Italy's right to a place among musical nations of the day cannot be denied. Not only in the producing of worthy music-dramas, of orchestral works, of chamber music, but also in the noble art-song is she active. A change has come over her. Perhaps her musicians are being better trained. Yet the St. Cecilia Academy in Rome, the conservatories in Milan, Naples, Genoa, and Bologna have always equipped their students well. It may not be this so much as it is the imbuing of those who choose lives in art with the responsibility of their calling. Further, it is the advance which musical art has made all over the world. The young Italian composer of to-day has behind him Wagner and his glorious achievement, Strauss and his superb essays in the operatic and orchestral fields, the Frenchmen and their innovations. What did he have fifty years ago? Was it not to the old-style Italian opera that he looked with a burning to achieve a work of this type and win popular success? And one point that affects all modern composition is quite as valid in Italy as it is anywhere: Composers, in fact, musicians in general, are being better educated; they are feeling the correlation of the arts; they have studied the literatures of many nations, they know the paintings of many masters. In this lie the wonderful possibilities of the future! And modern musical art has its pathway, one quite as open and as free as that of any of its brothers, in which it must accomplish its task. Italy will not be behind in the future as she has been in the past. For she has a Zandonai, a Montemezzi, a Gui to lead her on.
A. W. K.
V
Since the late Renaissance Spain has been generally regarded as backward in music. And until recently the reputation was deserved. But within the last two decades musicians have become aware that there is a vigorous and extremely talented school of native and patriotic Spanish composers, working sincerely and effectively. As always happens in such cases, we find on closer examination that the revival of musical creativeness is not a recent thing, but has been going on definitely for half a century or more. But every indigenous musical school must go through a period of internal development, and the modern Spanish school has been no exception. It is even probable that this school has by no means begun to approach maturity. Though it assiduously cultivates national materials and even issues national manifestoes, its idiom is borrowed in the main from France, and it is to Paris that the promising young composers still look for tuition and inspiration. The national material as used by the modern Spanish composers has no more been infused into the spirit and technique of their product than the Russian folk-songs were infused into the Russian music of Glinka's time. Modern Spanish music seems to be in a preparatory stage. It has two main lines of activity—the opera and the genre piece for piano. In the former class Spanish composers have produced little that has carried beyond the borders, though their industry is indefatigable. But in piano music they have enriched modern concert literature with many a piece of sparkling vitality and able workmanship.
Among the precursors of the recent renaissance the name of Baltasar Saldoni (1807-1891) is most eminent. He was born in Barcelona, and received his education in the monastery of Monserrat. Throughout the greater part of his life he was distinguished as an organist, teacher and scholar as well as a composer. His important works were a symphony, O mia patria; a 'Hymn to the god of Art'; some operas and operettas, and a quantity of church and organ music written in a severe contrapuntal style. Miguel Eslava (1807-1878) also deserves mention both as composer and scholar. But greater than either is Felippe Pedrell (born 1841 and still living), who with Isaac Albéniz (born 1860) may be called the founder of modern Spanish music. Both were ardent nationalists; both were thorough and industrious scholars; and both wrote with distinction in large forms as well as small. Though Pedrell, the student, was particularly eminent in the department of Spanish ecclesiastical music, Pedrell the composer essayed chiefly those forms which ordinarily bring the maximum of worldly success. His early operas—El último Abencerage (1874), Quasimodo (1875), and 'Cleopatra' (1878)—were produced in Spain at a time when the native public would hardly lend an ear to anything except Italian operas of the old school and its beloved Zarzuelas, or operettas. His orchestral works are large in design and admirably executed. They include a Chanson Latine, the March à Mistral, the Chant de la Montague (a suite of orchestral 'pictures'), and the symphonic poems—'Tasso at Ferrara' and 'Mazeppa.' In addition to many songs and small piano pieces, Pedrell wrote considerable choral music, in particular the noble 'Gloria Mass.' But his greatest work, and the one which has chiefly won him the respect of musicians in outside lands, is his operatic trilogy, 'The Pyrenees,' designed as a sort of hymn of praise to his native land. The whole work was produced in 1902 in Barcelona, where the composer has worked indefatigably, causing the city to attain a peculiar musical importance somewhat parallel to that which Weimar attained in Germany under the régime of Liszt. The three parts of 'The Pyrenees' are denominated, respectively, Patrie, Amor, and Fides, three words forming an old and illustrious Spanish armorial inscription. In the prologue a bard chants the sorrows of Spain. The first part of the work is the story of a nation sunk into a despair and then liberated. The liberator is symbolized in the hero, the Comte de Foix, while the legendary spirit of the mountains is personified in a juglara, Raig de Lluna. Especially fine is the second act of Patrie, where the sombre chant of the monks mingles with the fanfare of the soldiers, the music of a passing funeral cortège, and the melancholy song of the jongluera.
Whereas Pedrell specialized in ancient Spanish church music, Albéniz made a study of the folk-tunes of his people. And this with the deliberate purpose of using them as a basis for a new Spanish school of composition. With unfailing energy he carried out his life-program, and, though he did not succeed in carrying the fame of his native land into many foreign capitals (except for his superb piano pieces), he gave energy to the awakening instincts of native composers, and set a high standard for their work. He was in his early youth a 'boy-wonder' pianist, and as such studied under some of the most famous masters in Europe, among them Marmontel in Paris, Reinecke in Leipzig, and Liszt in Rome. As a composer he was largely self-taught. His early piano work was undistinguished, but his technical ability grew astonishingly with the course of the years. His opera, Pepita Jimenez, is regarded as the most distinguished operatic achievement of modern Spain. It is frankly a 'folk-opera' and makes lavish use of the specific Spanish rhythms and tunes which the composer collected in his years of research among the people. The score shows an easy mastery of counterpoint, but the vocal parts are rather uninteresting, and the work as a whole lacks the charm which one would expect. Albéniz's other works for the stage are the operas Enrico Clifford and 'King Arthur,' and the operetta 'The Magic Opal' (produced in London in 1893). The oratorio Christus also has a high place in the music of modern Spain. But Albéniz's most successful works are his piano pieces. These have been called 'the soul of modern Spain.' They seem to range over the whole land, paying homage to a city or a valley, picturing a street scene in festival time or some striking bit of native scenery. Their melodies and rhythms are Spanish from beginning to end. But their technique is that of modern France. Albéniz, and all his compatriots in music, had their best lessons in Paris, and they could not fail to reflect the powerful influence from the north. It is to their credit (to Albéniz's in particular, since he chiefly insisted upon it) that with a French technique and a set of æsthetic ideals unmistakably French they still produced a music that was national and personal. Albéniz's best works for the piano are his two suites, 'Iberia' and 'The Alhambra.' These have taken their place in modern concert programs beside the works of Debussy and Ravel, and have given their composer an international reputation as one of the leading 'impressionists' of modern times.
The most eminent living Spanish composer in this style is Enrico Granados (born 1867). Like Albéniz, he has worked in the larger forms, and his works deserved at least this partial listing: the operas—María de la Alcarria (1893) and Folletto (1898), the symphonic poems, La Nit del Mort and 'Dante'; the incidental music to Mestres' fairy play, Liliano; a quartet and a piano trio, in addition to many songs. But, again like Albéniz, it is in his piano pieces that he has done his best work. These show all the modern French characteristics—highly spiced harmony, free use of dissonances of the second, clear but astonishingly intricate pianistic style, free use of the whole tone scale and of exotic tonalities, and daring characterization and realism. But its complexity is not so much that of development as of ornamentation—which is a quality more peculiarly Spanish. As with Albéniz's piano works, the composer pays tribute to many a Spanish town and to many a Spanish custom, and loves to introduce a local color at once authentic and suggestive. Granados' most important groups of piano pieces are the Goyescas, the 'Songs of Youth,' the Danzas Españolas, and the 'Poetic Waltzes.'
Hardly inferior to Granados in the writing of genre pieces for piano is Joaquin Turina. This composer's most important piano work is the suite Sevilla, a fascinating group of tone pictures drawn from the daily life of the city. His writing is marked by great delicacy and keen feeling for the finer vibrations of the modern piano. Among his other works we should mention an opera, Fea e con Gracia (1905), a string quartet, and a Scène andalouse for piano and violin (1913). Other Spanish composers who have gained eminence in their native land are K. Usandizaga, who is a pupil of d'Indy, and whose opera Las Coloudrinas was produced in Madrid in 1914; Vives, the composer of the nationalistic opera Tabare (1914); and Costa Nogueras, composer of Flor de almendro (1901), Ines de Castro (1905) and Valieri (1906). Gabriel Grovlez (born 1882) has written colorful piano music in the new style, and Garcia Roble has made successful essays in the larger forms. The great violinist Pablo Sarasate (1884-1908) is eminent as a spirited composer for violin. Raoul Laparra, though he is of Spanish parentage and has worked with Spanish materials, should rather be treated among the composers of modern France.[76]
Among the distinguished composers of modern Portugal should be mentioned Verreira d'Arneiro (born 1838), who has gained a wide reputation with his 'Symphonic Cantata' and his opera, 'The Elixir of Youth'; and Carlo Gomez (1839-1896), who was chiefly active as a composer of operas in the Italian style for Italian theatres. The most eminent Portuguese composer of recent times, however, is the admirable pianist Jose Vianna da Motta (born 1868). A quartet and a symphony from his pen have been played with success, but he is best known by his piano pieces, notably the 'Portuguese Scenes' and the five 'Portuguese Rhapsodies.'
H. K. M.