Over against these two originals stands Joachim Raff, the eclectic. We have grown accustomed to count his eclecticism no reproach, for never did man more bitterly experience the sorrow of art. His great legacy of piano-pieces will at least give a good picture of the time. In them the most commonplace demands of art are mingled with the most heart-felt lamentations—as they never mingled except in our age. They are a long catalogue of virtues and vices, from the hapless Polka de la Reine to the Sonatas, in which, whether for piano alone, or more especially for piano and violin, he attained astonishing heights; from the ravishingly graceful suite-movements to the romanticism of his lyrical songs. And over all broods the unrest of the time.
Among living Germans the same two main groups are in general to be distinguished: the artists of the serious, self-sufficient music, and the poets of the lighter, post-romantic genre. Rheinberger’s sound and solid Sonatas and smaller pieces are the purest representatives of the more absolute conception of music, and they deserve the highest praise. Richard Strauss, also, in his earlier years, came out with some remarkably original piano-pieces, which betrayed a strong sense for absolute music. I would mention particularly the pithy Burlesque for Orchestra and Piano. In such serious and solid endeavour Wilhelm Berger stands out among the younger masters. But—as in the middle section of his great variations for two pianos—he must beware of a too great fluency, which is the stumbling-block of all absolute musical emotion.
Eugene d’Albert, in spirit, resembles Brahms. This appears most clearly in the eight massive Piano-pieces of his Op. 5, which live by their infelt music, and are in that respect to be numbered amongst the noblest fruits of modern piano-literature. This inclination to absolute music appeared even in his first work, a very interesting Suite, and has received further active expression in certain arrangements of Bach, which take a front rank along with those of Busoni. Among his piano-concertos, the second, which is included in a single movement, is without serious rival, at least among works that have appeared since Liszt, in wealth of invention and variety of colour. His secular turn will probably continue itself in his later works, which, in consequence of his devotion to opera, will necessarily cease to be influenced by Bach and Brahms.
Paderewski stands perhaps on the dividing line between the severer absolute musicians, in whose style he composed his Variations and Humoresques à l’antique, and the daintier drawing-room romantics, with whom he associates himself specially in numerous fiery Polish dances. His Concerto in A minor is absolutely bathed in this national spirit.
Xaver Scharwenka strikes a similar note. Something of Chopin at his best still lives in him; and his Concertos, above all, have given him a name as a composer. His brother Philip renounces the virtuoso, and appears rather as a teacher and former of taste. He has created a rich piano-literature, which prefers to deal in graceful and galant forms, and holds itself utterly aloof from storm and revolution. Scharwenka has the rare merit of having successfully cultivated four-handed piano music; and his “Herbstbilder” and “Abendmusik” belong to the most tasteful productions of this class. Among his multiform “Jugendstücke” the “Kinderspiele,” in several volumes, are the most successful. A similar activity has been shown by Wilhelm Kienzl, who has been able to work the light romantic genre in all its aspects. Kienzl is one of our most fertile piano-composers. His pieces are all occasional, thought out for delicate orchestral effects, and thus are extremely unassuming. His “Boat-Scene” gained the special approval of Liszt, while his Dance Airs and Dance Pictures belong to the most popular class of piano-works. His illustrated cycle “Child-love and Life,” which appeared with text in four languages, seeks to apply to the piano the method of intuitive instruction. The cycle “From my Diary” is the best example of the specially subtle and suggestive touch, by which Kienzl attains his detailed orchestral effects; while the two volumes, “A Poet’s Journey,” are to be regarded as his ripest work.
Moritz Moszkowski, who has not yet laid aside his career as a virtuoso, and only the other day appeared with a new piano-concerto, is among the most remarkable in the band of modern piano-poets. A delicate and polished virtuosity, as it appears in the Etincelles and the Tarantelle, is allied with a characteristic force in form, which has made his four-handed Spanish dances, and his “From Foreign Parts,” so popular.
History shows that the piano only flourishes in a pronounced opposition to the opera, which is the other extreme, the triumph of all arts united. The opera seeks to realise the impossible; it calls into requisition a whole world of forces in order to grasp in a sensuous manner the heights of life. It forms a Titanic resolve to build mountains out of sand; an intoxication, an extraordinary consciousness of victory, gives wings to this most daring of experiments. A great man once appeared, who made Dionysus his lord, and sought to win from the stage a mirror of the world and worldly honour. We stand on the fair ruins of his splendid failure. We have been instructed, we have been elevated; but the tragedy of the theatre is too deep. Then come the hours in which we flee to the household-ingle of chamber-music, and strive to disentangle its enlacing lines, in which we see the whole of life included, since it depicts itself without the need of foreign aid. The piano will further be the central point of this introspection. Let us have no concertos, in which this delicate instrument is dragged before the crowd and has to fight a duel with the orchestra. All beautiful compositions notwithstanding, the piano is no concerto-instrument. In concertos the delicate ear is outraged. The piano will not adapt itself for new ideas in the hall, in the midst of virtuosity, or against the orchestra. It must become chaste; it must turn in faith to Bach’s Wohltemperiertes Klavier, the Old Testament, as Bülow called it, of the musician’s creed, and to Beethoven’s Sonatas, the New.
It is noteworthy that in Schytte’s “Silhouettes,” or Variations on the same theme in the different styles of various Masters, he nowhere fails so badly as with Bach, who is marked by retardations in the middle voices, or with Beethoven, who is characterised by gloomy rhythm. The true path seems to have been lost. The line through Bach, Beethoven, Schumann, and Brahms, is the only safe line for the piano; and it is the line in music furthest removed from the opera. In those great natures, whether they knew it or not, was a strong repugnance to the opera; and Brahms, whose eulogists said he was the last of his race, will perhaps one day be viewed as the connecting link between the old and a new musical culture.