Scan 10
Musical Courier 1896-03-04: Vol 32 Iss 835, 1896
44 lines. Read by computer on 20 September 2026. Printed page 11. See the scan on archive.org.
1this was the principal event of the season and most gratifying.
3The conclusion of the whole matter is the warning to the gentle readers to keep their eyes open for future announcements by the Terre Haute Musical-Literary Club.—Terre Haute Express.
5A rare treat awaited those who attended the concert given by the famous New York Philharmonic Club under the auspices of the Ladies' Matinée Musicale yesterday afternoon. The club has for its personnel a sextet of soloists of the highest rank, and whose concerted work has reached perfection. The musicians were in perfect sympathy, and played as if one mind were directing all the instruments. The work was remarkable for the extreme delicacy and finish, and was thoroughly appreciated by the cultured audience, among which many professional musicians were seen.
7After the concert several of the soloists expressed themselves as highly delighted with the attention of the audience. The program was a restful and pleasing one, and nearly every number received an encore. The concerted numbers were Symphony No. XIII., Haydn; quartet, Variations, D minor, F. Schubert; Traumerei, R. Schumann, L'Espagnole, Fr. Cowen; two Hungarian Dances, J. Brahms. Miss Inez Grenelli, a young American singer who studied in Dresden with Lamperti, and in Paris with Mme. Desirée Artot de Padilla, is making her first Western tour as soloist with the Philharmonic Club. She has a clear, sweet soprano voice of great volume, evenness and delicacy of tone. As an artist she throws her personality into her song and carries her audience in perfect sympathy. She gave the aria, Casta Diva, from Norma, in a thoroughly artistic manner, and was charming in a suite of songs—Der Hidalgo, R. Schumann, and He Loves Me, Loves Me Not, Mascagni. For encore number she gave the old-timer Comin' Thro' the Rye. Mr. Karl Krill, the violoncello virtuoso, also surprised and delighted his audience by his mastery over that instrument. Few players have been heard here who equal Mr. Krill. Chopin's nocturne, op. 9, was followed by Popper's Spinning Song, which the audience warmly encored. The double bass solo of Mr. Henry Lehman was a revelation to the audience, who had seldom heard the capabilities of that instrument so thoroughly tested. He played Variations, op. 18, his own composition, and received an enthusiastic encore. Mr. Louis Kapp, the violin virtuoso, plays with masterly execution and produces full, clear, sympathetic tones. His work yesterday was one of the gems on the program. His program number was Fantaisie Bolero, H. Leonard. Equally artistic and enjoyable was the flute solo of Mr. Eugene Weiner, who is too well known in the musical world to need any introduction. His selections were especially pleasing, being the aria Happy Spirits in Elysium, d'Orphée, Ch. v. Gluck, and Allegro Brillante, I. Terschack.—Indianapolis Sentinel.
9Musical Form in the Nineteenth Century.
11No. 1.
13IT is an interesting study to observe the changes which have been wrought in musical form since Beethoven composed his Seventh and Eighth symphonies. Formal construction has become more pliable since the death of Haydn, and the tendency has gradually been toward condensation of material and continuity of design. In a sense this is a return to seventeenth century methods, when a single motive was deemed sufficient for the construction of a toccata or a fugue.
15The melodists of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries came very nearly changing all this, and at one time it was customary to introduce into an overture six or eight separate motives. Even Mendelssohn, who surely was a classicist, frequently followed this melodic will-o'-the-wisp into quicksands and quagmires. An example of these fruitless endeavors is his Wedding March, which contains six different periods, besides the intrada, intermezzo and coda!
17It is scarcely necessary to mention the numerous potpourri overtures, such as Zampa and Poet and Peasant. The precedent was established before the time of Hérold, who merely followed a certain model with little thought of form.
19There seems to be considerable misapprehension concerning form in music. Outline and sketch are frequently confused with delineation; proportion and division are considered as all-essential, while the aesthetic character of the music contained within the form is either ignored, or judged a priori to be eminently classical and proper. If form is to be viewed from its merely outward aspect, as the shape and structure of anything, independent of the material of which it is composed, then it will be a simple task to determine upon the correctness or incorrectness of this feature of musical art. But can we thus dissociate form from expression? Can we admire the outlines of a midnight silhouette without inquiring what it is that is outlined? What makes the statue of the Greek Slave a work of classic art? Not wholly the symmetrical proportions and the graceful contour, nor the gyves upon those delicately fashioned ankles and wrists, but more than these, the mute pathos, the downcast look, and the nobility of expression, which tell the unspeakable horror of invasion and conquest. It would seem, therefore, that various considerations must be recognized in treating of musical form.
21Of course the bounding lines come first. These are marked by the main divisions, such as parts one and two in the dance form. Each part is subdivided by two generally equal periods, in which the connection is a little closer than it is between the main divisions. The second part, usually in contrast to the first, introduces a different key tone, and then part one recurs (da capo), in order to end in the original key, and thus leave the contrasting strain in the middle, like, for example, a doorway between two windows. Tonality thus enters into the scheme of formal construction, even in elementary dance models, such as the one here cited. But so far as tonal requirements may be considered, the application was restricted and somewhat narrow during the strictly classical epoch.
23At the same time it must be admitted that in prescribing the dominant relation for second subject and conclusion, the seventeenth and eighteenth century masters made the best choice possible. Its tendency is onward and upward, and therefore represents progress or incitement.
25The dominant is also most important acoustically, and this perhaps is why it was given such prominence in actual composition. I have observed distinct traces of this tonal element of form in the works of Corelli, Purcell and other composers, who antedated the Bach-Händel epoch. The dominant modulation has another advantage which was undoubtedly considered by the early writers. It possesses a certain reciprocal relation by its natural tendency to return to the original tonic. The two keys form an upward and downward sequence, and stand somewhat in the relationship of thesis and antithesis.
27With regard to the minor tonalities as applied to classical form, they seem to me more arbitrary and less adroit than the scheme of key relations in major. If the second subject is naturally cast in a major mode, the relative of the tonic presents a close relationship, and is therefore appropriate whenever the composer desires to preserve a contrasting connection. But where the conclusion also is in the relative major, there is frequently a disproportion between the principal and subsidiary key tones. And the return from major to relative minor is not so natural as it is from dominant to tonic major. But the most serious objection seems to me to be this—that the contrasting modes are frequently too much in opposition to each other.
29Not that the "minor is sad," and the major "cheerful" (this, I believe, to be a mistaken idea), but there is to the minor mode a certain feeling of restraint and unrest which constitutes the principal charm of such themes as the opening of Weber's Concertstück, or the prelude to Bach's Clavier fugue in D sharp minor, 8, 1. In the physical science of music a minor key is impossible, and that is why Bach and Händel terminated nearly all of their compositions in major. Nor can the minor phenomenon be explained by means of the Hauptmann-Riemann hypothesis, that the minor chord is a major chord turned upside down. I demonstrated the fallibility of that doctrine in THE MUSICAL COURIER of August 9, 1893, under the title Supposed Physical Basis of Harmony.
31But in actual practice the minor is now recognized as an independent mode with its own characteristic expression, owing to the peculiar construction of its different scales.
33If a given mood be cast in minor, and that is the burden of the song as in Chopin's fourth prelude, it cannot be contrasted with a period in major without at least a suggestion of incongruity. This is illustrated by the Chopin prelude in E minor. Here we have a tragic mood constantly maintained from beginning to ending. Not even for a single measure is the major mode allowed to intrude upon the scene which depicts the monotony of grief. Also in the tenth prelude (C sharp minor), the minor mode is maintained throughout in the strictest manner, the only major chord used being recognized as dominant harmony.
35The works of Bach afford some remarkable instances of this distinctive quality of the minor mode, which, by a negative process, proves also the distinctive quality of the major mode. For example, in the first French suite the allemande, courante, sarabande, minuet I. and II., and gigue, all are in D minor. The sarabande, which is particularly serious in character, is exclusively in D minor, excepting a single phrase of the third period, which is in F major. But owing to the third inversion of the seventh chord this does not present such a strong contrast as otherwise it would.
37The second suite, in C minor, and the third, in B minor, are equally consistent in this regard; all the separate numbers are in minor. The three following suites in major present the same distinctive tonal features, all the movements being in the primary mode.
39Of course these conditions cannot always be maintained, but where the mood demands it the composer can preserve the individual character of either mode, as we have seen. There is, however, a disposition among certain composers to employ the minor mode as a mere foil to the major. Haydn was wont to treat it in this way, frequently introducing a period or two in tonic minor as a means of development, or as a contrast to the major. In the larghetto to his Sonata XX. (edition Peters) the key purports to be that of F minor. But after four measures in that key there are sixteen measures in the relative major. The agreeable impression created by the first two phrases in minor is quite destroyed by what follows, owing to the tonal incongruity. Nor is the repetition facilitated by this queer arrangement of modes. The adagio of Sonata XIX. is similar in design, and presents the same modal inconsistencies.
41Beethoven improved the sonata form in minor by maintaining the secondary mode at greater length, or by introducing the second theme in a mixed mode, as in his op. 2, 1. The diminished seventh chord resolved to its tonic major represents this dual mode, and it is remarkable that this resolution is more serious than the corresponding resolution to minor. In his op. 13 Beethoven brings the second subject in the minor key situate a small third above the original tonic. In the op. 27, 2, the second theme occurs in the dominant minor. The same is true of op. 31, 2. This arrangement, and particularly the mixed mode previously mentioned, seems preferable, at least in the majority of instances, to that of the classical formula, i.e., from tonic minor to relative major.
43The late improvements in musical instruments, and the naturally progressive tendency of an art so modern as is music, have almost revolutionized the classical formula as to key relations, transition and general tonal arrangement. These matter are now controlled not so much by the conventionalities of form as by the changing phases of mood or passion. The Vorspiel to Rheingold is exclusively in E flat major. The composer desired to represent a central idea, a fixed condition, and so persistent is this expression that the harmony of the tonic remains throughout, save an occasional suggestion of the passing dominant chord. Per contra, when Erda is summoned from mysterious depths there is an entire absence of definite tonality, and the musical scene is continually shifted to higher and lower planes. These two extreme instances illustrate the most modern application of tonality, and
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