concealed in the very middle of the figure, as in parts of the accompaniment of the nocturne in D-flat major. Finally there are accompaniments which are all elusive melody. How many melodies are there, for example, within the accompaniment, if so it may be called, of the nineteenth prelude; in the magnificent passages of the fourth ballade, before the coda; in the first E-flat major section of the first ballade? Even where figures have given way in passages of utmost sonority to chords, there is a full melodic life here and there. The accompanying chords in the big passages of the Barcarolle, just before the end, have indeed almost a polyphonic significance.
Here then is that inner melodiousness of Chopin’s music which goes far towards making it the great work of art that it is. It is so little explicit, often hardly more than suggested, so delicate and so infinitely varied that one must for ever question just what the nature of it is. Yet if one tries to analyze Chopin’s style, his treatment of the keyboard, his unmatched grace and elegance and fervor, it is precisely against this inner musical life that one must ultimately come to pause. There are conceptions of emotion expressed in pianoforte music which are perhaps grander than his because less personal; there are other works for the piano that are more abstract and seemingly therefore less capricious; but there is perhaps no music which quite like his has called forth the full spirit of the most mechanical of the string instruments.
Is it essentially polyphonic music? The first canon of the pianoforte style is movement. That is a mechanical necessity. The strings must be kept in vibration, constantly touched. In music so fine as Chopin’s this movement must be found to have a beauty in itself. It must be ever varied. It must take on an independent character of its own. So far, in studying accompaniment figures, one finds in them an almost never-absent suggestion of such a life. Perhaps one of the greatest proofs of Chopin’s skill is that he rarely attempted more than to suggest it. For he knew above all things his piano. He knew its great power over chords and harmony, that music for it must first of all bring out this richness of vibration of which it was capable. He knew that the logical, consecutive movement of the polyphonic style left his piano more than half dumb. Polyphony was no outlandish book to him. Many an anecdote testifies to his worship of the ‘Well-Tempered Clavichord’; many to his ability to reveal as few, perhaps no others, have been able to do, the beauty of the preludes and fugues in it. But in his own music he submerged polyphony, so to speak, just beneath the sea of moving harmonies. Over and through the fine silver network his harmonies swirl and flow like waters. Only now and then a strand of it shines clear; but always its presence may be seen, though its lines quiver and break.
Now and again one comes across measures in his music which do more than hint at the sterling imitative style of the old masters, or that show a grasp of that sort of logical technique which is able to weave a single motive or two into various shapes, a highly concentrated sort of music. These are neither more nor less beautiful than other measures, and surely their value is the value of all his music, not enhanced by the evidence of a highly respected technical skill. The fourth ballade gives surprising examples of this intensive art. The few measures in canonic style which bring back the principal subject are worthy of study; but even more remarkable is the page of music which precedes them. Here, following an episode in which the steady rhythm of the whole great work takes on almost the gaiety of a dance, we come upon music of the most profound character, fully and sonorously scored, rich in harmony, expressive of passion. The bass part is one variant of the chief subject, the treble part is another. Here is skill of the sort that brings praise to Brahms; but in the music of Chopin to mention it is hardly worth while, so little, rather so entirely not at all, is it an end in itself.
Finally there are pages of his music in which the movement of his accompaniment are so free and extended, or so interwoven with what seems the chief idea, that one is at loss to classify them as to style. These it seems to us are the result of his finest art of writing for the piano. In some cases it is easy to speak of the accompaniment as an arabesque, with the implied meaning that, delicately and carefully as it has been shaped and perfected, it remains of secondary importance. So, for instance, with the little prelude in G major, and, to a somewhat greater extent, the study in C minor, opus 10, No. 12. But the prelude in D major is a net of sounds from which nothing but shimmering harmony shines out, though there are two voices for ever entwining about each other. Which is melody and which accompaniment in the prelude in F major? What is going on within the prelude in F-sharp minor, that outwardly seems but a broad melody with whirring accompaniment? At last, in the later works, one comes across accompaniments running from top to bottom of the keyboard, every note of which is but part of a melody. Take as examples of this art the following passages from the fourth scherzo:
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These few measures are typical of the essence of the keyboard, rather the pianoforte, style of Chopin, a style showing a grace and flexibility highly characteristic of his music in general. One finds such art only very rarely in the works of other composers since the time of Bach and Couperin, as, for example, in the second Intermezzo in the second number of the Kreisleriana and at the end of Brahms’ Caprice in F-sharp minor, opus 76, No. 1. It is the sort of music which sounds best on the pianoforte, which cannot give the same effect on any other instrument nor by any combination of instruments. There are the constant movement which is necessary to keep the piano vibrating, and the richness of harmony which belongs to no other single instrument except the organ. The homogeneous nature of the scale gives to the runs a continuity of line and of color that is almost uniquely proper to the piano. The single notes of the runs drop with the bell-like quality which likewise belongs only to this instrument. At last it must be noted how the sound of it all floats and changes. This is strikingly a sonority of after-sounds.
In the case of the above selection from the Scherzo this is obtained by the arrangement of chords with the broad melody of the left hand. Of the six chords that are struck four are left to vibrate during two measures; that is to say, that five-sixths of their value is given only in after-sounds. Against this tonal background are arranged the rapidly moving notes of the right hand, which a careful study will show accentuates in varying fashion the floating harmonies of the left. So that the whole passage has not only a vague shimmer but a sparkling radiance as well.
In the following selection from the same piece it will be noticed that this sonority is built up by the movement of the accompanying figures which at the same time sprinkle their own mist with sparks. It is like the passage of a faint comet through the sky, leaving a trail of apparently substantial light. And here this drifting light of sound resolves itself into definite harmonies, in the third, fifth, seventh, ninth, fourteenth and fifteenth measures. The substantial harmonies of the passage are very obviously established by the chords in the left hand part; but it is the movement of the right hand that makes them glow and darken as it were. In those measures not mentioned above, this movement seems to weave a mist about these harmonies, which, in the measures we have numbered, clears for an instant and lets the light through. And that the notes in this movement which have such an harmonic clarity may be not so much emphasized as retained is one of the fine points in the playing of Chopin which the unskilled player is likely wholly to miss, and with it the elusive subtlety of Chopin.
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The ordinary pianoforte style of running figuration generally is made up of simple arpeggios or scales. Liszt does not often show himself master of more than such. It is only Chopin who envelopes his harmonies in such an exquisitely spun thread of melody. The last measures of the Barcarolle show such a thread of pure gold, woven and twisted as no other composer for the piano has been able to spin.
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In such passages as these three we find a movement which entered the pianoforte style as a necessity (to keep harmonies in vibration) metamorphosed into a line of melody which still retains the power to suggest harmonies. It demands the virtuoso but is in no sense virtuoso music. For virtuoso music is a music in listening to which one hardly knows whether it is sound itself or the rapid movement of sound that thrills. Figures have little musical significance in it. Notice how in the music of the two greatest virtuoso composers for the piano, D. Scarlatti and Liszt, a few figures are repeated endlessly with no variation. The necessity of movement has become a luxury, oftenest not truly beautiful, nor of any but a gymnastic worth.
It was Chopin who entirely appreciated the true value of movement on the keyboard; who where it was necessary made it beautiful, and never made it an end in itself. Hence it may be questioned if there is figure work, mere display, in Chopin’s music. There is hardly a passage of rapid notes in his music which has not a pure melodic significance and which does not weave itself about harmonies that are constantly varied. He delighted in rapid notes. The coda of the waltz in A-flat major, op. 34, No. 2, the study in F minor, op. 25, No. 2, the scherzo of the sonata in B minor, the variation of the chief subject in the third part of the fourth ballade, these come to mind among a host of other examples of his inimitable grace and musical worth in such music. And when he combined such a fleet melodiousness with broader themes and harmonies did he not prove himself a master of the science of music in a new light? Not without a reason are the preludes and fugues of the ‘Well-Tempered Clavichord’ a masterpiece of everlasting and inimitable worth. We may call it concentration, intensity, economy of musical means which gives them their enduring firmness. And much of this firmness is in the music of Chopin, because there are no empty notes, none without two and even threefold significance. This complication of movement with melody, this ever-whispering inner melodiousness, these spring from Bach, the greatest of masters.
Other essentials of the pianoforte style may be found in the work of other masters as well as in that of Chopin. Such are the contrast of registers and the variety of rhythm. One more feature of his style, however, is pronounced enough to demand attention. This will be observed in his treatment of many melodies. Here any composer will find himself face to face with one of the most difficult problems the piano presents; for, as we have said, he must if possible arrange his melody in such a way that one will not feel it would have been more suitable to the voice or the violin. Movement is again necessary. Without belittling the value of an accepted masterpiece one may call attention to the long pause of the melody at the end of the first phrase of Schumann’s Warum?, which barely escapes destroying the piece as a work for the piano. There must be not only a pronounced but a secondary melodic movement in such pauses in pianoforte music, as Schumann himself introduced subsequently in Warum? In many cases the composer contents himself with giving a touch of melodic life to the accompaniment, as Chopin does, for example, in the pauses of the second theme in the first movement of the B-flat minor sonata. But most remarkable in Chopin’s treatment of melodies, noticeably in his later and broader style, is his fondness for secondary melodies that have almost the consecutive movement of an obbligato part. This is one step in organization beyond the inner melodiousness of his accompaniments. Without selecting examples from a number of his works, one may call attention to the study in C-sharp minor, opus 25, No. 7, to the various treatments of the melodic material in the fourth ballade, to the whole Barcarolle, especially to the imitations in the middle section and in the coda. By means of this the piano speaks with a voice made sonorous by its own peculiar abilities, and Chopin’s melodies stand apart from melodies for violin or voice.
What has been said of his ability to give to rapid notes a genuinely musical significance applies in general to the ornaments which now and again are brought into his music. Of the older standardized ornaments which were thickly sprinkled through the music of Couperin and Emanuel Bach, only a few survived the harpsichord, to which they were appropriate. The turn, the trill and the grace-note are the chief of these, all of which, it will be noted, are used as frequently in music for other instruments as in music for the pianoforte. The others were expanded into much greater form or gave way entirely to a new sort of ornament which covered wide intervals and a wide range, and was intended less to add grace to the melodic line than to introduce a variety of sonority into the music.
These more pretentious frills were added ex tempore by men like Hummel, Field, and even Liszt, not only to their own music but to that of other composers. Liszt, in his remarks prefatory to an edition of Field’s ‘Nocturnes,’ said that the little pieces as they appeared on the engraved page hardly gave more than a suggestion of the richness which their composer gave to them by means of his improvised adornments. Whatever may have been the practice of Chopin in playing, he angrily resented the addition of extemporized ornaments to his own music by any player whatsoever, even one so brilliant as Liszt. It seems likely that such ornaments d’occasion were pretty conventional stuff. Liszt has filled up his music with a great deal of them, laboriously written out. Chopin’s ornaments rarely lack the distinction which is characteristic of his style in general; that is to say they are rarely a series of figures, oftenest a tracery of melody. Those such as we find in the nocturne in F-sharp major, the impromptu in the same key, and even in the first polonaise, are finely and carefully drawn, and their effect in the piece, like the effect of the piece as a whole, calculated down to the smallest note. Even in this regard Chopin’s music is perfected, and the addition of extra notes, especially of the breathless, virtuoso kind, cannot, as Chopin himself well knew, but distort its proportions. There is practically none of these passages which is massive, which has not a value in detail that the pianist must reveal.
Excepting always the music of Bach, there is almost no keyboard music save Chopin’s in which every note is thus fraught with meaning and delight. Therein lies the secret of his style, its clearness, flexibility and charm. As a work of art it is flawless, and in that may well rest its best assurance of an immortal life.