Pianoforte Classics. From top left to bottom right:
Czerny, Hummel, Moscheles, Field.
II
Meanwhile two truly great musicians availed themselves of what was being everywhere around them brought to light. These are Carl Maria von Weber and Franz Peter Schubert. Both are perhaps most closely associated with developments outside the sphere of the pianoforte; the one with the growth of the national, romantic German opera, the other with the first glorious burst of artistic song. Yet the pianoforte works of both were destined to exert a powerful influence upon the subsequent work of the great German composers of later generations, upon Mendelssohn, Schumann and Brahms; and besides these upon Franz Liszt as well.
Weber died in London, whither he had gone to superintend the first performances of his opera Oberon, in 1826, about forty years of age. Schubert died in Vienna in 1828, only thirty-one years old. Both were much younger than Beethoven, but both were his contemporaries, and both, moreover, owed much to his influence. The expanded form and warm feeling of their sonatas show this unmistakably. On the other hand, neither was truly at his best in this long form. The cast of their genius led them to new paths, put them in sympathy with other forms, affiliated them more with the new than with the old. Their sonatas are a breaking down, a crumbling; measures and pages in them, however, stand out amid the ruins like foundation stones for the music to come. Their shorter pieces seem not at all related to the classical music of the Viennese period, to have nothing in common with the music of Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven.
Of the two, Weber is far more the virtuoso. There are many pages of his music which are little more than effect. Furthermore, in his combination of pianistic effect and genuine musical feeling, he composed pieces which even today are in the repertory of most pianists, and which this permanence of their worth has led historians and critics to judge as the prototype of much of the pianoforte music of the nineteenth century, chiefly of concert music. Yet in the expansion of pianoforte technique Weber invented little. To him belongs the credit of employing what was generally common property in his day for the expression of fanciful and delightful ideas.
The list of his pianoforte works is not very long. It includes several sets of variations, some dances, four big sonatas, two concertos, and the still renowned Konzertstück in F minor, and several pieces in brilliant style, of which the Polacca in E major, the Polonaise in E flat, and the famous ‘Invitation to the Dance’ are the best known.
Let us look over the variations. In such a form composers have usually shown the limits and the variety of their technique. The resources which Weber can call upon to vary his theme are not very numerous, not very original. His plan is almost invariably to announce his theme simply and then dress it up in a number of figures. The theme itself undergoes no metamorphosis, as we have seen it do in the variations of Bach and of Beethoven. It is unmistakable in all the variations. It is always clearly a groundwork upon which garlands are hung, which is never for long concealed.
Of the nature of these figures and garlands little need be said. Opus 6 is a set of variations on a theme from the opera ‘Castor and Pollux,’ written by his friend and teacher, the famous Abbé Vogler. The first five variations are hardly in advance of the work of Handel. The sixth, however, presents an interesting use of broken octaves and is very difficult. The seventh presents the theme in octaves in the bass, and the eighth is the theme unmistakable, in the form of a mazurka.
Opus 7 is a set of seven variations on a theme in C major. The fourth of these presents some difficulties in wide chords for the left hand. Weber’s fingers were very long and slender and broad stretches were easy for him. The fifth is built up of sweeping figures that mount from the low registers to the high in brilliant effect. This sort of climbing crescendo is to be found again and again in Weber’s work. It is undoubtedly effective, but points to no intensive development of pianoforte technique. The sixth variation presents the theme in form of a chorale, a presentation which may still delight those who ever, conversely, find something marvellous in the rendering of ‘Nearer, My God, to Thee’ in rag-time. The seventh is a Polacca, very brilliant and full of thirds and arpeggios in contrary motion.
Seven variations on a popular Romanza were published as opus 28. The fifth has some interesting passages of broken sixths which are modern enough in sound, but which can be found in other music of the time. Then there is a Funeral March, in which upper and lower registers of the instrument are contrasted in a series of imaginary orchestral effects. The seventh demands a light, active wrist. It is a series of rapid double notes, sometimes for both hands, in an excellent ‘étude’ manner, of which Weber had already made use in the delightful Caprice, opus 12. In such work we have perhaps the model for most studies in the special technique of the wrist, perhaps also of the fifth number of Schumann’s ‘Symphonic Variations.’