In England in the first part of the nineteenth century song writing, as we have seen in another chapter,[27] was at a very low ebb. The chief output of songs was in the street ballad class and in the slightly superior opera ballad. The ballad opera of the nineteenth century was not that of the previous century, of which ‘The Beggar’s Opera’ was a type. The newer ballad opera was usually romantic, somewhat elaborate, and composed by one musician instead of ten. Of this opera ‘The Bohemian Girl’ by Michael Balfe (1808-1870) is an excellent example. Three of its ‘ballads’—‘I Dreamt I Dwelt in Marble Halls,’ ‘The Heart Bowed Down,’ and ‘When Other Lips’—are among the best known of household songs. And if we except the omnipresent street ballad and ‘occasional’ song (such as cheap pæans of triumph over Napoleon) such lyrics were the chief item in English song. Their beauty is obvious to everybody. They deserve their long life and popularity. But it cannot be said that they are an interpretation of their text, as is the case in a song by Schubert. In addition to his opera ballads Balfe has at least one thoroughly fine song to his credit—‘Killarney,’ said to have been written on his deathbed. Rarely has a conscious composer caught the true Irish idiom and flavor as Balfe did here. Balfe’s once popular setting of Longfellow’s ‘The Day Is Done’ is admirably expressive. Sir Henry Bishop (1786-1855) and Julius Benedict (1804-1885) were popular composers of the time, known rather by their operas than by their songs. But of the group only William Vincent Wallace (1814-1865), in addition to Balfe, can be said to have lived. His ‘Maritana’ is still occasionally performed, and the song, ‘Scenes That Are Brightest,’ from that work, has a popularity analogous to that of ‘The Heart Bowed Down.’ But whatever occasional beauties may have lived from the England of the early nineteenth century, we must feel how dead the period was productively. Much of the English music of the time is gauche in the extreme, and none of it shows any of the creative vigor which goes to make history.
III
It is hard to say anything about Robert Franz (1815-1892). All that there is to be said about him he has said in his songs. He lived the most quiet of lives, hindered in his work by ill health throughout most of his maturity. His musical output, if we except a few pieces of church music, consists almost wholly of songs. (He composed 279 in all.) He was not ambitious; his only desire in life seems to have been to do his work well. He had no qualities of self-advertisement. His fame came very slowly and for a long time he was known only among the elect. He was through most of his life miserably poor and the greater part of his energy went to work which was not much better than that of a hack. But he has by this time attained a rank among the greatest song writers of all time. In some respects he is supreme. Probably no other song writer, not even Brahms, produced such a high proportion of great songs or such an even standard of excellence in his whole output. He shows little variation or development. His first songs are as good as his last. All were the best he could do. Schumann, who discovered and ‘announced’ Franz, as he had so many other notable composers, wrote of his opus 1 in the Neue Zeitschrift für Musik: ‘Were I to dwell on all the exquisite details I should never come to an end.’ It was through Schumann’s influence that the unknown and modest musician had his first work published.
Robert Franz
After a photograph from life.
When we come to examine Franz’s songs in detail we discover an astonishing subtlety and variety of method and expression within the superficially narrow limits he allowed himself. Probably no other song composer save Hugo Wolf has made each one of his songs so perfectly individual. We find this individuality first in the outline and superficial character of the melody; next we discover it in the technical methods and devices used in development and elaboration; finally, we trace it in all the niceties of ornament and prove the absolute fitness down to the last note. Franz’s peculiar success in all this is due, of course, first of all to selection of themes which are very accurately adjusted to the end in view. A poetic melody, an accompanying figure which provides just the right suggestion, and we have the materials for a fine song. In a majority of cases we have the whole thematic material for the song in the first three or four measures. The simple germ is developed without the introduction of extraneous matter, yet without a suggestion of vain repetition. When we consider that the majority of the songs are in the strophic form (and the strophe is usually very brief) we may realize the artistry which achieved utter individuality within the space of a few bars. In other words, the perfection of Franz’s songs comes not from elaboration but from selection—the test, as we have so often pointed out, of the true lyric composer.
Franz’s melody is likely to veil itself against the first glance. It is always beautiful and well proportioned, but it so persistently avoids striking effects that it is apt to seem colorless. But if we listen with our inner ears we shall find it eloquent. Avoiding the striking, Franz’s melody also avoids the obvious and at first hearing we are apt to find it a trifle aimless and meandering. But its continuous subtle deviations from the expected are never without purpose, and never, if we know how to listen, without meaning. Usually, too, there is little or no obvious design, no striking climax point, no resounding cadence. But here again we need only look beneath the surface to discover the most restful and satisfying architecture. Though the emotional color may be almost unvarying from beginning to end, though the final note of the voice may not be on the tonic and may glide in the piano postlude, yet we discover that if any note had been changed the whole would have been less perfect. These qualities we find in their simplest form in such masterpieces as Widmung and Bitte, songs simple as any folk-song yet rich with conscious artistry. Franz’s harmony is not radical or striking. It contains practically nothing which could not be found in Schumann before him; we might almost say that it contains nothing that could not be found in the Beethoven sonatas. He is fluent though not frequent with modulation; his greatest radicalism is a stimulating use of altered chords and passing notes. In fact, his harmony is in every way more conservative than that of Schumann; for, whereas Schumann was professedly an innovator, Franz loved best the old German tradition—that of the Bach fugues and the Lutheran chorale.
Franz’s treatment of the words is individual. Few song writers have ever set their texts with more conscientious regard for the niceties of metre and accent. Yet it is musical design and not verbal peculiarities which determines his melodic line. The melody is always and beyond all a melody. The perfect marriage of words and music in Franz comes from his selection of melodies which would nicely fit the words in hand. Neither is strained; neither is sacrificed to the other. In this respect Franz is surpassed by no song writer who ever lived. Now and then the melody is so handled as to seem like very reserved declamation, but even these instances are rare. Franz was not a purist in the setting of his texts; he did hold strictly to the ‘one syllable one note’ principle. Not infrequently he uses the slurred phrase on a single vowel. But we can never feel that this was done out of a careless disregard for the integrity of the text. In his accompaniment Franz is even greater than in his treatment of the voice. It is here that his extreme artistry becomes most evident. The accompaniment is always rich, always a thing of value in itself. Usually it would make a perfectly satisfactory musical composition alone. It is so well filled with musical beauties that with a little more emphasis it might overpower the voice part. But always it is kept nicely in its proper function. In no other song writer are the voice and piano parts so perfectly fused. In Franz’s accompaniments is shown his great musical resourcefulness. No two are alike. Nearly all the recognized means are used—solid chords, broken chords, melodic figurations over a spread bass, four-part chorales with free passing notes, contrapuntal melodies against the voice, suggestive devices innumerable. But in every case the germ principle is simple and is strictly adhered to throughout. Franz’s accompaniments are, as a whole, more polyphonic than those of any other song writer. In the greater part of his songs the inner notes do not serve merely for harmonic filling-in; they are parts of individual voices which are preserved in their integrity. In all these songs there is nothing ambitious or spectacular. But so deeply based is his musicianship that we may say that anyone who knows the Franz songs accurately knows in epitome the whole development of German classical music. Moreover, they are the finest of cultural exercises. For one who has learned to love the Franz songs has learned one of the most precious things music has to give—the art of listening.
The germ figures which Franz uses in his accompaniments are almost endless in their variety. Sometimes they are, in a restrained way, highly picturesque. We may point out the triplets in Was pocht mein Herz so sehr?, the suggestion of ripples in Auf dem Meere, the broken accompaniment in Es treibt mich hin, the delicate trill which persists through Ach, wenn ich doch ein Immchen wär, the long rolling diatonic figure in Meeresstille, and so on through innumerable instances. The attainment of the most exquisite beauty within the smallest limits may be studied in Widmung, Deine weissen Lilienfinger, Leise zieht durch mein Gemüth, and Treibt der Sommer seinen Rosen, the last a remarkable example of a song built up out of the repetition of the briefest of units, yet without monotony. Franz’s range of expression is usually limited to the tender and graceful. He has not succeeded in the mood of tragedy or deep emotion. But several of his songs are powerfully energetic, witness Frühlingsfeier and Das ist ein Brausen und Heulen. The dramatic element, too, is almost entirely absent, though in such a song as Childe Harold we have something approaching it. The influence of the chorale, of which traces are to be found in nearly every one of the songs, is predominant in such ones as Gute Nacht, Wenn sich zwei Herzen Scheiden, Habt ihr sie schön gesehen, Stille Liebe, In der Fremde, Der Schmetterling ist in die Rose verliebt, and Frühling, as well as others already mentioned.