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to be always entirely successful. But at least in the last movement of the fantasia, the novel principle of design and the development of the whole scheme is as successful as the ideas themselves are beautiful and poetical.

Schumann, like Beethoven, revels in a mass of sound. his sound is far more sensuous and chromatic.

But

He loved to

use all the pedal that was possible, and had but little objection to hearing all the notes of the scale sounding at once. He is said to have liked dreaming to himself, by rambling through all sorts of harmonies with the pedal down; and the glamour of crossing rhythms and the sounding of clashing and antagonistic notes was most thoroughly adapted to his nature. A certain confusion of many factors, a luxury of conflicting elements which somehow make a unity in the end, serves admirably to express the complicated nature of the feelings and sensibilities and thoughts of highly-organised beings in modern times. Chopin's style has coloured almost all pianoforte music since his time, in respect of the manner and treatment of the instrument; and many successful composers are content merely to reproduce his individualities in a diluted form. But Schumann has exerted more influence in respect of matter and treatment of design. With him the substance is of much greater significance, and he reaches to much greater depths of genuine feeling. There must necessarily be varieties of music to suit all sorts of different types of mind and organisation, and Chopin and Schumann are both better adapted to cultivated and poetic natures than to simple unsophisticated dispositions. That is one of the necessities of differentiation; and music which is concentrated in some especial direction can only meet with response from those who possess the sensitive chord that the music is intended to touch. There are natures copious enough to have full sympathy with the dreamers as well as the workers; but as a rule the world is divided between the two. People who love much imagery and luxury of sensation do not want to listen to Cherubini's best counterpoint, and those who only love energy and vital force do not want to listen to the love scenes in the Walküre. But as illustrating the profusion of sensations, the poetic sensibility.

and even the luxury and intellectuality, the passion and the eagerness of modern life, Chopin and Schumann between them cover the ground more completely than all the rest of modern pianoforte composers put together.

For greatness of expression and novelty of treatment Johannes Brahms stands out absolutely alone since their time. Disdaining the ornamental aspects of pianoforte music, he has had to find out a special technique of his own; and in order to find means to express the very original and powerful thoughts that are in him, he resorts to devices which tax the resources of the most capable pianists to the utmost. Moreover, he taxes the power of the interpreter also; which is a thing a great many virtuosi pianists are not prepared for. There is something austerely noble about his methods, which makes thought and manner perfectly consistent; and though it cannot be said that his line of work is so easily identifiable with the general tendency towards independence of design, he has produced many works that are decidedly not on the line of sonatas-such as his Rhapsodies and Clavier-Stücke and Intermezzi; all instinct with the definiteness and decisiveness of individuality which mark him as an outlying representative of the great family of Teutonic musical giants.

The aspect of pianoforte music in general seems to indicate that composers are agreed that the day for writing sonatas is past, and that forms of instrumental music must be more closely identified with the thoughts or moods which are expressed in them. The resources of harmonic and polyphonic effect, combined with rhythm and melody, are much richer than the resources of simple accompanied melody; and the growth of fresh resources is by no means at an end. There is plenty of room for characteristic work. Composers have begun to import national traits into their pianoforte compositions with perfect success; and the identifying of a nation's essential character with its music can be aptly and very considerably extended in pianoforte music as in other branches of art. The field of characteristic musical expression is certainly not exhausted; and composers who have any gift for devising consistent and compact forms which are perfectly adapted to the

mood of their ideas, have still room to achieve something new in the most interesting modern phases of art. The sonata type was no doubt adapted to the highest and noblest kind of musical expression; and it is not likely that anything so noble and so perfect in design as Beethoven's work will be seen in the world for a long while. But even if illustrations have not so elevated a dignity as the works of a great artistic period, they may serve excellent purposes, and be in every way admirable, and permanently interesting and enjoyable, if they are carried out with fair understanding of the true necessities of the situation, and with the sincerity of the true artistic spirit. One of the most obvious features of the modern condition of music is the extraordinary diversity of forms which have become perfectly distinct, from symphony, symphonic poem, and opera, down to the sentimental ballad of the drawingrooms. And in all of them it is not only the type of design which has become distinctive, but the style as well. For instance, one of the branches of music which is still most vigorously alive is chamber music, which consists mainly of combinations of varieties of solo stringed or wind instruments, with pianoforte, in works written on the lines of sonatas. Its present activity is partly owing to the fact that it has rather changed its status from being real chamber music, and is becoming essentially concert music. The instruments are treated with less delicacy of detail than they were by Beethoven, with a view to obtain the sonority suitable to large rooms. The style has therefore necessarily changed to a great extent; but nevertheless it is still as closely differentiated from the style of all other branches of art as ever. A touch of the operatic manner instantly betrays itself as inconsistent, and so do the devices of symphonic orchestration. Even the national tunes, and the original subjects which belong to that type, which are such a welcome and characteristic feature in Dvorâk's works of this order, are so transformed and translated by the subtle genius of the composer into terms which are apt to the style of this highly specialised branch of art, that the remoteness and diversity of the branch of art from which they spring is almost forgotten. In other lines the same

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law holds good. The features of brilliant and vivacious fancy which adorn the orchestral works of the Bohemian masterprobably the greatest living master of orchestral effect-are in like manner translated into the terms suited to the particular branch of art he is dealing with. And even the wild experiments of younger aspirants after a poetical reputation and picturesquely astonishing novelty unconsciously fall into line with the limitations of style and diction which are characteristic of their branch of musical utterance.

Thus there is an average mood and style of idea which composers have instinctively adopted for each branch of art, so that the examples of different orders are distinct not only in technical details but in spirit. And moreover, even in the highest branches of art, represented by the noble symphonies of Brahms, which illustrate the loftiest standard of style of the day, the significant change from the old ideals in respect of subject-matter is noticeable. For the aim in his works on the grandest scale is but rarely after what is equivalent to external beauty in music. What beauty is aimed at is beauty of thought, the beauty of nobleness, and high musical intelligence. Even beauty of colour is but rarely present; but the colours are always characteristic, and confirm the reality of the powerful and expressive ideas. So the rule holds good even in the most austere lines, that the latest phase of art is characterisation.

CHAPTER XIV

MODERN PHASES OF OPERA

GLUCK's theories of reform had strangely little effect upon the course of opera for a long while. The resources of art were not sufficiently developed to make them fully practicable, and even if they had been, it is quite clear that in many quarters they would not have been adopted. The problem to be solved in fitting intelligible music to intelligible drama, is one of the most complicated and delicate ever undertaken by man; and the solution is made all the more difficult through the fact that the kind of public who frequent operas do not in the least care to have it solved. (Operatic audiences have always had the lowest standard of taste of any section of human beings calling themselves musical. They generally have a gross appetite for anything, so long as it is not intrinsically good. If the music is good they have to be forced to accept it by various forms of persuasion; and a composer who attempts any kind of artistic thoroughness has to look forward either to failure, or to the disagreeable task of insisting on being heard. It follows that progress towards any ideal assimilation of the various factors of operatic effect has to be achieved in spite of the taste of the audiences, and by the will and determination which is the outcome of a composer's conviction. Nations vary very much in their capacity to take sensible views of things, as they do in their capacity for enjoying shams and taking base metal for gold; so a composer's opportunities of emancipating himself from convention, and of solving the problems he sees to be worth solving, are much better in one country than another. It is conspicuously true in operatic matters that the public decide what they will have,

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