III.—FROM FUGUE TO SONATA
Break in Bach’s influence—Mr. Parry on this hiatus in the evolution of music—Three periods of musical development—Rise of the harmonic, or “melodic,” school—Began with Domenico Scarlatti—The founder of modern pianoforte technique—Beginnings of the sonata form—Philipp Emanuel Bach and the sonata—Rise of the amateur—“The Contented Ear and Quickened Soul,” and other quaint titles—Changes in musical taste—Pianoforte has outgrown the music of Haydn and Mozart—Bach, Beethoven and Wagner the three great epoch-making figures in music—Beethoven and the epoch of the sonata—His slow development—Union of mind and heart in his work—His sonatas, however, no longer all-dominant in pianoforte music—Von 12 Bülow and D’Albert as Beethoven players—Incident at a Von Bülow Beethoven recital—Changes of taste in thirty years—The Beethoven sonatas too orchestric—The passing of the sonata [78]
IV.—DAWN OF THE ROMANTIC PERIOD
What a sonata is—How Beethoven enlarged the form—Illustrated in his Opus 2, No. 3, and in the “Moonlight Sonata”—The three Beethoven periods—In his last sonatas seems chafing under restraint of form—The sonata form reached its climax with Beethoven—Hampers modern composers—Lawrence Gilman on MacDowell’s “Keltic Sonata”—The first romantic composers—Weber—Schubert’s inexhaustible genius—Mendelssohn smooth, polished and harmless [100]
V.—CHOPIN, THE POET OF THE PIANOFORTE
An incomparable composer—Liszt’s definition of tempo rubato—The Wagner of the pianoforte—Clear melody and weird, entrancing harmonies—Racial traits—Friends in Paris—Liszt the first to recognize him—The Études—Vigor, passion, impetus—Von Bülow on the great C minor Étude—The Préludes—Schumann’s opinion of them—Rubinstein’s 13 playing of the Seventh Prélude—The Nocturnes—Chopin and Poe—The Waltzes—Liszt on the Mazurkas—The Polonaises—Chopin’s battle hymns—Other works—“A noble from head to foot”—Huneker on Chopin [115]
VI.—SCHUMANN, THE “INTIMATE”
A composer with an academic education—Pupil in pianoforte of Frederick Wieck—Strains a finger and abandons career as a virtuoso—Marries Clara Wieck—Afflicted with insanity—Attempts suicide—Dies in asylum—His music introspective and brooding—Poet, bourgeois and philosopher—Contributions to program music—“Carnaval” and “Kreisleriana”—Latter title explained—Really Schumanniana—Thoughts of his Clara—“Fantasie Pieces”—His compositions at first neglected [134]
VII.—LISZT, THE GIANT AMONG VIRTUOSOS
A youthful phenomenon—Refused at the Paris Conservatory—“Le petit Litz”—Inspired by Paganini—Episode with Countess D’Agoult—Court conductor at Weimar—Makes Weimar the musical Mecca of Germany—Produces “Lohengrin”—His “six Lives”—His pianoforte compositions—The 14 “Don Juan Fantasie”—“Hexameron”—“Années de Pèlerinage”—Progressive edition of the Études—Giant strides in virtuosity—History of the famous “Rhapsodies Hongroises”—Characterisation of his pianoforte music—A great composer, not a charlatan—Liszt as a virtuoso—His tribute to the pianoforte—A long and influential career—Played for Beethoven and died at “Parsifal” [142]