In some editions of Robert Schumann's pianoforte works the "Novelette," op. 21, No. 3, is headed with these words from Macbeth: "When shall we three meet again?" They certainly fit in with the first phrase of the movement, and the whole sounds very like a witches' dance, but there is no mention of the words in Peters' edition. I hope it is true, as that gives us another piece of Schumann's Shakespearian music in addition to the Julius Cæsar overture and the last Clown's song from Twelfth Night.
Raff's "Macbeth" overture is quite one of his most successful works. It opens with a dance of the Witches, mostly for flute and piccolo at first, but getting very wild later; then there is a sort of dialogue between Macbeth (wood wind and horns) and Witches (their own dance). These themes are developed with considerable skill, and a new one (Lady Macbeth) is added, as are some odd little bits of a sort of Scottish character. There is fine fight-music near the end, and the final triumph of Macduff is celebrated with a very cheerful noise. This overture would make an admirable opening for an elaborate stage performance of Macbeth.
Henry Hugo Pierson was an English composer, born at Oxford, 1815, but is still unknown to the majority of his fellow-countrymen. After leaving Cambridge he studied in Germany, where he became very intimate with Mendelssohn. Meyerbeer, Spohr, and Schumann were all his friends and admirers; and in 1844 he succeeded Sir Henry Bishop as Professor of Music at Edinburgh, but very soon resigned, and settled down in Germany, marrying a German literary lady, Caroline Leonhardt. The inordinate Mendelssohn-worship of his day rendered England a difficult home for a modern English composer: so he changed the spelling of his name from Pearson to Pierson, settled down in his adopted country, and died at Leipsic, January 18, 1873.
His symphonic poem, "Macbeth," op. 51, was once performed at the Crystal Palace concerts, but has been very thoroughly neglected since. It is real modern programme music, and scored for a very large orchestra, including a solo part for the cornet-à-pistons and a military drum. The symphonic poem opens at Act ii., Scene 2, and is headed with the words, "Hours dreadful and strange things." The music is very slow and mysterious, but works up to a climax on the words of the Witches, "Fair is foul and foul is fair." Then comes, very piano, "The March of the Scottish Army"—a most characteristic piece, the tune on the high wood wind, drones on the bassoons, and great use made of the military drum. This works up to a tremendous fortissimo, and dies away mysteriously before Banquo's words:—
What are these,
So withered and so wild in their attire,
That look not like th' inhabitants o' th' earth,
And yet are on't?
A curious and interesting effect is here made by the tenor trombone, clarinet, and cornet taking the parts of the three witches, and playing the themes that fit what the Witches are supposed to speak. I mean the three "All hail" speeches. The orchestration is full of sinister mystery here; but, on Macbeth's words, "Two truths are told As happy prologue to the swelling act Of the imperial theme," the music becomes, for a time, triumphant, though very wild, and breaks off suddenly for a Lady Macbeth scene. She is reading Macbeth's letter, and these words are printed in the score: "This have I thought good to deliver thee. Lay it to thy heart, and fare thee well." The subjects here used are the Witches' prophetic theme and a passionate Lady Macbeth one. All the music in this section is highly emotional, dramatic, and brilliantly clever. On Macbeth's words, "If it were done when 'tis done, then 'twere well It were done quickly," a gruesome little passage for strings and bassoons heralds the King's feast music, consisting of curious disjointed wood-wind passages, till Macbeth's words, "Is this a dagger which I see before me?", when the music seems to drive him to the murder. After the words, "Hear it not, Duncan; for it is a knell That summons thee to Heaven or to Hell," there are two intensely dramatic bars; and then, pianissimo, is heard the Witches' prophetic motif on the cornet and horn—a fine bit of musical word-painting. Now comes the longest episode in the work, a magnificent Witches' dance, the composer employing nearly every resource of the modern orchestra. Then, in the distance, is heard the march of the English army, very stirring and martial. At the end of this passage, Macbeth says: "It's ripe for shaking, and the powers above Put on their instruments." Here a great stirring is made in the orchestra, and a cry (violin solo) is heard:—
Macbeth: Wherefore was that cry?
Seyton: The Queen, my lord, is dead.
Very piteous and poignant music is used in this passage, broken in upon by the strains of battle. At the words, "Blow, wind, come, wrack! At least we'll die with harness on our back," the music dies down for the familiar dialogue between Macbeth and Macduff concerning the gynæcological manner of the latter's birth, and a few more bars of fight music finish off the former. The sound dies down. The prophetic theme is heard very faintly on the trombone and finally on the horn; the music gets softer and slower, and so fades away.
I have written at special length about this composer, because it seems so strange that an English musician, a Harrow and Cambridge man, and a pupil of Attwood and Corfe, should have been so much in advance of his time and especially of his country. Born, as we saw, in 1815, he was only six years younger than Mendelssohn, and forty years old when Sir Henry Bishop died. He was four years younger than Liszt, and doubtless got the general idea of the symphonic poem form, or want of form, from the elder master. He was two years younger than Wagner, yet his earlier compositions are far in advance, musically, of Wagner's early work. It seems deplorable that this remarkable English composer should be so utterly ignored by his countrymen.
Richard Strauss's magnificent Symphonic Poem on this theme must take a very high place in the musical commentary on Macbeth. It is scored for the largest possible orchestra, and every known musical device in orchestration or harmony is to be found in this enormous and complicated score. The poem begins sombrely, but almost at once there breaks in a short fanfare, which occurs repeatedly throughout the work. Immediately after the fanfare the first subject is announced on the brass, and the whole work gets going. Strauss prints a short speech of Lady Macbeth's beginning, "Hie thee hither, that I may pour My spirits in thine ear; And chastise with the valour of my tongue All that impedes thee from the golden round." In the score the music here is marked "wildly appassionato," though pianissimo (Strauss here uses the device of tremolo strings playing on the bridge with great effect). Afterwards he introduces a long, broad, and very beautiful theme, the sort of theme which his detractors are always challenging him to write, and which he is always writing. Strauss gives no definite programme in his score, and it is up to anyone hearing it to make his own; but one could not go very far wrong. There is no need to describe the various developments, thematic and harmonic, which take place in the themes before the end of this work. It is long. Ninety pages of closely printed full score take some time to play, and a longer time to describe in detail: so I content myself with saying that anyone can get a fine, convincing picture of the life and death of Macbeth by hearing this work and not bothering whether a certain theme means Duncan, Bloody Child, Bleeding Sergeant, Macbeth, or Lady Macbeth.