<h3><i>The Courante.</i></h3>
<p>The Courante, or Corrente ("Teach lavoltas high and swift corantos,"
says Shakespeare), is a French dance which was extremely popular in
the sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth centuries—a polite dance,
like the minuet. It was in triple time, and its movement was bright
and brisk, a merry energy being imparted to the measure by the
prevailing figure, a dotted quarter-note, an eighth, and a quarter in
a measure, as illustrated in the following excerpt also from Mersenne:</p>
<p style="text-align: center">
<ANTIMG src="images/music32.png" alt="Mersenne" width-obs="737" height-obs="159" /></p>
<p style="text-align: center"><SPAN href="music/music32.midi">Listen</SPAN>
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<p><span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_177" id="Page_177"></SPAN></span></p>
<p>The suite composers varied the movement greatly, however, and the
Italian Corrente consists chiefly of rapid running passages.</p>
<div class="sidenote"><i>The Sarabande.</i></div>
<div class="sidenote"><i>A Sarabande by Handel.</i></div>
<p>The Sarabande was also in triple time, but its movement was slow and
stately. In Spain, whence it was derived, it was sung to the
accompaniment of castanets, a fact which in itself suffices to
indicate that it was originally of a lively character, and took on its
solemnity in the hands of the later composers. Handel found the
Sarabande a peculiarly admirable vehicle for his inspirations, and one
of the finest examples extant figures in the triumphal music of his
"Almira," composed in 1704:</p>
<p style="text-align: center">
<ANTIMG src="images/music33.png" alt="Almira" width-obs="752" height-obs="654" /></p>
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<p><span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_178" id="Page_178"></SPAN></span></p>
<p>Seven years after the production of "Almira," Handel recurred to this
beautiful instrumental piece, and out of it constructed the exquisite
lament beginning "<i>Lascia ch'io pianga</i>" in his opera "Rinaldo."</p>
<div class="sidenote"><i>The Gigue.</i></div>
<div class="sidenote"><i>The Minuet.</i></div>
<div class="sidenote"><i>The Gavotte.</i></div>
<p>Great Britain's contribution to the Suite was the final Gigue, which
is our jolly and familiar friend the jig, and in all probability is
Keltic in origin. It is, as everybody knows, a rollicking measure in
6-8, 12-8, or 4-4 time, with twelve triplet quavers in a measure, and
needs no description. It remained a favorite with composers until far
into the eighteenth century. Shakespeare proclaims its exuberant
lustiness when<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_179" id="Page_179"></SPAN></span> he makes <i>Sir Toby Belch</i> protest that had he <i>Sir
Andrew's</i> gifts his "very walk should be a jig." Of the other dances
incorporated into the suite, two are deserving of special mention
because of their influence on the music of to-day—the Minuet, which
is the parent of the symphonic scherzo, and the Gavotte, whose
fascinating movement is frequently heard in latter-day operettas. The
Minuet is a French dance, and came from Poitou. Louis XIV. danced it
to Lully's music for the first time at Versailles in 1653, and it soon
became the most popular of court and society dances, holding its own
down to the beginning of the nineteenth century. It was long called
the Queen of Dances, and there is no one who has grieved to see the
departure of gallantry and grace from our ball-rooms but will wish to
see Her Gracious Majesty restored to her throne. The music of the
minuet is in 3-4 time, and of stately movement. The Gavotte is a
lively dance-measure in common time, beginning, as a rule, on the
third beat. Its origin has been traced to the moun<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_180" id="Page_180"></SPAN></span>tain people of the
Dauphiné called Gavots—whence its name.</p>
<div class="sidenote"><i>Technique of the Clavier players.</i></div>
<div class="sidenote"><i>Change in technique.</i></div>
<p>The transferrence of this music to the modern pianoforte has effected
a vast change in the manner of its performance. In the period under
consideration emotionality, which is considered the loftiest attribute
of pianoforte playing to-day, was lacking, except in the case of such
masters of the clavichord as the great Bach and his son, Carl Philipp
Emanuel, who inherited his father's preference for that instrument
over the harpsichord and pianoforte. Tastefulness in the giving out of
the melody, distinctness of enunciation, correctness of phrasing,
nimbleness and lightness of finger, summed up practically all that
there was in virtuosoship. Intellectuality and digital skill were the
essential factors. Beauty of tone through which feeling and
temperament speak now was the product of the maker of the instrument,
except again in the case of the clavichord, in which it may have been
largely the creation of the player. It is, therefore, not surprising
that the first revolution<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_181" id="Page_181"></SPAN></span> in technique of which we hear was
accomplished by Bach, who, the better to bring out the characteristics
of his polyphonic style, made use of the thumb, till then considered
almost a useless member of the hand in playing, and bent his fingers,
so that their movements might be more unconstrained.</p>
<div class="sidenote"><i>Bach's touch.</i></div>
<div class="sidenote"><i>Handel's playing.</i></div>
<div class="sidenote"><i>Scarlatti's style.</i></div>
<p>Of the varieties of touch, which play such a rôle in pianoforte
pedagogics to-day, nothing was known. Only on the clavichord was a
blow delivered directly against the string, and, as has already been
said, only on that instrument was the dynamic shading regulated by the
touch. Practically, the same touch was used on the organ and the
stringed instruments with key-board. When we find written praise of
the old players it always goes to the fluency and lightness of their
fingering. Handel was greatly esteemed as a harpsichord player, and
seems to have invented a position of the hand like Bach's, or to have
copied it from that master. Forkel tells us the movement of Bach's
fingers was so slight as to be scarcely noticeable; the position of
his<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_182" id="Page_182"></SPAN></span> hands remained unchanged throughout, and the rest of his body
motionless. Speaking of Handel's harpsichord playing, Burney says that
his fingers "seemed to grow to the keys. They were so curved and
compact when he played that no motion, and scarcely the fingers
themselves, could be discovered." Scarlatti's significance lies
chiefly in an extension of the technique of his time so as to give
greater individuality to the instrument. He indulged freely in
brilliant passages and figures which sometimes call for a crossing of
the hands, also in leaps of over an octave, repetition of a note by
different fingers, broken chords in contrary motion, and other devices
which prefigure modern pianoforte music.</p>
<div class="sidenote"><i>The sonata.</i></div>
<p>That Scarlatti also pointed the way to the modern sonata, I have
already said. The history of the sonata, as the term is now
understood, ends with Beethoven. Many sonatas have been written since
the last one of that great master, but not a word has been added to
his proclamation. He stands, therefore, as a perfect exemplar of the<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_183" id="Page_183"></SPAN></span>
second period in the scheme which we have adopted for the study of
pianoforte music and playing. In a general way a sonata may be
described as a composition of four movements, contrasted in mood,
tempo, sentiment, and character, but connected by that spiritual bond
of which mention was made in our study of the symphony. In short, a
sonata is a symphony for a solo instrument.</p>
<div class="sidenote"><i>Haydn.</i></div>
<p>When it came into being it was little else than a convenient formula
for the expression of musical beauty. Haydn, who perfected it on its
formal side, left it that and nothing more. Mozart poured the vessel
full of beauty, but Beethoven breathed the breath of a new life into
it. An old writer tells us of Haydn that he was wont to say that the
whole art of composing consisted in taking up a subject and pursuing
it. Having invented his theme, he would begin by choosing the keys
through which he wished to make it pass.</p>
<div class="blockquot"><p>"His exquisite feeling gave him a perfect knowledge of the
greater or less degree of effect which<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_184" id="Page_184"></SPAN></span> one chord produces
in succeeding another, and he afterward imagined a little
romance which might furnish him with sentiments and colors."</p>
</div>
<div class="sidenote"><i>Beethoven.</i></div>
<div class="sidenote"><i>Mozart's manner of playing.</i></div>
<p>Beethoven began with the sentiment and worked from it outwardly,
modifying the form when it became necessary to do so, in order to
obtain complete and perfect utterance. He made spirit rise superior to
matter. This must be borne in mind when comparing the technique of the
previous period with that of which I have made Beethoven the
representative. In the little that we are privileged to read of
Mozart's style of playing, we see only a reflex of the players who
went before him, saving as it was permeated by the warmth which went
out from his own genial personality. His manipulation of the keys had
the quietness and smoothness that were praised in Bach and Handel.</p>
<div class="blockquot"><p>"Delicacy and taste," says Kullak, "with his lifting of the
entire technique to the spiritual aspiration of the idea,
elevate him as a virtuoso to a height unanimously conceded
by the public, by connoisseurs, and by artists capable of
judging. Clementi declared that he had never heard any one<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_185" id="Page_185"></SPAN></span>
play so soulfully and charmfully as Mozart; Dittersdorf
finds art and taste combined in his playing; Haydn
asseverated with tears that Mozart's playing he could never
forget, for it touched the heart. His staccato is said to
have possessed a peculiarly brilliant charm."</p>
</div>
<div class="sidenote"><i>Clementi.</i></div>
<div class="sidenote"><i>Beethoven as a pianist.</i></div>
<p>The period of C.P.E. Bach, Haydn, and Mozart is that in which the
pianoforte gradually replaced its predecessors, and the first real
pianist was Mozart's contemporary and rival, Muzio Clementi. His chief
significance lies in his influence as a technician, for he opened the
way to the modern style of play with its greater sonority and capacity
for expression. Under him passage playing became an entirely new
thing; deftness, lightness, and fluency were replaced by stupendous
virtuosoship, which rested, nevertheless, on a full and solid tone. He
is said to have been able to trill in octaves with one hand. He was
necessary for the adequate interpretation of Beethoven, whose music is
likely to be best understood by those who know that he, too, was a
superb pianoforte player, fully up to the requirements which his last
sonatas make<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_186" id="Page_186"></SPAN></span> upon technical skill as well as intellectual and
emotional gifts.</p>
<div class="sidenote"><i>Beethoven's technique.</i></div>
<div class="sidenote"><i>Expression supreme.</i></div>
<p>Czerny, who was a pupil of Beethoven, has preserved a fuller account
of that great composer's art as a player than we have of any of his
predecessors. He describes his technique as tremendous, better than
that of any virtuoso of his day. He was remarkably deft in connecting
the full chords, in which he delighted, without the use of the pedal.
His manner at the instrument was composed and quiet. He sat erect,
without movement of the upper body, and only when his deafness
compelled him to do so, in order to hear his own music, did he
contract a habit of leaning forward. With an evident appreciation of
the necessities of old-time music he had a great admiration for clean
fingering, especially in fugue playing, and he objected to the use of
Cramer's studies in the instruction of his nephew by Czerny because
they led to what he called a "sticky" style of play, and failed to
bring out crisp staccatos and a light touch. But it was upon
expression that he insisted most of all when he taught.<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_187" id="Page_187"></SPAN></span></p>
<div class="sidenote"><i>Music and emotion.</i></div>
<p>More than anyone else it was Beethoven who brought music back to the
purpose which it had in its first rude state, when it sprang
unvolitionally from the heart and lips of primitive man. It became
again a vehicle for the feelings. As such it was accepted by the
romantic composers to whom he belongs as father, seer, and prophet,
quite as intimately as he belongs to the classicists by reason of his
adherence to form as an essential in music. To his contemporaries he
appears as an image-breaker, but to the clearer vision of to-day he
stands an unshakable barrier to lawless iconoclasm. Says Sir George
Grove, quoting Mr. Edward Dannreuther, in the passages within the
inverted commas:</p>
<div class="sidenote"><i>Beethoven a Romanticist.</i></div>
<div class="blockquot"><p>"That he was no wild radical altering for the mere pleasure
of alteration, or in the mere search for originality, is
evident from the length of time during which he abstained
from publishing, or even composing works of pretension, and
from the likeness which his early works possess to those of
his predecessors. He began naturally with the forms which
were in use in his days, and his alteration of them grew
very gradually with the necessities of his expression. The
form of the sonata is 'the<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_188" id="Page_188"></SPAN></span> transparent veil through which
Beethoven seems to have looked at all music.' And the good
points of that form he retained to the last—the 'triune
symmetry of exposition, illustration, and repetition,' which
that admirable method allowed and enforced—but he permitted
himself a much greater liberty than his predecessors had
done in the relationship of the keys of the different
movements, and parts of movements, and in the proportion of
the clauses and sections with which he built them up. In
other words, he was less bound by the forms and musical
rules, and more swayed by the thought which he had to
express, and the directions which that thought took in his
mind."</p>
</div>
<div class="sidenote"><i>Schumann and Chopin.</i></div>
<p>It is scarcely to be wondered at that when men like Schumann and
Chopin felt the full force of the new evangel which Beethoven had
preached, they proceeded to carry the formal side of poetic
expression, its vehicle, into regions unthought of before their time.
The few old forms had now to give way to a large variety. In their
work they proceeded from points that were far apart—Schumann's was
literary, Chopin's political. In one respect the lists of their pieces
which appear most frequently on recital programmes seem to hark back
to the suites of two centu<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_189" id="Page_189"></SPAN></span>ries ago—they are sets of short
compositions grouped, either by the composer (as is the case with
Schumann) or by the performer (as is the case with Chopin in the hands
of Mr. Paderewski). Such fantastic musical miniatures as Schumann's
"Carnaval" and "Papillons" are eminently characteristic of the
composer's intellectual and emotional nature, which in his university
days had fallen under the spell of literary romanticism.</p>
<div class="sidenote"><i>Jean Paul's influence.</i></div>
<div class="sidenote"><i>Schumann's inspirations.</i></div>
<p>While ostensibly studying jurisprudence at Heidelberg, Schumann
devoted seven hours a day to the pianoforte and several to Jean Paul.
It was this writer who moulded not only Schumann's literary style in
his early years, but also gave the bent which his creative activity in
music took at the outset. To say little, but vaguely hint at much, was
the rule which he adopted; to remain sententious in expression, but
give the freest and most daring flight to his imagination, and spurn
the conventional limitations set by rule and custom, his ambition.
Such fanciful and symbolical titles as "Flower, Fruit, and<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_190" id="Page_190"></SPAN></span> Thorn
Pieces," "Titan," etc., which Jean Paul adopted for his singular
mixtures of tale, rhapsody, philosophy, and satire, were bound to find
an imitator in so ardent an apostle as young Schumann, and, therefore,
we have such compositions as "Papillons," "Carnaval," "Kreisleriana,"
"Phantasiestücke," and the rest. Almost always, it may be said, the
pieces which make them up were composed under the poetical and
emotional impulses derived from literature, then grouped and named. To
understand their poetic contents this must be known.</p>
<div class="sidenote"><i>Chopin's music.</i></div>
<div class="sidenote"><i>Preludes.</i></div>
<p>Chopin's fancy, on the other hand, found stimulation in the charm
which, for him, lay in the tone of the pianoforte itself (to which he
added a new loveliness by his manner of writing), as well as in the
rhythms of the popular dances of his country. These dances he not only
beautified as the old suite writers beautified their forms, but he
utilized them as vessels which he filled with feeling, not all of
which need be accepted as healthy, though much of it is. As to his
titles, "Preludes" is<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_191" id="Page_191"></SPAN></span> purely an arbitrary designation for
compositions which are equally indefinite in form and character;
Niecks compares them very aptly to a portfolio full of drawings "in
all stages of advancement—finished and unfinished, complete and
incomplete compositions, sketches and mere memoranda, all mixed
indiscriminately together." So, too, they appeared to Schumann: "They
are sketches, commencements of studies, or, if you will, ruins, single
eagle-wings, all strangely mixed together." Nevertheless some of them
are marvellous soul-pictures.</p>
<div class="sidenote"><i>Études.</i></div>
<div class="sidenote"><i>Nocturnes.</i></div>
<p>The "Études" are studies intended to develop the technique of the
pianoforte in the line of the composer's discoveries, his method of
playing extended arpeggios, contrasted rhythms, progressions in thirds
and octaves, etc., but still they breathe poetry and sometimes
passion. Nocturne is an arbitrary, but expressive, title for a short
composition of a dreamy, contemplative, or even elegiac, character. In
many of his nocturnes Chopin is the adored sentimentalist of
boarding-school misses. There is<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_192" id="Page_192"></SPAN></span> poppy in them and seductive poison
for which Niecks sensibly prescribes Bach and Beethoven as antidotes.
The term ballad has been greatly abused in literature, and in music is
intrinsically unmeaning. Chopin's four Ballades have one feature in
common—they are written in triple time; and they are among his finest
inspirations.</p>
<div class="sidenote"><i>The Polonaise.</i></div>
<p>Chopin's dances are conventionalized, and do not all speak the idiom
of the people who created their forms, but their original
characteristics ought to be known. The Polonaise was the stately dance
of the Polish nobility, more a march or procession than a dance, full
of gravity and courtliness, with an imposing and majestic rhythm in
triple time that tends to emphasize the second beat of the measure,
frequently syncopating it and accentuating the second half of the
first beat:</p>
<p style="text-align: center">
<ANTIMG src="images/music34.png" alt="polonaise" width-obs="326" height-obs="64" /></p>
<p style="text-align: center"><SPAN href="music/music34.midi">Listen</SPAN>
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<div class="sidenote"><i>The Mazurka.</i></div>
<p>National color comes out more clearly in his Mazurkas. Unlike the
Polonaise this was the dance of the common peo<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_193" id="Page_193"></SPAN></span>ple, and even as
conventionalized and poetically refined by Chopin there is still in
the Mazurka some of the rude vigor which lies in its propulsive
rhythm:</p>
<table border="0" summary="Mazurka" cellpadding="5" cellspacing="0" style="border-collapse: collapse" width="75%" id="AutoNumber2">
<tbody>
<tr>
<td> <ANTIMG src="images/music35.png" alt="mazurka" width-obs="220" height-obs="69" /><p style="text-align: center">
<SPAN href="music/music35.midi">Listen</SPAN> <SPAN href="music/music35.ly">View Lilypond</SPAN></p>
</td>
<td>or</td>
<td> <ANTIMG src="images/music36.png" alt="mazurka" width-obs="219" height-obs="69" /><p style="text-align: center">
<SPAN href="music/music36.midi">Listen</SPAN> <SPAN href="music/music36.ly">View Lilypond</SPAN></p>
</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
<div class="sidenote"><i>The Krakowiak.</i></div>
<p>The Krakowiak (French <i>Cracovienne</i>, Mr. Paderewski has a fascinating
specimen in his "Humoresques de Concert," op. 14) is a popular dance
indigenous to the district of Cracow, whence its name. Its rhythmical
elements are these:</p>
<table border="0" summary="Krakowiak" cellpadding="5" cellspacing="0" style="border-collapse: collapse" width="75%" id="AutoNumber3">
<tbody>
<tr>
<td> <ANTIMG src="images/music37.png" alt="Krakowiak" width-obs="239" height-obs="55" /><p style="text-align: center">
<SPAN href="music/music37.midi">Listen</SPAN> <SPAN href="music/music37.ly">View Lilypond</SPAN></p>
</td>
<td>and</td>
<td> <ANTIMG src="images/music38.png" alt="Krakowiak" width-obs="95" height-obs="55" /><p>
<SPAN href="music/music38.midi">Listen</SPAN> <SPAN href="music/music38.ly">View Lilypond</SPAN></p>
</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
<div class="sidenote"><i>Idiomatic music.</i></div>
<div class="sidenote"><i>Content higher than idiom.</i></div>
<p>In the music of this period there is noticeable a careful attention on
the part of the composers to the peculiarities of the pianoforte. No
music, save perhaps that of Liszt, is so idiomatic. Frequently in
Beethoven the content of the music seems too great for the medium of
expression; we feel that the thought would have had better expression
had the master used the orchestra instead of the pianoforte. We may<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_194" id="Page_194"></SPAN></span>
well pause a moment to observe the development of the instrument and
its technique from then till now, but as condemnation has already been
pronounced against excessive admiration of technique for technique's
sake, so now I would first utter a warning against our appreciation of
the newer charm. "Idiomatic of the pianoforte" is a good enough phrase
and a useful, indeed, but there is danger that if abused it may bring
something like discredit to the instrument. It would be a pity if
music, which contains the loftiest attributes of artistic beauty,
should fail of appreciation simply because it had been observed that
the pianoforte is not the most convenient, appropriate, or effective
vehicle for its publication—a pity for the pianoforte, for therein
would lie an exemplification of its imperfection. So, too, it would be
a pity if the opinion should gain ground that music which had been
clearly designed to meet the nature of the instrument was for that
reason good pianoforte music, <i>i.e.</i>, "idiomatic" music, irrespective
of its content.<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_195" id="Page_195"></SPAN></span></p>
<div class="sidenote"><i>Development of the pianoforte.</i></div>
<p>In Beethoven's day the pianoforte was still a feeble instrument
compared with the grand of to-day. Its capacities were but beginning
to be appreciated. Beethoven had to seek and invent effects which now
are known to every amateur. The instrument which the English
manufacturer Broadwood presented to him in 1817 had a compass of six
octaves, and was a whole octave wider in range than Mozart's
pianoforte. In 1793 Clementi extended the key-board to five and a half
octaves; six and a half octaves were reached in 1811, and seven in
1851. Since 1851 three notes have been added without material
improvement to the instrument. This extension of compass, however, is
far from being the most important improvement since the classic
period. The growth in power, sonority, and tonal brilliancy has been
much more marked, and of it Liszt made striking use.</p>
<div class="sidenote"><i>The Pedals.</i></div>
<div class="sidenote"><i>Shifting pedal.</i></div>
<div class="sidenote"><i>Damper pedal.</i></div>
<p>Very significant, too, in their relation to the development of the
music, were the invention and improvement of the pedals. The shifting
pedal was invented<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_196" id="Page_196"></SPAN></span> by a Viennese maker named Stein, who first applied
it to an instrument which he named "Saiten-harmonika." Before then
soft effects were obtained by interposing a bit of felt between the
hammers and the strings, as may still be seen in old square
pianofortes. The shifting pedal, or soft pedal as it is popularly
called, moves the key-board and action so that the hammer strikes only
one or two of the unison strings, leaving the other to vibrate
sympathetically. Beethoven was the first to appreciate the
possibilities of this effect (see the slow movement of his concerto in
G major and his last sonatas), but after him came Schumann and Chopin,
and brought pedal manipulation to perfection, especially that of the
damper pedal. This is popularly called the loud pedal, and the
vulgarest use to which it can be put is to multiply the volume of
tone. It was Chopin who showed its capacity for sustaining a melody
and enriching the color effects by releasing the strings from the
dampers and utilizing the ethereal sounds which rise from the strings
when they vibrate sympathetically.<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_197" id="Page_197"></SPAN></span></p>
<div class="sidenote"><i>Liszt.</i></div>
<div class="sidenote"><i>A dual character.</i></div>
<p>It is no part of my purpose to indulge in criticism of composers, but
something of the kind is made unavoidable by the position assigned to
Liszt in our pianoforte recitals. He is relied upon to provide a
scintillant close. The pianists, then, even those who are his
professed admirers, are responsible if he is set down in our scheme as
the exemplar of the technical cult. Technique having its unquestioned
value, we are bound to admire the marvellous gifts which enabled Liszt
practically to sum up all the possibilities of pianoforte mechanism in
its present stage of construction, but we need not look with unalloyed
gratitude upon his influence as a composer. There were, I fear, two
sides to Liszt's artistic character as well as his moral. I believe he
had in him a touch of charlatanism as well as a magnificent amount of
artistic sincerity—just as he blended a laxity of moral ideas with a
profound religious mysticism. It would have been strange indeed,
growing up as he did in the whited sepulchre of Parisian salon life,
if he had not accustomed himself to<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_198" id="Page_198"></SPAN></span> sacrifice a little of the soul of
art for the sake of vainglory, and a little of its poetry and feeling
to make display of those dazzling digital feats which he invented.
But, be it said to his honor, he never played mountebank tricks in the
presence of the masters whom he revered. It was when he approached the
music of Beethoven that he sank all thought of self and rose to a
peerless height as an interpreting artist.</p>
<div class="sidenote"><i>Liszt's Hungarian Rhapsodies.</i></div>
<div class="sidenote"><i>Gypsies and Magyars.</i></div>
<div class="sidenote"><i>Magyar scales.</i></div>
<p>Liszt's place as a composer of original music has not yet been
determined, but as a transcriber of the music of others the givers of
pianoforte recitals keep him always before us. The showy Hungarian
Rhapsodies with which the majority of pianoforte recitals end are,
however, more than mere transcriptions. They are constructed out of
the folk-songs of the Magyars, and in their treatment the composer has
frequently reproduced the characteristic performances which they
receive at the hands of the Gypsies from whom he learned them. This
fact and the belief to which Liszt gave currency in his book "Des
Bohémiens et de leur musique en Hon<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_199" id="Page_199"></SPAN></span>grie" have given rise to the
almost universal belief that the Magyar melodies are of Gypsy origin.
This belief is erroneous. The Gypsies have for centuries been the
musical practitioners of Hungary, but they are not the composers of
the music of the Magyars, though they have put a marked impress not
only on the melodies, but also on popular taste. The Hungarian
folk-songs are a perfect reflex of the national character of the
Magyars, and some have been traced back centuries in their literature.
Though their most marked melodic peculiarity, the frequent use of a
minor scale containing one or even two superfluous seconds, as thus:</p>
<p style="text-align: center">
<ANTIMG src="images/music39.png" alt="Magyar scale" width-obs="739" height-obs="67" /></p>
<p style="text-align: center"><SPAN href="music/music39.midi">Listen</SPAN>
<SPAN href="music/music39.ly">View Lilypond</SPAN></p>
<p>may be said to belong to Oriental music as a whole (and the Magyars
are Orientals), the songs have a rhythmical peculiarity which is a
direct product of the Magyar language. This peculiarity consists of a
figure in which the emphasis is shifted from the strong to the<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_200" id="Page_200"></SPAN></span> weak
part by making the first take only a fraction of the time of the
second, thus:</p>
<table border="0" summary="Magyar rhythms" cellpadding="5" cellspacing="0" style="border-collapse: collapse" width="75%" id="AutoNumber4">
<tbody>
<tr>
<td> <ANTIMG src="images/music40.png" alt="Magyar rhythm" width-obs="87" height-obs="58" /><p>
<SPAN href="music/music40.midi">Listen</SPAN> <SPAN href="music/music40.ly">View Lilypond</SPAN></p>
</td>
<td>or</td>
<td>
<ANTIMG src="images/music41.png" alt="Magyar rhythm" width-obs="85" height-obs="53" /><p> <SPAN href="music/music41.midi">Listen</SPAN>
<SPAN href="music/music41.ly">View Lilypond</SPAN></p>
</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
<div class="sidenote"><i>The Scotch snap.</i></div>
<div class="sidenote"><i>Gypsy epics.</i></div>
<p>In Scottish music this rhythm also plays a prominent part, but there
it falls into the beginning of a measure, whereas in Hungarian it
forms the middle or end. The result is an effect of syncopation which
is peculiarly forceful. There is an indubitable Oriental relic in the
profuse embellishments which the Gypsies weave around the Hungarian
melodies when playing them; but the fact that they thrust the same
embellishments upon Spanish and Russian music, in fact upon all the
music which they play, indicates plainly enough that the impulse to do
so is native to them, and has nothing to do with the national taste of
the countries for which they provide music. Liszt's confessed purpose
in writing the Hungarian Rhapsodies was to create what he called
"Gypsy epics." He had gathered a large number of the melodies without
a definite purpose, and was<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_201" id="Page_201"></SPAN></span> pondering what to do with them, when it
occurred to him that</p>
<div class="blockquot"><p>"These fragmentary, scattered melodies were the wandering,
floating, nebulous part of a great whole, that they fully
answered the conditions for the production of an harmonious
unity which would comprehend the very flower of their
essential properties, their most unique beauties," and
"might be united in one homogeneous body, a complete work,
its divisions to be so arranged that each song would form at
once a whole and a part, which might be severed from the
rest and be examined and enjoyed by and for itself; but
which would, none the less, belong to the whole through the
close affinity of subject matter, the similarity of its
inner nature and unity in development."<SPAN name="FNanchor_D_4" id="FNanchor_D_4"></SPAN><SPAN href="#Footnote_D_4" class="fnanchor">[D]</SPAN></p>
</div>
<div class="sidenote"><i>The Czardas.</i></div>
<p>The basis of Liszt's Rhapsodies being thus distinctively national, he
has in a manner imitated in their character and tempo the dual
character of the Hungarian national dance, the Czardas, which consists
of two movements, a <i>Lassu</i>, or slow movement, followed by a <i>Friss</i>.
These alternate at the will of the dancer, who gives a sign to the
band when he wishes to change from one to the other.</p>
<hr style="width: 65%;" />
<p style="text-align: center">
<ANTIMG src="images/deco08.png" alt="Decoration" width-obs="300" height-obs="76" /></p>
<p><span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_202" id="Page_202"></SPAN></span></p>
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