These rhapsodies reflect the weird romanticism of that most mysterious and fascinating of races, the Gypsies, as successfully as Chopin's music reflects the crushed aspirations of his unhappy country, Poland. Although they are called Hungarian, they are neither derived from nor founded upon national Hungarian music, but are purely of Gypsy origin. The Hungarians, however, have adopted the Gypsies as their national musicians, and it is by reason of this adoption, or, in order to express through the title this mutual assimilation, that Liszt has called these rhapsodies "Hungarian." With a Gypsy parentage so authentic that he speaks of the melodies on which they are based, as "the songs without words" of the Gypsies, his rhapsodies form the only channel through which the intense inner life and mystic idealism of this strange race has found expression. They are the long suppressed cry of souls struggling for self utterance and they constitute nothing less than an epic, the "Iliad," of that strange race which centuries ago cast itself upon the continent of Europe like a wave coming, none knew from where or whither bound.
This race, as Liszt describes it in his book on Gypsy music, brought no memories, betrayed no hope; possessed no country, religion, history. Divided into tribes, hordes and bands, wandering hither and thither, following each the route dictated by chance, they still preserve under the most distant meridian, the same infallible rallying signs, the same physiognomy, the same language, the same traditions. The ages pass. The world progresses. Countries make war or peace, change masters and manners, but this people that shares the joys, the sorrows, the prosperity and the misfortunes of none other; that laughs at the ambitions, the tears, the combats of civilization; still obstinately clings to its hunger and its liberty, its tents and its tatters, and still exercises, as it has exercised for centuries, an indescribable and indestructible fascination upon poetic minds, passing it on as a mysterious legacy from age to age.
Such is the race of which Liszt recites the epic in the "Hungarian Rhapsodies." They portray the life, the scenes, the mood of the Gypsy camp, vividly, brilliantly, yet with an undercurrent of tragedy—the tragedy of homeless wanderers. Because they represent life, because they are true to life, because they depict life with a wonderful union of realism and beauty, they will, in spite of critical detraction, live as long as the Bach fugues, the Beethoven sonatas or the Wagner music dramas.
An elaborate musical analysis of these wonderful works would be futile. They are too racial, and in parts too pictorial to be dissected in narrative style. What I have said of the race from which they derive their characteristics should serve as a general explanation of their purport. The second, twelfth and fourteenth rhapsodies are admirable examples of the series. In general these "Hungarian Rhapsodies" open with a few brief bars suggestive of tragic recitative, which leads into a broad yet strongly marked and searching rhythm, upon which is built a slow, stately yet mournful melody, broken in upon here and there by strange weird runs and rapid passages. These latter serve a double purpose. They imitate the curious æolian harp effects of the most characteristic instrument of the Gypsy orchestra, the cembalon, a large, shallow box with strings about as numerous as those of the pianoforte, and played with two little mallets, with which the player produces the weird arpeggios or rapid, broken chords and the improvised runs characteristic of Hungarian Gypsy music; and they also prepare the player and listener for the rapid movement into which the slow melody passes over, finally to dash into the very frenzy of emotional and physical excitement.
These three divisions, the slow movement introduced by a recitative, the rapid movement following, and the still more rapid one with which the rhapsodies generally end, are based upon three distinct kinds of melodies of the Gypsies, and their startling contrast contributes to the effectiveness of the composition. The slow melody in the first part of the rhapsodies (a different melody in each rhapsody of course) is the "lassan," a sad song giving utterance to the pathos of the race. The dance music that follows, so full of playful humor, grace, caprice, coquetry and dashing contrast, is the "frischka"; while the delirium, almost demoniac in its fury, with which the rhapsody rushes to its intoxicating finale, and compared with which the Italian tarantella and even the Dervish dance of the East are tame, is the "czardas." In playing these rhapsodies one must try to imagine a Gypsy camp, the flicker of firelight in the deep forest or on the wild plains of Hungary, a sense of loneliness or of vast distance, forms of swarthy men and women suddenly appearing from a shadowy background to be illumined for a moment in the light of the fire, their swaying, whirling forms vanishing the next, back into the vague darkness from which they issued. Of the "Hungarian Rhapsodies" hostile critics may say what they please; he who plays them understandingly, will feel in them the thrill of a great master.
A composition of impassioned, yet mournful beauty is Liszt's "Liebestraum" (Dream of Love) one of a set of three nocturnes, this one being based upon a well known German poem, Freiligrath's,
O love as long as love thou canst,
O love as long as love will keep;
The day will come, the day will come,
When at a grave you stand and weep.
Liszt's "At the Spring" is a charming composition somewhat in the same style as the "Campanella," but instead of describing silver-toned chimes of bells, reproducing the purl of a bosky spring. One hears the clear rippling water and sees its sparkling jets in glints of sunlight, as it dashes against the stones, and its shimmering spray. The work is the forerunner and model of numerous similar pieces, all of them, however, lacking its freshness and originality and its high order of musicianship.
The pianolist who is led by the examples of Liszt's music which I have cited to choose liberally from the numerous compositions by him in the catalogue of music rolls, hardly can go amiss. If, however, he prefers to leave this for some other time, and to turn to another composer, he will find Mendelssohn's "Rondo Capriccioso," Op. 14, a capital roll. This rondo was composed in 1826, the same year in which he wrote the overture to Shakespere's "Midsummer Night's Dream," with its wonderful depiction of fairy life. The "Rondo Capriccioso" might be part of the "Midsummer Night's Dream" music, it is so much in the same character. Nothing could be more crisp and dainty. It seems to depict elves romping through the forest by moonlight. Nor is it without romantic moods, as if love-making were going on even among these light-footed, light-hearted revelers. But when this is said, it still is all touch and go; a breath, a sigh, the iridescence of the moonglade on a woodland lake—then off and away:—
Over hill, over dale,
Through brush, through brier,
Over park, over vale,
Through flood, through fire,
I do wander everywhere,
[95] Swifter than the moon's sphere;
And I serve the fairy queen,
To dew her orbs upon the green.