The composers so far discussed constitute what is sometimes called the Leipzig circle. While they can not in any sense be considered as radicals, and, indeed, were frequently attacked as conservative or academic by the followers of the more radical wing which made its headquarters at Weimar, they appear distinctly progressive when compared with the ultra-conservative group of composers centred in Berlin, who made it their particular duty to uphold tradition and to apply their energies to the creation of choral music of rather antique type. 'It may be that the attitude of certain Berlin masters,' says Pratt,[4] 'like Grell, Dehn, and Kiel, serve a useful purpose as a counterpoise to the impulsive swing of style away from the traditions of the old vocal counterpoint. They certainly helped to keep musical education from forgetting solid structure in composition amid its desires to exploit impressionistic and sensational devices. Probably this reactionary influence did good in the end, though its intolerant narrowness exasperated the many who were eagerly searching out new paths. It at least resulted in making Berlin a centre for choral music of a severe type, for able teachers of the art of singing, for musical theory and for scholarly investigators of musical history.' It may be added that the Royal Academy was the stronghold of this extreme 'right wing,' and that the chief institutions which helped to uphold old vocal traditions were the Singakademie, the Domchor, the Institut für Kirchenmusik (later merged into the Hochschule für Musik). The Conservatory, founded in 1850 by Marx, Kullak, and Stern, and the Neue Akademie der Tonkunst, established in 1855 by Theodor Kullak, also acquired considerable importance.
Eduard August Grell (1800-86) gave proof of his contrapuntal genius in a series of sacred works including a sixteen-part mass, an oratorio, and a Te Deum, besides many songs and motets. He assisted Rungenhagen in conducting the Singakademie from 1832, becoming sole conductor and teacher of composition at the Academy in 1851, and was a musician of very wide influence. Siegfried Dehn (1799-1858) is chiefly important as teacher of a number of the composers mentioned in this chapter and as the author of treatises. Friedrich Kiel (1821-85), whose requiem in F minor has been called among all later works of this class the most worthy successor of those of Mozart and Cherubini, has also written a Missa Solemnis, an oratorio Christus, and another Requiem (A minor)—works which attest above all the writer's polyphonic skill, and which prove the appropriateness of applying such a style to modern works of devotional character. Kiel's Stabat mater, Te Deum, 130th Psalm and two-part motets for women's voices, as well as his chamber music and piano pieces, are all worthy of consideration. Karl Friedrich Rungenhagen (d. 1851) and August Wilhelm Bach (d. 1869), both noted as composers of choral music, may complete our review of the 'Berlin circle.'
There remain to be mentioned those specialists who are concerned almost exclusively with the two most characteristic mediums of the romantic genre—the piano piece and the song. Schumann and Chopin had brought the miniature piano composition to its highest plane of expression and the most advanced technical standard, which even the dramatic imagination and the virtuoso brilliance of Liszt could not surpass. They and such milder romanticists as Mendelssohn and John Field had brought this class of music within the reach of amateurs, Schumann even within that of the child. Brahms, with no thought of the dilettante, had intensified this form of expression, making a corresponding demand upon technical ability. It remained for men like Adolf Henselt, Stephen Heller, and Theodor Kullak to popularize the new pianistic idiom, as Clementi, Hummel, and Moscheles had popularized that of the classics. These are the real workers in genre, monochrome genre, with their pictorial description, their somewhat bourgeois romanticism and sometimes maudlin sentimentality. Even their études are cast in an easy lyrical vein which was made to convey the pretty sentiment.
Henselt (1814-89) was an eminent pianist, born in Silesia, pupil of Hummel and Sechter in Vienna. After 1838 he lived in St. Petersburg. Pieces like the Poème d'amour and the 'Spring Song' are comparable to Mendelssohn's 'Songs without Words,' but they are more richly embroidered and of a fuller sonority. His F minor concerto is justly famous. Stephen Heller (1814-88) was also famous as a concert pianist. Of his compositions, to the number of 150, all for his own instrument, many are truly and warmly poetic in content. Though lacking Schumann's passion and Chopin's harmonic genius, he surpasses Mendelssohn in the originality and individuality of his ideas. In a number of his things, probably pot-boilers, he leans dangerously to the salon type of composition, with which many of his immediate followers flooded the market. We are all familiar with the album-leaf, fly-leaf, mood-picture, fairy and flower piece variety of piano literature, as well as the pseudo-nature study, the travel picture in which the Rhine and its castles and Loreley, the Alps and its cowbells, Venice with its barcarolles and Naples with its tarantellas figure so conspicuously.
Kullak (1818-82), already mentioned as the founder of the Neue Akademie of Berlin and famous both as pianist and teacher, wrote some 130 works, most of which is in the salon type or in the form of brilliant fantasias and paraphrases, less important, perhaps, than his études ('School of Octave Playing,' etc.). The piano technicians Henri Hertz (1803-88), Sigismund Thalberg (1812-71), Karl Klindworth (b. 1830), Karl Tausig (1841-71), Nicolai Rubinstein (1835-81), brother of Anton and founder of the Moscow conservatory, and Hans von Bülow, of whom we shall speak later, might all be mentioned in this connection, though their work as virtuosi, teachers, and editors is of greater moment than their efforts as original composers.
The song engaged the exclusive activity of numberless composers of this period, and perhaps to a great extent with as untoward results as the piano piece. But there are, on the other hand, men like Eduard Lassen (1830-1904), Adolf Jensen (1837-79), and Wilhelm Taubert (1811-91) whose work, in part at least, will take a place beside that of the great romantics. Robert Franz, by far the most important of these, has been treated in Volume II (p. 289). Taubert is to-day chiefly known for his 'Children's Songs,' full of ingenuous charm and sincere feeling. It should not be forgotten, however, that their composer wrote a half dozen operas, incidental music for Euripides' 'Medea' and Shakespeare's 'Tempest,' as well as symphonies, overtures, chamber, piano and choral works. Berlin, his birthplace, remained his headquarters. Here he conducted the court concerts, the opera and the Singakademie, and was the president of the musical section in the Senate of the Royal Academy.
Adolf Jensen, in Hugo Riemann's judgment, is much more than Franz entitled to the lyric mantle of Schumann. His songs, appearing in modest series bearing no special title, have in them much real poetic imagination. They are unmistakably influenced by Wagner. Books 4, 6, and 22, as well as the two cycles Dolorosa and Erotikon, are picked by Naumann as especially noteworthy. The popular Lehn' deine Wang is most frequently sung, but is one of the less meritorious of Jensen's songs. The composer has also been successful with pianoforte works, his sonata op. 25 and the pieces of opera 37, 38, and 42 being worthy essays along the lines of Schumann. An eminently aristocratic character and a profound subjective expression are their distinguishing features, together with the soft beauty of their melodic line. Jensen was a native of Königsberg (1837), and spent some years in Russia in order to earn sufficient money to live near Schumann in Düsseldorf, but the tragic end of the latter frustrated this plan. Hence he followed a call to conduct the theatre orchestra in Posen, later going to Copenhagen, Königsberg, Berlin, Dresden, and Graz. He died in Baden-Baden in 1879.
Lassen, another song-writer of distinction, came more definitely under the Liszt influence and will therefore be treated with the 'New Germans' in another section.
The degeneration of the song, corresponding to that of the small piano forms, is to be noted in the productions of such men as Franz Abt (1819-85) and Karl Friedrich Curschmann (1804-41). Abt is among song-writers the typical Spiessbürger, the middle-class Philistine dear to the Männerchor member's heart. His songs are of that popular melodiousness which at its best flavors of the folk-song and at its worst of the music hall. Of the former variety are 'Wenn die Schwalben heimwärts ziehn' and 'Gute Nacht, mein herziges Kind.' All of Abt's songs and vocal quartets are of the more or less saccharine sentimentality which for a time was such an appealing factor in American popular music. Indeed, when Abt visited the United States in 1872 he was received with extraordinary acclaim.
Curschmann's songs are perhaps slightly superior in musical value, and at one time were equally popular, but they are not as near to becoming folk-songs as are some of Abt's. Many others might be mentioned among the purveyors of this sentimental stuff. If, as Naumann says, Taubert and his kind are the musical bourgeoisie, these are the small middle class. Arno Kleffel (b. 1840), Louis Ehlert (1825-84), Heinrich Hofmann (1842-1902), Alexander von Fielitz (b. 1860) may be regarded as standing on the border line of the two provinces.