Take, for instance, the B flat minor Sonata, in which Chopin most nearly approximates to the 'grand manner' of composition. The first movement, regarded by itself, is a masterpiece; its exposition clear and concise, its subjects well contrasted, one for thematic treatment and one for melody, its free fantasia an admirable example of an established type, and its recapitulation, though a little too short for perfect balance, a firm and lucid statement which sums up its results without a bar of vagueness or uncertainty. Not less complete is the Scherzo, which develops the simple forms of Mozart and Beethoven without obscuring their outline, and, despite all its rush and vigour, never allows its themes to get out of hand or to pass beyond the legitimate bounds of control. But from this point the value of the Sonata steadily declines. Schumann undoubtedly hits the blot when he declares that the great Funeral March ought never to have formed part of the work at all. As a separate piece it is of incomparable beauty; as the adagio of this particular Sonata it is wholly out of place. Its key is ill selected in relation to the rest of the composition; its contrasts of theme bear too much resemblance to those of the first movement; worst of all, its form is precisely the same as that of the Scherzo; and these objections, not one of which affects the movement in itself, are no less than fatal to it in its present context. The Finale, again, has neither the breadth nor the dignity requisite for its position. Its structure, though perfectly clear, is too simple and primitive to justify it as the fitting conclusion of an important work; and its persistent rhythmic figure gives it somewhat the air of an impromptu. If we had found it in the Volume of Preludes, we should have felt for it nothing but admiration; here, its inadequacy is so obvious that the greater part of critical attention has been distracted from its undeniable merits. In short, the first half of the Sonata gives promise of a Classic such as, with one exception, the world had not seen since the death of Beethoven; the second half, though almost every bar contains something that is beautiful, is a disappointment and a failure. Icarus has flown too near the sun, and the borrowed wings have no longer the strength to support him.
This want of manliness, moral and intellectual, marks the one great limitation of Chopin's province. It is, of course, wholly unreasonable to make it a subject of complaint; we might as well complain of Keats for not being Milton; or depreciate Carpaccio because the genius of Titian has the wider expanse. The lines of Endymion are not less musical because the poem, as a whole, falls below the epic level, and if they were, we have 'La Belle Dame sans Merci,' and the Sonnets and the five Odes. The Saint Ursula pictures are not less sweet and gracious because they lack the majesty of the 'Assumption;' and if they were, we could solace ourselves with the 'St George' and the 'St Jerome.' And similarly, if we accept from Chopin what he has to give, we shall be in no mind to bear malice for what he is forced to withhold. His passion is so keen and vital, his melody so winning, his love of beauty so single-hearted, that to demand the sterner qualities is almost an act of ingratitude. He knows the full secret of that mysterious power—so easy to feel, so impossible to define—through which music fulfils its function of suggesting and typifying emotion. He can appeal to our sensuous nature with a mastery which is almost irresistible, and he never degrades the appeal into vulgarity or sensationalism. Under his spell even the display of technical difficulty acquires life and significance. His Studies, avowedly classed as exercises of dexterity, stand to those of other writers as pictures to freehand drawing. His 'virtuoso passages' differ from those of Herz, and Hunten, and even Thalberg, as a pianoforte differs from a barrel-organ. In his lightest moment he is a poet: graceful in fancy, felicitous in expression, and instinct with the living spirit of romance.
There is hardly need to select examples of a gift which he exhibits on almost every page, yet a few typical instances may serve to concentrate our attention for a moment on the characteristic features of his melody, and to show the particular way in which he fulfilled the first requisite of a composer. Apart from works already considered, some special study may be given to the two Nocturnes, Op. 37, to the Ballade in A flat, to the second and third Impromptus, to the wonderful Étude in F minor, written for Moscheles, and to the fourth, eighth, fifteenth, nineteenth and twenty-third of the Preludes. These compositions are chosen, not because they are more tuneful than the rest—that is a question upon which every hearer must consult his own judgment—but because their elements of tunefulness seem to be in an eminent degree central and representative. No doubt many favourites will be found missing from the catalogue, the Prelude in C minor, the Nocturne in D flat, the more famous of the Waltzes and Polonaises; they have been purposely omitted, because, with all their beauty, they only contain tendencies of thought and manner which the list already exemplifies. As a rule, except for an occasional appoggiatura, Chopin keeps his melody within the strict limits of the diatonic scale, or of some equally diatonic ecclesiastical mode, and uses his chromatic effects sometimes for the accompaniment figure, sometimes for the subsequent thematic treatment. His tunes, for the most part, are as simple in outline as folk-songs, and the moods which they imply, whether melancholy, tender, playful or passionate, are an outcome of the more direct personal emotions. Sometimes his thought is as transparent as that of a child, and appeals to our sympathy with all a child's unquestioning and irresistible confidence. Sometimes he strikes a deeper note with a no less frank, outspoken freedom of disclosure. And always, whether severe or vehement, whether gay or dejected, he offers for our admiration the same perfection of curve, the same delicate balance of rhythm, and the same plasticity of melodic stanza.
There are two characteristics in Chopin's music which deserve some detailed consideration,—first, his sense of harmony; second, his use of accompaniment figures. No doubt, as standpoints for general criticism, they are not of parallel importance; the one implies a habit of mind as a whole, the other denotes a degree of technical skill and technical efficiency. But in both respects Chopin occupies a position so far apart from that of other composers—in both his manner is so original, so unique, so far removed from common or customary ways—that in his work they assume an almost equal value and interest. Again, in estimating their worth, we are dealing with a more definite and concrete material than when we endeavour to outline with words the impalpable spirit of melody. The tunes of a musician, though they constitute the chief part of his gift, constitute also that part which least admits of any profitable discussion; and the very qualities, through which alone they are susceptible of analysis, can be more easily noted and appraised in the secondary functions of treatment and elaboration. We cannot gauge the success of an effort unless we have already ascertained its intention; and the intention, though not always obscure in melody, is undoubtedly clearer to trace in the polyphonic scheme by which melody is supported and sustained.
Now, when we examine Chopin's harmony, we are at once struck with an apparent contradiction. We feel that, in its broader aspects, it is wonderfully pure and lucid, flowing along an established course, deviating but little from the simpler and more ordinary progressions. Yet every now and again we come across passages, the sight of which is enough to make orthodox professors of music 'stare and gasp;'—passages which seem to break with resolute and unflinching defiance the elementary rules that stand at the beginning of our text-books. Worst of all, these apparent solecisms, the commission of which by any other hand would be wholly intolerable, offer themselves to our notice as though they were the most natural and regular forms of expression. They are not obvious slips, like the 'misprint' in the Ninth Symphony; they are not importations from some alien musical language, like the occasional extravagances of Grieg or Dvořák; on the contrary, they take our recognised system of harmonic laws, and literally honour it more in the breach than the observance. Are consecutive fifths and octaves forbidden? There is, in one of the Études, a delightful passage, which consists exclusively of the prohibited intervals.[43] Are consecutive major thirds justly regarded as harsh and dissonant? Chopin, at his dreamiest and most contemplative, can employ them with unfailing effect.[44] Is the dominant seventh a chord which, to all well-regulated ears, demands instant resolution? The twenty-first Mazurka rejects the claim, and sends one floating down four bars of chromatic scale with no hope of rest until it reaches the bottom. And the manner of composition which these instances exemplify can be traced in plenty of other phrases, less extreme, perhaps, but not less audacious. In parts of the fourth and sixth Nocturnes we can find harmonic schemes which it is probable no other musician would have ever dared to devise, schemes which set at naught our established distinctions of concord and discord, which display in unbroken series artifices that are usually kept for single isolated points of excitement, and which, nevertheless, are as undoubtedly intentional as they are undeniably successful in their aim.
There is no shirking the difficulty. Here is a composer who is brought up on Bach, and whose general sense of harmony is as pure and sincere as that of his great master. Here are passages, written by him with obvious care and deliberation, the acceptance of which would seem impossible without throwing discredit on the harmonic code. And, as climax of bewilderment, the code is right and the passages are beautiful. It may certainly appear for the moment as though there were no solution in view unless we take a despairing refuge in some Hegelian identification of opposites.
Now, the impression which harmony produces is that of a third dimension in Music. It is the element of solidity and substance on which the melody rests. In a Chorale, for instance, the tune describes a sort of pattern on the superficies of the work, and the chords sustain and support it from underneath. And just as certain tunes can give us the effect of breadth, that is, of wide sweep over their superficial area, so certain harmonisations give us the effect of massiveness, that is, of strength and bulk in its substratum. It is not, of course, pretended that the artistic value of a composition can be summed up in so crude a metaphor: nothing more is attempted than to represent the one factor in the case, which is germane to the present purpose. Further, all the harmonic rules have been devised with a view to making the solid body of the Music as firm and compact as possible. They deal with the substratum, not with the superficies; with the perpendicular aspect, not with the horizontal. The law of consecutives is not held to be broken if in an orchestral piece a violin phrase is doubled by the violoncello or the bassoon: such a device gives us the lines of the pattern in duplicate, and lies altogether outside the material on which the pattern is superimposed. So in these disputed passages of Chopin. They are not really harmonic at all, they lie in the same plane as the melody, and, for their support, imply a separate and distinct scheme of chords, which the ear can always understand for itself.
A few examples may help to make this clearer. In the twelfth bar of the well-known Nocturne in E flat (Op. 9, No. 2), there is a connecting passage which, when we see it on paper, seems to consist of a rapid series of remote and recondite modulations. When we hear it played in the manner which Chopin intended, we feel that there is only one real modulation, and that the rest of the passage is an iridescent play of colour, an effect of superficies, not an effect of substance. Precisely the same impression is produced in the middle section of the sixth Nocturne, and in the return to the opening theme at the end of the fifteenth. So it is with these apparent consecutives. They are not ungrammatical, because, like the Emperor Sigismund, they are 'supra grammaticam:' they do not defy harmonic laws because they belong to a different jurisdiction: in a word, they are to be treated not as harmonisations of their theme, but rather as new forms of melodic extension. Their real harmony is implied, not expressed: a construction to be understood from the general context and tenour of the passage: and it is because the general tenour is unmistakable that these 'sense constructions' are fully justified. Chopin's harmonic system, in short, is like a river—its surface windswept into a thousand variable crests and eddies, its current moving onward, full, steadfast and inevitable, bearing the whole volume of its waters by sheer force of depth and impetus.
Hence it is that of all musicians he is most at the mercy of his interpreters. Beethoven's Adelaide is 'so beautiful' that not even Mr du Maurier's tenor 'can make it ridiculous:' but there are few of us who have not seen Chopin crushed out of recognition in the grasp of some conscientious and heavy-handed pianist. These surface-effects lose all their charm if they are played with stress and insistance, if they are forced down into a third dimension, which they were never intended to fill. There is much of Chopin's music in which solidity of execution is as fatal as strictness of time; in which the phrases are essentially light, wayward, aerial, demanding for their interpretation not only the most flexible sympathy of feeling, but the daintiest delicacy of touch. Even Moscheles, great musician as he was, found himself baffled by the new style. 'Chopin has just been playing to me,' he writes, 'and now for the first time I understand his music. The rubato, which, with his other interpreters, degenerates into disregard of time, is with him only a charming originality of manner: the harsh modulations which strike me disagreeably when I am playing his compositions no longer shock me, because he glides over them in a fairy-like way with his delicate fingers. His piano is so soft that he does not need any strong forte to produce his contrasts: and for this reason one does not miss the orchestral effects which the German school requires from a pianoforte player, but allows oneself to be carried away as by a singer who, little concerned about the accompaniment, entirely follows his emotion.' We of the present day may express ourselves with more warmth of approbation; but if we wish to understand Chopin, this is the standpoint from which we must regard him.