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Musical Courier 1892-09-07: Vol 25 Iss 654, 1892
76 lines. Read by computer on 20 September 2026. Printed page 7. See the scan on archive.org.
1invitation to judge of the American compositions to be played at the fair, but I declined it. The work attached to it was too great, and I am a busy man without it.
3"Under any circumstances I think that the Philharmonic Society will go to Chicago during the fair and give two or three concerts irrespective of any invitation Mr. Thomas may send."
5Other prominent musicians have expressed themselves strongly on the subject, and long ago indorsed the attitude of THE MUSICAL COURIER in this matter.
7Some definite action should be taken by the music committee of the World's Columbian Exposition to escape the inevitable obloquy that is certain to follow a narrow, selfish policy.
9The New York "Herald" printed Monday Mr. W. L. Tomlins' opinion, which practically begs the question, besides insulting Mr. Damrosch. Here it is:
11CHICAGO, Ill., September 4, 1892.—"Jealousy" is what the Chicago musicians said to-day regarding the utterances of Walter Damrosch, printed in this morning's "Herald," in reference to Mr. Theodore Thomas' neglect of Gotham musical directors in connection with the world's fair. Mr. Thomas is not in the city, and there is no one here authorized to speak for him. Prof. W. L. Tomlins, choral master under Mr. Thomas, who is here drilling a chorus of 5,000 voices, is also out of town. An official of the world's fair, however, who is closely connected with the musical department, said to-night, after stipulating that his name should not be used:
13"It is the same old fight on Mr. Thomas on the part of the New Yorkers, who are still very sore because he has left them. As for young Mr. Damrosch, his coming forward shows the worst of bad taste. Had Mr. Seidl or Mr. Nikisch said what Damrosch did it would have carried more weight. He is still young, and not possessing one-tenth of the ability of Mr. Thomas. His presuming to criticise the great master is, to say the least, the height of impudence.
15"Damrosch has never been particularly successful here, and he does not like the city. Chicago does not miss his absence, because the music loving people here never thought very highly of his musical abilities. How does he know Mr. Thomas will not seek the co-operation of his musical brethren in New York and invite some of them to assist him at the fair? Mr. Thomas has given his attention to his world's fair duties for months, and the result will be most gratifying. There will be something else at the fair besides concerts by the Thomas Orchestra. The people of New York and elsewhere can depend upon that. The musical department will hold its own in comparison with the other departments.
17"Criticism at the present time is based upon a lack of information as to what Mr. Thomas is doing and intends to do. The music loving people of the community will be offered a great treat when they come here next year. The world's fair directors are satisfied with what Mr. Thomas is doing, and that is all he cares for. Music will be represented here at the fair by many of its great masters, and it will also follow that many of the little devotees will be left out."
19THE MUSICAL COURIER has just received the following letter from Camille Saint-Saens, the great French composer. It is in response to an inquiry about his visit in 1893:
21Editeur Musical Courier:
22Mon voyage en Amérique en 1893 n'est pas encore certain, mais il est probable. C. SAINT-SAENS.
23St. Germain-en-Laye, 23 août, 1892.
24[TRANSLATION.]
25My trip to America in 1893 is not certain, but is probable. C. SAINT SAENS.
27With a man of Saint-Saëns' peculiar temperament the impossible is always to be expected. In all probability Antonin Dvorak will be the great foreign musical lion at the exposition.
29THE RACONTEUR.
31Of the younger contemporary tone poets it was principally Brahms, whom he revered and pursued with that attention that a gardener bestows upon the growth of a rare plant. Had it been his fate to play a part as a tone poet, it is not improbable that Brahms' style and his own would have coincided at many points. A certain faculty for bringing a mood that was apparently outside of the pale of all experience down to the level of the familiar, as is met with in Brahms, may also be found in the few examples of his (Carl Tausig's) studies known to us.—Louis Ehlert's "Carl Tausig" in "From the Tone World." English translation by Helen D. Tretbar.
33"The Czar and the Chromatic Scale" is the motto of the neo-Russian composer, and though he is the product of an illegitimate union 'twixt Robert Schumann and the Orient, he vainly seeks to hide his paternity in an overwhelming cloud of national color."—Raconteur," November 11, 1891.
35"Franz Liszt, the pianist of genius, whose playing often appears to me as the melodious agony of a spectral world, exercises a charm which borders on the fabulous. By his side all piano players, with the exception of Chopin, the Raphael of the piano, are as nothing. In fact, with the exception of this last named artist alone, all the other piano players whom we hear this year in countless concerts are only piano players—their only merit is the dexterity with which they handle the machine of wood and wire."—HEINRICH HEINE.
37AFTER Wagner, Brahms. After Chopin? Bulow once confessed that Brahms cured him of Wagner mania. I must unwillingly confess that Brahms is curing me of Chopinism. Chopin will ever appeal but as a cult, despite his poetical suggestiveness and always happy technical style; Chopin, with many others of the romantic school, has had his say. Some of his music is imperishable—the etudes and preludes, a polonaise, a ballade, a scherzo, a few of the mazurkas, the fantasia in F minor, one impromptu, may be vouchsafed us by that remorseless critic, Time. To alter Browning—"Brahms is our music maker now." Brahms whose music was at one time as an undecipherable cryptogram! Brahms now appeals to our finest culture. Without the melancholy tenderness of Chopin, he has not altogether escaped the Welt-
39schmerz, but his sadness is masculine and he seldom if ever gives way to the hysterical complaining of the feminine Pole. Enfin, Brahms is a man, a dignified, mentally robust man, who feels deeply, who has developed wonderful powers of self control, and who drives the musical nail deeply when he hits it, as he nearly always does.
41Could any style be more at variance than Brahms' and Chopin's? Moscheles declared much of Chopin's music unplayable, and it is a commonplace of the day to dismiss Brahms' piano music as un pianistic.
43Brahms' affinity to Schumann is marked; perhaps when the latter pronounced such favorable judgment on Brahms' op. 1 he but acknowledged blood relationship.
45Brahms tells us different things, however, but as I intend dealing more with externals I will pass by any question of musical content.
47To the student of the somewhat florid Liszt, Chopin, Thalberg and Henselt school, the Schumann-Brahms technic must offer few attractions. Possibilities for personal display are rare—I mean display of the "glittering passage" sort. Extensive scale work is seldom found in either composer and old-fashioned ornamentation is conspicuous by its absence. Musically the gain is immense, pianistically there is a loss. No more of those fascinating, long-linked, pearly passages, no more of those delicate, zephyr-like figures—no more sonorous and billowy arpeggio sweeps over the keyboard. In a word, the finger virtuoso's occupation is gone and the virtuoso of the brain has come to stay. Heavy chordal work—arabesques that might have been molded by a Michael Angelo—a cantilena that is polyphonic, not monophonic, ten voices instead of one—all this, is it not eminently modern yet Bachian? Schumann came from Bach, and Schumann is foster father to Brahms; but Bach and Beethoven blood also runs warmly in Johannes' veins.
49Under which king will you serve?—for you cannot serve two. Will you embrace the Scarlatti, Emanuel Bach, Mozart, Cramer, Chopin, Liszt school, or will you serve under the standards of Bach, Clementi, Beethoven, Schumann and Brahms?
51Better let nature decide for you, and decide she does with such marked preferences that often I have attended piano recitals and have wept silently because the "piano reciter" fondly believed he was versatile and attempted everything from Alkan to Zarembski. What a waste of vital force and what a waste of time!
53I have, and value them as a curiosity, a copy of Liszt's etudes, op. 1. The edition is rare, and the plates must be destroyed. Written when Liszt was fresh from the tutelage of Carl Czerny they show traces of his schooling. They are not difficult for fingers inured to modern methods. When I first bought them I knew not the "Etudes d'exécution transcendante," and when I encountered the latter I exclaimed at Liszt's cleverness. Never prolific in thematic invention the great Hungarian had taken his opus 1 and dressed it up in the most bewildering technical fashion. He gave these studies appropriate names, and even to-day they require a tremendous technic to do them justice. The most remarkable of the set—the one in F minor (No. 10)—Liszt left nameless, and like a mighty peak it rears its head skyward, while about it cluster its more graceful fellows, "Ricordanza," "Feux-Follets," "Harmonies du Soir," "Chasse Neige" and "Paysage."
55What a superb contribution to piano etude literature is Liszt's! These twelve incomparable studies, the three very effective "Etudes de Concert," the Paganini studies, the "Waldesrauschen," the "Gnomenreigen," the "Ab-Irato," the graceful "Au Lac de Wallenstadt" and "Au Bord d'une Source," have they not developed the technical resources of the instrument? And to play them one must have fingers of steel, a brain on fire, a heart bubbling with chivalric grace and force. What a comet pianist he was, this Magyar, who swept Europe with fire and sword, who transformed the still small voice of Chopin into a veritable hurricane. (I can't imagine Liszt without Chopin preceding him.) He created no school, left no pupils (he never could have, any more than could Richard Wagner) and left us with but a faint tradition of his style—oh, yes, I had almost forgotten—and he bequeathed us the Liszt pupil.
57Without Liszt the piano would lose its most dashing cavalier, and his freedom, fantasy and fire were admirable correctives for the stilted platitudes of the Hummel, Czerny, Mendelssohn school. You can't—as much as you may wish to—ignore Liszt's technic. He got out of the piano an orchestral quality; in fact it is a peculiarity of Liszt's compositions that they sound orchestral upon the piano and pianistic in the orchestra. He advanced by great wing strokes toward perfection and not to include Liszt were to exclude color, sonority, richness of tintings and powerful dynamic contrasts.
59Liszt has had a great following, but no real successors, but you can see how much he affected modern technic. Tausig felt his influence and even Schumann, whose setting of the Paganini etudes is, however, far removed from Liszt's. But Schumann certainly struck out a very original course when he composed his "Etudes symphoniques." Here a Liszt style is a bar to faithful interpretation. Music, music, music is wanted, with strong singing fingers and a wrist of iron—elastic iron. The toccata in C is an admirable example of not only Schumann's but fin de siècle technic. Here, as in Brahms' polyphonic fingers, great discrimination of tone in chord passages is required and powers of stretching that tax most hands to their utmost.
61Brahms has reared upon this Schumann technic a glorious structure whose foundations (Bach-Schumann) are certainly not builded on sand. You can get a very good notion of the Brahms piano technic by playing the figure he gave Tausig for that great master's "Daily Studies." Look at his wonderful variations—true studies; read the Paganini variations—are they not "heaven storming?" Brains, Brains and Bach. His studies on studies are not so entertaining. One is the rondo by Weber in his C major sonata, the so called "mouvement perpétuel." This has Brahms transcribed for the left hand, lifting the bass part into the treble. Anything more dispiriting I cannot imagine. It makes one feel as when the clock strikes nineteen in the ghostly watches of the night.
63The etude in sixths on Chopin's beautiful F minor etude in op. 25 is an attempt to dress an exquisite violet with a baggy suit of pepper and salt clothes. It is a gauche affair altogether, and I fancy the perpetrator of the trick is ashamed of himself, for, unlike Joseffy's astounding transcription of Chopin's G flat etude, Brahms' study upon a study is utterly unklaviermässig. Constantin Sternberg tells a story about this F minor etude of Brahms-Chopin. When it first appeared Moszkowski was trying it over in the presence of the Scharwenkas and Sternberg. Not content with playing the right hand triplets in double sixths (as Brahms has done) he transposed them to the left hand and went to work rather hesitatingly saying, naturally enough: "Why not do it this way?"
65It out Herodot and Xaver Scharwenka could stand it no longer, and when Moszkowski stuck for a moment he strode up to the pianist, seized his nose and chin, opened his mouth, gazed in it and then said in a slightly irritated voice: "That is the worst of these machines, they will get out of order sometimes."
67Bendel's etude in double sixths is a good study, evidently modeled after Chopin's G sharp minor study. Zarembski has written a finger breaker in B flat minor, and the two Von Schloezer studies are by no means easy studies, but there are technical heights yet to be explored. Charles V. Alkan, the Parisian pianist, has concocted, contrived and manufactured about twenty-seven studies, which are at the topmost technical notch, and are, to confess the truth, unmusical. But they are the extreme outcome of the Liszt technic, and consequently have historical value. Don't play them, for you can't, which remark is both Celtic and convenient. Rubinstein's op. 23—his six etudes published by Peters—cannot be lightly passed over. The first in F and the well-known staccato etude in C should be studied. He has also written two studies, both in the key of C, one of which is called "Study on False Notes" and sometimes "The Handball." They are all very pianistic.
69Strelezki's five concert studies published by Schirmer are very modern and require a cyclopean grip. Nos. 4 and 5 are the most musical. The same composer's etude, "The Wind," is an excellent study in unison. The "Valse Etude" dedicated to Joseffy is too artificial. I hear that Brahms has a new set of studies in preparation, and that Schytte, the Scandinavian composer, has, in collaboration with Rosenthal (whose technic must now be really fabulous), fashioned a set of studies that will wear off your finger nails if you play them. I suppose that pianists will soon appear in public and perform pedal etudes (the hands being lifted over the head in a "Please don't shoot, mister, I'm doing my level best" fashion), or sitting down deliberately will decompose in full view of the audience (which will not rush off for the coroner and cologne) and then proceed to play tonal studies one note at a time. So much for this Delsartean, devitalization craze!
71About the Russians I have but little to say. Balkireff has composed a monstrosity called "Islamey," and its jangling harmonies and muscle twisting technic have been presented in concerts here by Friedheim and Godowsky. The piano technic of the Russian school is a blend of Schumann and Liszt, and like most "blends" (whether whiskey or politics) is at times disquieting.
73Diversified rhythms and abrupt tonal transitions are the distinguishing characteristics of the new Slavic group.
75Tausig's daily studies should be on the piano of every aspiring pianist. They contain all that is needed for the most modern technic, and will, I fancy, be modern a century hence, unless the Jankó keyboard banishes them with all such literature into the limbo of etudes, where, as pale wreaths of the past, they will doubtless indulge in fantastic and ghostly gyrations. Tausig divined all the potentialities of the keyboard, and with his two studies,
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