Significant Books of Music

OF the important musical books of the year, two command especial attention. These are the first volume of the new edition of Grove’s Dictionary of Music and Musicians,¹ and E. J. Dent’s Alessandro Scarlatti.² The former is the first disclosure of the results of some arduous labor in the revision of what was in itself a vast undertaking in the domain of musical literature. Encyclopædias of music are by no means few, but up to the time of the publication of the first edition of Grove’s work, readers unacquainted with French or German had to take their information at second hand. It was reserved for an English writer, and an English publishing house, to put forth a work of commanding authority in the English tongue.

That such a work should be imperfect was a foregone conclusion. Some of its imperfections, however, were characteristically British. The inadequate articles on such masters as Chopin, Brahms, Liszt, and Berlioz would not have appeared in any book written in France or Germany. On the other hand, it is not likely that any other country would have surpassed the notable articles on Mendelssohn and Weber. The original paper on Wagner, written by the late Edward Dannreuther, was at the time of its publication the best study of that genius in the English language. Sir George Grove’s own essay on Beethoven was a broad, comprehensive, and discerning piece of critical biography, and Mr. Rockstro’s articles on certain periods and phases of musical history would have been hard toexcel.

The lapse of time and the acquirement of a longer perspective made it possible to perceive wherein the work was deficient, and a most admirable attempt has been made to raise it to a level of general excellence. If the succeeding volumes contain as many valuable additions and amplifications as the first, the work will suffice for many years to come, and will remain for all time a monument to the learning, patience, and judgment of the editor.

J. A. Fuller-Maitland, who took up the duties resigned by Sir George Grove not long before his death, deserves warm praise, not only for his thoroughness as editor, but also for his addition to the first volume of a full, thoughtful, and just article on Brahms. England is slow to accept new German masters, and at the time of the preparation of the first edition Brahms had not conquered the tight little island. He has made his way to the front at last, and, while he is perhaps not revered as he is in America, he does not lack appreciation. Mr. Fuller-Maitland is a sincere lover of Brahms, and has written of him with good sense and sound scholarship.

The new article on Hector Berlioz is from the pen of that accomplished Oxford professor, W. H. Hadow, who had not risen above the horizon of musical literature when the first edition of the dictionary was made. That this paper is one of insight, learning, and fine critical acumen no one need be told who has read Hadow’s Studies in Modern Music. Berlioz is slowly settling into his rightful place among modern masters. In the beginning he was overrated, and a little later he was underestimated. Now he is, in the strict sense of the word, appreciated.

He is accepted as the pioneer of a movement which has given us as its latest product Richard Strauss. A visionary of musical expression and a virtuoso of orchestral idiom, Berlioz was a speculator rather than an explorer, and a preacher rather than a prophet. His place in musical history will be greater than his position in musical aesthetics. Dr. Hadow has written of this uncommon man with fine discrimination. He pleads for a recognition of what was really great in Berlioz, without endeavoring to obscure the defects which prevented him from being entirely a great master.

The Chopin article in the first edition was sadly insufficient. That in the new, by Edward Dannreuther, is far better, but it is not wholly adequate. It may be doubted whether there is a man in England who could have treated the strange and fascinating musical individuality of the Polish master to the full satisfaction of a musical world. Sanity in the discussion of this composer is rare. Chopin enthusiasts rave in rhapsodic phrases. Those who fail to discern the marvelous originality, the fecundity of invention, and the potently influential individuality of his music dismiss him with the outworn epithet of “ sick man. Mr. Dannreuther wrote with grave caution, with timorsome reserve, and erred in the omission of details. The article might well have been four times as long. The piano is the most popular solo instrument of the age, and Chopin was a pathfinder in the world of its utterance. The morbidity of his music is a purely personal note, just as the rage and fury of it are the outbursts of a weak soul; but as music per se it is the product of unquestionable genius, and should so be treated without hesitation.

The Bach paper has been improved by the consolidation of the matter originally contained in the first volume with that found in the supplement, and the addition thereto of a few hundred words from the pen of F. G. Edwards. Acoustics was overlooked in the first edition, but there is now an article on that subject. Other improvements are the presentation of lists of the works of all eminent composers, with the opus numbers, articles touching upon historical topics prior to the year 1450, before which the first edition did not go, and a series of excellent papers on American subjects, contributed by Richard Aldrich and H. E. Krehbiel. The Boston Symphony Orchestra, the Kneisel Quartet, and the Cincinnati festivals, which were not mentioned in the original volume, are now properly treated by men who know all about them.

In his Alessandro Scarlatti, his Life and Works, E. J. Dent, of King’s College, Cambridge, England, has placed the musical world under a debt of gratitude. Strange as it may seem in these days of investigation and record, previous to the publication of this work there was no biography of Scarlatti. Yet he was the father of modern Italian opera and of the modern orchestra. He built some of the operatic forms and clearly defined others; and he laid down the method of writing for strings which is at the basis of our present luxuriant orchestration.

Mr. Dent undertook his task in all seriousness. His volume is the fruit of patient and scholarly research. He has examined carefully all the existing manuscripts of Scarlatti’s works, and has invited the assistance of the best Italian students and musical antiquarians. The result is a work of high importance, which must be accepted as the standard authority on the life and writings of the Verdi of his time. Scarlatti’s music is no longer heard; but the elements of operatic design, as laid down by him, form the framework of the productions of Puccini and Leoncavallo. Mr. Dent has made an original and invaluable addition to our store of knowledge. His book is made doubly helpful by the inclusion of numerous extracts from the scores of the composer.

Just at the close of 1904, too late to be reviewed among the works of that year, came from the Clarendon Press at Oxford the fifth volume of the great Oxford History of Music. This volume is written by Professor W. H. Hadow, and is entitled The Viennese Period.³ The epithet “monumental ” may be rightfully claimed by this history, not on account of its bulk or its exhaustive gathering of details, but by reason of its profound thoughtfulness, and its liberal application of modern philosophic methods to the construction of a rational and enlightening review of the development of the tonal art.

The division of the work into periods, and the assignment of a specialist to the study of each period has been productive of the happiest results. It has led to a sporadic publication of the different parts, the fifth appearing before the fourth, but that is a matter of small moment. Professor Hadow has striven in his volume to trace the growth of the great Viennese school of masters and to show their influence on the rest of the musical world. With Haydn, Gluck, Beethoven, and Schubert smiling upon him, he had a cheerful task.

Professor Hadow exhibits some impatience with the lax methods of those historians who reiterate established but misleading formulæ, such as the old story that after Bach there was a period of stagnation in musical history. Haydn is always named as the composer who took up the march of progress, whereas good composers were by no means wanting between the dates of the greatest of J. S. Bach’s compositions and the time of Haydn’s maturity. The author’s hostility to the accepted view leads him to place a higher estimate on the labors of Karl Philipp Emanuel Bach than any previous historian has formed, but it must be admitted that he sustains his position with substantial argument and illustration.

His attitude is open, however, to the very criticism which he makes on the old view. He shows that Sebastian Bach’s influence as a composer was almost nothing among the writers of his own time and those of the period immediately succeeding it. Cannot the same thing be said of the work of Emanuel Bach ? It is easy enough for us to see how far in advance of his contemporaries he was in the development of forms, but did they or their pupils know it ? That some did and that they learned from the gifted and industrious son of the Cantor of Leipsic is unquestionable; but there is danger of overstating his influence while striving to prevent its further underestimation. This is the only debatable ground in Professor Hadow’s volume; the rest of the work calls for warm and unqualified approval.

In 1900, Hans Bélart published at Leipsic a highly interesting volume entitled Richard Wagner in Zurich. It told in detail the history of the relations of the composer with the Wesendoncks, especially Madame Wesendonck, who was the inspiration of the days when Tristan und Isolde was composed. The Scribners have brought out within the year William Ashton Ellis’s translation of the letters of Wagner and Madame Wesendonck, under the title, Richard Wagner to Mathtide Wesendonck.⁴

This may be regarded as the official reply to Bélart. Mr. Ellis is translator in ordinary to the Wagnerian world, and is one of those devout worshipers who hold that the king could do no wrong. These letters are deeply, painfully interesting. They have served to show that the attachment of Wagner and Madame Wesendonck was no mere outflame of musical temperament, but something deserving, if not of respect, at least of sympathy. The disclosure of all the facts in the case has demonstrated that Wagner’s first wife, Minna, was neither a dolt, as she has so often been painted by blind adorers of the master, nor a termagant, but a patient, simple, womanly creature, who did perhaps fail to understand how genius licensed a man to neglect his own wife, and find comfort in the intimate society of the wives of other men. Mathilde Wesendonck was undoubtedly a woman of fine intellect and poetic temperament, while Minna had neither. But despite the beautiful sentiments with which these letters are besprinkled, sentiments which place the passion of Wagner and Madame Wesendonck in the calcium light of the dramatic splendors of Tristan und I solde, honest readers will continue to cherish that secret commiseration which they have always had for the unfortunate Madame Wagner and the seldom mentioned Mr. Wesendonck. What Wagner wrote to Wesendonck in 1865 cannot be blotted out either by the letters or by Mr. Ellis’s laborious introduction. He wrote,—

“The incident that separated me from you about six years ago should be evaded; it has upset my life enough that you recognize me no longer, and that I esteem myself less and less. All this suffering should have earned your forgiveness, and it would have been beautiful, noble to forgive me; but it is useless to demand the impossible, and I was in the wrong.”

Francis Hopkinson⁵ and James Lyon, by O. G. Sonneck, printed for the author, is one of the books that should not escape the notice of the student of music. It is an account of the work of the first American writers of sacred music, prepared by the scholarly and industrious assistant librarian of the Congressional Library at Washington. It is an invaluable contribution to the history of American music, and its production reveals the achievement of a formidable task. Mr. Sonneck had to do his work ab initio. There were no authorities for him to consult, no reference books to aid him. The history of American music is yet to be written. It is a subject in regard to which we have nothing worthy of serious consideration. Mr. Sonneck has taken this matter up with much earnestness. He has prepared a bibliography of our secular music published previous to 1800, and this will appear within a few weeks after the writing of this article. He is also preparing an index to the musical articles, critical and otherwise, in our periodical literature and newspapers. It is impossible to exaggerate the usefulness of such work.

Along the line of investigation moves the latest book of Professor Edward Dickinson, of Oberlin University, entitled The Study of Musical History.⁶ This is a succinct review of the development of the tonal art, with references to the books and chapters for further research by students. Professor Dickinson is one of the leading authorities on musical history, and he has spent years in elaborating a system of studying it. This book is the outcome of his labors, and it will be a vade mecum for all musicians, students, and music lovers.

E. W. Naylor’s Elizabethan Virginal Book⁷ is an analytical examination of the collection of British spinet and harpsichord pieces familiar to all students of musical history under the same title as this volume. It is a careful and scholarly work, and will be of great assistance in throwing light upon the methods of the composers of the days of Orlando Gibbons.

Ernest Newman’s Musical Studies⁸consists of essays published by the English critic in various periodicals. Mr. Newman is a somewhat liberal writer of magazine articles on musical topics, yet it is hard to find any one essay which would better not have been published. At times the author has not much to say that has not been said before, but he usually has something, and that something is worth seeking in his pages.

Mr. Newman’s best trait is his candor. It is probably the best trait that any critical writer can possess. It is fatal to critical honesty for the author to be committed to a theory or a plea. Mr. Newman is refreshing in his confession of facts. He accepts them and reasons from them, but never tries to ignore or overthrow them because they war against his own notions. His scholarship is good and his point of view established favorably for perspective. He writes frankly of old and new masters, and his comments are stimulating to the mind of the reader.