Studies in Modern Music, Second Series / Frederick Chopin, Antonin Dvořák, Johannes Brahms

by W. H. Hadow

Secondly, the Music may directly contradict our anticipation by diverting an apparently straightforward passage into an unforeseen channel. Under this head come all effects of surprise, all sudden modulations, all unusual cadences and unexpected turns of phrase. An amusing instance is the change from A minor to D flat major in the 'Pro Peccatis' of Rossini's Stabat Mater, which is almost as irresistible as a joke from Aristophanes: a far more august and magnificent example is the great Neapolitan sixth, which, in the first movement of Beethoven's A major Symphony, comes just before the cadence phrase in the exposition. Indeed, the device may be used for purposes of humour, as it is in Mr Aldrich's delightful story of Marjory Daw, or for purposes of romance, as it is by Victor Hugo in 'Le Roi s'amuse.' The finale of Beethoven's Eighth Symphony contains a distinct effect of comedy in the unexpected C sharp, which persistently intrudes itself among other people's keys, until at last it worries the orchestra into accepting it. On the other hand, the slow movement of Dvořák's F-minor Trio notably exemplifies the romantic use. No one who has ever heard it can forget the last page: the innocent diatonic opening of the melody, and the abrupt, bewildering change which follows in its second bar. It is obvious that the sense of incongruity, which stimulates all astonishment, may, under different conditions, arouse either laughter or apprehension: and both these effects lie well within the range of musical art. They form, in fact, two of the most important emotional types which it has the power of adumbrating: not, of course, by depicting any humorous scene or suggesting any particular terror, but by administering the appropriate kind of nervous shock. Grant that if a man knows nothing at all about music, he will form no expectations, and consequently will never be either astonished or amused. It does not follow that his limitations are representative of the human race. One might as well argue that there is no fun in a French comedy, because none was detected by Mr Anstey's British audience.

Thirdly, the music may baffle anticipation by suggesting alternatives and throwing us in doubt as to the selection that it is going to make. After a little experience, we come to learn that there are certain typical shapes of melodic stanza, certain common devices of modulation, certain forms of cadence which are in ordinary use. Hence, when we listen to a new work, we frame a half-conscious forecast of probabilities, and the composer, if he has the skill, may stimulate our minds by offering two or three possible issues and defying us to determine which he means ultimately to accept. This is the highest form which the prospective effect in Music can assume, and is roughly parallel to ingenuity of plot in narrative or dramatic literature. For example, a common type of four-line stanza in music opens with a clear-cut phrase, then repeats it a degree higher or a degree lower in the scale, then goes on to the clause of contrast, and finally returns to the original key. So when we hear the central tune in Chopin's F minor Fantasia, and find that its first two strains exactly correspond to this pattern, we feel that we know already how it is going to proceed, and settle ourselves to watch our expectations fulfilled. But Chopin knows better, and gives us a third strain which, instead of embodying the clause of contrast, consists of another repetition of the same phrase, a tone lower still. By this time we begin to wonder whether the tune is going to be entirely homogeneous in style, and whether, in the one strain that is left to complete the stanza it can possibly get back without awkwardness to the key from which it has strayed. Both these doubts are solved in the most masterly fashion by the concluding line, which not only carries the modulation with consummate ease, but completes the organic outline of the melody with the daintiest delicacy and finish. Again, in Grieg's F major Violin Sonata, the principal theme of the middle movement seems to get into inextricable difficulties of phraseology, and we listen to it with the same apprehensive interest with which we look on at the imbroglio in Evan Harrington. But at precisely the right moment there appears a new cadence, which would never have occurred to anyone but Grieg, and the difficulties are cleared away as if by magic. It is hardly necessary to point out that Bach and Beethoven are equally rich in this kind of musical resourcefulness. The harmonic progressions of the one, the melodic form of the other, constantly suggest a balance of alternative issues, and as constantly make the selection which the hearer finally acknowledges as the best.

The same rule holds good in the matter of key distribution. When the sonata form was young, the key of its second subject was fixed by an almost unalterable convention: if the movement was in a major mode, it was the dominant, if in a minor mode, it was the relative major. Hence the audiences of Haydn and Mozart always expected the same key system, and were hardly ever disappointed. But Beethoven, from the outset of his career, broke through this traditional arrangement, and so began by surprising his hearers, and ended by making their intelligence co-operate with his own. Take, for instance, the first movement of the Hammerclavier Sonata. The first subject is in B flat, and the transition after modulating to its dominant F, proceeds with a vehement and emphatic assertion of the new key, as though Beethoven intended to revert to the customary usage, which, it must be remembered, he often follows. But the very emphasis makes the hearer suspicious. It is not in Beethoven's manner to underline his keys with so much flourish and ostentation: perhaps, after all, appearances are deceitful, and he is only throwing us off the scent. Then our uncertainty is artfully intensified by an interpolation of the opening theme, which, at this stage of the movement, is the last thing in the world that we expect; and immediately after it comes a modulation to G major, and a presentation of the second subject in that key. The anticipation of this event is an exercise of critical sagacity not dissimilar to that afforded by a novel of Balzac or a play of Shakespear. In the famous scene of Madame Marneffe's confession, we are half-cheated into believing that the woman's repentance is real, though we know that its reality is rendered impossible by all laws of characterisation. When Lear decides between his three daughters, we feel that Cordelia's coldness of manner has raised a false issue which the subsequent development of the drama will correct. In short, the true function of structure, whether it be in literature or in music, is to set before us two competing impulses and bid us reflect upon them.

But it may be urged that a musical composition can only surprise or baffle on the first occasion: after that we remember what is coming, and can foretell the end as readily as the composer himself. This view pays an undeserved compliment to the capacities of human nature. The average listener does not really hear a work of any complexity the first time that it is performed in his presence: he apprehends more or less of it according to the degree of his ability or experience, but there will certainly be effects that escape his notice, and, if the composition be truly organic, those effects will be vital to the appreciation of the whole. Indeed, we have here one of the most obvious tests of a great work. We grow tired of a trivial melody or a shallow fantasia, for it tells us its whole secret at a single hearing: but we may spend our lives over Bach's Fugues or Beethoven's Symphonies without ever hoping to exhaust their limitless reserve. Again, we are not such creatures of pure logic that an effect once produced in us is incapable of repetition. We may know our Shakespear by heart, and yet be moved by the humour of Falstaff and the pathos of Imogen, by the subtle questionings of Hamlet and the frenzied self-accusations of Othello. So in listening to great Music we often allow ourselves to be carried away by the impulse of the moment: we forget that we know what is going to happen, or expect it in a new mood and from a new standpoint. There are many avenues by which the sense of novelty can be approached, and among them not the least important is that of our own imagination. No doubt this influence would be seriously impaired if we were to hear the same passage day after day and hour after hour, but this, of course, we are never called upon to do. With the present range and variety of our musical literature, an effect that is genuinely striking may be weakened by familiarity, but can hardly be ever wholly obliterated.

It will thus be seen that the manner in which we are impressed by Music is enormously complex. First, there is the sensuous appeal, the different characteristics of timbre and tone, of rich harmony and full orchestration, of all those devices which are usually described in metaphors of taste and colour. Second, and inclusive of the first, is the emotional appeal, the exhilaration of rapid movement, the gravity of stately chords and broad diatonic melody, the restlessness of broken rhythm and frequent modulation, the shades of surprise which follow upon a sudden change or an unexpected crisis. Third, and inclusive of the other two, is the intellectual appeal, the exhibition of balance and symmetry in the management of these several effects, the definiteness of plan and design, the vitality and proportion of organic growth. If to these be added the two supreme requirements of originality in the composer and of fitness to the occasion of display, we shall have at any rate a rough criterion for determining work that, in the truest sense of the term, is classic. In thus summing-up results, it is almost a presumption for any writer to suggest illustrations: but if it be permissible to point to masterpieces, in which these principles are embodied with absolute and unfaltering perfection, we may select, as typical instances, the choral numbers from Bach's B minor Mass, the Seventh Symphony of Beethoven, and Brahms' Schicksalslied.

Before leaving this subject, of which, indeed, only the outer courts have been trodden, there are three objections which it may be advisable to meet. The first would discard the whole analysis as a piece of a priori inference. As a matter of fact, it would say, the hearer does not trouble himself about these elaborate questions, he does not follow the subtleties of style or the coherence of key-system, he does not anticipate the course which a passage is going to adopt, he simply listens to the music, and enjoys it, because he finds it pleasant. It is idle to suppose that a man cannot admire Beethoven without being prepared to pass an examination in the technicalities of abstract science. This objection is wholly beside the mark. Men reasoned correctly long before Aristotle invented the syllogism, but none the less his theory of the syllogism is an analysis of correct reasoning. In like manner the unscientific hearer may be totally unconscious of the causes which underlie his enjoyment, and yet the causes themselves be both operative and capable of analysis. The laws of musical philosophy, like those of physiological science, are not artificial subtleties: they are an attempt to explain the ordinary conditions of health, and every man who has the taste to prefer one tune to another must necessarily have made reference, however unconscious, to some principles of discrimination. Indeed this argument from ignorance has already been anticipated in a parallel form. 'Voici quarante ans que je dis de la prose,' says M. Jourdain, 'sans que j'en susse rien.'

The second objection is of more interest. Grant, it may be said, that our analysis enables us in some measure to explain the supreme masterpieces of Music, there will still remain a wide range of lower achievements with which it would appear wholly inadequate to deal. If a composition is weak in structure or careless in style, it has failed to satisfy our test, but we have no right to infer that it is without value. On the contrary, an imperfect work may often survive in spite of its imperfections, and may counterbalance its worst errors by some attractiveness of charm or some inherent vitality of thought. In Jane Eyre are faults which would have killed a novel of less genius, but the reviewers who condemned it are now only remembered as carping and illiberal pedants. Shelley may be 'ineffectual,' and Keats 'immature,' but the most adverse critic can no longer deny the beauty that they have added to English literature. And in like manner we shall find musical compositions which fall short of the highest level, which fail to attain the most satisfying completeness of organic form, and which yet deliver a message that is well worth the hearing. There is a broad expanse between the summit of Olympus, where the gods have their habitation, and the low-lying meadows and valleys of our ordinary life.

In such a case we can only judge fairly by a careful balance of merits and defects, and, above all, by a careful revision of our standpoint in relation to both. It may be that the structure which we regard as inorganic is really a new type of organism, a further development along the line which we have already traced. It may be that the style which appears careless, has really some subtle method which we are as yet too clumsy to detect. And even if we are honestly unable to convince ourselves of error, even if our certitude only grows and gathers as we study the passage afresh, it by no means follows that the fault which we have noted is a final ground for condemnation. There can be no perfection without entire control of resource, but control is notoriously difficult in proportion to the variety and novelty of the emotional expression. Hence the more complex and striking the ideas which a composer wishes to embody, the harder he will find it to present them in a supreme artistic form. In Schumann, to take the highest example at once, we sometimes seem to find a great thought struggling with an intractable medium: we feel rather than hear what it is that he wishes to express, we apprehend his meaning from broken phrases and incomplete suggestions. Compare his symphonies with those of Beethoven, and you see the baffled Titanic strength beside the serene unerring mastery of the divine hand. Yet, if it be failure, it is noble failure, better by far than the elaboration of smooth commonplaces and finished platitudes. It is not carelessness but preoccupation, not unskilfulness but audacity, not scantiness of resource but prodigality of expenditure. Schumann's music is always manly, forcible, genuine, and it is no serious dispraise to say that in the larger forms he is a less perfect artist than he is in his lyrics.

Here, then, we may see the solution of the present problem. All music which appeals to us as true has for us a certain measure of value. It is only conceit and dishonesty, and self-conscious artifice, that merit absolute and unqualified reprobation: for the rest we may appraise our work partly in reference to its particular purpose, partly by an estimate of the success with which its object is attained. If it present any passage of real interest, we owe it a corresponding debt of gratitude: if it counterbalance a fault of one kind by a beauty of another, then criticism should determine which of the two has the more important bearing on the case. But there can be no sound judgment without a code, and no code in music without a recognition and acknowledgment of its masterpieces. Thus the analysis of perfect art does not preclude us from the consideration of art that is imperfect, for it is only through the former that the latter is possible.