Quite different yet equally effective in its way is his "Cracovienne Fantastic," Op. 14, No. 6. The cracovienne is a Polish dance for a large and brilliant company and just as Paderewski recalled in his minuet the stately assemblage of days long past, so in his cracovienne he gives us a brilliant picture of a ballroom scene in his native Poland when that country was still in its glory and not partitioned among three nations of Europe. The reiteration of its characteristic rhythm gives it peculiar fascination. It is clearly and distinctly melodious, with bright, flashing runs giving it brilliancy.
Again different in style from any of the preceding are the works of Cécile Chaminade. Not only is this composer a woman, she is a French woman and, like a French woman, essentially clever and chic. She may be a trifle more superficial than the composers I have mentioned, but her music is clean-cut, clear as a crystal, and, like everything about a refined woman, the quintessence of neatness. It is quite as if Mme. Chaminade's maid laid out her musical thoughts as well as her dresses, being sure to have every frill and furbelow in its place, whether it be the robe d' interieur which she is to wear at breakfast, her robe de ville for calling, or her robe de soirée. True it is that serious musicians are apt to wear a somewhat supercilious expression at mention of her music and to pronounce it clever rather than deep, yet it is equally true that it takes its place among the best salon pieces of the day and gains value if only from the fact that this bright French woman has skillfully refrained from attempting flights for which her graceful wings are not strong enough. Most of her music is characterized by a fascinating archness and coquetry and requires quick and sudden changes in time for its proper interpretation. While rarely attempting the larger musical forms, she has been an industrious student of the best music, so that all her compositions are what is called "well made," correct according to the rules of musical science, yet in melodic and harmonic inspiration characterized by originality and musical inventiveness. She writes with judgment, refinement and taste, avoiding on the one hand the pitfall of pretentiousness, and, on the other, the monotony of platitude found in the works of those who compose in the larger forms but lack the originality to fill them with new and interesting matter. It is a great thing to know your limitations, yet to be able to do vivid and original work within them.
Brief as is Chaminade's "Serenade," Op. 29, its melody is charming, it is ably harmonized and it appeals to the heart. There is not a commonplace bar in it. It is one of those delicate bits of inspiration which survive other and seemingly grander works, the grandeur of which, however, is in course of time, discovered to be mere hollow pretentiousness. It is a capital example of the manner in which this composer writes in the small genre—delicate, refined and sensitive.
She has been highly successful in compositions in dance form, managing these without a suggestion of the trivial. Thus her "Air de Ballet," Op. 30, No. 1, is full of brilliancy and nervous energy without ever degenerating into vulgar noisiness. Another "Air de Ballet" by her from the ballet "Callirhoe," to which her widely known "Scarf Dance" also belongs, is crisp, bright and dainty. "Callirhoe" is a ballet-symphonique for stage performance and its production showed her to be so well grounded in her art that it does not suffer even under the pressure of rapid composition, or of being obliged to work "on time." The commission for this ballet was offered to Godard, a well-known French composer. He was, however, occupied with an opera and declined the work, at the same time recommending that the commission be offered to Chaminade. It was accepted by her and within six weeks from the day when she began work upon it, it was completed even to the scoring for orchestra.
While the pianolist hardly can go amiss in choosing from among the list of Chaminade's compositions I may mention as especially characteristic her "Arabesque," "Humoresque," La Lisonjera (Flatterer) "Pierrette," "Scaramouche" (Mountebank) and "Spinning Wheel."
Chaminade's compositions are so popular in this country yet so little is known about her personally, that I have secured a few personal data concerning her from my friend, Mr. Percy Mitchell, who is attached to the staff of an American paper in Paris. Mme. Carbonel-Chaminade has a shock of dark, curly, short-cropped hair which gives her a boyish aspect, a touch of masculinity further emphasized by a tailor-made costume with stiff, white, turned-down collar and loosely tied scarf. Beyond this aspect, however, there is nothing mannish about her. She cares neither for sport nor exercise in general; her principal occupation is musical composition, her chief relaxation practicing the pianoforte two hours a day; and she reads an immense amount of poetry from which she carefully selects the words for her songs. Society she abhors, but she attends scrupulously to her large correspondence. Very many of these letters come from America, and in a practical spirit truly American seek information regarding the interpretation of her works. "How should your 'Serenade' be phrased?—I am learning the 'Scarf Dance.' By this same mail I am sending you a copy of it. Would you kindly mark the phrasing in it and return it to me?" In connection with questions of this kind it is interesting to note that practically all of Chaminade's compositions have been metrostyled for the pianola by the composer herself. The pianolist at least will not find it necessary to trouble her with questions like the above.
Probably no composer has had one set method of work. It is apt to vary according to surroundings. So with Chaminade. She may write while seated at her pianoforte, testing her thoughts on the keyboard and even working them out in detail before putting them on paper. Or she may sit at her table, a vast velvet-covered affair taking up nearly half of her studio. Sometimes an idea that has haunted her for weeks may take definite shape while she is speeding on a train to fulfill a concert engagement and she will jot it down in spite of the roar and vibration of railway travel. As the train rushes on the composition may be completely worked out in the composer's mind before the journey's end, and so retentive is Chaminade's memory that, when she returns to her villa in Vésinet, near the forest of St. Germain not far from Paris, she can seat herself at her table and copy the work from that mental vision of it which she had on the train.
Some years ago during a semi-professional tour which she made through Roumania, Servia and Greece, she was invited to play for the students of the Athens conservatory. When she stepped on the stage she saw row after row of young people armed with the printed music of what she was about to play and prepared in a cold-blooded, business-like way to open the music of the first number on the program and to follow the concert note for note from the printed scores from beginning to end. Imagine the effect upon her nerves produced by the rustling of one hundred pages all being turned at the same instant at intervals during the concert; and even now she laughingly confesses that she was nearly overcome with stage fright and prays she may never have to endure again such an ordeal as the music students of Athens unwittingly prepared for her.
With the exception of Nevin, the composers whose works I have mentioned are living and actively engaged in composition. The piece to which I now desire to call the pianolist's attention belongs to the dawn of the romantic period in music. It was composed by Weber who died in 1826, is entitled "Invitation to the Dance," was written a few months after his happy marriage with the opera singer Caroline Brandt, and is dedicated to "My Caroline." Because Weber was one of the first composers who rank as great to give distinctly descriptive titles to compositions, and because of certain other characteristics in his works, he is regarded as the founder of the romantic school of music—music which is not simply sufficient unto itself but has a secondary meaning that adds immeasurably to its interests; music which seeks to suggest a definite mood and even to throw a realistic picture of some scene in nature or some human experience upon a background of harmony and instrumental coloring; and which cares less for the artifices of form than for the expression of the true and the beautiful from the standpoint of modern art.
The "Invitation to the Dance" derives further interest from the fact that it was the first composition to lift the waltz, which up to that time had been employed simply as an accompaniment for dancing, to the level of other legitimate and recognized artistic musical forms. The composition opens with an introduction in slow time, the first phrase unmistakably being the voice of the man conveying to the lady an invitation to dance. You hear her playful objection—undoubtedly she wants to be asked a second time—the repetition of his invitation, her assent, the short dialogue as the two step out on the floor; brief, but resonant preluding chords; then the free, elastic rhythm of the waltz followed by its gay, dashing melody. There is an exuberance of runs and ornamentations until the first feeling of elation lapses into a second dreamy, languorous waltz melody, as if the dancers were floating on the scented atmosphere of the ballroom. In portions of this there is a sentimental colloquy between the couple whom we met in the introduction, the two voices being clearly differentiated. The little duet between them adds to the beauty and interest of this portion of the work, the melody of which simply is exquisite. Then everything whirls and sparkles again and, when the dance has ceased, there is a briefer recapitulation of the introduction, the lady is led back to her seat, and the episode comes to an end.