Here, perhaps, among the Germans mention may be made of Arnold Schönberg. He has written two sets of pianoforte pieces, the second of which is the more remarkable. His genius is polyphonic, therefore his music of this kind does not bring out the subtle qualities of the piano which appealed to Chopin and which Debussy has further revealed. His pianoforte compositions may be considered as a household arrangement and presentation of his extraordinary theories, hardly as music suggested by the instrument itself.
Evidently the Romantic movement in Germany, having expressed itself almost thoroughly in pianoforte music through Schumann, passed on to a new expression through Wagner, whose powerful genius, flying wide of the keyboard, has since presided over and shaped the future of German music. Only with Brahms, then, has the piano spoken a new word in its own tongue.
II
After the middle of the nineteenth century an effort becomes noticeable in many nations to inject some freshness or newness into music by employing harmonies, turns of melodies and odd rhythms of a distinctly local or national flavor. Awaiting the advent of a new genius of international significance who should revolutionize music, or resurrect it from a stagnation little better than death, such an effort toward national expression was the most successful safeguard against imitation and subservience. Moreover, it was productive of enthusiasm, which is a quality of youth in music. Accepting forms and technique as matters of course, composers threw themselves with joy into the expression of the spirit of their beloved land.
Naturally in those countries which had inherited from the ages a store of folk-music the new movement was the most striking. Scandinavia and Russia were especially rich in such an endowment. Their folk-songs were strongly marked and individual, and in so far as their composers drew upon them the new music was differentiated from music founded upon the classical German examples. In both Scandinavia and Russia composers were divided. Some regarded this folk-material with disdain and adhered to a faith in the inexhaustibleness of traditional inspiration. Others threw themselves heart and soul into the music of their nation, with a flaming ambition to reveal its unique beauties and power to the world.
Among the Scandinavians Niels Gade (1817-1890) first claims attention as a composer for the pianoforte. And yet only for a moment. His pianoforte pieces, including several sets of short pieces—Frühlingsblumen, opus 2, Aquarellen, opus 19, and Volkstänze, opus 31, one Arabesque, opus 27, and a sonata, opus 28—have but the faintest touch of the music of Denmark. Even the Volkstänze are urbane and refined. It was against this subservience to Mendelssohn that Edvard Grieg rebelled. Grieg, therefore, who had no more skill than Gade, and perhaps was fundamentally no more richly gifted, stands out somewhat brilliantly among the composers for the pianoforte since the time of Schumann, Chopin, and Liszt. His music is sharply defined by national idioms. Whatever the value of his own personality may be, his music is thus given a definite shape and an independence, those signs of character which are unfortunately but very feebly displayed in the music of most of the German post-romanticists.
The proof that this definiteness was acceptable to the world is to be found in the persistent popularity of Grieg’s pianoforte compositions. Most of these are in short forms and are relatively easy to play; which facts must also be held in some measure responsible for their popularity. There are several sets of ‘Lyrical Pieces,’ the best of which are opera 12, 38, 43, and 47. The later sets, opera 54, 57, 62, 65, and 68, show a falling off which is noticeable in all of Grieg’s work after middle life. There is a set of ‘Humoresques,’ some Northern Dances, and some ‘Album Leaves.’
It may be said of these in general that they are neatly composed, clearly phrased and balanced, sometimes polished; and that they are well-written for the keyboard. The spice of all is in the national idiosyncrasies of Norwegian music: the peculiar melodic avoidance of the sixth and second notes of the scale and the harmonies which result from such omissions; persistent rhythms emphasized by empty fifths in the bass, or by repetitions of short phrases with almost a barbaric effect; an interchanging of groups of two and three notes; finally a general harmonic boldness in which the bodily shifting of the music from one degree of the scale to another is prominent, and a host of odd accents.
There are several longer works in which these national characteristics are not less obvious, but in which they are so expanded and interwoven as to make less strikingly folk-music. Among these must be mentioned the sonata in E minor, opus 7, the concerto in A minor, opus 16, the Ballade, opus 24, and the suite, Aus Holberg’s Zeit, opus 40. The sonata is well written, and the classical form is well sustained in the first movement. One does not find organic development, but, on the other hand, one finds no empty service music. The themes and the transitional passages are full of life, and strongly Norwegian. There is, unhappily, a dreary passage in 6/8 time in the development section which makes a dull use in the bass of the second phrase of the first theme. The coda is in brilliant pianoforte style. The poetic slow movement is also well-scored. The minuet is a Norwegian dance and the finale is stormy.
The concerto may be taken as the finest of Grieg’s pianoforte works. It is a treasured addition to the stock of concertos, valued not only for the piquancy of Norwegian rhythms and harmonies, but for a successful handling of the form, a brilliant and yet a poetical treatment of both pianoforte and orchestra. Norway speaks in all the themes and in very nearly all the figures as well, but she speaks through a man who shows himself here a sensitive poet and a skillful artist. There seems to be a touch of Schumann in the first part of the first movement.