The Ballade is in the form of variations on a Norwegian theme. It is in many respects the best of his works for the piano, though the treatment of the keyboard nowhere shows originality. The influence of the Variations sérieuses of Mendelssohn is strikingly evident. The theme itself, for all its plaintive Norwegian character, is so near the type of the theme in the Mendelssohn variations as perhaps to suggest to Grieg the same treatment of it. The sixth, seventh, eighth and ninth variations are especially à la Mendelssohn, as far as treatment is concerned. After these, however, he seems to have forsaken the Variations sérieuses for Schumann’s ‘Symphonic Variations.’ Nevertheless, the work as a whole is Grieg, and only the external features suggest the home from which some of its glory may have trailed. The last variations are broad in style and fiery, hardly suggestive of the miniature perfection of the earlier shorter pieces.
From the Holberg suite one picks out the prelude as a fine piece of pianoforte music. The other movements are effective and pleasing, but the prelude is worthiest of Holberg. The suite as a whole reminds one of a classic temple, flying the flag of Norway.
No other Norwegian composer has been so widely popular as Grieg. It is true that already amateur and professional alike have discovered the sameness of his mannerisms and his procedure; but such compositions as the concerto and the ballade are strong enough to bear the music above these heavy shackles. They are fairly to be considered as contributions to the literature of the instrument of unusual worth.
Christian Sinding enjoys a popularity second among Norwegian composers only to that of Grieg. He has more cosmopolitan predilections, and he has worked in broader forms. Perhaps for those reasons he is less distinctive. However, most of his pianoforte music has been cast in short forms—usually a little more developed than those of Grieg. There are numerous sets of three or of six pieces, of studies, of interludes, of odd little caprices, dances and scherzos. The set opus 32 contains the Marche grotesque and the Frühlingsrauschen, among the best known of his compositions. All the Mélodies mignonnes, opus 52, and several of the caprices among the fifteen published as opus 54, are interesting. He shows an understanding of keyboard effects, usually in the broad style, with sharp accents, wide-flowing runs, and chords; but there is a sameness about his music which seems to spring from a lack of ingenuity in rhythm and in phrase building. He is technically far more skillful than Grieg, but his pianoforte music lacks the individuality which Grieg’s invariably has. Sinding’s concerto in D-flat, opus 6, is a big and brilliant work, ingeniously wrought upon a single idea, but it lacks the highly colored spirit and life of Grieg’s.
III
The Russian composers of the last half century have almost without exception written something for the pianoforte; but their national characteristics have found a more vivid expression in orchestral music and music for the theatre than in keyboard music. Their technique has been the technique of Liszt and Chopin, and a great part of them have written in the style of Schumann. The national fervor did not kindle all to the same intensity. Rubinstein and Tschaikowsky represent almost two nationalities, and yet even Tschaikowsky held himself aloof from the enthusiasms of the great Five.
From the pen of Glinka, the leader of the Russians, their first pioneer, there was no pianoforte music. But his friend, the equally famous Dargomyzhsky, wrote a Tarantella, for three hands,[38] which Liszt transcribed. Thus enter the Russians into the history of pianoforte music, at a time when Schumann, Chopin, and Liszt had about exhausted the possibilities of expression on the keyboard in terms of music as it was then, and was for fifty years more to be understood.
Nevertheless each of the great five, Balakireff, Borodine, Moussorgsky, Rimsky-Korsakoff, and César Cui, has contributed more or less to the keyboard. The ‘Islamey Fantasy’ of Balakireff is perhaps the most brilliant and the most significant work of the lot. The themes are original, but they have the strong Oriental coloring which has given to much of Russian music its splendor. This fantasy has a sort of barbaric power. The first section is built up out of countless repetitions of a short motive, most brilliantly scored, which whirls and whirls like the dervishes until we are mad as they. And this is resumed again, after a somewhat more tranquil section, and whirled more and more madly, until the time seems to break, and give way to a stamping. It is the work of a lover of folk-music as well as a man who knew the piano almost as well as Liszt did.
Balakireff’s pianoforte transcription of Glinka’s ‘A Life for the Czar’ is a masterpiece of its kind, and there are transcriptions of Glinka’s songs as well. There are two scherzos, of which the second—in B-flat minor—is remarkable; a Concert Waltz dedicated to d’Albert, and a wonderful ‘Dumka.’
The others of this group were far less able pianists, and their contribution to the literature of the instrument was small. There is a set of variations by Rimsky-Korsakoff, and also a group of short pieces, opus 11, in the style of Schumann; and Moussorgsky wrote a Kinderscherz and an Intermezzo. There is a touch of Russian in these. The works of César Cui are even more cosmopolitan. They include a set of preludes, two suites, one dedicated to Liszt, the other to Leschetizsky, and a number of simple pieces, among them twelve Miniatures. But the Dumka and the Islamey of Balakireff stand far above all the other pianoforte music written by the five, not only from the point of view of style, but as an expression of national spirit.