We have here to deal with the latest phase of Strauss, and to arrive at anything like a true estimate of "Heldenleben" we have to remember that Strauss is a reformer and the recognised leader of a party which, whether we like it or not, has played and is playing a great part in the world of music. The central principle of the Strauss school rests upon the perfectly correct observation that the general development of music during the last two centuries shows continual progress towards greater articulateness, and that there is no reason for regarding that progress as having reached its final stage with Berlioz, Liszt, and Wagner. Brahms and the neo-classicists were on a wrong track, they consider, and it is the mission of Strauss and his connection to bring the art back into the paths of true progress. This indicates the sense in which Strauss is called a reformer. It is the usual fate of reformers to overshoot the mark; Mr. Weingartner thinks that Strauss has done so very seriously in his last three Symphonic Poems—"Zarathustra," "Don Quixote," and "Heldenleben,"—and I am constrained to give in my adherence to Mr. Weingartner's view. In each of the three works named there is much that only genius could have produced, but also something that is alien to genius. The perpetration of deliberate cacophony for a symbolical purpose we first encounter in "Zarathustra," where it is done in a tentative and restrained manner and on a very small scale. In "Don Quixote" the same procedure is used on a larger scale and with much greater boldness, and in "Heldenleben" it has given rise, in the "battle" section, to an extended movement that I can only call an atrocity. That section displays the composer in a mood of unparalleled extravagance. Taking harmony in the most extended sense that is possible, it still remains a thing outside the limits of which Strauss's battle-picture lies. It therefore fails altogether, I suggest, to carry on the progress of music towards greater articulateness. It is not music, and does nothing whatever for music. It is a monstrous excrescence and blemish—a product of musical insanity, bearing no trace whatever of that genius which produced the lovely and perfect "Tod und Verklärung" and the superbly racy and pithy orchestral Scherzo "Till Eulenspiegel."
The expression of such views carries with it the terrible consequence of being identified with "The Adversaries," whom Strauss, disarming criticism by a novel method, symbolises in the awful strains quoted as examples 4 and 5 in Mr. Newman's programme. But one must testify according to one's convictions, and I confess that I cannot be reconciled to section 4 of "Heldenleben," and find in section 5 a considerable element of merely curious mystification. The principle of "horizontal listening," which the whole-hog-going Straussians recommend, does not help me. Horizontal listening becomes, beneath the murderous cacophony of that battle section, simply supine listening.
In other parts of the work there is much that is thoroughly worthy of Strauss. Perhaps the most attractive thing of all is the violin solo representing the feminine element in the hero's life-experience. The wayward emotion of that part is rendered by the composer with a truly magical touch that shows with what wonderful freshness he conceives the task of such character-delineation in tones. How different from Chopin's princesses is the Straussian lady! How infinitely more subtle, varied, interesting, and psychologically true! The hero, too, is powerfully sketched, though throughout the section specially devoted to him one is conscious of the gigantic rather than the heroic. Most of the thematic invention is telling—perhaps more so than in "Zarathustra,"—and the "Seelenmalerei" in the love music and afterwards in the renunciation music is all very finely done. Even the drastic musical satire of the "Adversaries" is acceptable enough in its earlier phases. It is the polyphony in the sections of storm and stress that goes wrong. The subject of the work as a whole has the merit of general intelligibleness. But the composer identifies the hero much too insistently with himself; nor does he maintain the consistency of tone that is proper to a work of art. If sections 3, 4, 5 and 6 carried out the promise of sections 1 and 2 we should have a sort of gigantic Gulliverian humoresque. But with section 3 a new atmosphere is conjured up, and henceforth the work gravitates backwards and forwards between two irreconcilable elements—the one drastic, sarcastic, and cataplastic, the other at first subtle, sinuous, and soulful, and afterwards turning towards a mood of religious exaltation and austere contemplation.
Quartet in C Minor.
March 10, 1904.
The case of Strauss is certainly an awkward one for the believers in the neo-classicism of Brahms. In such works as the Quartet, op. 13, and the violin Sonata, op. 18, written twenty or more years ago, he declares himself an absolute Brahmsian, worshipping before all things the well-constructed musical sentence, using the extended harmonies and profuse figuration of the modern technique to express emotions that have but little individuality and are merely typical of the thorough-going German sentimentalist. Indeed, he here shows himself a better Brahmsian than Brahms, avoiding all his model's worst faults, such as his groping and fumbling, his muttering and whining, and only sentimentalising in quite a healthy sort of way and with a flow so abundant and easy that to find fault would seem intolerant. Yet, with all these wonderful qualifications for a great Brahmsian career, Strauss would have none of it, except during his most youthful period. For many years now he has been displaying utter contempt of the well-constructed musical sentence; also of German sentimentalism and of all the other traditional subjects of musical eloquence. As an orchestral composer, he has pursued a path of adventurous hardihood scarcely paralleled in the history of art, and he looks back to his Brahmsian chamber-music as belonging to a fledgeling state of his talent. As it is not open to the Brahmsians to say that those early works prove Strauss's incompetence as a composer of the orthodox kind, the only thing left for them to say is that the chamber-music is much the best of his whole output. Sooner or later we shall doubtless begin to hear that, and in the meantime those who like the early works can play them or listen to them with the comforting assurance that the composer would not object, inasmuch as he has himself quite recently taken part in public performances of them. The Quartet—which Dr. Brodsky and his usual associates, assisted by Mr. Isidor Cohn, played yesterday—might rank as the mature work of anyone but Strauss. It is youthful, relatively to the composer, in the emotional basis of the music; but not in the workmanship, and least of all in the invention, which has all the pith and weight commonly telling of ripe experience. In short, it is an extremely good Quartet of the orthodox kind—one may even say, one of the best existing works for pianoforte and three bow instruments. The Andante is not quite such a marvel as the slow movement of the violin Sonata, but it is very nearly as good in invention and quite as good in its adaptation to the medium—that is, to the particular group of instruments. The Scherzo is as pithy as the Andante is glowingly sentimental, and the framing-in movements are magnificently done. Thoroughly adequate was the rendering of this immensely interesting composition. The tempo in the Scherzo was faster than the composer's own; but, as it is not possible for him to keep up the technique of a solo pianist, he may possibly avoid a very rapid tempo for that reason. Mr. Cohn brought out all the passage work clearly enough, though the rapid tempo caused a certain dryness in the string tone. The other movements were satisfactory from every point of view. It is interesting to note in this Quartet an early example of Strauss's tendency to associate a certain mood with a certain key. A contrasting section with an easier flow he assigns to B major, and throughout the recurrences the original key assignment is preserved in a manner very unlike the procedure of the older composers. Throughout the work the connection between tonality and emotional import is preserved in detail, and we here note a further development of the principle which prompted Beethoven to throw his prevalently dark and mysterious Symphony of Fate into C minor and his Rhythmic or Dancing Symphony into A major, but which, from him, met with no more than a very broad kind of recognition.