[ TILL EULENSPIEGEL'S MERRY PRANKS]
In the Manner of Ancient Rogues—In Rondo Form
Hardly another subject could have been more happy for the revelling in brilliant pranks and conceits of a modern vein of composition. And in the elusive humor of the subject is not the least charm and fitness. Too much stress has been laid on the graphic purpose. There is always a tendency to construe too literally. While we must be in full sympathy with the poetic story, there is small need to look for each precise event. We are tempted to go further, almost in defiance, and say that music need not be definite, even despite the composer's intent. In other words, if the tonal poet designs and has in mind a group of graphic figures, he may nevertheless achieve a work where the real value and beauty lie in a certain interlinear humor and poetry,—where the labels can in some degree be disregarded.
Indeed, it is this very abstract charm of music that finds in such a subject its fullest fitness. If we care to know the pranks exactly, why not turn to the text? Yet, reading the book, in a way, destroys the spell. Better imagine the ideal rogue, whimsical, spritely, all of the people too. But in the music is the real Till. The fine poetry of ancient humor is all there, distilled from the dregs of folk-lore that have to us lost their true essence. There is in the music a daemonic quality, inherent in the subject, that somehow vanishes with the concrete tale. So we might say the tonal picture is a faithful likeness precisely in so far as it does not tell the facts of the story.
Indeed, in this mass of vulgar stories we cannot help wondering at the reason for their endurance through the centuries, until we feel something of the spirit of the people in all its phases. A true mirror it was of stupidity and injustice, presented by a sprite of owlish wisdom, sporting, teasing and punishing[70] all about. It is a kind of popular satire, with a strong personal element of a human Puck, or an impish Robin Hood, with all the fairy restlessness, mocking at human rut and empty custom.
It is perhaps in the multitude of the stories, paradoxical though it seem, that lies the strength. In the number of them (ninety-two "histories" there are) is an element of universality. It is like the broom: one straw does not make, nor does the loss of one destroy it; somewhere in the mass lies the quality of broom.
In a way Till is the Ulysses of German folk-lore, the hero of trickery, a kind of Reinecke Fuchs in real life. But he is of the soil as none of the others. A satyr, in a double sense, is Till; only he is pure Teuton, of the latter middle ages.
He is every sort of tradesman, from tailor to doctor. Many of the stories, perhaps the best, are not stories at all, but merely clever sayings. In most of the tricks there is a Roland for an Oliver. Till stops at no estate; parsons are his favorite victims. He is, on the whole, in favor with the people, though he played havoc with entire villages. Once he was condemned to death by the Lübeck council. But even here it was his enemies, whom he had defrauded, that sought revenge. The others excused the tricks and applauded his escape. Even in death the scandal and mischief do not cease.
The directions in Strauss' music are new in their kind and dignity. They belong quite specially to this new vein of tonal painting. In a double function, they not merely guide the player, but the listener as well. The humor is of utmost essence; the humor is the thing, not the play, nor the story of each of the pranks, in turn, of our jolly rogue. And the humor lies much in these words of the composer, that give the lilt of motion and betray a sense of the intended meaning.
The tune, sung at the outset gemächlich (comfortably), is presumably the rogue motif, first in pure innocence of mood. But quickly comes another, quite opposed in rhythm, that soon hurries into highest speed. These are not the "subjects" of old tradition.