V
Having described the trend of operatic development in various directions, there remains only one class of composition which, though partially allied to it in form, is usually so different in spirit as to appear at first sight antagonistic—namely, choral song. Choral song has had, especially in recent times, a distinct development independent of the church, and in this broader field it has assumed a new importance. The Romantic influence made itself felt even in the church, though perhaps secondarily—for, like the Renaissance, it was a purely secular movement. For purposes of convenience, however, the secular and sacred works are here treated together.
Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy
Of the choral church music of the German romantic period only two works are frequently heard in these days—the ‘Elijah’ and ‘St. Paul’ of Mendelssohn. The church had largely lost its hold over great composers, and when it did succeed in attracting them it did so spasmodically and by the romantic stimulus of its ritual rather than by direct patronage. And the spirit of the time was not favorable to the oratorio form. Mendelssohn’s great success in this field is due to his rare power of revivifying classical procedure with romantic coloring. And his success was far greater in pious and unoperatic England than in his native land. The oratorio form did exercise some attraction for composers of the period, but their activity took rather a secular form. Schumann, who composed scarcely any music for the church, worked hard at secular choral music.
Schubert, as a remnant of the classic age, wrote masses as a matter of course. They are beautiful yet, and their lovely melodies rank beside those of Mozart’s, though far below Mozart in mastery of the polyphonic manner. Schubert’s cantata, ‘Miriam’s Song of Victory,’ written toward the end of his life, is a charming work for chorus and soprano solo, full of color and energy, conquering by its triumphantly expressive melody.
In Byron’s ‘Manfred’ Schumann found a work which took his fancy, in the morbid years of the decline of his mental powers. Byron’s hero fell in love with his beautiful sister and locked himself up in a lonely castle and communed with demons in his effort to live down his incestuous affection. The soul of the man is shown in the well known overture, and many of the emotional scenes have a tremendous power. Perhaps best of all are the delicate choruses of the spirits. The great vitality and beauty of the music make one wish that this work could have been a music drama instead of disjointed scenes for concert use. In ‘Paradise and the Peri’ Schumann found a subject dear to his heart, but his creative power was failing and the musical result is uneven. In the scenes from Goethe’s ‘Faust,’ especially in the mystical third part, he rose higher, occasionally approaching his best level. The spirit of these works, so intense, so genuine, so broad in conception, so much more profound than that of his early piano pieces and songs, make us want to protest against the fate that robbed him of his mental balance, and robbed the world of what might have been a ‘third period’ analogous to Beethoven’s.
Mendelssohn was canny enough (whether consciously or not) to use the thunder of romanticism in a modified form for his own profit. The intensity of the romanticists had in his time achieved a little success with the general public—to the extent of a love for flowing, sensuous melody and a taste for pictorial music. This, and no more, Mendelssohn adopted in his music. Hence he was the ‘sane’ romanticist of his time. We can say this without depreciating his sound musicianship, which was based on all that was greatest and best in German music. At times in the ‘Elijah’ one can imagine one’s self in the atmosphere of Bach and Handel. But not for long. Mendelssohn was writing pseudo-dramatic music for the concert hall, and was tickling people’s love for the theatrical while gratifying their weakness for respectable piety. At least this characterization will hold for England, which took Mendelssohn with a seriousness that seems quite absurd in our day. The ‘Elijah,’ in fact, can be acted on the stage as an opera, and has been so acted more than once. The wind and the rain which overtake the sacrifices to Baal are vividly pictured in the music and throughout the work the theatrical exploits of the holy man of God are made the most of. Yet the choruses in ‘Elijah’ often attain a high nobility, and the deep and sound musicianship, the mastery of counterpoint, and the sense of formal balance which the work shows compel our respect. ‘St. Paul,’ written several years earlier, is in all ways an inferior work. There is little in it of the high seriousness of Handel, and it could hardly hold the place it still holds except for the melodic grace of some of its arias. In all that makes oratorio dignified and compelling, Spohr’s half-forgotten ‘Last Judgment,’ highly rated in its day, would have the preference.
The bulk of the sacred music of the romantic period must be sought for on the shelves of the musical libraries. Many a fine idea went into this music. But it has never succeeded in permanently finding a home in the church or in the concert hall. The Roman church, the finest institution ever organized for the using of musical genius, has steadily drawn away from the life of the world about it in the last century. The Italian revolution of 1871, which resulted in the loss of the Pope’s temporal power, was a symbol of the separation that had been going on since the French Revolution. The church, drawing away from contact whenever it felt its principles to be at stake, lost the services of the distinguished men of art which it had had so absolutely at its disposal during the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. Liszt, pious Catholic throughout his later life, would have liked nothing better than to become the Palestrina of the nineteenth century church, but, though he had the personal friendship and admiration of the pope, his music was always too theatrical to be quite acceptable to the ecclesiastical powers. Since the distinguished men of secular music have consistently failed to make permanent connections with the church in these later days, it is a pity that the quality of scholarly and excellent music which is written for it by the composers it retains in its service is not known to the outside world. For the church has a whole line of musicians of its own, but so far as the history of European music is concerned they might as well never have existed.