Berlioz considered the Love Scene his finest inspiration and there are few pieces comparable with it for passionate utterance. The orchestration is wonderful for richness and variety.[240]
After a careful study of the foregoing examples the reader, we hope, is in a position to make a fair estimate of Berlioz's power and to realize his great significance. It should be understood that this music is intensely subjective and so requires a sympathetic and cultivated attitude on the part of the listener. To the writer at least, there remains one vital lack in Berlioz's music,—that of the dissonant element. It often seems as if his conceptions could not be fully realized for want of sheer musical equipment, largely due to insufficient early training. For what is music without dissonance? Surely "flat, stale and unprofitable" even if, in Berlioz's case, this deficiency is offset by great rhythmic vitality and gorgeous color. Yet in his best works[241] there is such a strong note of individuality, indeed such real character, that they are deserving of sincere respect and admiration, although by everybody they may not be deeply loved. We should, furthermore, always remember that, if Berlioz's poverty of harmonic effect is sometimes annoying, he never falls into the humdrum ruts of those who have had a stereotyped academic training. His genius was unhampered by any conventional harmonic vocabulary, and hence it could always express itself freely. That he was a real genius no one can fairly doubt.
All the qualities which have been enumerated as typical of the romantic temperament: warmth of sentiment, broad culture, love of color and the sensuous side of music, freedom of form, and stress laid on the orchestra as the most eloquent means of expression, reach their climax in Franz Liszt (1811-1886). Born near Vienna of a Hungarian father and a German mother, but chiefly associated with Paris, Weimar, Budapest and Rome, he is certainly the most picturesque and versatile figure in the music of the 19th century; for he worked and won fame as a pianoforte virtuoso—probably the greatest the world has known—as a prolific composer for pianoforte, orchestra and voice, as a teacher, conductor and man of letters, and withal spent a large part of his time, strength and fortune in helping young artists and in producing works which otherwise might never have seen the light. His life is of constant and varied interest, so spectacular at times that it seems like a fairy tale.[242] As a mere boy he began to receive adulation for his precocity; at the height of his career he was loaded with honors and wealth; in his old age he was a favorite with everyone of distinction and influence in France, Germany, England and Italy. Nevertheless he preserved, throughout, the integrity of his character and the nobility of his disposition. Whatever may be the final estimate of his powers as a creative artist, as a man he has earned nothing but eulogy;[243] for seldom has any one been freer from the faults of vanity, petty jealousy and envy which so often mar the artistic temperament. Liszt's generous encouragement and financial support of Wagner in the struggling days of his unpopularity have never been surpassed in the brotherhood of art.
Liszt is akin to Berlioz in many respects; we feel the same natural tendency to derive musical inspiration from external sources, poetic, pictorial or from the realm of Nature. Purely as a musician, however, Liszt was far greater, with a wider vocabulary and more power in thematic development. His work also is somewhat uneven; moments of real beauty alternating with passages which are trivial, bombastic or mere lifeless padding. When we bear in mind Liszt's unparalleled versatility, his output in quantity and variety is so amazing—there being well over 1,000 works of about every kind—that it is unfair to expect the style to be as finely wrought as the original conception is noble. A serious and unbiased study of his best compositions will convince one that Liszt is entitled to high rank as a musician of genuine poetic inspiration. The average music-lover is prone to dwell upon him as the composer of Les Préludes, the Hungarian Rhapsodies, and as the somewhat flashy transcriber of operatic potpourris, such as the Rigoletto Fantasie. But Les Préludes, notwithstanding a certain charm and the clever manner in which the music (without becoming minutely descriptive) supplements the poem of Lamartine, is yet barred from the first rank by its mawkishness of sentiment and by its cloying harmonies. The most significant among the symphonic poems are Orpheus with its characteristic crescendos and diminuendos; Tasso of great nobility and pathos, and Mazeppa, a veritable tour de force of descriptive writing. To hear any one of these masterpieces can not fail to alter the opinion of those who may have considered Liszt as exclusively given over to sensational effects. As for the Hungarian Rhapsodies, which Liszt intended as a kind of national ballade and so, for the basic themes and rhythms, drew largely on Hungarian Folk music, here again the public, with its fondness for being dazzled, has laid exclusive stress on the flashy ones to the detriment of those containing much that is noble and of enduring worth. In his transcriptions of standard songs Liszt did as valuable a public service as any popularizer, and has thereby made familiar the melodies of Schubert and Schumann to hundreds who otherwise would know nothing of them. In considering Liszt's pianoforte works we must remember that he was a born virtuoso with a natural fondness for exploiting the possibilities of his instrument, and with an amazing technique as a performer. When the sincerity of a composer is in question there is a great difference as to what should be the standard of judgment, whether the work be for orchestra or for pianoforte. In writing for orchestra the composer naturally centres himself on the pure ideas and their treatment, as the execution is something entirely external to himself. In works for pianoforte, however, the composer who is also a virtuoso will often, and quite justifiably, introduce passages of purely pianistic effect which in other circumstances would amount to a confession of deficient imagination. That Liszt at times abused his facility in decoration need not be gainsaid, and yet how poetic and eloquent are his best pianoforte compositions!—the Études, the Waldesrauschen, the Ballade and, above all, the Sonata in B minor.[244] Much unjust criticism has been expended upon Liszt for treating the pianoforte like an orchestra. As a matter of fact he widened, in a perfectly legitimate way, the possibilities of the instrument as to sonority, wealth and variety of color-effect. According to the testimony of contemporary colleagues, Rubinstein, Taussig and von Bülow who, had they not been convinced of his supremacy, might well have been jealous, Liszt was incontestably the greatest interpreter of Bach, Beethoven and Chopin; and his power as a Beethoven scholar is attested by the poetically annotated edition of the Sonatas. It is often asserted that Liszt lacked spontaneous melodic invention. This is a hard saying unless taken in a relative sense. We may grant that Liszt was neither a Schubert nor a Mozart, and yet recognize in his works some extremely haunting melodies. His creative power was acknowledged by Wagner and in a very practical manner. In fact, after a comparative study of their works, one is amazed at the number of melodies which Wagner borrowed from Liszt and at the generous complaisance of the latter. The reactive influence of Liszt and Wagner, each upon the other, is an interesting chapter in the development of modern art. Liszt was undoubtedly encouraged in his revolutionary aims by Wagner's fiery courage. Wagner, on his side, owed much to Liszt's unselfish generosity; and with his more powerful constructive gifts worked up into enduring form motives which, internal evidence clearly shows, came from Liszt himself.
Just a few closing words as to Liszt's specific contributions to the expansion of musical structure. He was an advanced leader in the "program school," being endowed with considerably more constructive power than Berlioz, who often fell between two stools: in that while his subject demanded the freest treatment, he lacked the vigor to break away from the formal routine of his classic models. In Liszt's orchestral works, however, the term "Symphonic Poem"—one of his own invention—is fully justified, i.e., they are symphonic in that they have organic unity, although this is not attained by preserving the classic number and arrangement of themes; and they are also poetic, being not a presentation of abstract tone patterns, but illustrative of some external idea which shapes the course of the music entirely to its own needs.[245] The distinguishing quality of the Symphonic Poem is its unbroken continuity. Although objective points are reached, and while there are broad lines of demarcation with reference to the varied moods of the poem to be illustrated, there are no rigid stops—everything is fused together into a continuous whole. Liszt was an advocate of persistent development, i.e., the music going out into space like a straight line instead of returning on itself. Inner evidence shows, however, that although he avoided many needless and conventional repetitions, he could not entirely throw overboard the cyclical law of restatement; for there is not one of his Symphonic Poems which does not repeat, at the end, thematic material already heard. Liszt carried the principle of theme transformation still further than Berlioz; and, as a German, tended to lay stress rather on the psychological aspects of character than on those outward theatric events which appeal to French taste. The difference is well shown by a comparison of the Damnation of Faust with Liszt's Faust Symphony, considered his most inspired orchestral work. Liszt must not be forgotten as a song-writer, especially for his settings to Goethe's poems; which, as Huneker says, are masterpieces and contain, in essence, all the dramatic lyricism of modern writers, Strauss included. In these songs the instrumental part is of special import; Liszt in pianistic treatment anticipating Hugo Wolf with his "Songs for Voice and Pianoforte," i.e., the voice and the instrument are treated as coequal factors.
The works of Liszt selected for analytical comment are the Symphonic Poem Orpheus, the Faust Symphony and the Pianoforte Étude, Waldesrauschen. The student, however, should become familiar with several others[246] of the Symphonic Poems, notably Tasso, Les Préludes and Mazeppa; with the Pianoforte Sonata in B minor in one movement, in which Liszt works on the same plan as Schumann in the Fourth Symphony; with the descriptive pianoforte pieces and études; and with the songs, of which Kennst du das Land, Die Lorelei and Du bist wie eine Blume are beautiful examples.
Symphonic Poem, Orpheus
In this work, as must always be the case in poetically suggestive music, the composer trusts to the general intelligence and insight of the listener. For a mere mention of the name Orpheus may well call up the vision of a majestic, godlike youth proclaiming his message of joy and peace to soften the unruly passions of men and animals.