What is all this fury leading to? What does this heroism aspire to? This force of will, bitter and strained, grows faint when it has reached its goal, or even before that. It does not know what to do with its victory. It disdains it, does not believe in it, or grows tired of it.[182]

[Footnote 182: "The German spirit, which but a little while back had the will to dominate Europe, the force to govern Europe, has finally made up its mind to abandon it."—Nietzsche.]

Like Michelangelo's Victory, it has set its knee on the captive's back, and seems ready to despatch him. But suddenly it stops, hesitates, and looks about with uncertain eyes, and its expression is one of languid disgust, as though weariness had seized it.

And this is how the work of Richard Strauss appears to me up to the present. Guntram kills Duke Robert, and immediately lets fall his sword. The frenzied laugh of Zarathustra ends in an avowal of discouraged impotence. The delirious passion of Don Juan dies away in nothingness. Don Quixote when dying forswears his illusions. Even the Hero himself admits the futility of his work, and seeks oblivion in an indifferent Nature. Nietzsche, speaking of the artists of our time, laughs at "those Tantaluses of the will, rebels and enemies of laws, who come, broken in spirit, and fall at the foot of the cross of Christ." Whether it is for the sake of the Cross or Nothingness, these heroes renounce their victories in disgust and despair, or with a resignation that is sadder still. It was not thus that Beethoven overcame his sorrows. Sad adagios make their lament in the middle of his symphonies, but a note of joy and triumph is always sounded at the end. His work is the triumph of a conquered hero; that of Strauss is the defeat of a conquering hero. This irresoluteness of the will can be still more clearly seen in contemporary German literature, and in particular in the author of Die versunkene Glocke. But it is more striking in Strauss, because he is more heroic. And so we get all this display of superhuman will, and the end is only "My desire is gone!"

In this lies the undying worm of German thought—I am speaking of the thought of the choice few who enlighten the present and anticipate the future. I see an heroic people, intoxicated by its triumphs, by its great riches, by its numbers, by its force, which clasps the world in its great arms and subjugates it, and then stops, fatigued by its conquest, and asks: "Why have I conquered?"



HUGO WOLF

The more one learns of the history of great artists, the more one is struck by the immense amount of sadness their lives enclose. Not only are they subjected to the trials and disappointments of ordinary life—which affect them more cruelly through their greater sensitiveness—but their surroundings are like a desert, because they are twenty, thirty, fifty, or even hundreds of years in advance of their contemporaries; and they are often condemned to despairing efforts, not to conquer the world, but to live.

These highly-strung natures are rarely able to keep up this incessant struggle for very long; and the finest genius may have to reckon with illness and misery and even premature death. And yet there were people like Mozart and Schumann and Weber who were happy in spite of everything, because they had been able to keep their soul's health and the joy of creation until the end; and though their bodies were worn out with fatigue and privation, a light was kept burning which sent its rays far into the darkness of their night. There are worse destinies; and Beethoven, though he was poor, shut up within himself, and deceived in his affections, was far from being the most unhappy of men. In his case, he possessed nothing but himself; but he possessed himself truly, and reigned over the world that was within him; and no other empire could ever be compared with that of his vast imagination, which stretched like a great expanse of sky, where tempests raged. Until his last day the old Prometheus in him, though fettered by a miserable body, preserved his iron force unbroken. When dying during a storm, his last gesture was one of revolt; and in his agony he raised himself on his bed and shook his fist at the sky. And so he fell, struck down by a single blow in the thick of the fight.

But what shall be said of those who die little by little, who outlive themselves, and watch the slow decay of their souls?

Such was the fate of Hugo Wolf, whose tragic destiny has assured him a place apart in the hell of great musicians.[183]

[Footnote 183: A large number of works on Hugo Wolf have been published in Germany since his death. The chief is the great biography of Herr Ernst Decsey—Hugo Wolf (Berlin, 1903-4). I have found this book of great service; it is a work full of knowledge and sympathy. I have also consulted Herr Paul Mueller's excellent little pamphlet, Hugo Wolf (Moderne essays, Berlin, 1904), and the collections of Wolf's letters, in particular his letters to Oskar Grohe, Emil Kaufmann, and Hugo Faisst.]

* * * * *

He was born at Windischgratz in Styria, 13 March, 1860. He was the fourth son of a currier—a currier-musician, like old Veit Bach, the baker-musician, and Haydn's father, the wheelwright-musician. Philipp Wolf played the violin, the guitar, and the piano, and used to have little quintet parties at his house, in which he played the first violin, Hugo the second violin, Hugo's brother the violoncello, an uncle the horn, and a friend the tenor violin. The musical taste of the country was not properly German. Wolf was a Catholic; and his taste was not formed, like that of most German musicians, by books of chorales. Besides that, in Styria they were fond of playing the old Italian operas of Rossini, Bellini, and Donizetti. Later on, Wolf used to like to think that he had a few drops of Latin blood in his veins; and all his life he had a predilection for the great French musicians.

His term of apprenticeship was not marked by anything brilliant. He went from one school to another without being kept long anywhere. And yet he was not a worthless lad; but he was always very reserved, little caring to be intimate with others, and passionately devoted to music. His father naturally did not want him to take up music as a profession; and he had the same struggles that Berlioz had. Finally he succeeded in getting permission from his family to go to Vienna, and he entered the Conservatoire there in 1875. But he was not any the happier for it, and at the end of two years he was sent away for being unruly.

What was to be done? His family was ruined, for a fire had demolished their little possessions. He felt the silent reproaches of his father already weighing upon him—for he loved his father dearly, and remembered the sacrifices he had made for him. He did not wish to return to his own province; indeed he could not return—that would have been death. It was necessary that this boy of seventeen should find some means of earning a livelihood and be able to instruct himself at the same time. After his expulsion from the Conservatoire he attended no other school; he taught himself. And he taught himself wonderfully; but at what a cost! The suffering he went through from that time until he was thirty, the enormous amount of energy he had to expend in order to live and cultivate the fine spirit of poetry that was within him—all this effort and toil was, without doubt, the cause of his unhappy death. He had a burning thirst for knowledge and a fever for work which made him sometimes forget the necessity for eating and drinking.

He had a great admiration for Goethe, and was infatuated by Heinrich von Kleist, whom he rather resembles both in his gifts and in his life; he was an enthusiast about Grillparzer and Hebbel at a time when they were but little appreciated; and he was one of the first Germans to discover the worth of Moerike, whom, later on, he made popular in Germany. Besides this, he read English and French writers. He liked Rabelais, and was very partial to Claude Tillier, the French novelist of the provinces, whose Oncle Benjamin has given pleasure to so many German provincial families, by bringing before them, as Wolf said, the vision of their own little world, and helping them by his own jovial good humour to bear their troubles with a smiling face. And so little Wolf, with hardly enough to eat, found the means of learning both French and English, in order better to appreciate the thoughts of foreign artists.

In music he learned a great deal from his friend Schalk,[184] a professor at the Vienna Conservatoire; but, like Berlioz, he got most of his education from the libraries, and spent months in reading the scores of the great masters. Not having a piano, he used to carry Beethoven's sonatas to the Prater Park in Vienna and study them on a bench in the open air. He soaked himself in the classics—in Bach and Beethoven, and the German masters of the Lied—Schubert and Schumann. He was one of the young Germans who was passionately fond of Berlioz; and it is due to Wolf that France was afterwards honoured in the possession of this great artist, whom French critics, whether of the school of Meyerbeer, Wagner, Franck, or Debussy, have never understood. He was also early a friend of old Anton Bruckner, whose music we do not know in France, neither his eight symphonies, nor his Te Deum, nor his masses, nor his cantatas, nor anything else of his fertile work. Bruckner had a sweet and modest character, and an endearing, if rather childish, personality. He was rather crushed all his life by the Brahms party; but, like Franck in France, he gathered round him new and original talent to fight the academic art of his time.

[Footnote 184: Joseph Schalk was one of the founders of the Wagner-Verein at Vienna, and devoted his life to propagating the cult of Bruckner (who called him his "Herr Generalissimus "), and to fighting for Wolf.]

But of all these influences, the strongest was that of Wagner. Wagner came to Vienna in 1875 to conduct Tannhaeuser and Lohengrin. There was then among the younger people a fever of enthusiasm similar to that which Werther had caused a century before. Wolf saw Wagner. He tells us about it in his letters to his parents. I will quote his own words, and though they make one smile, one loves the impulsive devotion of his youth; and they make one feel, too, that a man who inspires such an affection, and who can do so much good by a little sympathy, is to blame when he does not befriend others—above all if he has suffered, like Wagner, from loneliness and the want of a helping hand. You must remember that this letter was written by a boy of fifteen.

"I have been to—guess whom?... to the master, Richard Wagner! Now I will tell you all about it, just as it happened. I will copy the words down exactly as I wrote them in my note-book.

"On Thursday, 9 December, at half-past ten, I saw Richard Wagner for the second time at the Hotel Imperial, where I stayed for half an hour on the staircase, awaiting his arrival (I knew that on that day he would conduct the last rehearsal of his Lohengrin). At last the master came down from the second floor, and I bowed to him very respectfully while he was yet some distance from me. He thanked me in a very friendly way. As he neared the door I sprang forward and opened it for him, upon which he looked fixedly at me for a few seconds, and then went on his way to the rehearsal at the Opera. I ran as fast as I could, and arrived at the Opera sooner than Richard Wagner did in his cab. I bowed to him again, and I wanted to open the door of his cab for him; but as I could not get it open, the coachman jumped down from his seat and did it for me. Wagner said something to the coachman—I think it was about me. I wanted to follow him into the theatre, but they would not let me pass.

"I often used to wait for him at the Hotel Imperial; and on this occasion I made the acquaintance of the manager of the hotel, who promised that he would interest himself on my behalf. Who was more delighted than I when he told me that on the following Saturday afternoon, 11 December, I was to come and find him, so that he could introduce me to Mme. Cosima's maid and Richard Wagner's valet! I arrived at the appointed hour. The visit to the lady's maid was very short. I was advised to come the following day, Sunday, 12 December, at two o'clock. I arrived at the right hour, but found the maid and the valet and the manager still at table.... Then I went with the maid to the master's rooms, where I waited for about a quarter of an hour until he came. At last Wagner appeared in company with Cosima and Goldmark. I bowed to Cosima very respectfully, but she evidently did not think it worth while to honour me with a single glance. Wagner was going into his room without paying any attention to me, when the maid said to him in a beseeching voice: 'Ah, Herr Wagner, it is a young musician who wishes to speak to you; he has been waiting for you a long time.'

"He then came out of his room, looked at me, and said: 'I have seen you before, I think. You are....'

"Probably he wanted to say, 'You are a fool.'

"He went in front of me and opened the door of the reception-room, which was furnished in a truly royal style. In the middle of the room was a couch covered in velvet and silk. Wagner himself was wrapped in a long velvet mantle bordered with fur.

"When I was inside the room he asked me what I wanted."

Here Hugo Wolf, to excite the curiosity of his parents, broke off his story and put "To be continued in my next." In his next letter he continues:

"I said to him: 'Highly honoured master, for a long time I have wanted to hear an opinion on my compositions, and it would be....'

"Here the master interrupted me and said: 'My dear child, I cannot give you an opinion of your compositions; I have far too little time; I can't even get my own letters written. I understand nothing at all about music (Ich verstehe gar nichts von der Musik).'

"I asked the master whether I should ever be able really to do anything, and he said to me: 'When I was your age and composing music, no one could tell me then whether I should ever do anything great. You could at most play me your compositions on the piano; but I have no time to hear them. When you are older, and when you have composed bigger works, and if by chance I return to Vienna, you shall show me what you have done. But that is no use now; I cannot give you an opinion of them yet.'

"When I told the master that I took the classics as models, he said: 'Good, good. One can't be original at first.' And he laughed, and then said, 'I wish you, dear friend, much happiness in your career. Go on working steadily, and if I come back to Vienna, show me your compositions.'

"Upon that I left the master, profoundly moved and impressed."

Wolf and Wagner did not see each other again. But Wolf fought unceasingly on Wagner's behalf. He went several times to Bayreuth, though he had no personal intercourse with the Wagner family; but he met Liszt, who, with his usual goodness, wrote him a kind letter about a composition that he had sent him, and showed him what alterations to make in it.

Mottl and the composer, Adalbert de Goldschmidt, were the first friends to aid him in his years of misery, by finding him some music pupils. He taught music to little children of seven and eight years old; but he was a poor teacher, and found giving lessons was a martyrdom. The money he earned hardly served to feed him, and he only ate once a day—Heaven knows how. To comfort himself he read Hebbel's Life; and for a time he thought of going to America. In 1881 Goldschmidt got him the post of second Kapellmeister at the Salzburg theatre. It was his business to rehearse the choruses for the operettas of Strauss and Milloecker. He did his work conscientiously, but in deadly weariness; and he lacked the necessary power of making his authority felt. He did not stay long in this post, and came back to Vienna.

Since 1875 he had been writing music: Lieder, sonatas, symphonies, quartets, etc., and already his Lieder held the most important place. He also composed in 1883 a symphonic poem on the Penthesilea of his friend Kleist.

In 1884 he succeeded in getting a post as musical critic. But on what a paper! It was the Salonblatt—a mundane journal filled with articles on sport and fashion news. One would have said that this little barbarian was put there for a wager. His articles from 1884 to 1887 are full of life and humour. He upholds the great classic masters in them: Gluck, Mozart, Beethoven, and—Wagner; he defends Berlioz; he scourges the modern Italians, whose success at Vienna was simply scandalous; he breaks lances for Bruckner, and begins a bold campaign against Brahms. It was not that he disliked or had any prejudice against Brahms; he took a delight in some of his works, especially his chamber music, but he found fault with his symphonies and was shocked by the carelessness of the declamation in his Lieder and, in general, could not bear his want of originality and power, and found him lacking in joy and fulness of life. Above all, he struck at him as being the head of a party that was spitefully opposed to Wagner and Bruckner and all innovators. For all that was retrograde in music in Vienna, and all that was the enemy of liberty and progress in art and criticism, was giving Brahms its detestable support by gathering itself about him and spreading his fame abroad; and though Brahms was really far above his party as an artist and a man, he had not the courage to break away from it.

Brahms read Wolf's articles, but his attacks did not seem to stir his apathy. The "Brahmines," however, never forgave Wolf. One of his bitterest enemies was Hans von Buelow, who found anti-Brahmism "the blasphemy against the Holy Ghost—which shall not be forgiven."[185] Some years later, when Wolf succeeded in getting his own compositions played, he had to submit to criticisms like that of Max Kalbeck, one of the leaders of "Brahmism" at Vienna:

"Herr Wolf has lately, as a reporter, raised an irresistible laugh in musical circles. So someone suggested he had better devote himself to composition. The last products of his muse show that this well-meant advice was bad. He ought to go back to reporting."

[Footnote 185: Letter of H. von Buelow to Detlev von Liliencron.]

An orchestral society in Vienna gave Wolf's Penthesilea a trial reading; and it was rehearsed, in disregard of all good taste, amid shouts of laughter. When it was finished, the conductor said: "Gentlemen, I ask your pardon for having allowed this piece to be played to the end; but I wanted to know what manner of man it is that dares to write such things about the master, Brahms."

Wolf got a little respite from his miseries by going to stay a few weeks in his own country with his brother-in-law, Strasser, an inspector of taxes.[186] He took with him his books, his poets, and began to set them to music.

[Footnote 186: Wolf's letters to Strasser are of great value in giving us an insight into his artist's eager and unhappy soul.]

* * * * *

He was now twenty-seven years old, and had as yet published nothing. The years of 1887 and 1888 were the most critical ones of his life. In 1887 he lost his father whom he loved so much, and that loss, like so many of his other misfortunes, gave fresh impulse to his energies. The same year, a generous friend called Eckstein published his first collection of Lieder. Wolf up to that time had been smothered, but this publication stirred the life in him, and was the means of unloosing his genius. Settled at Perchtoldsdorf, near Vienna, in February, 1888, in absolute peace, he wrote in three months fifty-three Lieder to the words of Eduard Moerike, the pastor-poet of Swabia, who died in 1875, and who, misunderstood and laughed at during his lifetime, is now covered with honour, and universally popular in Germany. Wolf composed his songs in a state of exalted joy and almost fright at the sudden discovery of his creative power.

In a letter to Dr. Heinrich Werner, he says:

"It is now seven o'clock in the evening, and I am so happy—oh, happier than the happiest of kings. Another new Lied! If you could hear what is going on in my heart!... the devil would carry you away with pleasure!...

"Another two new Lieder! There is one that sounds so horribly strange that it frightens me. There is nothing like it in existence. Heaven help the unfortunate people who will one day hear it!...

"If you could only hear the last Lied I have just composed you would only have one desire left—to die.... Your happy, happy Wolf."

He had hardly finished the Moerike-Lieder when he began a series of Lieder on poems of Goethe. In three months (December, 1888, to February, 1889) he had written all the Goethe-Liederbuch—fifty-one Lieder, some of which are, like Prometheus, big dramatic scenes.

The same year, while still at Perchtoldsdorf, after having published a volume of Eichendorff Lieder, he became absorbed in a new cycle—the Spanisches-Liederbuch, on Spanish poems translated by Heyse. He wrote these forty-four songs in the same ecstasy of gladness:

"What I write now, I write for the future.... Since Schubert and Schumann there has been nothing like it!"

In 1890, two months after he had finished the Spanisches-Liederbuch, he composed another cycle of Lieder on poems called Alten Weisen, by the great Swiss writer Gottfried Keller. And lastly, in the same year, he began his Italienisches-Liederbuch, on Italian poems, translated by Geibel and Heyse.

And then—then there was silence.

* * * * *

The history of Wolf is one of the most extraordinary in the history of art, and gives one a better glimpse of the mysteries of genius than most histories do.

Let us make a little resume. Wolf at twenty-eight years old had written practically nothing. From 1888 to 1890 he wrote, one after another, in a kind of fever, fifty-three Moerike Lieder, fifty-one Goethe Lieder, forty-four Spanish Lieder, seventeen Eichendorff Lieder, a dozen Keller Lieder, and the first Italian Lieder—that is about two hundred Lieder, each one having its own admirable individuality.

And then the music stops. The spring has dried up. Wolf in great anguish wrote despairing letters to his friends. To Oskar Grohe, on 2 May, 1891, he wrote:

"I have given up all idea of composing. Heaven knows how things will finish. Pray for my poor soul."

And to Wette, on 13 August, 1891, he says:

"For the last four months I have been suffering from a sort of mental consumption, which makes me very seriously think of quitting this world for ever.... Only those who truly live should live at all. I have been for some time like one who is dead. I only wish it were an apparent death; but I am really dead and buried; though the power to control my body gives me a seeming life. It is my inmost, my only desire, that the flesh may quickly follow the spirit that has already passed. For the last fifteen days I have been living at Traunkirchen, the pearl of Traunsee.... All the comforts that a man could wish for are here to make my life happy—peace, solitude, beautiful scenery, invigorating air, and everything that could suit the tastes of a hermit like myself.[187] And yet—and yet, my friend, I am the most miserable creature on earth. Everything around me breathes peace and happiness, everything throbs with life and fulfils its functions.... I alone, oh God!... I alone live like a beast that is deaf and senseless. Even reading hardly serves to distract me now, though I bury myself in books in my despair. As for composition, that is finished; I can no longer bring to mind the meaning of a harmony or a melody, and I almost begin to doubt if the compositions that bear my name are really mine. Good God! what is the use of all this fame? What is the good of these great aims if misery is all that lies at the end of it?...

"Heaven gives a man complete genius or no genius at all. Hell has given me everything by halves.

"O unhappy man, how true, how true it is! In the flower of your life you went to hell; into the evil jaws of destiny you threw the delusive present and yourself with it. O Kleist!"

[Footnote 187: Wolf was living there with a friend. He had not a lodging of his own until 1896, and that was due to the generosity of his friends.]

Suddenly, at Doebling, on 29 November, 1891, the stream of Wolf's genius flowed again, and he wrote fifteen Italian Lieder, sometimes several in one day. In December it stopped again; and this time for five years. These Italian melodies show, however, no trace of any effort, nor a greater tension of mind than is shown in his preceding works. On the contrary, they have the air of being the simplest and most natural work that Wolf ever did. But the matter is of no real consequence, for when Wolf's genius was not stirring within him he was useless. He wished to write thirty-three Italian Lieder, but he had to stop after the twenty-second, and in 1891 he published one volume only of the Italienisches-Liederbuch. The second volume was completed in a month, five years later, in 1896.

One may imagine the tortures that this solitary man suffered. His only happiness was in creation, and he saw his life cease, without any apparent cause, for years together, and his genius come and go, and return for an instant, and then go again. Each time he must have anxiously wondered if it had gone for ever, or how long it would be before it came back again. In letters to Kaufmann on 6 August, 1891, and 26 April, 1893, he says:

"You ask me for news of my opera.[188] Good Heavens! I should be content if I could write the tiniest little Liedchen. And an opera, now?... I firmly believe that it is all over with me.... I could as well speak Chinese as compose anything. It is horrible.... What I suffer from this inaction I cannot tell you. I should like to hang myself."

To Hugo Faisst he wrote on 21 June, 1894:

"You ask me the cause of my great depression of spirit, and would pour balm on my wounds. Ah yes, if you only could! But no herb grows that could cure my sickness; only a god could help me. If you can give me back my inspirations, and wake up the familiar spirit that is asleep in me, and let him possess me anew, I will call you a god and raise altars to your name. My cry is to gods and not to men; the gods alone are fit to pronounce my fate. But however it may end, even if the worst comes, I will bear it—yes, even if no ray of sunshine lightens my life again.... And with that we will, once for all, turn the page and have done with this dark chapter of my life."

[Footnote 188: The writing of an opera was Wolf's great dream and intention for many years.]

This letter—and it is not the only one—recalls the melancholy stoicism of Beethoven's letters, and shows us sorrows that even the unhappy Beethoven did not know. And yet how can we tell? Perhaps Beethoven, too, suffered similar anguish in the sad days that followed 1815, before the last sonatas, the Missa Solemnis, and the Ninth Symphony had awaked to life in him.

* * * * *

In March, 1895, Wolf lived once more, and in three months had written the piano score of Corregidor. For many years he had been attracted towards the stage, and especially towards light opera. Enthusiast though he was for Wagner's work, he had declared openly that it was time for musicians to free themselves from the Wagnerian Musik-Drama. He knew his own gifts, and did not aspire to take Wagner's place. When one of his friends offered him a subject for an opera, taken from a legend about Buddha, he declined it, saying that the world did not yet understand the meaning of Buddha's doctrines, and that he had no wish to give humanity a fresh headache. In a letter to Grohe, on 28 June, 1890, he says:

"Wagner has, by and through his art, accomplished such a mighty work of liberation that we may rejoice to think that it is quite useless for us to storm the skies, since he has conquered them for us. It is much wiser to seek out a pleasant nook in this lovely heaven. I want to find a little place there for myself, not in a desert with water and locusts and wild honey, but in a merry company of primitive beings, among the tinkling of guitars, the sighs of love, the moonlight, and such-like—in short, in a quite ordinary opera-comique, without any rescuing spectre of Schopenhauerian philosophy in the background."

After having sought the libretto of an opera from the whole world, from poets ancient and modern,[189] and after having tried to write one himself, he finally took that of Madame Rosa Mayreder, an adaptation of a Spanish novelette of Don Pedro de Alarcon. This was Corregidor, which, after having been refused by other theatres, was played in June, 1896, at Mannheim. The work was not a success in spite of its musical qualities, and the poorness of the libretto helped on its failure.

[Footnote 189: Detlev von Liliencron offered him an American subject. "But in spite of my admiration for Buffalo Bill and his unwashed crew," said Wolf sarcastically, "I prefer my native soil and people who appreciate the advantages of soap."]

But the main thing was that Wolf's creative genius had returned. In April, 1896, he wrote straight away the twenty-two songs of the second volume of the Italienisches-Liederbuch. At Christmas his friend Mueller sent him some of Michelangelo's poems, translated into German by Walter Robert-Tornow; and Wolf, deeply moved by their beauty, decided at once to devote a whole volume of Lieder to them. In 1897 he composed the first three melodies. At the same time he was also working at a new opera, Manuel Venegas, a poem by Moritz Hoernes, written after the style of Alarcon. He seemed full of strength and happiness and confidence in his renewed health. Mueller was speaking to him of the premature death of Schubert, and Wolf replied, "A man is not taken away before he has said all he has to say."

He worked furiously, "like a steam-engine," as he said, and was so absorbed in the composition of Manuel Venegas (September, 1897) that he went without rest, and had hardly time to take necessary food. In a fortnight he had written fifty pages of the pianoforte score, as well as the motifs for the whole work, and the music of half the first act.

Then madness came. On 20 September he was seized while he was working at the great recitative of Manuel Venegas in the first act.

He was taken to Dr. Svetlin's private hospital in Vienna, and remained there until January, 1898. Happily he had devoted friends who took care of him and made up for the indifference of the public; for what he had earned himself would not have enabled him even to die in peace. When Schott, the publisher, sent him in October, 1895, his royalties for the editions of his Lieder of Moerike, Goethe, Eichendorff, Keller, Spanish poetry, and the first volume of Italian poetry, their total for five years came to eighty-six marks and thirty-five pfennigs! And Schott calmly added that he had not expected so good a result. So it was Wolf's friends, and especially Hugo Faisst, who not only saved him from misery by their unobtrusive and often secret generosity, but spared him the horror of destitution in his last misfortunes.

He recovered his reason, and was sent in February, 1898, for a voyage to Trieste and Venetia to complete his cure and prevent him from thinking of work. The precaution was unnecessary; for he says in a letter to Hugo Faisst, written in the same month:

"There is no need for you to trouble yourself or fear that I shall overdo things. A real distaste for work has taken possession of me, and I believe I shall never write another note. My unfinished opera has no more interest for me, and music altogether is hateful. You see what my kind friends have done for me! I cannot think how I shall be able to exist in this state.... Ah, happy Swabians! one may well envy you. Greet your beautiful country for me, and be warmly greeted yourself by your unhappy and worn-out friend, Hugo Wolf."

When he returned to Vienna, however, he seemed to be a little better, and had apparently regained his health and cheerfulness. But to his own astonishment he had become, as he says in a letter to Faisst, a quiet, sedate, and silent man, who wished more and more to be alone. He did not compose anything fresh, but revised his Michelangelo Lieder, and had them published. He made plans for the winter, and rejoiced in the thought of passing it in the country near Gmunden, "in perfect quiet, undisturbed, and living only for art." In his last letter to Faisst, 17 September, 1898, he says:

"I am quite well again now, and have no more need of any cures. You would need them more than I."

Then came a fresh seizure of madness, and this time all was finished.

In the autumn of 1898 Wolf was taken to an asylum at Vienna. At first he was able to receive a few visits and to enjoy a little music by playing duets with the director of the establishment, who was himself a musician and a great admirer of Wolf's works. He was even able in the spring to take a few walks out of doors with his friends and an attendant. But he was beginning not to recognise things or people or even himself. "Yes," he would say, sighing, "if only I were Hugo Wolf!" From the middle of 1899 his malady grew rapidly worse, and general paralysis followed. At the beginning of 1900 his speech was affected, and, finally, in August, 1901, all his body. At the beginning of 1902 all hope was given up by the doctors; but his heart was still sound, and the unhappy man dragged out his life for another year. He died on 16 February, 1903, of peripneumonia.

He was given a magnificent funeral, which was attended by all the people who had done nothing for him while he was alive. The Austrian State, the town of Vienna, his native town Windischgratz, the Conservatoire that had expelled him, the Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde who had been so long unfriendly to his works, the Opera that had been closed to him, the singers that had scorned him, the critics that had scoffed at him—they were all there. They sang one of his saddest melodies, Resignation, a setting of a poem of Eichendorff's, and a chorale by his old friend Bruckner, who had died several years before him. His faithful friends, Faisst at the head of them, took care to have a monument erected to his memory near those of Beethoven and Schubert.

* * * * *

Such was his life, cut short at thirty-seven years of age—for one cannot count the five years of complete madness. There are not many examples in the art world of so terrible a fate. Nietzsche's misfortune is nowhere beside this, for Nietzsche's madness was, to a certain extent, productive, and caused his genius to flash out in a way that it never would have done if his mind had been balanced and his health perfect. Wolf's madness meant prostration. But one may see how, even in the space of thirty-seven years, his life was strangely parcelled out. For he did not really begin his creative work until he was twenty-seven years old; and as from 1890 to 1895 he was condemned to five years' silence, the sum total of his real life, his productive life, is only four or five years. But in those few years he got more out of life than the greater part of artists do in a long career, and in his work he left the imprint of a personality that no one could forget after once having known it.

* * * * *

Wolf's work consists chiefly, as we have already seen, of Lieder, and these Lieder are characterised by the application to lyrical music of principles established by Wagner in the domain of drama. That does not mean he imitated Wagner. One finds here and there in Wolf's music Wagnerian forms, just as elsewhere there are evident reminiscences of Berlioz. It is the inevitable mark of his time, and each great artist in his turn contributes his share to the enrichment of the language that belongs to us all. But the real Wagnerism of Wolf is not made up of these unconscious resemblances; it lies in his determination to make poetry the inspiration of music. "To show, above all," he wrote to Humperdinck in 1890, "that poetry is the true source of my music."

When a man is both a poet and a musician, like Wagner, it is natural that his poetry and music should harmonise perfectly. But when it is a matter of translating the soul of other poets into music, special gifts of mental subtlety and an abounding sympathy are needed. These gifts were possessed by Wolf in a very high degree. No musician has more keenly savoured and appreciated the poets. "He was," said one of his critics, G. Kuehl, "Germany's greatest psychologist in music since Mozart." There was nothing laboured about his psychology. Wolf was incapable of setting to music poetry that he did not really love. He used to have the poetry he wished to translate read over to him several times, or in the evening he would read it aloud to himself. If he felt very stirred by it he lived apart with it, and thought about it, and soaked himself in its atmosphere; then he went to sleep, and the next morning he was able to write the Lied straight away. But some poems seemed to sleep in him for years, and then would suddenly awake in him in a musical form. On these occasions he would cry out with happiness. "Do you know?" he wrote to Mueller, "I simply shouted with joy." Mueller said he was like an old hen after it had laid an egg.

Wolf never chose commonplace poems for his music—which is more than can be said of Schubert or Schumann. He did not use anything written by contemporary poets, although he was in sympathy with some of them, such as Liliencron, who hoped very much to be translated into music by him. But he could not do it; he could not use anything in the work of a great poet unless he became so intimate with it that it seemed to be a part of him.

What strikes one also in the Lieder is the importance of the pianoforte accompaniment and its independence of the voice. Sometimes the voice and the pianoforte express the contrast that so often exists between the words and the thought of the poem; at other times they express two personalities, as in his setting of Goethe's Prometheus, where the accompaniment represents Zeus sending out his thunderbolts, and the voice interprets Titan; or again, he may depict, as in the setting of Eichendorff's Serenade, a student in love in the accompaniment, while the song is the voice of an old man who is listening to it and thinking of his youth. But in whatever he is describing, the pianoforte and the voice have always their own individuality. You cannot take anything away from his Lieder without spoiling the whole; and it is especially so with his instrumental passages, which give us the beginning and end of his emotion, and which circle round it and sum it up. The musical form, following closely the poetic form, is extremely varied. It may sometimes express a fugitive thought, a brief record of a poetic impression or some little action, or it may be a great epic or dramatic picture. Mueller remarks that Wolf put more into a poem than the poet himself—as in the Italienisches-Liederbuch. It is the worst reproach they can make about him, and it is not an ordinary one. Wolf excelled especially in setting poems which accorded with his own tragic fate, as if he had some presentiment of it. No one has better expressed the anguish of a troubled and despairing soul, such as we find in the old harp-player in Wilhelm Meister, or the splendid nihility of certain poems of Michelangelo.

Of all his collections of Lieder, the 53 Gedichte von Eduard Moerike, komponiert fuer eine Singstimme und Klavier (1888), the first published, is the most popular. It gained many friends for Wolf, not so much among artists (who are always in the minority) as among those critics who are the best and most disinterested of all—the homely, honest people who do not make a profession of art, but enjoy it as their spiritual daily bread. There are a number of these people in Germany, whose hard lives are beautified by their love of music. Wolf found these friends in all parts, but he found most of them in Swabia. At Stuttgart, at Mannheim, at Darmstadt, and in the country round about these towns he became very popular—the only popular musician since Schubert and Schumann. All classes of society unite in loving him. "His Lieder," says Herr Decsey, "are on the pianos of even the poorest houses, by the side of Schubert's Lieder." Stuttgart became for Wolf, as he said himself, a second home. He owes this popularity, which is without parallel in Swabia, to the people's passionate love of Lieder and, above all, of the poetry of Moerike, the Swabian pastor, who lives again in Wolf's songs. Wolf has set to music a quarter of Moerike's poems, he has brought Moerike into his own, and given him one of the first places among German poets. Such was really his intention, and he said so when he had a portrait of Moerike put on the title-page of the songs. Whether the reading of his poetry acted as a balm to Wolf's unquiet spirit, or whether he became conscious of his genius for the first time when he expressed this poetry in music, I do not know; but he felt deep gratitude towards it, and wished to show it by beginning the first volume with that fine and rather Beethoven-like song, Der Genesende an die Hoffnung ("The Convalescent's Ode to Hope").

The fifty-one Lieder of the Goethe-Liederbuch (1888-89) were composed in groups of Lieder: the Wilhelm Meister Lieder, the Divan (Suleika) Lieder, etc. Wolf even tried to identify himself with the poet's line of thought; and in this we often find him in rivalry with Schubert. He avoided using the poems in which he thought Schubert had exactly conveyed the poet's meaning, as in Geheimes and An Schwager Kronos; but he told Mueller that there were times when Schubert did not understand Goethe at all, because he concerned himself with translating their general lyrical thought rather than with showing the real nature of Goethe's characters. The peculiar interest of Wolf's Lieder is that he gives each poetic figure its individual character. The Harpist and Mignon are traced with marvellous insight and restraint; and in some passages Wolf shows that he has re-discovered Goethe's art of presenting a whole world of sadness in a single word. The serenity of a great soul soars over the chaos of passions.

The Spanisches-Liederbuch nach Heyse und Geibel (1889-90) had already inspired Schumann, Brahms, Cornelius, and others. But none had tried to give it its rough and sensual character. Mueller shows how Schumann, especially, robbed the poems of their true nature. Not only did he invest them with his own sentimentalism, but he calmly arranged poems of the most marked individual character to be sung by four voices, which makes them quite absurd; and, worse than this, he changed the words and their sense when they stood in his way. Wolf, on the contrary, steeped himself in this melancholy and voluptuous world, and would not let anything draw him from it; and out of it he produced, as he himself said proudly, some masterpieces. The ten religious songs that come at the beginning of the collection suggest the delusions of mysticism, and weep tears of blood; they are distressing to the ear and mind alike, for they are the passionate expression of a faith that puts itself on the rack. By the side of them one finds smiling visions of the Holy Family, which recall Murillo. The thirty-four folk-songs are brilliant, restless, whimsical, and wonderfully varied in form. Each represents a different subject, a personality drawn with incisive strokes, and the whole collection overflows with life. It is said that the Spanisches-Liederbuch is to Wolf's work what Tristan is to Wagner's work.

The Italienisches-Liederbuch (1890-96) is quite different. The character of the songs is very restrained, and Wolf's genius here approached a classic clearness of form. He was always seeking to simplify his musical language, and said that if he wrote anything more, he wished it to be like Mozart's writings. These Lieder contain nothing that is not absolutely essential to their subject; so the melodies are very short, and are dramatic rather than lyrical. Wolf gave them an important place in his work: "I consider them," he wrote to Kaufmann, "the most original and perfect of my compositions."

As for the Michelangelo Gedichten (1897), they were interrupted by the outbreak of his malady, and he had only time to write four, of which he suppressed one. Their associations are pathetic when one remembers the tragic time at which they were composed; and, by a sort of prophetic instinct, they exhale heaviness of spirit and mournful pride. The second melody is perhaps more beautiful than anything else Wolf wrote; it is truly his death-song:

Alles endet, was entstehet. Alles, alles rings vergehet.[190]

And it is a dead man that sings:

Menschen waren wir ja auch, Froh und traurig, so wie Ihr. Und nun sind wir leblos hier, Sind nur Erde, wie Ihr sehet.[191]

At the moment he was writing this song, in the short respite he had from his illness, he himself was nearly a dead man.

[Footnote 190:

All that is begun must end, All around will sometime perish.

[Footnote 191:

Once we were also men Happy or sad like you; Now life is taken from us, We are only of earth, as you see.

Chiunque nasce a morte arriva Nel fuggir del tempo, e'l sole Niuna cosa lascia viva.... Come voi, uomini fummo, Lieti e tristi, come siete; E or siam, come vedete, Terra al sol, di vita priva.

(Poems of Michelangelo, CXXXVI.)

* * * * *

As soon as Wolf was really dead his genius was recognised all over Germany. His sufferings provoked an almost excessive reaction in his favour. Hugo-Wolf-Vereine were founded everywhere; and to-day we have publications, collections of letters, souvenirs, and biographies in abundance. It is a case of who can cry loudest that he always understood the genius of the unhappy artist, and work himself into the greatest fury against his traducers. A little later, and monuments and statues will spring up all over.

I doubt if Wolf with his rough, sincere nature would have found much consolation in this tardy homage if he could have foreseen it. He would have said to his posthumous admirers: "You are hypocrites. It is not for me that you raise those statues; it is for yourselves. It is that you may make speeches, form committees, and delude yourselves and others that you were my friends. Where were you when I had need of you? You let me die. Do not play a comedy round my grave. Look rather around you, and see if there are not other Wolfs who are struggling against your hostility or your indifference. As for me, I have come safe to port."



DON LORENZO PEROSI

The winter that held Italian thought in its cold clasp is over, and great trees that seemed to be asleep are putting out new life in the sun. Yesterday it was poetry that awaked, and to-day it is music—the sweet music of Italy, calm in its passion and sadness, and artless in its knowledge. Are we really witnessing the return of its spring? Is it the incoming of some great tide of melody, which will wash away the gloom and doubt of our life to-day? As I was reading the oratorios of this young priest of Piedmont, I thought I heard, far away, the song of the children of old Greece: "The swallow has come, has come, bringing the gay seasons and glad years. Ear ede." I welcome the coming of Don Lorenzo Perosi with great hope.



* * * * *

The abbe Perosi, the precentor of St. Mark's chapel at Venice and the director of the Sistine chapel, is twenty-six years old.[192] He is short in stature and of youthful appearance, with a head a little too big for his body, and open and regular features lighted up by intelligent black eyes, his only peculiarity being a projecting underlip.

[Footnote 192: This article was written in 1899, on the occasion of Lorenzo Perosi's coming to Paris to direct his oratorio La Resurrection.] He is simple-hearted and modest, and has a friendly warmth of affection. When he is conducting the orchestra his striking silhouette, his slow and awkward gestures in expressive passages, and his naive movements of passion at dramatic moments, bring to mind one of Fra Angelico's monks.

For the last eighteen months Don Perosi has been working at a cycle of twelve oratorios descriptive of the life of Christ. In this short time he has finished four: The Passion, The Transfiguration, The Resurrection of Lazarus, The Resurrection of Christ. Now he is at work on the fifth—The Nativity.

These compositions alone place him in the front rank of contemporary musicians. They abound in faults; but their qualities are so rare, and his soul shines so clearly through them, and such fine sincerity breathes in them, that I have not the courage to dwell on their weaknesses. So I shall content myself with remarking, in passing, that the orchestration is inadequate and awkward, and that the young musician should strive to make it fuller and more delicate; and though he shows great ease in composition, he is often too impetuous, and should resist this tendency; and that, lastly, there are sometimes traces of bad taste in the music and reminiscences of the classics—all of which are the sins of youth, which age will certainly cure.

Each of the oratorios is really a descriptive mass, which from beginning to end traces out one dominating thought. Don Perosi said to me: "The mistake of artists to-day is that they attach themselves too much to details and neglect the whole. They begin by carving ornaments, and forget that the most important thing is the unity of their work, its plan and general outline. The outline must first of all be beautiful."

In his own musical architecture one finds well-marked airs, numerous recitatives, Gregorian or Palestrinian choruses, chorales with developments and variations in the old style, and intervening symphonies of some importance.

The whole work is to be preceded by a grand prelude, very carefully worked out, to which Don Perosi attaches particular worth. He wishes, he says, that his building shall have a beautiful door elaborately carved after the fashion of the artists of the Renaissance and Gothic times. And so he means to compose the prelude after the rest of the oratorio is finished, when he is able to think about it in undisturbed peace. He wishes to concentrate a moral atmosphere in it, the very essence of the soul and passions of his sacred drama. He also confided to me that of all he has yet composed there is nothing he likes better than the introductions to The Transfiguration and The Resurrection of Christ.

The dramatic tendency of these oratorios is very marked, and it is chiefly on that account that they have conquered Italy. In spite of some passages which have strayed a little in the direction of opera, or even melodrama, the music shows great depth of feeling. The figures of the women especially are drawn with delicacy; and in the second part of Lazarus, Mary's air, "Lord, if Thou hadst been here, my brother had not died," recalls something of Gluck's Orfeo in its heart-broken sadness. And again, in the same oratorio, when Jesus gives the order to raise the stone from the tomb, Martha's speech, "Domine, jam foetet," is very expressive of her sadness, fear, and shame, and human horror. I should like to quote one more passage, the most moving of all, which is found in the Resurrection of Christ, when Mary Magdalene is beside the tomb of Christ; here, in her speech with the angels, in her touching lamentation, and in the words of the Evangelist, "And when she had thus said, she turned herself back, and saw Jesus standing, and knew not that it was Jesus," we hear a melody filled with tenderness, and seem to see Christ's eyes shining as they rest on Mary before she has recognised Him.

It is not, however, Perosi's dramatic genius that strikes me in his work; it is rather his peculiar mournfulness, which is indescribable, his gift of pure poetry, and the richness of his flowing melody. However deep the religious feeling in the music may be, the music itself is often stronger still, and breaks in upon the drama that it may express itself freely. Take, for instance, the fine symphonic passage that follows the arrival of Jesus and His friends at Martha and Mary's house, after the death of their brother (p. 12 et seq. of Lazarus). It is true the orchestra expresses regrets and sighs, the excesses of sorrow mingled with words of consolation and faith, in a sort of languishing funeral march that is feminine and Christian in character. This, according to the composer, is a picture he has painted of the persons in the drama before he makes them speak. But, in spite of himself, the result is a flood of pure music, and his soul sings its own song of joy and sadness. Sometimes his spirit, in its naive and delicate charm, recalls that of Mozart; but his musical visions are always dominated and directed by a religious strength like that of Bach. Even the portions where the dramatic feeling is strongest are really little symphonies, such as the music that describes the miracle in The Transfiguration, and the illness of Lazarus. In the latter great depth of suffering is expressed; indeed, sadness could not have been carried farther even by Bach, and the same serenity of mind runs through its despair.

But what joy there is when these deeds of faith have been performed—when Jesus has cured the possessed man, or when Lazarus has opened his eyes to the light. The heart of the multitude overflows perhaps in rather childish thanksgiving; and at first it seemed to me expressed in a commonplace way. But did not the joy of all great artists so express itself?—the joy of Beethoven, Mozart, and Bach, who, when once they had thrown their cares aside, knew how to amuse themselves like the rest of the populace. And the simple phrase at the beginning soon assumes fuller proportions, the harmonies gain in richness, a glowing ardour fills the music, and a chorale blends with the dances in triumphant majesty.

All these works are radiant with a happy ease of expression. The Passion was finished in September, 1897, The Transfiguration in February, 1898. Lazarus in June, 1898, and The Resurrection of Christ in November, 1898. Such an output of work takes us back to eighteenth-century musicians.

But this is not the only resemblance between the young musician and his predecessors. Much of their soul has passed into his. His style is made up of all styles, and ranges from the Gregorian chant to the most modern modulations. All available materials are used in this work. This is an Italian characteristic. Gabriel d'Annunzio threw into his melting-pot the Renaissance, the Italian painters, music, the writers of the North, Tolstoy, Dostoievsky, Maeterlinck, and our French writers, and out of it he drew his wonderful poems. So Don Perosi, in his compositions, welds together the Gregorian chant, the musical style of the contrapuntists of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, Palestrina, Roland, Gabrieli, Carissimi, Schuetz, Bach, Haendel, Gounod, Wagner—I was going to say Cesar Franck, but Don Perosi told me that he hardly knew this composer at all, though his style bears some resemblance to Franck's.

Time does not exist for Don Perosi. When he courteously wished to praise French musicians, the first name he chose—as if it were that of a contemporary—was that of Josquin, and then that of Roland de Lassus, who seems to him so great and profound a musician that he admires him most of all. And Don Perosi's universality of style is a trait that is Catholic as well as Italian. He expresses his mind quite clearly on the subject. "Great artists formerly," he says, "were more eclectic than ourselves, and less fettered by their nationalities. Josquin's school has peopled all Europe. Roland has lived in Flanders, in Italy, and in Germany. With them the same style expressed the same thought everywhere. We must do as they did. We must try to recreate a universal art in which the resources of all countries and all times are blended."

As a matter of fact, I do not think this is quite correct. I rather doubt if Josquin and Roland were eclectic at all; for they did not really combine the styles of different countries, but thrust upon other countries the style that the Franco-Flemish school had just created, a style which they themselves were enriching daily. But Don Perosi's idea deserves our appreciation, and one must praise his endeavour to create a universal style. It would be a good thing for music if eclecticism, thus understood, could bring back some of the equilibrium that has been lost since Wagner's death; it would be a benefit to the human spirit, which might then find in the unity of art a powerful means of bringing about the unity of mind. Our aim should be to efface the differences of race in art, so that it may become a tongue common to all peoples, where the most opposite ideas may be reconciled. We should all join in working to build the cathedral of European art. And the place of the director of the Sistine chapel among the first builders is very plain.

* * * * *

Don Perosi sat down to the piano and played me the Te Deum of The Nativity, which he had written the day before. He played very sweetly, with youthful gaiety, and sang the choral parts in an undertone. Every now and then he would look at me, not for praise, but to see if we were sharing the same thoughts. He would look me well in the face with his quiet eyes, then turn back to his score, and then look at me again. And I felt a comforting calm radiating from him and his music, from its happy harmony and the full and rhythmic serenity of its spirit. And how pleasant it was after the tempests and convulsions of art in these later days. Can we not tear ourselves away from that romantic suffering in music which was begun by Beethoven? After a century of battles, of revolutions, and of political and social strife, whose pain has found its reflection in art, let us begin to build a new city of art, where men may gather together in brotherly love for the same ideal. However Utopian that hope may sound now, let us think of it as a symptom of new directions of thought, and let us hope that Don Perosi may be one of those who will bring into music that divine peace, that peace which Beethoven craved for in despair at the end of his Missa Solemnis, that joy that he sang about but never knew.



FRENCH AND GERMAN MUSIC

In May, 1905, the first musical festival of Alsace-Lorraine took place at Strasburg. It was an important artistic event, and meant the bringing together of two civilisations that for centuries had been at variance on the soil of Alsace, more anxious for dispute than for mutual understanding.

The official programme of the fetes musicales laid stress on the reconciliatory purpose of its organisers, and I quote these words from the programme book, drawn up by Dr. Max Bendiner, of Strasburg:

"Music may achieve the highest of all missions: she may be a bond between nations, races, and states, who are strangers to one another in many ways; she may unite what is disunited, and bring peace to what is hostile.... No country is more suited for her friendly aid than Alsace-Lorraine, that old meeting-place of people, where from time immemorial the North and South have exchanged their material and their spiritual wealth; and no place is readier to welcome her than Strasburg, an old town built by the Romans, which has remained to this day a centre of spiritual life. All great intellectual currents have left their mark on the people of Alsace-Lorraine; and so they have been destined to play the part of mediator between different times and different peoples; and the East and the West, the past and the present, meet here and join hands. In such festivals as this, it is not a matter of gaining aesthetic victories; it is a matter of bringing together all that is great and noble and eternal in the art of different times and different nations."

It was a splendid ambition for Alsace—the eternal field of battle—to wish to inaugurate these European Olympian games. But in spite of good intentions, this meeting of nations resulted in a fight, on musical ground, between two civilisations and two arts—French art and German art. For these two arts represent to-day all that is truly alive in European music.

Such jousts are very stirring, and may be of great service to all combatants. But, unhappily, France was very indifferent in the matter. It was the duty of our musicians and critics to attend an international encounter like this, and to see that the conditions of the combat were fair. By that I mean our art should be represented as it ought to be, so that we may learn something from the result. But the French public does nothing at such a time; it remains absorbed in its concerts at Paris, where everyone knows everyone else so well that they are not able and do not dare to criticise freely. And so our art is withering away in an atmosphere of coteries, instead of seeking the open air and enjoying a vigorous fight with foreign art. For the majority of our critics would rather deny the existence of foreign art than try to understand it. Never have I regretted their indifference more than I did at the Strasburg festival, where, in spite of the unfavourable conditions in which French art was represented through our own carelessness, I realised what its force might have been if we had been interested spectators in the fight.

* * * * *

Perfect eclecticism had been exercised in the making up of the programme. One found mixed together the names of Mozart, Wagner, and Brahms; Cesar Franck and Gustave Charpentier; Richard Strauss and Mahler. There were French singers like Cazeneuve and Daraux, and French and Italian virtuosi like Henri Marteau and Ferruccio Busoni, together with German, Austrian, and Scandinavian artists. The orchestra (the Strassbuerger Staedtische Orchester) and the choir, which was formed of different Chorvereine of Strasburg, were conducted by Richard Strauss, Gustav Mahler, and Camille Chevillard. But the names of these famous Kapellmeister must not let us forget the man who was really the soul of the concerts—Professor Ernst Muench, of Strasburg, an Alsatian, who conducted all the rehearsals, and who effaced himself at the last moment, and left all the honours to the conductors of foreign orchestras. Professor Muench, who is also organist at Saint-Guillaume, has done more than anyone else for music in Strasburg, and has trained excellent choirs (the "Choeurs de Saint-Guillaume") there, and organised splendid concerts of Bach's music with the aid of another Alsatian, Albert Schweitzer, whose name is well known to musical historians. The latter is director of the clerical college of St. Thomas (Thomasstift), a pastor, an organist, a professor at the University of Strasburg, and the author of interesting works on theology and philosophy. Besides this he has written a now famous book, Jean-Sebastien Bach, which is doubly remarkable: first, because it is written in French (though it was published in Leipzig by a professor of the University of Strasburg), and secondly, because it shows an harmonious blend of the French and German spirit, and gives fresh life to the study of Bach and the old classic art. It was very interesting to me to make the acquaintance of these people, born on Alsatian soil, and representing the best Alsatian culture and all that was finest in the two civilisations.

The programme for the three days' festival was as follows:

Saturday, May 20th.

Oberon Overture: Weber (conducted by Richard Strauss).

Les Beatitudes: Cesar Franck (conducted by Camille Chevillard).

Impressions d'ltalie: Gustav Charpentier (conducted by Camille Chevillard).

Three songs by Jean Sibelius, Hugo Wolf, Armas Jaernefelt (sung by Mme. Jaernefelt).

The last scene from Die Meistersinger: Wagner (conducted by Richard Strauss).

Sunday, May 21st.

Cinquieme Symphonie: Gustav Mahler (conducted by Gustav Mahler).

Rhapsodie, for contralto, choir, and orchestra: Johannes Brahms (conducted by Ernst Muench).

Strasburg Concerto in G major, for violin (played by Henri Marteau; conducted by Richard Strauss).

Sinfonia domestica: Richard Strauss (conducted by Richard Strauss).

Monday, May 22nd.

Coriolan Overture: Beethoven (conducted by Gustav Mahler).

Concerto in G major, for piano: Beethoven (played by Ferruccio Busoni).

Lieder: An die enfernie Geliebte: Beethoven (sung by Ludwig Hess).

Choral Symphony: Beethoven (conducted by Gustav Mahler).

* * * * *

M. Chevillard alone represented our French musicians at the festival; and they could have made no better choice of a conductor. But Germany had delegated her two greatest composers, Strauss and Mahler, to come to conduct their newest compositions. And I think it would not have been too much to set up one of our own foremost composers to combat the glory which these two enjoy in their own country.

M. Chevillard had been asked to conduct, not one of the works of our recent masters, like Debussy or Dukas, whose style he renders to perfection, but Franck's Les Beatitudes, a work whose spirit he does not, to my mind, quite understand. The mystic tenderness of Franck escapes him, and he brings out only what is dramatic. And so that performance of Les Beatitudes, though in many respects fine, left an imperfect idea of Franck's genius.

But what seemed inconceivable, and what justly annoyed M. Chevillard, was that the whole of Les Beatitudes was not given, but only a section of them. And on this subject I shall take the liberty of recommending that French artists who are guests at similar festivals should not in future agree to a programme with their eyes shut, but have their own wishes considered, or refuse their help. If French musicians are to be given a place in German Musikfeste, French people must be allowed to choose the works that are to represent them. And, above all, a French conductor must not be brought from Paris, and find on his arrival a mutilated score and an arbitrary choice of a few fragments that are not even whole in themselves. For they played five out of the eight Beatitudes, and cuts had been made in the third and eighth Beatitudes. That showed a want of respect for art, for works should be given as they are, or not at all.

And it would have been more seemly if in this three-day festival the organisers had had the courteousness to devote the first day to French music, and had set aside one whole concert for it. But, without doubt, they had carefully sandwiched the French works in between German works to weaken their effect, and lessen the probable (and actual) enthusiasm with which French music would be received in the presence of the Statthalter of Alsace-Lorraine by a section of the Alsatian public. In addition to this, and by a choice that neither myself nor anyone else in Strasburg could believe was dictated by musical reasons, the German work chosen to end the evening was the final scene from Die Meistersinger, with its ringing couplet from Hans Sachs, in which he denounces foreign insincerity and foreign frivolity (Waelschen Dunst mit waelschen Tand). This lack of courtesy—though the words were really nonsense when this very concert was given to show that foreign art could not be ignored—would not be worth while raking up if it did not further serve to show how regrettable is the indifference of French artists who take part in these festivals. And this mistake would never have occurred if they had taken care to acquaint themselves with the programme beforehand and put their veto upon it.

I have mentioned this little incident partly because my views were shared by many Alsatians in the audience, who expressed their annoyance to me afterwards. But, putting it aside, our French artists ought not to have consented to let our music be represented by a mutilated score of Les Beatitudes and by Charpentier's Impressions d'Italie, for the latter, though a brilliantly clever work, is not of the first rank, and was too easily crushed by one of Wagner's most stupendous compositions. If people wish to institute a joust between French and German art, let it be a fair one, I repeat; let Wagner be matched with Berlioz, and Strauss with Debussy, and Mahler with Dukas or Magnard.

* * * * *

Such were the conditions of the combat; and they were, whether intentionally or not, unfavourable to France. And yet to the eyes of an impartial observer the result was full of hope and encouragement for us.

I have never bothered myself in art with questions of nationality. I have not even concealed my preference for German music; and I consider, even to-day, that Richard Strauss is the foremost musical composer in Europe. Having said this, I am freer to speak of the strange impression that I had at the Strasburg festival—an impression of the change that is coming over music, and the way that French art is silently setting about taking the place of German art.

"Waelschen Dunst und waelschen Tand...." How that reproachful speech seems to be misplaced when one is listening to the honest thought expressed in Cesar Franck's music. In Les Beatitudes, nothing, or next to nothing, was done for art's sake. It is the soul speaking to the soul. As Beethoven wrote, at the end of his mass in D, "Vom Herzen ... zu Herzen!" ("It comes from the heart to go to the heart"). I know no one but Franck in the last century, unless it is Beethoven, who has possessed in so high a degree the virtue of being himself and speaking only the truth without thought of his public. Never before has religious faith been expressed with such sincerity. Franck is the only musician besides Bach who has really seen the Christ, and who can make other people see him too. I would even venture to say that his Christ is simpler than Bach's; for Bach's thoughts are often led away by the interest of developing his subject, by certain habits of composition, and by repetitions and clever devices, which weaken his strength. In Franck's music we get Christ's speech itself, unadorned and in all its living force. And in the wonderful harmony between the music and the sacred words we hear the voice of the world's conscience. I once heard someone say to Mme. Cosima Wagner that certain passages in Parsifal, particularly the chorus "Durch Mitleid wissend," had a quality that was truly religious and the force of a revelation. But I find a greater force and a more truly Christian spirit in Les Beatitudes.

And here is an astonishing thing. At this German musical festival it was a Frenchman who represented not only serious music moulded in a classical form, but a religious spirit and the spirit of the Gospels. The characters of two nations have been reversed. The Germans have so changed that they are only able to appreciate this seriousness and religious faith with difficulty. I watched the audience on this occasion; they listened politely, a little astonished and bored, as if to say, "What business has this Frenchman with depth and piety of soul?"

"There is no doubt," said Henri Lichtenberger, who sat by me at the concert, "our music is beginning to bore the Germans."

It was only the other day that German music enjoyed the privilege of boring us in France.

And so, to make up for the austere grandeur of Les Beatitudes they had it immediately followed by Gustave Charpentier's Impressions d'Italie. You should have seen the relief of the audience. At last they were to have some French music—as Germans understand it. Charpentier is, of all living French musicians, the most liked in Germany; he is indeed the only one who is popular with artists and the general public alike. Shall I say that the sincere pleasure they take in his orchestration and the gay life of his subjects is enhanced a little by a slight disdain for French frivolity—waelschen Tand?

"Now listen to that," said Richard Strauss to me during the third movement of Impressions d'Italie; "that is the true music of Montmartre, the utterance of fine words ... Liberty!... Love!... which no one believes."

And on the whole he found the music quite charming, and, without doubt, in the depths of his heart approved of this Frenchman according to conventional notions that are current in Germany alone. Strauss is really very fond of Charpentier, and was his patron in Berlin; and I remember how he showed childish delight in Louise when it was first performed in Paris.

But Strauss, and most other Germans, are quite on the wrong track when they try to persuade themselves that this amusing French frivolity is still the exclusive property of France. They really love it because it has become German; and they are quite unconscious of the fact. The German artists of other times did not find much pleasure in frivolity; but I could have easily shown Strauss his liking for it by taking examples from his own works. The Germans of to-day have but little in common with the Germans of yesterday.

I am not speaking of the general public only, The German public of to-day are devotees of Brahms and Wagner, and everything of theirs seems good to them; they have no discrimination, and, while they applaud Wagner and encore Brahms, they are, in their hearts, not only frivolous, but sentimental and gross. The most striking thing about this public is their cult of power since Wagner's death. When listening to the end of Die Meistersinger I felt how the haughty music of the great march reflected the spirit of this military nation of shop-keepers, bursting with rude health and complacent pride.

The most remarkable thing of all is that German artists are gradually losing the power of understanding their own splendid classics and, in particular, Beethoven. Strauss, who is very shrewd and knows exactly his own limitations, does not willingly enter Beethoven's domain, though he feels his spirit in a much more living way than any of the other German Kapellmeister. At the Strasburg festival he contented himself with conducting, besides his own symphony, the Oberon Overture and a Mozart concerto. These performances were interesting; a personality like his is so curious that it is quite amusing to find it coming out in the works he conducts. But how Mozart's features took on an offhand and impatient air; and how the rhythms were accentuated at the expense of the melodic grace. In this case, however, Strauss was dealing with a concerto, where a certain liberty of interpretation is allowed. But Mahler, who was less discreet, ventured upon conducting the whole of the Beethoven concert. And what can be said of that evening? I will not speak of the Concerto for pianoforte, in G major, which Busoni played with a brilliant and superficial execution that took away all breadth from the work; it is enough to note that his interpretation was enthusiastically received by the public. German artists were not responsible for that performance; but they were responsible for that fine cycle of Lieder, An die entfernte Geliebte, which was bellowed by a Berlin tenor at the top of his voice, and for the Choral Symphony, which was, for me, an unspeakable performance. I could never have believed that a German orchestra conducted by the chief Kapellmeister of Austria could have committed such misdeeds. The time was incredible: the scherzo had no life in it; the adagio was taken in hot haste without leaving a moment for dreams; and there were pauses in the finale which destroyed the development of the theme and broke the thread of its thought. The different parts of the orchestra fell over one another, and the whole was uncertain and lacking in balance. I once severely criticised the neo-classic stiffness of Weingartner; but I should have appreciated his healthy equilibrium and his effort to be exact after hearing this neurasthenic rendering of Beethoven. No; we can no longer hear Beethoven and Mozart in Germany to-day, we can only hear Mahler and Strauss. Well, let it be so. We will resign ourselves. The past is past. Let us leave Beethoven and Mozart, and speak of Mahler and Strauss.

* * * * *

Gustav Mahler is forty-six years old.[193] He is a kind of legendary type of German musician, rather like Schubert, and half-way between a school-master and a clergyman. He has a long, clean-shaven face, a pointed skull covered with untidy hair, a bald forehead, a prominent nose, eyes that blink behind his glasses, a large mouth and thin lips, hollow cheeks, a rather tired and sarcastic expression, and a general air of asceticism. He is excessively nervous, and silhouette caricatures of him, representing him as a cat in convulsions in the conductor's desk, are very popular in Germany.

[Footnote 193: This essay was written in 1905.]

He was born at Kalischt in Bohemia, and became a pupil of Anton Bruckner at Vienna, and afterwards Hofoperndirecktor ("Director of the Opera") there. I hope one day to study this artist's work in greater detail, for he is second only to Strauss as a composer in Germany, and the principal musician of South Germany.

His most important work is a suite of symphonies; and it was the fifth symphony of this suite that he conducted at the Strasburg festival. The first symphony, called Titan, was composed in 1894. The construction of the whole is on a massive and gigantic scale; and the melodies on which these works are built up are like rough-hewn blocks of not very good quality, but imposing by reason of their size, and by the obstinate repetition of their rhythmic design, which is maintained as if it were an obsession. This heaping-up of music both crude and learned in style, with harmonies that are sometimes clumsy and sometimes delicate, is worth considering on account of its bulk. The orchestration is heavy and noisy; and the brass dominates and roughly gilds the rather sombre colouring of the great edifice. The underlying idea of the composition is neo-classic, and rather spongy and diffuse. Its harmonic structure is composite: we get the style of Bach, Schubert, and Mendelssohn fighting that of Wagner and Bruckner; and, by a decided liking for canon form, it even recalls some of Franck's work. The whole is like a showy and expensive collection of bric-a-brac.

The chief characteristic of these symphonies is, generally speaking, the use of choral singing with the orchestra. "When I conceive a great musical painting (ein grosses musikalisches Gemaelde)," says Mahler, "there always comes a moment when I feel forced to employ speech (das Wort) as an aid to the realisation of my musical conception."

Mahler has got some striking effects from this combination of voices and instruments, and he did well to seek inspiration in this direction from Beethoven and Liszt. It is incredible that the nineteenth century should have put this combination to so little use; for I think the gain may be poetical as well as musical.

In the Second Symphony in C minor, the first three parts are purely instrumental; but in the fourth part the voice of a contralto is heard singing these sad and simple words:

"Der Mensch liegt in groesster Noth! Der Mensch liegt in groesster Pein! Je lieber moecht ich im Himmel sein!"[194]

The soul strives to reach God with the passionate cry:

"Ich bin von Gott und will wieder zu Gott."[195]

Then there is a symphonic episode (Der Rufer in der Wueste), and we hear "the voice of one crying in the wilderness" in fierce and anguished tones. There is an apocalyptic finale where the choir sing Klopstock's beautiful ode on the promise of the Resurrection:

"Aufersteh'n, ja, aufersteh'n wirst du, mein Staub, nach kurzer Ruh!"[196]

The law is proclaimed with:

"Was entstanden ist, dass mus vergehen, Was vergangen, auferstehen!"[197]

[Footnote 194: Man lies in greatest misery; Man lies in greatest pain; I would I were in Heaven!]

[Footnote 195: I come from God, and shall to God return.]

[Footnote 196: Thou wilt rise again, thou wilt rise again, O my dust, after a little rest.]

[Footnote 197: What is born must pass away; What has passed away must rise again.]

And all the orchestra, the choirs, and the organ, join in the hymn of Eternal Life.

In the Third Symphony, known as Ein Sommermorgentraum ("A Summer Morning's Dream"), the first and the last parts are for the orchestra alone; the fourth part contains some of the best of Mahler's music, and is an admirable setting of Nietzsche's words:

"O Mensch! O Mensch! Gib Acht! gib Acht! Was spricht die tiefe Mitternacht?"[198]

[Footnote 198:

O Man! O Man! Have care! Have care! What says dark midnight?

The fifth part is a gay and stirring chorus founded on a popular legend.

In the Fourth Symphony in G major, the last part alone is sung, and is of an almost humorous character, being a sort of childish description of the joys of Paradise.

In spite of appearances, Mahler refuses to connect these choral symphonies with programme-music. Without doubt he is right, if he means that his music has its own value outside any sort of programme; but there is no doubt that it is always the expression of a definite Stimmung, of a conscious mood; and the fact is, whether he likes it or not, that Stimmung gives an interest to his music far beyond that of the music itself. His personality seems to me far more interesting than his art.



This is often the case with artists in Germany; Hugo Wolf is another example of it. Mahler's case is really rather curious. When one studies his works one feels convinced that he is one of those rare types in modern Germany—an egoist who feels with sincerity. Perhaps his emotions and his ideas do not succeed in expressing themselves in a really sincere and personal way; for they reach us through a cloud of reminiscences and an atmosphere of classicism. I cannot help thinking that Mahler's position as director of the Opera, and his consequent saturation in the music that his calling condemns him to study, is the cause of this. There is nothing more fatal to a creative spirit than too much reading, above all when it does not read of its own free will, but is forced to absorb an excessive amount of nourishment, the larger part of which is indigestible. In vain may Mahler try to defend the sanctuary of his mind; it is violated by foreign ideas coming from all parts, and instead of being able to drive them away, his conscience, as conductor of the orchestra, obliges him to receive them and almost embrace them. With his feverish activity, and burdened as he is with heavy tasks, he works unceasingly and has no time to dream. Mahler will only be Mahler when he is able to leave his administrative work, shut up his scores, retire within himself, and wait patiently until he has become himself again—if it is not too late.

His Fifth Symphony, which he conducted at Strasburg, convinced me, more than all his other works, of the urgent necessity of adopting this course. In this composition he has not allowed himself the use of the choruses, which were one of the chief attractions of his preceding symphonies. He wished to prove that he could write pure music, and to make his claim surer he refused to have any explanation of his composition published in the concert programme, as the other composers in the festival had done; he wished it, therefore, to be judged from a strictly musical point of view. It was a dangerous ordeal for him.

Though I wished very much to admire the work of a composer whom I held in such esteem, I felt it did not come out very well from the test. To begin with, this symphony is excessively long—it lasts an hour and a half—though there is no apparent justification for its proportions. It aims at being colossal, and mainly achieves emptiness. The motifs are more than familiar. After a funeral march of commonplace character and boisterous movement, where Beethoven seems to be taking lessons from Mendelssohn, there comes a scherzo, or rather a Viennese waltz, where Chabrier gives old Bach a helping hand. The adagietto has a rather sweet sentimentality. The rondo at the end is presented rather like an idea of Franck's, and is the best part of the composition; it is carried out in a spirit of mad intoxication and a chorale rises up from it with crashing joy; but the effect of the whole is lost in repetitions that choke it and make it heavy. Through all the work runs a mixture of pedantic stiffness and incoherence; it moves along in a desultory way, and suffers from abrupt checks in the course of its development and from superfluous ideas that break in for no reason at all, with the result that the whole hangs fire.

Above all, I fear Mahler has been sadly hypnotised by ideas about power—ideas that are getting to the head of all German artists to-day. He seems to have an undecided mind, and to combine sadness and irony with weakness and impatience, to be a Viennese musician striving after Wagnerian grandeur. No one expresses the grace of Laendler and dainty waltzes and mournful reveries better than he; and perhaps no one is nearer the secret of Schubert's moving and voluptuous melancholy; and it is Schubert he recalls at times, both in his good qualities and certain of his faults. But he wants to be Beethoven or Wagner. And he is wrong; for he lacks their balance and gigantic force. One saw that only too well when he was conducting the Choral Symphony.

But whatever he may be, or whatever disappointment he may have brought me at Strasburg, I will never allow myself to speak lightly or scoffingly of him. I am confident that a musician with so lofty an aim will one day create a work worthy of himself.

* * * * *

Richard Strauss is a complete contrast to Mahler. He has always the air of a heedless and discontented child. Tall and slim, rather elegant and supercilious, he seems to be of a more refined race than most other German artists of to-day. Scornful, blase with success, and very exacting, his bearing towards other musicians has nothing of Mahler's winning modesty. He is not less nervous than Mahler, and while he is conducting the orchestra he seems to indulge in a frenzied dance which follows the smallest details of his music—music that is as agitated as limpid water into which a stone has been flung. But he has a great advantage over Mahler; he knows how to rest after his labours. Both excitable and sleepy by nature, his highly-strung nerves are counterbalanced by his indolence, and there is in the depths of him a Bavarian love of luxury. I am quite sure that when his hours of intense living are over, after he has spent an excessive amount of energy, he has hours when he is only partially alive. One then sees his eyes with a vague and sleepy look in them; and he is like old Rameau, who used to walk about for hours as if he were an automaton, seeing nothing and thinking of nothing.

At Strasburg Strauss conducted his Sinfonia Domestica, whose programme seems boldly to defy reason, and even good taste. In the symphony he pictures himself with his wife and his boy ("Meiner lieben Frau und unserm Jungen gewidmet"). "I do not see," said Strauss, "why I should not compose a symphony about myself; I find myself quite as interesting as Napoleon or Alexander." Some people have replied that everybody else might not share his interest. But I shall not use that argument; it is quite possible for an artist of Strauss's worth to keep us entertained. What grates upon me more is the way in which he speaks of himself. The disproportion between his subject and the means he has of expressing it is too strong. Above all, I do not like this display of the inner and secret self. There is a want of reticence in this Sinfonia Domestica. The fireside, the sitting-room, and the bedchamber, are open to all-comers. Is this the family feeling of Germany to-day? I admit that the first time I heard the work it jarred upon me for purely moral reasons, in spite of the liking I have for its composer. But afterwards I altered my first opinion, and found the music admirable. Do you know the programme?

The first part shows you three people: a man, a woman, and a child. The man is represented by three themes: a motif full of spirit and humour, a thoughtful motif, and a motif expressing eager and enthusiastic action. The woman has only two themes: one expressing caprice, and the other love and tenderness. The child has a single motif, which is quiet, innocent, and not very defined in character; its real value is not shown until it is developed.... Which of the two parents is he like? The family sit round him and discuss him. "He is just like his father" (Ganz der Papa), say the aunts. "He is the image of his mother" (Ganz die Mama), say the uncles.

The second part of the symphony is a scherzo which represents the child at play; there are terribly noisy games, games of Herculean gaiety, and you can hear the parents talking all over the house. How far we seem from Schumann's good little children and their simple-hearted families! At last the child is put to bed; they rock him to sleep, and the clock strikes seven. Night comes. There are dreams and some uneasy sleep. Then a love scene.... The clock strikes seven in the morning. Everybody wakes up, and there is a merry discussion. We hear a double fugue in which the theme of the man and the theme of the woman contradict each other with exasperating and ludicrous obstinacy; and the man has the last word. Finally there is the apotheosis of the child and family life.

Such a programme serves rather to lead the listener astray than to guide him. It spoils the idea of the work by emphasising its anecdotal and rather comic side. For without doubt the comic side is there, and Strauss has warned us in vain that he did not wish to make an amusing picture of married life, but to praise the sacredness of marriage and parenthood; but he possesses such a strong vein of humour that it cannot help getting the better of him. There is nothing really grave or religious about the music, except when he is speaking of the child; and then the rough merriment of the man grows gentle, and the irritating coquetry of the woman becomes exquisitely tender. Otherwise Strauss's satire and love of jesting get the upper hand, and reach an almost epic gaiety and strength.

But one must forget this unwise programme, which borders on bad taste and at times on something even worse. When one has succeeded in forgetting it one discovers a well-proportioned symphony in four parts—Allegro, Scherzo, Adagio, and Finale in fugue form—and one of the finest works in contemporary music. It has the passionate exuberance of Strauss's preceding symphony, Heldenleben, but it is superior in artistic construction; one may even say that it is Strauss's most perfect work since Tod und Verklaerung ("Death and Transfiguration"), with a richness of colouring and technical skill that Tod und Verklaerung did not possess. One is dazzled by the beauty of an orchestration which is light and pliant, and capable of expressing delicate shades of feeling; and this struck me the more after the solid massiveness of Mahler's orchestration, which is like heavy unleavened bread. With Strauss everything is full of life and sinew, and there is nothing wasted. Possibly the first setting-out of his themes has rather too schematic a character; and perhaps the melodic utterance is rather restricted and not very lofty; but it is very personal, and one finds it impossible to disassociate his personality from these vigorous themes that burn with youthful ardour, and cut the air like arrows, and twist themselves in freakish arabesques. In the adagio depicting night, there is, though in very bad taste, much seriousness and reverie and stirring emotion. The fugue at the end is of astonishing sprightliness; and is a mixture of colossal jesting and heroic pastoral poetry worthy of Beethoven, whose style it recalls in the breadth of its development. The final apotheosis is filled with life; its joy makes the heart beat. The most extravagant harmonic effects and the most abominable discords are softened and almost disappear in the wonderful combination of timbres. It is the work of a strong and sensual artist, the true heir of the Wagner of the Meistersinger.