| PAGE | ||
| Prefatory Note | [vii] | |
| Introduction by Harold Bauer | [ix] | |
| Part I. The Classical Period of Pianoforte Music | ||
| CHAPTER | ||
| I. | Keyboard Instruments and the Development of Keyboard Technique | [1] |
| Keyboard instruments and their derivation; the clavichord and its mechanism; the harpsichord and its relatives, virginal, cembalo, etc.; technique and use of the harpsichord—The beginnings of harpsichord music; the Gabrielis and Merulo; early forms; the influence of harmony and the crystallization of form—Frescobaldi and other organist-composers for harpsichord; early English virginal collections; John Bull, etc.—Genesis of the suite; influence of lute-music; Froberger, Denis Gaultier, etc.; Kuhnau—Development of the harpsichord ‘style’; great players: Chambonnières, etc. | ||
| II. | The Golden Age of Harpsichord Music | [40] |
| The period and the masters of the ‘Golden Age’—Domenico Scarlatti; his virtuosity; Scarlatti’s ‘sonatas’; Scarlatti’s technical effects; his style and form; æsthetic value of his music; his contemporaries—François Couperin, le Grand; Couperin’s clavecin compositions; the ‘musical portraits’; ‘program music’—The quality and style of his music; his contemporaries, Daquin and Rameau—John Sebastian Bach; Bach as virtuoso; as teacher; his technical reform; his style—Bach’s fugues and their structure—The suites of Bach: the French suites, the English suites, the Partitas—The preludes, toccatas and fantasies; concertos; the ‘Goldberg Variations’—Bach’s importance; his contemporary Handel. | ||
| III. | The Development of the Pianoforte Sonata | [89] |
| Vienna as the home of the sonata; definition of ‘sonata’—Origin and history of the standard sonata cycle; relationship of sonata movements—Evolution of the ‘triplex’ form: Pergolesi’s ‘singing allegro’; the union of aria and binary forms; Padre Martini’s sonatas, Scarlatti’s true sonata in C; Domenico Alberti; the Alberti bass; the transitional period of the sonata—Sonata writers before Haydn and Mozart; J. C. Bach; Muzio Clementi—Schubert and Wagenseil; C. P. E. Bach; F. W. Rust. | ||
| IV. | Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven | [131] |
| The ‘Viennese period’ and the three great classics—Joseph Haydn; Haydn’s clavier sonatas; the Variations in F minor—W. A. Mozart; Mozart as pianist and improvisator; Mozart’s sonatas; his piano concertos—Ludwig van Beethoven; evolution of the modern pianoforte—Musical qualities of Beethoven’s piano music; Beethoven’s technical demands; his pianoforte sonatas; his piano concertos; conclusion. | ||
| V. | Pianoforte Music at the Time of Beethoven | [175] |
| The broadening of technical possibilities and its consequences—Minor disciples of Mozart and Beethoven: J. N. Hummel; J. B. Cramer; John Field; other contemporaries—The pioneers in new forms: Weber and Schubert; technical characteristics of Weber’s style; Weber’s sonatas, etc.; the Konzertstück; qualities of Weber’s pianoforte music—Franz Schubert as pianoforte composer; his sonatas; miscellaneous works; the impromptus; the Moments musicals—The Weber-Schubert era and the dawn of the Romantic spirit. | ||
| Part II. The Romantic Period of Pianoforte Music | ||
| VI. | Mendelssohn, Schumann and Brahms | [211] |
| Influence of musical romanticism on pianoforte literature—Mendelssohn’s pianoforte music, its merits and demerits; the ‘Songs without Words’; Prelude and Fugue in D minor; Variations Sérieuses; Mendelssohn’s influence, Bennett, Henselt—Robert Schumann, ultra-romanticist and pioneer; peculiarities of his style; miscellaneous series of piano pieces; the ‘cycles’: Carnaval, etc.—The Papillons, Davidsbündler, and Faschingsschwank; the Symphonic Études; Kreisleriana, etc., the Sonatas, Fantasy and Concerto—Johannes Brahms; qualities of his piano music; his style; piano sonatas, ‘Paganini Variations,’ ‘Handel Variations,’ Capriccios, Rhapsodies, Intermezzi; the Concertos; conclusion. | ||
| VII. | Chopin | [250] |
| Chopin’s music and its relative value in musical value; racial and personal characteristics; influences and preferences; Chopin’s playing—His instinct for form; the form of his sonatas and concertos; the Polonaise-Fantaisie; the Preludes—Chopin as a harmonist; Chopin’s style analyzed: accompaniment figures, inner melodies, polyphonic suggestions, passages, melodies and ornaments—His works in general: salon music; waltzes; nocturnes; mazurkas; polonaises; conclusion. | ||
| VIII. | Herz, Thalberg, and Liszt | [284] |
| The career of Henri Herz, his compositions and his style; virtuosity and sensationalism; means of effect—Sigismund Thalberg: his playing; the ‘Moses’ fantasia, etc.; relation of Herz and Thalberg to the public—Franz Liszt: his personality and its influence; his playing; his expansion of pianoforte technique; difficulties of his music estimated—Liszt’s compositions: transcriptions; fantasia on Don Giovanni—Realistic pieces, Années de pèlerinage—Absolute music: sonata in B minor; Hungarian Rhapsodies; conclusion. | ||
| Part III. Modern Pianoforte Music | ||
| IX. | Imitators and Nationalists | [320] |
| Inevitable results of Schumann, Chopin and Liszt—Heller, Raff, Jensen, Scharwenka, Mozkowski, and other German composers—The influence of national characteristics: Grieg, his style and his compositions; Christian Sinding—The Russians: Balakireff, Rubinstein, Tschaikowsky, Arensky, Glazounoff, Rachmaninoff, Scriabin and others—Spanish traits; I. Albéniz; pianoforte composers in England and the United States. | ||
| X. | Modern French Pianoforte Music | [341] |
| Classical traditions: Saint-Saëns, and others; C. V. Alkan—César Franck: his compositions and his style—Vincent d’Indy; Fauré—The new movement: Debussy and Ravel; Debussy’s innovations: new harmonies, scales, overtones, pianoforte technique; his compositions—Ravel differentiated; his compositions; Florent Schmitt and Eric Satie—Conclusion. | ||
| Part IV. Violin Music | ||
| XI. | Early Violin Music and the Development of Violin Technique | [368] |
| The origin of stringed instruments; ancestors of the violin—Perfection of the violin and advance in violin technique; use of the violin in the sixteenth century; early violin compositions in the vocal style; Florentino Maschera and Monteverdi—Beginnings of violin music: Biagio Marini; Quagliati; Farina; Fontana and Mont’Albano; Merula; Ucellino and Neri; Legrenzi; Walther and his advance in technique, experiments in tone painting—Giov. Battista Vitali; Tommaso Vitali and Torelli; Bassani; Veracini and others—Biber and other Germans; English and French composers for the violin; early publications of text-books and collections. | ||
| XII. | Violin Composers in the Eighteenth Century | [396] |
| Corelli, Vivaldi, Albinoni—Their successors, Locatelli, F. M. Veracini, and others; Tartini and his pupils; pupils of Somis: Giardini and Pugnani—French violinists and composers: Rébel, Francœur, Baptiste Anet, Senaillé and Leclair; French contemporaries of Viotti: Pagin, Lahoussaye, Gaviniès; Viotti—Violinists in Germany and Austria during the eighteenth century: Pisendel, J. G. Graun, Franz Benda; Leopold Mozart—The Mannheim school: J. Stamitz, Cannabich and others; Dittersdorf, Wranitzky and Schuppanzigh—Non-violinist composers: Handel, Bach, Haydn, Mozart—Conclusion. | ||
| XIII. | Violin Music in the Nineteenth Century | [430] |
| The perfection of the bow and of the classical technique—The French school: Kreutzer, Rode, and Baillot—Paganini: his predecessors, his life and fame, his playing, and his compositions—Ludwig Spohr: his style and his compositions; his pupils—Viennese violinists: Franz Clement, Mayseder, Boehm, Ernst and others—The Belgian school: De Bériot and Vieuxtemps—Other violinist composers: Wieniawski, Molique, Joachim, Sarasate, Ole Bull; music of the violinist-composers in general—Violin music of the great masters. | ||
| Part V. Chamber Music | ||
| XIV. | The Beginnings of Chamber Music | [467] |
| The term ‘chamber music’; fifteenth-century dances; lute music, early suites; vocal ‘chamber music’—Early ‘sonatas’: Gabrieli; Rossi; Marini; etc.—Vitali, Veracini, Bassani and Corelli; Corelli’s pupils; Vivaldi; Bach and Handel. | ||
| XV. | The First Period of the String Quartet | [486] |
| The four-part habit of writing in instrumental forms—Pioneers of the string quartet proper: Richter, Boccherini and Haydn; Haydn’s early quartets—The Viennese era of the string quartet; Haydn’s Sonnen quartets; his ‘Russian’ quartets; his later quartets—W. A. Mozart; Sammartini’s influence; Mozart’s early (Italian) quartets; Viennese influences; Mozart’s Viennese quartets—His last quartets and their harmonic innovations. | ||
| XVI. | The String Quartet: Beethoven | [509] |
| Beethoven’s approach to the string quartet; incentives; the six quartets opus 18—The Rasumowsky quartets; opera 74 and 95—The great development period; the later quartets, op. 127 et seq.: The E-flat major (op. 127)—The A minor (op. 132); the B-flat major (op. 130); the C-sharp minor (op. 131); the F major (op. 135). | ||
| XVII. | The String Ensemble Since Beethoven | [534] |
| The general trend of development: Spohr, Cherubini, Schubert—Mendelssohn, Schumann and Brahms, etc.—New developments: César Franck, d’Indy, Chausson—The characteristics of the Russian schools: Tschaikowsky, Borodine, Glazounoff and others—Other national types: Grieg, Smetana, Dvořák—The three great quartets since Schubert and what they represent; modern quartets and the new quartet style: Debussy, Ravel, Schönberg—Conclusion. | ||
| XVIII. | The Pianoforte and Other Instruments in Chamber Music | [573] |
| The trio—Pianoforte quartets and quintets—Sonatas for violoncello and piano—The piano with wind instruments—Chamber music for wind instruments by the great composers. |
ILLUSTRATIONS IN VOLUME SEVEN
| ‘Home Concert’ painting by Fritz von Uhde (in colors) | [Frontispiece] |
| FACING PAGE | |
| The Virginal and the Gravicembalo | [8] |
| The Clavichord and the Harpsichord | [8] |
| Title page of Kuhnau’s ‘Neue Clavier-Übung’ | [32] |
| Fac-simile of Bach’s Manuscript of the Prelude in C major (Well-Tempered Clavichord) | [80] |
| Harpsichord Composers (D. Scarlatti, Couperin, C. P. E. Bach, Clementi) | [110] |
| Beethoven’s Broadwood Piano | [156] |
| Pianoforte Classics (Moscheles, Czerny, Hummel, Field) | [182] |
| Caricature of Johannes Brahms on His Way to the ‘Red Porcupine’ | [238] |
| Frédéric Chopin (after painting by Ary Scheffler) | [268] |
| Anton Rubinstein’s Hand | [332] |
| Famous Pianists (d’Albert, Busoni, Gabrilowitch, Paderewski) | [364] |
| Relatives of the Violin | [372] |
| Stradivarius at Work | [386] |
| Great Violin Composers (Corelli, Vivaldi, Tartini) | [398] |
| Caricature Statuette of Paganini | [438] |
| Great Violinists (Wieniawski, Joachim, Vieuxtemps, de Bériot) | [448] |
| Modern Violinists (Sarasate, Kreisler, Ysaye, Thibaut) | [464] |
| ‘The Concert’; painting by Terborch (in colors) | [476] |
| Pioneers of the String Quartet (Boccherini, Haydn,Richter and Dittersdorf) | [488] |
| Ludwig Spohr | [536] |
| The Flonzaley Quartet | [550] |
| Great 'Cellists (Popper, Gerardi, Casals) | [596] |
| Arnold Schönberg | [602] |
PIANOFORTE AND CHAMBER MUSIC
CHAPTER I
KEYBOARD INSTRUMENTS AND THE DEVELOPMENT OF
KEYBOARD TECHNIQUE
Keyboard instruments and their derivation; the clavichord and its mechanism; the harpsichord and its relatives, virginal, cembalo, etc.; technique and use of the harpsichord—The beginnings of harpsichord music; the Gabrielis and Merulo; early forms; the influence of harmony and the crystallization of form—Frescobaldi and other organist-composers for harpsichord; early English virginal collections; John Bull, etc.—Genesis of the suite; influence of lute-music; Froberger, Denis Gaultier, etc.; Kuhnau—Development of the harpsichord ‘style’; great players: Chambonnières, etc.
I
The foundations of pianoforte music were laid during the second half of the sixteenth century and throughout the seventeenth, with the foundations of instrumental music in general. Though there were at this time no pianofortes, there were three keyboard instruments, all of which not only took their part in the development of instrumental music, but more especially prepared the way for the great instrument of their kind which was yet unborn. These were the organ, the harpsichord, and the clavichord.
The organ was then, as now, primarily an instrument of the church, though there were small, portable organs called regals, which were often used for chamber music and even as a part of accompaniment, together with other instruments, in the early operas. With the history of its construction we shall not concern ourselves here (see Vol. VI, Chap. XIV). From the middle of the fourteenth century Venice had been famous for her organists, because the organs in St. Mark’s cathedral were probably the best in Europe. Up to the end of the seventeenth century they were very imperfect. Improvements were slow. Great as was the rôle taken by the organ all over Europe, from the basilica of St. Peter’s in Rome to the northern town of Lübeck in Germany, the action was hard and uneven, the tuning beset with difficulties. But the organ was the prototype of all keyboard instruments. Upon the imperfect organs of those days composers built up the keyboard style of music.
The harpsichords and the clavichords were what one might call the domestic substitutes for the organ. Of these the clavichord was perhaps slightly the older instrument. Its origin is somewhat obscure, though it is easy to see in it the union of the organ keyboard with strings, on the principle of that ancient darling of the theorists, the monochord, the great and undisputed ruler over intervals of musical pitch, from the days of Pythagoras down throughout the Middle Ages. This monochord was hardly an instrument. It was a single string stretched over a movable bridge. By shifting the bridge the string could be stopped off into different lengths, which gave out, when plucked, different pitches of sound. The relative lengths of the stopped string offered a simple mathematical basis for the classification of musical intervals.