New Figures in Literature and Art: Iv. E. A. Macdowell
“ Honor the old, but bring a warm heart to the new.” — ROBERT SCHUMANN.
SAVE in one blessed age of the world, never to come again, the great artist, in whatever line, has nearly always had a hard time in getting recognized at his true worth, and the composer of music has had a harder time than any of his brothers. This may be partially attributable to the nature of his art materials, which can never be counted upon as fixed. How few, in listening to music, realize that the tonal system underlying the harmony of to-day had barely been established two hundred years ago ! The gamut, which is so familiar to us that we feel it must be coeval with musical man, and which we hold to be the true and only scale, is one among many scales existent and in actual use, and is, moreover, theoretically, by no means the most perfect of them all. The present diatonic series, major and minor, is retained because it suits the present ideal of musical design in the so-called civilized countries, and is adapted to the instruments now in use in those countries. Should entirely new instruments be invented, so constructed as to make available certain tones of which our ears are now unconscious ; should radically different notions of design arise and prevail, it is quite conceivable that a new scale might be required, resulting in altered harmonic relations, and consequently in a totally changed style of composition, to which the ears of coming generations would have to grow accustomed as those of the past have grown accustomed to each fresh development in the musical art.
A second and even more important reason why the composer makes slower way than other art workers towards a just and general recognition is that his conceptions need follow no models of anything in the visible, audible, palpable creation, but may be evolved ad libitum out of his own consciousness, and may represent, for all that anybody knows, non-entities. Far more than the poet — his nearest of kin through the common bond of neglect or abuse — has the composer opportunities for uttering hidden things unintelligibly; for he prophesies in an esoteric tongue, and he may employ it in a way that shall puzzle the elect.
In all other arts the classics are the old ; in music the true classics are the newest. The last word on sculpture was spoken two millenniums ago ; the best poetry of those early times has caused perennial despair to poets ever since ; as for painting, though late in attaining an equal degree of excellence with its sister arts,1 it is doubtful whether pigments and canvas will in any future age speak a loftier message to man than they have already spoken.
But in music the last word can never be spoken. The latest of the fine arts to reach a highly artistic state of development, it promises to go on developing forever. Its forms are protean ; its rules are temporary bridges over temporary floods, the rushing torrents of taste and custom. These bridges the real genius — who is neither radical nor conservative — makes use of when he can ; but he reserves the privilege of ignoring them, and often boldly fords the flood or leaps over it. The changes that may be rung upon musical sounds, as regards their relative pitch, duration, accent, or combination, are not to be reckoned; their name is Infinitude, while the subject matter of which they are the symbols embraces all entities in the universe, uttering the unutterable, voicing the soul of man’s soul.
Thus it will be readily seen why the great composer par excellence must always be far in advance of his age, since he not only undertakes to express more than has ever before been expressed in music, but at the same time has to educate his listeners to comprehend and accept his very methods, — methods wholly strange and of his own devising, wherein, it may be, he breaks without compunction every law of his art which they have been taught to regard as inviolable.
In view, then, of the strong tendency and wide opportunity of the composer toward discarding usage and convention, it is almost too much to hope for that contemporary appraisal should ever do him entire justice. In such a case sympathy can perhaps reach down deeper and draw out more than scientific knowledge could do. For, after all, music is a means, not an end ; its whole history is a reproof to those who would treat it chiefly as a thing of forms and technicalities; it breathes its living spirit into the souls of multitudes who know not theories. The composer has a message to deliver, and they to whom the message speaks clearly enough need have little concern with the terms in which it is delivered.
Let no one who may be unacquainted with the works of Edward Mac Dowell judge from these preliminaries that this young master in music is a scorner of all forms and standards that have come down out of the great past. He reverences these for what they are worth, whether intrinsically or as helps in building up his own art structures. But he is too potently individual to be made the slave of any system, too full of strong, original invention to revere rules for their own sake. Whatever will best express his thought, of that will he avail himself. It is the “thing-in-itself ” he is pursuing; modes and methods are to him but modes and methods. He has been accused of “ posing as original,” — a senseless criticism, and not worthy of notice save that it points to the undoubted unconventionality of his ideas, which could seem hardly more novel to an unaccustomed ear if the scores had fallen out of Jupiter. To take them in, it is necessary that one should cultivate a quite new tonal sense and divest himself of many preconceived notions. We must be ourselves modern to the extremest extent of that term, if we would apprehend the message of this essentially modern composer.
It is difficult, if not impossible, to define anything concisely, especially
“ To clothe a complex thing with a single word ; ” but if I were asked to express in a line what is the main essential that makes for modernity in music, I should answer, the effective management of discords, whose æsthetic and expressive value began to be appreciated at a comparatively recent date.
Mr. MacDowell is well aware of the vast scope they offer both for pure sound-effects and for the utterance of all feelings and thought-suggestions, while his strong melodial instinct and what Richter would call his Stimmfiihrung— referring to the invention and harmonious balancing of contrapuntal parts — give to his passages of greatest daring a positive delightfulness. The most emotional of musical artists, he is likewise the most intellectual, and makes himself felt as such in his slighter productions. Of his best compositions it might be said that the concentrated richness of these works makes them confusing to the popular ear, and in some cases, too, to the educated ear, until the latter has grown used to the composer s peculiarly subtle ways of stating his poetic views. His modulations have a meaning in themselves. His sequences accomplish more than leading us to something : they convey thought; they are logical sequences of musical sentiment. He gives ns common scales run in unison, yet so set as to be of tragic import; listening to them, we believe we have never heard these scales before. With him tremolo and trill are not sheer noise or useless ornament, “ sounding brass and a tinkling cymbal,” but thrill and quiver with the heart of the composition which they embellish. As a readily comprehended instance of Mr. MacDowell’s aversion to “ blank spaces,” compare the revised with the early edition of the Intermezzo, First Suite. It may be likewise noted in any of his oftrepeated subordinate figures. They are more than simple accompaniment; they possess a distinct dramatic value, supplying the required atmosphere of serenity, sportiveness, pathos, or passion.
Let me illustrate this by the Prélude of the First Suite. Here a theme of great power and stateliness is carried by the left hand, and accompanied by arpeggios in figures, or groups, of six and five notes. The theme is in one voice, and has no coloring save that added by the everflowing, kaleidoscopic design of the treble. Nothing could be farther from the inane or the ordinary than this right-hand part. It is as essentially characteristic as the strong, weird melody to which it serves not only for a background, but for a varied harmonic support, directly enhancing the latter’s significance by being nearly equivalent to a counter-theme.
The mention of this Prelude brings me to a consideration of that which distinguishes the most important piano works of MacDowell, namely, their marked orchestral character. This is more or less true of the two Suites ; it is especially so of their opening movements. But though we find throughout both of them a comprehensive treatment of singularly noble themes, they are thin in comparison with the two sonatas. The designs of these are cast in symphonic moulds; their subjects are treated in large epic fashion, and the impression they give of volume and of wide tone-spaces, usually associated only with great masses of instruments, is at first startling. They are, in fact, nothing less than symphonies brought within the scope of a pianoforte keyboard.
Some may wonder why a man who has so complete an understanding and mastery of orchestral resources as MacDowell, and who, moreover, is overflowing with great ideas, should deliberately choose to give many of those ideas no wider field to display themselves in than the limitations afforded by a single soulless instrument. But the bringing out of an orchestral work is not a simple matter. Manifold are the conditions that must converge and unite before an ideal presentation is possible ; ideal from the composer’s standpoint, — something quite important, and not always taken into account. Mr. MacDowell, being a piano virtuoso as well as a composer, naturally writes much for an instrument on which he can interpret his own music directly to the public without the intervention of another personality. Hence, that which enters his mind as a symphony suffers a change, and comes forth from the workshop a sonata.
There is an opinion frequently met with in certain quarters, a reference to which may not be out of place here. According to this opinion, the sonata form is consigned to a hopeless antiquity. In a recent article upon Hadow’s Studies in Modern Music,2 the critic accuses Mr. Hadow of weakness ” in that “ he accepts the sonata as the perfection of musical form.” Yet Dr. Ernst Pauer, who should be an authority, says,”The sonata is by far the most important form, and may be considered the mainstay of modern music ; ” going on to show how the principles of its construction are the same as those that underlie the symphony, trio, quartette, overture, and even some of the lesser instrumental forms.
The writer in The Nation quotes Dr. Hubert Parry as saying, in Art of Music, that “ the aspect of pianoforte music in general seems to indicate that composers are agreed that the day for writing sonatas is past ; ” though Dr. Parry himself elsewhere freely admits that the form “ is most elastic and satisfying in practice,” — an expression which would hardly seem applicable to a totally outworn model. This model served Schubert’s purposes right well, also Chopin’s, notwithstanding that Mr. Hadow’s critic states it as a “ fact ” that “ all the great composers since Beethoven have turned their backs upon it.” No one, I think, would assert that either Schubert or Chopin succeeded in making as much of the sonata as did Beethoven,
“ in whose hands The Thing became a trumpet; ’’ yet Schubert, at least, embodied some of his greatest thoughts very effectivcdy in this “ obsolete ” form. Our writer furthermore remarks that “ if all the critics in the world stood up for the sonata, it could not be saved.” Perhaps not. But very possibly a great composer can save it. It is idle to insist that any form is obsolete so long as genius can express itself therein.
Not only does Mr. MacDowell, by his practice, refuse to consider the sonata as archaic, but, speaking with the unaffected note of authority, he says,3 “ Sonata form is a necessary thing ; “ adding, however, “ But if the composer’s ideas do not imperatively demand treatment in that form (that is, if his first theme is not actually dependent upon his second and side themes for its poetic fulfillment), he has not composed a sonata movement, hut a potpourri, which the form only aggravates.” And further on he writes, “ Any collection of themes which has musical coherence embodies a form worthy of respect.”
Had Mr. MacDowell invented the particular form in question, it could not fit his ideas more spontaneously and perfectly than it does in the Sonata Tragica. His selection of it forcibly illustrates his catholic attitude towards the past, as well as his independence of criticism and his immunity from fear of that bugaboo consistency. Great romanticist that he is, he finds room within the sternest of classic moulds for the free play of his freest imaginations. For there is nothing archaic nor even old-fashioned in his use of this ancient type. It is undoubtedly better suited to the dignified treatment of a great subject than any purely modern form could be. Giving little scope for sensationalism, it is the natural exponent of “ the grand style ” applied to the pianoforte. In choosing it as the setting of his Tragedy in Tones, Mr. MacDowell has shown himself to be a genuine artist; he has also revealed, to an extent undreamed of before, the capacity of the piano for conveying the richest and broadest symphonic effects.
This extraordinary composition, while sufficiently formal to satisfy the worshipers of "schools,”is so spontaneous as to make one forget all about schools and the fetters they have forged for submissive geniuses. In its themes and their treatment there is a breadth of tragic passion which gives to the whole that universal character demanded by true dramatic art; it is as old as — nay, older than — Æschylus ; it is as new as Ibsen, and, let me add, much more healthful. The Sonata Tragica strikes at the start the highest key of sorrow; it carries us by the insistent force of its first subject straight into the thick of the eternal conflict between man and his environment. After a scherzo suggesting the wild, overstrained efforts of breaking hearts to simulate gleefulness, its slow third movement opens black with the blackness of an immemorial woe. Pathos, femininely tender, rises almost to the height of her brother Tragedy ; but the closing allegro — the most elaborate movement of the sonata — clashes forth an energetic protest against despair ; and the coda (maestoso), containing a quiet, chastened, comforting recollection of the tragic introduction, is the apotheosis of a noable grief which finds its rightful end in “ Life, Joy, Empire, and Victory.”
We listen in vain for the distinctly personal note ; it may be sounding, but it is inaudible to our ears. These plaints are general; they voice the world’s woe, not the individual ’s. No single human soul — not even King Lear — ever bore such a burden. Only some mighty, typical character, standing for all mankind, ought artistically to be made to bear it. If Mr. MacDowell had named his sonata Prometheus, no one could charge him with failing to bring his work up to the level of his subject, nor would the demon of •• programme music ” itself experience much difficulty in searching therein after the exposition of a god s vengeance, a Titan’s •• dread endurance,” the final triumph of the Earth-born, and of Love, who at last
There is in MacDowell an enchanting, extra-mundane quality which reminds of Shelley. The poet in tones, like the poet in words, breathes as his native air the atmosphere of a strange, high, thriceclarified, rainbow-illumined realm, where images, not of terror, but of stupendous beauty dwell, images that the programme fiend cannot fasten upon, because they are less images than suggestions, — suggestions of moods intellectual rather than sensuous, spiritual rather than intellectual. And the diction of our poet in tones (if I may speak of diction in reference to music) has at times, in common with that of liis brother in verse, a splendor entirely foreign to our sphere, reflected as it were from the calm empyreal domain whence themes and inspiration are alike drawn. It is this splendid style which, notwithstanding the abstruseness of his themes, enables him to carry his listeners upwards with him ; and if they cannot at first, without gasping, inhale the hypertenuous air, yet they come down to earth invigorated, and longing for another temporary translation.
That Mr. MacDowell can also deal cleverly and gracefully with the commoner themes his many lesser pieces plainly show. Yet, while never quite touching the level of the commonplace, it cannot be denied that he sometimes inclines to be dry, with a dryness arising certainly not from paucity of ideas, but very possibly from too much selfrestraint, as if he had sworn to strangle at their birth the chiefest faults of youth,— bombast, turgidity, over-elaboration ; a good resolve, especially since, thanks to his inherent emotionalism, he is not in the least danger of injuring those virtues which are their nearest of kin. He has also occasionally fallen short of the best results by requiring of the piano what it is unable to do. In his sonatas, as I have already indicated, he has with amazing skill contrived to simulate the ear-filling, cumulative effect of grand orchestra, using the entire keyboard in a way that makes the performer appear to be at least four-handed, and so selecting his harmonic materials as to bring forward most vividly those points in which a pianoforte can best compete with the unspeakable fusion of tones produced when all varieties of wood, wind, and stringed instruments are played together. In several of his smaller pieces, however, he has wrought designs which nothing except the gliding, sustaining, swelling capacities of horns or bowed strings can ever adequately render. He has, it is true, often written these little morceaux in the duet form, thus gaining in solidity of movement and weight of tone. Yet take, for example, the opening of Der Schwan (No. 4 in Mondbilder), where for sixteen bars the right-hand performer is given a slow, sustained solo upon the highest keys of the piano ; no one save a virtuoso would be able to do more than faintly suggest its potential beauty of color and shading. One cannot play this little piece, which is as daintily conceived as its prototype, the work of that absolute artist Hans Christian Andersen, and not long to hear it clearly and softly blown through hautboys, clarinets, bassoons, with their reedy, out-of-doors voices, or carried along on the smooth flowingness of violins. It is the same, but to a lesser degree, with Nachts am Meere, and also—though it be flat heresy to say it — with that miraculous bit of tone-poetry, The Eagle (solo), which belongs to a much later opus.
The loss in hearing these upon the piano, for which they were written, is akin to the loss experienced in reading a poem translated from one language to another. But orchestras, even small ones, are not at the command of ordinary human mortals, while the piano we have always with us. The utterances of the great, even in translation, are worth much, and the passing fancies of one whose deep, conscious thoughts carry weight are exceedingly precious. All said, the matter is hardly a serious one. These compositions are so lovely, in spite of the inadequacy of hammers and strings to bring out all their loveliness, that one feels hypercritical in making any strictures upon them. Furthermore, they are interesting as marking a period when Mr. MacDowell was very decidedly under the influence of what is commonly known as a “ school,” though it is more properly denominated a “ spirit,” —— that spirit which in its extremest manifestation leads its followers to search after musical designs that shall definitely suggest material images or the course of actual occurrences. The Symphonic Poems for full orchestra. Hamlet and Ophelia, and Lancelot and Elaine, show the composer at the height of his ardor for inventing such designs. Hamlet offers as bold a specimen of the dramatic concrete in music as can well be imagined. Here, truly, is meat for strong men, and, it would appear, meat too strong for some musical stomachs.
Yet, young as he was when the Symphonic Poems were produced, they are by no means his earliest serious work. Long before Hamlet and Ophelia came out, when he was between eighteen and twenty and studying in Germany under Ehlert and Raff, he composed and published his two piano Suites and his first Concerto, while Lancelot and Elaine was preceded by his second Concerto, Thus we find him almost in his boyhood hanthing both piano and orchestral materials with something more than confidence, — with an audacity that is positively charming, and that wins attention, “ willy-nilly.” He would always have his say, this boy, who, thank Heaven, has not yet lived out half the allotted years of man, and from the first word to the latest he has invariably spoken as one having a claim to be heard, “ not as the scribes.”
His latest words are the Sonata Eroica and the Indian Suite, — the latter being constructed upon true North American Indian airs, — both of which, though already included in the printed list of his works, have but just now made their appearance before the public. Mr. MacDowell, who, while willing to leave his hearers’ imaginations ample room to range in, loves to let them know something of what he was thinking when composing, has not been content simply with designating his new sonata Eroica, but has placed under this title a motto at once vague and bedeutend. The title, like that of Tragiea, creates a general sympathy with his mood, but “ Flos Regain Artlmrus,” as by means of a key, opens his deepest mind, and shows us that pure, heroic being, the flower of kings, whose origin, existence, and end form one of the most mysteriously romantic chapters in all the great book of romance, yet are as real as any reality of history. One cannot cast the eye hastily over this sonata and not observe the curious upward trend of nearly all its subjects, — a characteristic trait of MacDowell’s compositions, one which might readily be allowed by the psycho-physicists to denote the cheery, hopeful, American tendency of the man himself. But granting the notion to be fanciful, may not the trait stand metaphorically as symbolizing the thorough wholesomeness of his art ? That art has a tonic principle, a spiritual ozone ; it stimulates the energies instead of sapping them. Though it is modern, — yes, more than modern, anticipatory and belonging to the far hereafter, — it hears no trace of that abominable thing with the abominable name,fin de sièecle. Mr. Mac Dowell wishes his work to be beautiful, but before all he will have it strong; and from that strength, often excessive to those who demand that, seeking pleasure, they shall be straightway pleased, issues a beauty which, entering our souls like
“ the awful shadow of some unseen Power,” at first startling if not distressing us, gradually grows upon our affections, becoming at last “for its grace” most dear,
The Sonata Eroica is laid out upon a wider plan than the Tragiea. Although wanting in the immense, concentrated strength that makes the latter seem the product of some musical demiurge, its design, viewed as a whole, is far more varied ; it is richer in subjects, and these are placed in more salient mutual contrast. It opens with a fine directness of manner which Mr. MacDowell has taught us to look for in his music ; for, however abstruse or subtile his thought, he never mumbles in saying it. Over this, as over all his other works, is spread — borrowing a phrase of Fitzgerald’s —“ abroad, Shakespearean daylight,” wherein the objects he pictures stand forth with absolute distinctness, even while we may fail of interpreting their profoundest intention. The assertiveness of his themes cannot be too much dwelt upon ; “ trenchant ” is a fitting word for them ; once heard they can never be mistaken nor forgotten. One of the most pronounced examples of this assertive quality is furnished in the first subject of the A-Minor Concerto ; another is in the little fugue, Opus 13, — both products of boyhood; but it is no less manifest in Opus 50, the maturest creation of the grown man.
The Guinevere motiv — if we are right in so calling the graceful third subject, the very sweep of whose lines upon the printed page seems to betoken the sumptuous charm of that much-loved and much-forgiven queen — fastens itself upon the ear no less persistently than does the simple, solemn, pathetically premonitory strain that, in the opening bars of the sonata, brings before us as in a sudden vision Arthur, noble, brave, severely chaste, divinely just, but deep-hearted withal, and divinely loving. These two chief motiven, with the first motiv of the third movement, together form the gentler and more intellectual texture of the work ; and against them are set with admirable effectiveness all the lighter or sterner elements that go to make up a complete tonal drama.
The finale falls upon us unexpectedly, like a veritable onslaught of heathenish hordes, in a short, sharp, quick, but strangely irregular, and what I should like to describe as an obstinate rhythm. This is broken in upon and swallowed up by an almost ear-splitting, thunderous burst of martial melody, already familiar to us under various guises, that soon dies away and melts into faint, gasping echoes of the first fierce subject; though, on another page, the two subjects renew their raging contest.
Right out of the midst of these suggestions of carnage and doubtful triumph rises the figure of the king in his terrible calm beauty and mightiness, but the Guinevere motiv has significantly vanished. The close of this stormy, highly colored movement has the same effect upon our spirits as the majestic passage with which Matthew Arnold concludes his Sohrab and Rustum.
It is impossible to study this last great composition of MacDowell’s and not see whither all the strings of his manifold genius are leading him, especially if in connection with it we consider his orchestral work and his songs. There is little space left for me to dwell upon the latter, and there is much to say about them. As might be expected, they impress at once by their unconventionality. In first attempting to sing them, the vocal organs are confronted by what appear to be “impossible” intervals and phrases, which, however, are so supported and justified by the harmony as to prove, in practice, entirely singable, while the melodies in themselves — true melodies are they — have often a reminder of the wild note, of the artless, inarticulate tones and intervals of nature’s voices.
But if I say that, above all else, these songs are dramatic to a preeminent degree, I shall have pointed with sufficient clearness towards the all-mastering ambition of their composer. As surely as fruit follows flower, so surely will grand opera eventually flow from the pen that has given so many evidences of masterly handling, both in instrumental and in vocal music. Not that all successful composers for voice and orchestra are inevitably led to write opera, nor that it would be safe in all cases to predicate success in this complicated form of art from notable accomplishments in the others. It is the unquestionable dramatic instinct displayed in nearly everything MacDowell has written — an instinct which he in no wise strives to repress, but gives free rein to, his ripest work making the strongest and richest showing in this respect — that assures us of what he is manifestly destined to do. The wellknown difficulty of finding an acceptable librettist may not improbably be obviated by him as Wagner obviated it, namely, by writing his own librettos ; for he is a man of broad literary culture, and that he can wield a poetic pen is shown in the words set to a number of his own songs.
Sometimes a dream comes true. Here is one I would fain believe no bad, misleading vision: that of an American opera, sung by American singers, played by American performers, managed and conducted by native-born citizens. The thing is conceivable, and no one has a firmer faith in its possible fulfillment than Mr. MacDowell himself. It is sure to come. But how soon ? Not so long as we refuse our own artists open and ready acclaim until they shall have gone away from us and returned with credentials from other lands ; not so long as everything European is accounted infinitely superior to anything American ; not so long as the thousands and tens and hundreds of thousands of dollars, which should be kept at home and devoted to the establishing and maintenance of a national organization, — “ large enough to be independent of cliques,” whose object would be “ the fostering of art in America, not ignoring that of other countries,” — is yearly poured into the pockets of foreign artists. The old countries have much to teach us, — they have taught us much ; there is one thing left for us to learn : that not by such means as we are now employing is a national art built up. Once upon a time these means were justifiable ; they are so no longer. We are as rich as any people on earth in all the raw material needed for a great native opera; we are second to none in a genuine musical spirit. We lack only in our tastes that which has in other matters made the name “ Yankee" a proud synonym for freedom and self-dependence. When we shall have gained æsthetically that which now characterizes us politically. the courage of our convictions, then will a man like Edward A. MacDowell find a chance to distinguish himself in what is theoretically, at least, the highest form of musical composition.
It is frequently asked, To what school does Mr. MacDowell belong ? The reply, To none, is usually followed by the question, Will he then perhaps found one that shall be truly American ?
A school may indeed arise that shall be called by his name, but such winged souls as he, who themselves refuse to be bound, will not bind in turn. All that an American or any other school can mean is, that certain great ones have done their greatest, and have been followed, sometimes slavishly, sometimes freely and intelligently, oftentimes unconsciously and just because an exceptional personality must impress itself to practical issues upon its generation.
If by living and acting his part — which, as he conceives it, is being himself, and no one else—Mr. MacDowell succeeds in teaching his fellow-countrymen that all art worthy the name has flourished only in proportion to its rejection of formality and established ways, only as it was the spontaneous outcome of an untrammeled individualism ; if he can show them, musicians, painters, and the rest, that it is not necessary, even while taking the good that Europe still has for us, to believe in no good in and about ourselves, — if he can do these things, he will have founded as much of a school as our budding American geniuses need.
Edith Brower.