or
Light as any wind that blows
So fleetly did she stir,
The flower she touch'd on dipt and rose,
And turned to look at her.
This "Rondo Capriccioso" is indeed a fascinating piece, written in its composer's most facile vein. It is one of the finest rolls from among which the pianolist can select. There can be no doubt that Mendelssohn has been losing ground as compared with the enormous popularity which he enjoyed in his lifetime. But the pendulum has swung too much the other way. Certain of his compositions have been too much neglected. The "Rondo Capriccioso" is one of them. As it actually sounds crisper and daintier on the pianola than on the pianoforte no matter by whom played, it enjoys well merited popularity in the pianolist's repertory and may contribute toward restoring the appreciation of Mendelssohn's music to its proper balance.
I would be greatly surprised if a beautiful work like Schubert's "Rosamunde" impromptu were not among the most popular pieces of the pianolist's choice. The word impromptu is sufficiently self-explanatory, but it needs to be pointed out that this work of Schubert's differs from the usual impromptu in being an air with variations, the variations, however, giving the impression of free fantasies or improvisations on the original air. There are five variations and the composition ends with a repetition of the air.
The work is written in the truest Schubertian style. I like to fancy that the melody with its serene, lyric beauty is a picture of the fair Rosamunde herself. The first variation, a plaintive melody over an agitated accompaniment, I should be inclined, still referring to Rosamunde and regarding each variation as expressing an experience in her life, to entitle "Moods." The second variation is more playful in character but without any loss of romantic charm, and I should say that we might call it an expression of her "Fancies." The third an impassioned meditation, a cry from the heart, Rosamunde's heart, may be called "Love." The fourth variation, which again is frankly playful like the second, is "Hope." The fifth, as brilliant as a cascade on which the sun is shining, is "Joy." It ends suddenly without coming to a full stop in the musical sense, and, after a pause, the original air now couched in broad and beautiful chords, begins in the lower register, rises successively to the middle and higher ones, then dies away—an exquisite ending. Is this not Rosamunde, the more charming for the romance of which she is the heroine; Rosamunde, looking at her engagement ring, musing on the past and trustful of the future?
Schubert was one of the most famous song composers and Liszt in addition to being an original composer, rendered a great service to music by transcribing, in most admirable style, many of Schubert's most famous songs for pianoforte. Widely known as they are for voice, they have through these transcriptions become almost as familiar for pianoforte. The delicate and dainty "Hark, Hark the Lark" is a favorite work in Paderewski's repertory. So spontaneous was Schubert's inspiration that he wrote the music of this song at a tavern where he chanced to see the poem in a book which he was examining. "If only I had some music paper!" he exclaimed. One of his friends promptly ruled lines on the back of his bill of fare and Schubert, with the varied noises of the tavern going on about him, jotted down the song then and there.
Another splendid Schubert song that has been made popular on the pianoforte through Listz's transcription is "The Erlking." As it ranks among the greatest songs, and by many people actually is considered the greatest, the illustration it affords of the rapidity with which Schubert worked is most interesting. Two friends calling upon him one afternoon, toward the close of the year 1815, found him all aglow reading "The Erlking" aloud to himself. Having read the poem, he walked up and down the room several times, book in hand, then suddenly dropped into a chair, and, without a moment's pause and as fast as his pen could travel over the paper, composed the song. Schubert had no pianoforte, so the three men hurried over to the school where formerly he had been trained for the Imperial choir—this was in Vienna—and there "The Erlking" was sung the same evening and received with enthusiasm. Afterwards the Court organist played it over himself without the voice, and, some of those present objecting to the dissonances which depict the child's terror of the Erlking, the organist struck these chords again and explained how admirably they expressed the situation described in the poem and how well they were worked out musically. Schubert was only thirty-one when he died and was only eighteen when he set this poem of Goethe's to music, yet the whole song is almost Wagnerian in its descriptive and dramatic qualities, and its climax thrilling.
The work of Beethoven's which seems most to appeal to the pianolist is the "Moonlight" sonata. Possibly the attractive title, which, however, Beethoven probably did not give to it, may have something to do with its selection. But why not attribute its popularity to the fact that the music bears out the title?
A sonata is a composition in several movements, usually four, and follows a clearly outlined, in fact, an almost rigid form, not to say formula. It attained its highest development during the classical period and left its impress upon all the larger compositions of that time, for a symphony is nothing more than a sonata composed for orchestra, instead of for the pianoforte, and trios, quartets, and other pieces of chamber music of the classical period are sonatas for the corresponding combination of instruments.
The "Moonlight Sonata," however, is less rigid in form than the average sonata. In it, in fact, Beethoven may be said to have broken away from form, for after the word sonata he adds the qualifying phrase "quasi una fantasia," signifying that, although he calls the work a sonata, it has the characteristics of a free fantasy.