The Oxford History of Music
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&!^^ THE OXFORD HISTORY OF MUSIC VOL. VI THE ROMANTIC PERIOD BY EDWARD DANNREUTHER OXFORD AT THE CLARENDON PRESS 1905 HENRY FKOWDE, M.A. PUBLISHER TO THE UNTVERSHT OF OXFORD LONDON, EDINBURGH NEW YORK AND TORONTO LIBRARY UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA SANTA BARBARA NOTE IT is not fitting to speak here of the heavy loss which English Music has sustained in the death of Mr. Edward Dannreuther. To his long career of unselfish and devoted labour there have been paid elsewhere tributes which no words of mine could en- hance. But, from respect to his memory, I would ask leave to offer a brief explanation of the circumstances under which this his last work is presented to the public. The manuscript was finished and partly revised by the Autumn of 1904. All that remained was to complete the re- vision and to make a selection of the musical examples. During the winter Mr. Dannreuther was prevented by illness from con- the at his his tinuing work ; and request, and under instructions, I carried it to of it on the best my ability. The volume as stands embodies the results of his research and the verdicts of his critical judgement : but it did not receive the final touch of his hand. There is one more point to which the attention of the reader may be directed. When the Oxford History was first planned it appeared advisable to end with Schumann, and to leave to some future historian the more controversial topics of our own time. This view it has been found necessary to modify, and the present volume contains reference to the principal works, of whatever date, which in origin or character can be directly attributed to the Romantic movement. My cordial thanks are due to Mr. J. A. Fuller -Maitland for his assistance in the correction of the proofs. W. H. HADOW. PKEFACE AN attempt is here made to show, with the aid of copious examples, analyses, and comments, how the course of Music has gradually changed since Beethoven's day. Not to disturb the impression of historical sequence each department is treated chronologically, but as the different classes of music are discussed separately the dates necessarily overlap. Musical quotations are in some instances rather long, because the reader, to be in a position to judge of the calibre and style of a passage, ought to have at least one complete sentence or period before him. They are compressed in so far as compression is consistent with perspicuity, and the original is always faithfully reproduced. In connexion with the description of the works that stand for the various phases of the Romantic movement, certain questions arising out of the attitude towards artistic problems taken by it is leading masters are discussed as they come into view ; and the ever-varying aspect of such questions that forms both the link and the contrast between chapter and chapter, sometimes even between one paragraph and another. A book so closely in touch with the actualities of present-day musical life must needs contain some controversial matter. It ought to be trustworthy as to facts, but it can hardly avoid the expression of disputable criticisms. These must be understood to represent merely the personal opinions of the writer. EDWARD DANNREUTHER. CONTENTS PAGE CHAPTER!. INTRODUCTORY SKETCH. Romanticism in literature and music. German, French, Italian Romantic opera. Overtures and Symphonies. Pro- gramme Music. Oratorios and Cantatas. Piano- forte pieces and Solo Songs. Virtuosi. Musicians as writers on music i CHAPTER II. GERMAN ROMANTIC OPERA FROM WEBER TO SCHUMANN. Weber's Preciosa, Der Freischutz, Euryanthe, Oberon Spohr E. T. A. Hoffmann Marschner Schumann's Genoveva . .16 CHAPTER III. ROMANTIC OPERA IN PARIS. Auber's La Muette Rossini's Guillaume Tell Scribe and Meyerbeer's Robert le Diable, Les Huguenots, &c. Halevy Herold Adam Berlioz' Benvenuto Cellini 36 CHAPTER IV. ITALIAN OPERA. Bellini Donizetti Verdi 58 CHAPTER V. THE FURTHER DEVELOPMENT OF RO- MANTIC OPERA. Comic operas : Lortzing Flotow Nicolai. Operas and Operettas in other European countries : Berlioz' Les Troyens and Beatrice et Benedict. Works by Gounod Ambroise Thomas Bizet Offenbach Peter Cornelius Goetz Glinka Moniuszko Smetana Sullivan 67 CONTENTS vii PAGE CHAPTER VI. OVERTURES AND SYMPHONIES. Mendels- sohn's Overtures Schumann's Overtures Schumann's and Mendelssohn's Symphonies Wagner's Eine Faust- Ouverture .... 80 CHAPTER VII. PROGRAMME Music. Berlioz' Sympho- nies and Overtures Felicien David's Le Desert Liszt's Symphonies and Poemes symphoniques . 1 1 1 CHAPTER VIII. ORATORIOS AND CANTATAS. Mendels- sohn's St. Paul, Elijah, Lobgesang, Die erste Walpur- gisnacht Schumann's Paradise and the Peri, Der Rose Pilgerfahrt, Choral-Balladen. Religious pieces. The music to Goethe's Faust. Berlioz' La Dam- nation de Faust, and L'Enfance du Christ . .156 CHAPTER IX. RELIGIOUS Music. Berlioz Liszt Rossini Verdi Wagner's Biblical Scena, Das Liebesmahl der Apostel 173 CHAPTER X. CONCERTOS AND CHAMBER Music . 225 CHAPTER XI. PIANOFORTE Music. Weber Field Mendelssohn Schumann Chopin Liszt . 237 CHAPTER XII. SOLO SONGS. Schumann Mendelssohn Robert Franz Berlioz Liszt Wagner. Balladen. Melodrama 271 CHAPTER XIII. VARIOUS WORKS BY OTHER MASTERS. Anthems by Samuel and Samuel Sebastian Wesley. Glees and Catches. Miscellaneous pieces by Niels Gade Sterndale Bennett Onslow Rubinstein Stephen Heller Sullivan Volkmann Lachner Kiel Goetz Kirchner Jensen Peter Cornelius Hans v. Billow Raff. The Neo- Russians : Balakirev Rimsky-Korsakow Cui viii CONTENTS PAGE Musorgsky Alexander Borodine and his opera Prince Iffor Dargomijsky Tchaikovsky. Grieg Max Bruch Felix Draeseke C. V. Alkan. Organ pieces by Mendelssohn Liszt Rheinberger The Wesleys 289 CHAPTER XIV. THE ROMANTIC OPERAS OF WAGNER AND THE INCIPIENCY OF THE MUSIC-DRAMA . 333 CHAPTER XV. MUSICIANS AS WRITERS ON Music. Historical studies Antiquarian research Editing of classics 350 CHAPTER XVI. SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION . 361 INDEX 367 THE ROMANTIC PERIOD CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION Music, polyphonic and harmonic, considered in relation to other departments of artistic endeavour, is somewhat late in its manifestations. It was not until the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, when Counterpoint flourished in the Netherlands, England, and Italy, that the affinity between polyphony and Gothic architecture became apparent. The religious painting of the early Italian Renaissance hardly found a counterpart in music before Palestrina's time. Some aspects of the secular poetry and painting of the later Renaissance are reproduced in the Italian and English Madrigals and the Spanish, French, and English lute music of the seventeenth century. The spirit of Protestantism acquired its musical voice very gradually first in Schiitz, then in Bach and Handel. The elaborate courtesy and urbanity of the first half of the eighteenth century are, to a certain degree, reflected in the operas of Gluck and Mozart. Echoes of the worship of nature, the humanitarian enthusiasm, and the social upheaval of the second half of that century can be traced in the symphonic work of Beethoven, which properly belongs to the first quarter of the nineteenth. Even in the revival of Teutonic myth, and in the dreamland of Norse, Celtic, or Slavonic poetry, the relation of things poetic to things musical exhibits the same order : the songs of Tieck^s Schone Magelone had to wait for Brahms, the revival of old German stories of gods and heroes for Wagner. But as time goes on and new processes are discovered the intervals become shorter. The DASKBBUTHSR a THE ROMANTIC PERIOD rate of growth is accelerated, and musical art comes nearer to the sister arts, to thought, and to life. Examined from this point of view, the period of musical development here to be discussed the Romantic period, from Weber to Wagner, i. e. from Der Freischiitz to Lohengrin and Tristan, or from Weber's overtures to the symphonic pieces of Berlioz and Liszt is, on the emotional side, seen to be imbued with the spirit of romantic poetry and literature, whilst, on the technical side, it is a time of transition from the formal to the characteristic, from the f ' f ' ' Singspiel or the Opera seria to the Opera caratteristica,' and the Wagnerian Music-drama, from the Sonata to the 6 f Characterstiick/ from the Symphony to the Poeme sym- phonique/ Romantic music is, in some sense, an offshoot of literature ; a reflex of poetry expressed in musical terms; a kind of impressionism which tends to reject formality, and aims at of its a desire to musical a direct rendering object ; produce effects natural an art suggested by phenomena ; eager, sensitive, impulsive, which seeks its ideal of beauty through emotional expression. With Wagner it is ancilla dramatis a powerful rhetoric which, like scenery and action, is made subservient to the purposes of the Theatre. Literary Romanticism, about 1800, found a voice for the thoughts and feelings which by natural reaction had begun to invade the rationalistic world of the eighteenth century. It was not so much a protest against classical work as against some aspects of the reasoned taste in art that had sprung from the spirit of rationalism. It gave voice to a keen love of the past, especially of the religious aspect of past ages, and to a keen passion for nature. The Christian ideals and the ideals of Rousseau met in the sentimentality of Bernardin de St. Pierre, Chateaubriand, de Senancourt, and many others who mistook ( the furore espressivo for a symptom of strength. L'aspiration du sublime/ says George Sand, 'etait meme une maladie du r temps c etait quelque chose de fievreux qui s'emparait de la INTRODUCTION 3 In as in a little later the j eunesse/ Germany France, on, growth of music proceeded on similar lines. German music followed the traces of German literature at an interval of a generation or so whilst in France, more directly in accordance with the Ecole romantique, music and literature came to be very nearly contemporaneous.