IV
Both Schobert in Paris and Wagenseil in Vienna are more than straws which show the way the wind blew through the classical sonata. They are streaks in the wind itself. On the one came the seeds of the new works in Mannheim to the clavecins in Paris; and on the other such seeds were blown to harpsichords in Vienna. Both men wrote great quantities of music for the harpsichord, but oftenest with a part for violin added. This part was, however, usually ad libitum.
Concerning Schobert we may quote once more from the ‘Life of Mozart’ by Messrs. de Wyzewa and de Saint-Foix. ‘From 1763 up to the general upheaval caused by the Revolution, he was the most played and the most loved of all the composers of French sonatas. * * * Outside France, moreover, his works were equally highly prized; we find testimony to it in every sort of German, English and Italian treatise on the history or on the esthétique of the piano.’
Concerning Wagenseil we may recall the anecdote of little Mozart who one evening, on the occasion of his first visit to Vienna, refused to play unless Wagenseil, the greatest of players and composers for harpsichord in Vienna, were present. Dr. Burney visited him some years later and heard him play, old and ailing, with great fire and majesty.
Schobert was, as we have said, of Silesian origin. He came to Paris as a young man, probably by way of Mannheim, some time between 1755 and 1760; and from then on to the time of his death in 1767 adapted his music more and more to the French taste. Hence we find in it a simple but strong expression, an elegant clearness and a touch of that sensibilité larmoyante made fashionable by Rousseau, showing itself in the frequent use of minor keys, evidently at the root of the very personal emotional life of his music.[27] Mozart came very strongly under his influence.
Wagenseil, on the other hand, shows yet more of the Italian influence, so strong even at that day in Vienna, to which Haydn was to owe much. His work lacks emotion and poetry, is facile and brilliant and clear, without much personal color.
In the matter of emotional warmth the sonatas of Emanuel Bach, however vague they may be in form by contrast with those of Schobert and his brother Christian, are distinguished above those of his contemporaries. Emanuel—his full name was Carl Philipp Emanuel—was born in Weimar in March, 1714. An early intent to devote himself to the practice of law was given up because of his marked aptitude for music. In 1740 he entered the service of Frederick the Great as court cembalist. In 1757 he gave up this post and went to Hamburg, where he worked as organist, teacher, and composer until his death there on the fourteenth of December, 1788.
The works by which he is best known are the six sets of sonatas, with rondos and fantasies too, which he published between 1779 and 1787 in Leipzig under the title of Sonaten für Kenner und Liebhaber (‘Sonatas for Connoisseurs and Amateurs’). Many of the sonatas, however, had been composed before 1779.
An earlier set, dedicated to the Princess Amelia of Prussia and published in 1760, bears the interesting title, Sechs Sonaten fürs Clavier mit veränderten Reprisen (‘Six Sonatas for Clavier with Varied Repeats’). This title, together with Bach’s preface to the set, shows conclusively that in repeating the sections of movements of sonatas, players added some free ornamentation of their own to the music as the composer published it. The practice seems to have been an ancient one, applied to the suite before the sonata came into being. Thus some of the doubles of Couperin and Sebastian Bach may be taken as special efforts on the part of the composers to safeguard their music from the carelessness and lack of knowledge and taste of dilettanti. To what an extent such variation in repeat might go and how much it might add to the richness of the music are shown, for example, by the double of the sarabande in Sebastian Bach’s sixth English suite.
Emanuel Bach’s sonatas are of very unequal merit. The sonata in F minor,[28] published in the third set for Kenner und Liebhaber in 1781, but written nearly twenty years earlier, has little either of extrinsic or intrinsic beauty to recommend it. Not only does the inchoate nature of the second theme in the first movement fail to save the movement from monotony; the first theme itself is stark and devoid of life. There is a lack of smoothness, a constant hitching. The andante is not spontaneous for all its sentimentality, and the final movement is fragmentary.
A sonata in A major, on the other hand, written not long after, and published in 1779, is charming throughout. The first theme in the first movement is conventional enough, but it has sparkle; and though the second theme is not very distinctly different from the first, the movement is full of variety and life. Particularly charming are the measures constituting an unusually long epilogue to the first section. The harmonies are richly colored, if not striking; and the use of the epilogue in the development section is most effective. So is the full measure pause before the cascade of sound which flows into the restatement. The andante is over-ornamented, but the harmonic groundwork is solid and interesting. The last movement suggests Scarlatti, and has the animated and varied flow which characterizes the first.
A sonata in A minor, written about 1780 and published in the second series for Kenner und Liebhaber, is in many ways typical of Emanuel Bach at his best. There is still in the first movement that vagueness of structure which may usually be attributed to the lack of distinctness of his second theme. But the first theme has a fine declamatory vigor, in the spirit of the theme out of which his father built the fifth fugue in the first book of the ‘Well-tempered Clavichord’; and the movement as a whole has the broad sweep of a brilliant fantasy.
The andante, with its delicate imitations, foreshadowing Schumann, is full of poetic sentiment. It leads without break into the rapid final movement. Here the declamatory spirit of the first movement reigns again, but in lighter mood. There is in fact an unmistakable kinship between the first and last movements, which must be felt though it cannot be traced to actual thematic relationship. Here is a sonata, then, which, though divided into three movements, seems sprung of one fundamental idea.
Such a conception of the sonata is by no means always so clear in his work; yet it must be said that he, more than any composer down to Beethoven, was inclined to make of the sonata a poetic whole. His aim was rather furthered than hindered by the vagueness of form of the separate movements. His sonatas are all the more fantasies for being less clearly sonatas; and they are often rich in that very quality in which the regular classical sonata was so poor—imagination.
Most of what has been said regarding his creation or establishing of the sonata, particularly of the triplex form, must be very largely discounted. Haydn and Mozart learned little from him in the arrangement of their ideas, which is form; much in the treatment of them, which is expression. That quality of poetry which we may still admire in his music today, vague or obscure as its form may be, was the quality in his playing most admired by those contemporaries who heard him.
His excellent book on how to play the clavier counsels clearness and exactness, but it is a heartfelt appeal for beauty and expressiveness as well. What is the long, detailed analysis of agrémens but the explanation of practically the only means of subtle expression which the cembalist could acquire? His love for the clavichord, which, for all the frailty of its tone, was capable of fine shadings of sound, never waned. He commended it to all as the best instrument upon which to practise, for the clumsy hand had no power to call forth the charm which was its only quality. Indeed, he received the pianoforte coldly. His keyboard music was probably conceived, the brilliant for the harpsichord, the more intimate for the clavichord. And towards the end of his life he gave utterance to his belief that the only function of music was to stir the emotions and that the player who could not do that might as well not play.
In turning to the best of his sonatas one turns to profoundly beautiful music, music that unquestionably has the power to stir the heart. The great spirit of the father has breathed upon it and given it life. The turns of his melodies and their ineffably tender cadences, and, above all, the chromatic richness of his harmonies are the voice of his father. One may be constantly startled and bewildered. There is something ghostly abroad in them. We hear and do not hear, we almost see and do not see, the all-powerful Sebastian. But it is the voice of the father in a new language, his face in shadow, in the mist before dawn. One is tempted to cry with Hamlet: ‘Well said, old mole! Canst work i’ the ground so fast?’ It is easy to understand that Haydn, worn out with his daily fight against starvation, could come back to his cracked clavichord and play away half the night with the sonatas of Emanuel Bach; that Mozart could call him father of them all. But in spirit, not in flesh. And it is, after all, the spirit of Sebastian that thus attends the succeeding births and rebirths of music.
The harpsichord works by W. Friedemann Bach, the oldest and, according to some accounts, the favorite son of Johann Sebastian, have had probably far less influence upon the development of pianoforte music. But they contain many measures of great beauty. Madame Farrenc included twelve polonaises, a sonata (in E-flat major), several fugues, and four superb fantasias in the Trésor des pianistes. The sonata is regular in form, and a few of the polonaises are in the triplex form. Thus Friedemann Bach shows that he, too, like his brother Emanuel, allied himself to the new movement in music. His mastery of musical science, however, is evident; and that he knew the keyboard well is proved by the unusual brilliance of his fantasias. In the main it may be said that the greatest beauty of his music whispers of his father.
Something of the spirit shows itself in the pianoforte sonatas of Friedrich Wilhelm Rust, a composer now little known, whose work deserves study. He died at Dessau, where most of his life had been spent, in 1796, just on the eve of Beethoven’s rise to prominence. Twelve of his sonatas have recently been published in Paris under the supervision of M. Vincent d’Indy. They show a blending of two styles: the German style which he acquired from Emanuel Bach in Berlin, and the Scarlatti style, of which he made a study during two years spent in Italy. Three sonatas, in E minor, in F-sharp minor, and in D major, written near the close of his life, are in two movements, both of which seem welded together in the manner of the later sonatas of Beethoven. The treatment of the pianoforte or harpsichord is modern, particularly in the major section of the Rondo of the sonata in E minor, and in the passage work contrasted with the beautiful first theme of the sonata in F-sharp minor. In a sonata in C major, belonging to this period, a fugue is introduced as an episode in the final rondo. Haydn had already used the fugue as the last movement of the string quartet, Mozart as the last movement of a symphony. Rust, in applying it to the pianoforte sonata, foreshadowed Beethoven.[29]
FOOTNOTES:
[21] Pietro Locatelli, b. Bergamo, 1693; d. Amsterdam, 1764; famous violinist, pupil of Corelli. His works, Concerti, trio sonatas, etc., are important in the development of the sonata form.
[22] Antonio Vivaldi, b. Venice, ca. 1680; d. 1743; completed Torelli’s and Albinoni’s work in the creation of the violin concerto.
[23] Jean Benjamin de Laborde: Essai sur la musique ancienne et moderne, 1780.
[24] It seems hardly worth while to add that there are well-known sonatas in which no movement is in the triplex form. Cf. the Mozart sonata in A major (K. 331) and the Beethoven sonata in A-flat major, op. 26.
[25] It is worthy of note that a sonata in G minor for violin by Tartini was at one time known by the name Didone abbandonata. Cf. Wasielewski: Die Violine und ihre Meister.
[26] Opus 43, No. 2.
[27] Op. cit., Vol. I, p. 65, et seq.
[28] See Musical Examples (Vol. XIII).
[29] The sonatas of Rust as printed by his grandson showed many extraordinary modern features which have since been proved forgeries. The fiery discussions to which they gave rise have been summarized by M. D. Calvocoressi in two articles in the Musical Times (London) for January and February, 1914.
CHAPTER IV
HAYDN, MOZART, AND BEETHOVEN
The ‘Viennese period’ and the three great classics—Joseph Haydn; Haydn’s clavier sonatas; the Variations in F minor—W. A. Mozart; Mozart as pianist and improvisator; Mozart’s sonatas; his piano concertos—Ludwig van Beethoven; evolution of the modern pianoforte—Musical qualities of Beethoven’s piano music; Beethoven’s technical demands; his pianoforte sonatas; his piano concertos; conclusion.
The association of Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven with Vienna affords historians a welcome license to give to a conspicuous epoch in the development of music a local habitation and a name. Their work is commonly granted to constitute a more or less definite era known as the Viennese period. All three speak, as it were, a common idiom. There is a distinct family likeness between their separate accomplishments. They were personally acquainted. Haydn and Mozart were warm friends, despite the difference in years between them. Mozart was among the first in Vienna to recognize the greatness latent in Beethoven, who later was for a while even the pupil of Haydn. Moreover, all three reckoned among their friends the same families, even the same men and women. The three great men now sit on golden chairs, enshrined in the same niche, Beethoven considerably to the fore.
The insulation which circumstances of time and space may seem to have woven about them proves upon investigation to be quite imperfect. To begin with, Bach was but a year dead, D. Scarlatti still alive, and Rameau with more than a decade yet to live when Haydn was writing his first mass and along with it clavier sonatas for the benefit of his few pupils. Mozart had written his three immortal symphonies in 1786, before Emanuel Bach had ceased publishing his sonatas for Kenner und Liebhaber. On the other end, Moscheles was a famous though very young pianist before Beethoven had half done writing sonatas; and Carl von Weber’s Freischütz had begun to act upon the precocious Richard Wagner before Beethoven had completed his ninth symphony, his last sonata, his great mass and his great quartets.
Merely as regards pianoforte technique the period was a transitional one. Even the Beethoven sonatas as late as opus 27 were published for either harpsichord or pianoforte. Both Mozart and Beethoven were influenced by men who, in a narrow sense, seem far more than they to belong to a modern development. Clementi, for example, deliberately burned his harpsichords and clavichords behind him in the very year Beethoven was born, and from then on gave up his life to the discovery of new possibilities and effects upon the pianoforte, by which his pupils Cramer and Field paved the way for Chopin.
Yet, all signs to the contrary, the Viennese period remains a period of full fruition, and this because of the extraordinary genius of the men whose works have defined it. Each was highly and specially gifted and poured into forms already made ready for him a musical substance of rare and precious quality. In considering keyboard music we have to deal mostly with this substance, in fact with the musical expression of three unusual and powerful personalities.
It is to be regretted that Haydn and even Mozart have been in no small measure eclipsed by Beethoven. This is especially true of their keyboard music. It may be questioned whether this be any more just for being seemingly natural. There are many reasons to account for it. The most obvious is the more violent and fiery nature of Beethoven, his explicit and unusual trials. These, wholly apart from his music, will for ever make the study and recollection of him as a man of profound interest. Haydn can urge but a few young years of hardship for the human sympathy of generations to come. Mozart’s disappointments, so sickening to the heart that puts itself in tune with him, have after all but the ring of hard luck and merit disregarded, to which the weary world lends only a passing ear. But Beethoven’s passionate nature, his self-inflicted labor of self-discipline, his desperate unhappiness and the tragic curse of his deafness, are the stuff out of which heroes are made.
So his music, reflecting the man, is heroic in calibre. Even its humor is titanic. It will impress by its hugeness and its force many an ear deaf to more engaging and more subtle language. Its poignancy is unmistakable, nearly infallible in its appeal; so that Beethoven is a name with which to lay even the clod under a spell.
But another reason why Mozart and Haydn lie hidden or but partly perceived in the shade of Beethoven, is more recondite, is, in fact, paradoxical. This is no other than the extreme difficulty of their music. Clara Schumann, writing in her diary of the music of Richard Wagner, which she rejected in spite of the world’s acclaim, conceived that either she or the world at large had gone mad. To one who writes of the difficulties of Haydn’s and Mozart’s sonatas a similar idea is likely to occur. At the present day they are put into the hands of babes and sucklings, in whose touch, however, there is no wisdom. Yet if ever music needed a wise hand, it is these simple pieces; and a lack of wisdom has made them trivial to the world.
The art of the pianist should be, as Emanuel Bach declared, that of drawing from his instrument sounds of moving beauty, beautiful in quality, in line and in shading. His tools are his ten fingers which he must train to flexibility, strength and security. It is right that as soon as he can play a scale or shake a trill, he should put his skill to test upon a piece of music. So the teacher lays Haydn and Mozart under the clumsy little fingers of boy and girl. ‘Stumble along there on your way to great Beethoven, whom you must approach with firm and tested stride.’ That is the burden of the pædagogic lay. It echoes in the mind of riper age, Haydn and Mozart have been put aside, like the perambulator, the bib and the high table chair; or, like toys, are brought out rarely, to be smiled upon.
If they are toys, then maturity should bring a sense of their exquisite beauty and meaning, and may well shudder at the destruction youth made imminent upon them. This it all too rarely does, because only ten fingers in ten thousand can reveal the loveliness of these sonatas, and because, also, ears are rare that now delight in such a revelation. You must give to fingers the skill to spin sound from the keyboard that is like the song of birds, or, if more vocal, is more like the voice of fairies than the voice of man. It is easier to make thunder; and even mock thunder intimidates. So your player will pound Beethoven, and lightning will flash about his head as the sarcastic Heine fancied it about Liszt’s. Some will scent sacrilege and cover their ears from the noise. But let the soulless man play Mozart and his hearers will cover their mouths, as all well-bred people are trained to do when boredom seeks an outlet.
Technically Haydn and Mozart may be held to have condemned their music to the sort of galley-service it now performs. Both wrote perhaps the majority of their sonatas for the use of their pupils. Bach wrote the ‘Well-tempered Clavichord’ with what seems to be the same purpose; but Bach’s aim was constantly to educate and to expand the power of the students under his care; whereas both Haydn and Mozart may be often suspected of wishing rather to simplify their music than to tax and strengthen the abilities of their high-born amateurs. There is something comical in the fact that even with this most gracious of intentions both were occasionally accused of writing music that was troublesome, i.e., too difficult. Haydn may have been grieved to be found thus disagreeable. Mozart’s letters sometimes show a delicate malice in enjoyment of it. But one can hear Beethoven snort and rage under a similar reproach.
Yet the wonder is that sonatas so written should be today full of freshness and beauty. This they undoubtedly are. Composed perfunctorily they may have been, but the spirit of music is held fast in most of them, no less appealing for being oftener in smiles than tears. And if to evoke this spirit in all her loveliness from a box of strings chance to be the ideal of some player, let him take care to bring to the sonatas of Haydn and Mozart the most precious resources of his art and he will not call in vain.