Modern Musical Drift

by W. J. Henderson

The advance in orchestral writing in opera after this time is often erroneously attributed wholly to Wagner, but undoubtedly it is the king of all musical charlatans, Meyerbeer, who should have the lion's share of the honor. When Wagner was a young, struggling, and utterly unknown composer, seeking for an opening in Paris, he threw himself at the feet of Meyerbeer, who was the idol of both the French and the Prussian capitals. Meyerbeer's operas were already known throughout Europe, and to their cheap and tawdry orchestral effects the later composers no doubt owed the suggestion that with the orchestra much might be said that could not be given to the voices. Subsequently the leaven of Wagnerism permeated European musical art, but the despised Meyerbeer undoubtedly pointed out to many writers the path which led back toward the true source of Italian operatic composition.

For in the beginning of opera, Monteverde experimented with orchestral effects, chiefly descriptive, to be sure, but indicating what might be done. Lully afterward developed some ideas as to dramatic expression in the instrumental score, and these were further expanded by Gluck. The progress along this path was checked temporarily by the reaction in favor of cheap tunes for the display of voices. Verdi took up the development of the orchestral part of Italian opera where Rossini left off, and in his early works wrote in a style that bears more than a family resemblance to that of "William Tell." But Verdi was a man of broad vision, an assimilator of universal ideas, and he was not slow to recognize the drift of operatic art. He discerned the rising importance of the orchestral score and realized the full value of the instrumental adjunct. In "Aïda" he utilized to their utmost capacity its resources in coloring and in "Otello" he placed in the orchestra some of the most important and significant passages of his music,—passages which went further than anything in the setting of the text itself toward the complete explication of the emotions working in the drama. In "Falstaff" he used the orchestra as a commentator on the humor of every situation, and even succeeded in making it aid in the interpretation of Falstaff's ridiculous philosophy.

One has only to hearken for a minute to Mascagni's use of the basses in "Cavalleria Rusticana" to recognize the source of his knowledge. "Otello," with its wonderful bass recitative in the murder scene, was produced in 1887; "Cavalleria Rusticana" was brought out in 1890. Mascagni's dramatic treatment of the orchestral part of the lyric drama is no mere imitation, however; it is a part of the general movement in Italian opera which began with Verdi's "Aïda" and which may without difficulty be traced back through Boito's "Mefistofele" (of which the first version was produced in 1868) to Rossini's "William Tell." The advance was akin to that made in all species of music. The first experiments were in the direction of description by means of imitative figuration. These are what we find in "Tell." The allotment to the orchestra of the emotional background of the drama was bound to come later, in the natural order of things. Mascagni stands in the direct line of progress in this matter, and his contribution to the general results is, though small, nevertheless worthy of remark.

How much he and Leoncavallo and Puccini owe to Ponchielli would be hard to determine. The composer of "La Gioconda" was somewhat ahead of his time, and his work was not fairly understood when it was new. But in one feature of operatic composition suggested by this work all the later composers seem inclined to go too far. They are striving to follow Verdi in his earnest attempt to set every phrase of the text of "Otello" to music perfectly adapted to the expression of its meaning. But Verdi avoided the fatal error into which these young Italians are falling. He never went so far as to obliterate from his scores all trace of melodic character.

If one were to take a dozen or twenty pages of "Tosca," "Pagliacci," "Iris," and "Zanetto," shuffle them together and then play them, it would be almost impossible for any ordinary lover of music to distinguish the writing of one composer from that of another. "Zanetto" sounds as much like Puccini as like Mascagni, and the composer of "Iris" might have written almost any page of "La Bohème." This work, however, bears the same relation to Puccini's other works as "Cavalleria Rusticana" does to the other operas of Mascagni. It is well supplied with clearly formed melodies. That is the real reason of the wide popularity of "Cavalleria Rusticana." Rarely sinking below the level of passionate expression demanded by the intense tragedy of the story, it is always purely lyric, and its melodies stamp themselves upon the memory.

The other works for the most part seem to wander along in endless stretches of melodious phrases, which have no closely organized relation to each other. They sound well, for these Italians have the trick of writing well for the singer. But they are open confessions of a fear of becoming tuneful in the old Italian style of Donizetti and Rossini. These young men seem to be constantly on the verge of writing in the aria form and of avoiding it only by thrusting in some unnatural modulation or some unexpected cadence. They seem to be striving for an endless melody, like Wagner's, which is not congenial to them. They forget that when the emotional conditions of the scene pointed to melodious music Wagner was frankly melodic, and that he wrote as lyrically as Schubert himself, though naturally constructing his melodies on a larger frame. Think of the joyous carol of the Rhine maidens in the water-woven vision of the first scene of the great trilogy; of the hard-wrung tribute of the crafty Loge to "Weibes Wonne und Werth"; of the love song of Siegmund, the duet between him and Sieglinde, the heart-rending farewell of the stricken god in the last scene; of Siegfried's Titanic cradle song to his infant sword; of the nightingale twitter of the forest bird, of the throbbing love duet of the third act of "Siegfried"; of the ebullient duet in the first scene of "Götterdämmerung"; of the chorus of Gunther's men, of the narrative of Siegfried, and of the stupendous threnody of Brünnhilde's immolation. Wagner was not afraid to write songs when he needed them in his art.

It is a grave mistake to sell the Italian birthright of vocal melody for a mess of orchestral pottage. And it is altogether unnecessary. These young Italians must let alone their attempts to set reason to music. Their latest librettos contain too much philosophizing and not enough passion. Zanetto is altogether too sophisticated to be typical. Sylvia thinks too much. Osaka in "Iris" is altogether too much a man of the world. Iris is a human doll. Kyoto is an accomplished speculator in human folly. These are not figures to be animated with great music. They forbid its presence. These young Italians must get back to a realization of the fundamental truth that music is the speech of emotion. Love, hate, fear, elation, depression, grief,—these are for music to interpret. But you cannot discuss Christianity and positivism in lyrics, nor make intelligent comment in six-eight time on the causes of poverty. The limitations of music are far smaller even than those of lyric poetry, yet its field is as large as that of the true drama, for it is that of all human emotion.

Do they need a model? Well, there is one of whom they seemingly know not. Away back in the years before even Rossini assailed flaccid Paris with the strenuous peal of "William Tell," a German boy of seventeen wrote in 1814 a song called "Gretchen am Spinnrade," and the following year he cast upon the waters that marvellous condensed drama "Der Erl-König." In the five minutes of that one song by Franz Peter Schubert lies the history of a human soul. It is an epitome of emotion, and the piano does quite as much as the voice—but not more—in the expression. If the young Italians would like to learn something more than they already know about the way to build condensed opera, let them study the songs of Schubert. There they will find a solution of the problem of how to combine perfect vocal melody with a dramatic accompaniment without sacrificing one iota of dramatic verity.

An additional question of high import is whether these young firebrands are not setting the torch to the roots of nationality in their art. It is useless for theoreticians to argue that there is no nationality in music. There is nationality in all art, and the "Virgin" painted by Rubens is a Flemish woman just as surely as she is Italian when limned by Michael Angelo. There never was a German who could have conceived the lilt of "Funiculi, funicula," nor an Italian who could have composed "Schwesterlein." No Russian could have penned the dainty "Pierre et sa Mie," nor could a Frenchman have imagined "Ay Ouchnem." Only an Englishman could have written "Rule Britannia," of which Wagner said that the first four measures contained the whole character of the English people.

Nationality shows itself most conspicuously in song. Instrumental music is at best an artificial species. Its forms, its methods, are handed from one nation to another, and the Harvard graduate builds his symphony upon the Viennese model of Papa Haydn. But the musical idioms of a people cannot be kept out of their songs. The folk song was ignored successfully for a thousand years, but in certain happy days of the Middle Ages it wooed and won the fugue, and modern music, strong with the strength of musical science, beautiful with the beauty of spontaneous emotional utterance, was the fruit of this union. But for all time the idiom of the folk song colored the vocal art. The musical idioms imposed themselves on the scientific basis, and when a German or a Frenchman or an Italian composed a song, he composed it with a counterpoint common through all Europe, but with the melodic idiom of the songs of his own people.