MUSIC OF TO-DAY AND TO-MORROW BY JAMES HUNEKER DESPITE the fact that he played the ESPITE the fact that he played the mediocrity is mankind in the normal, and Wagner, Arthur Schopenhauer said some notable things about music. "Art is ever on the quest," is a wise observation of his, "a quest, and a divine adventure"; though this restless search for the new often ends in plain reaction, progress may be crabwise and still be progress. I fear that "progress" as usually understood is a glittering "general idea" that blinds us to the truth. Reform in art is not like reform in politics; you can't reform the St. Matthew Passion or the Fifth Symphony. Is "Parsifal" a reformation of Gluck? This talk of reform is only confusing the historical with the esthetic. Art is a tricksy quantity and, like quicksilver, is ever mobile. As in all genuine revolutions the personal equation counts the heaviest, so in dealing with the conditions of music at the present time one must study the temperament of our musicmakers and let prophecy sulk in its tent as it may. If Ruskin had written music-criticism, he might have amplified the meaning of his once-famous phrase, the "pathetic fallacy," for I consider it a pathetic fallacy -though not in the Ruskinian sense-in criticism to be overshadowed by the fear that, because some of our critical predecessors misjudged Wagner or Manet or Ibsen, we should be too merciful in criticizing our contemporaries. This is the "pathos of distance" run to sentimental seed. The music of to-day may be the music of to-morrow, but if it is not, what then? It may satisfy the emotional needs of the moment, yet to-morrow be a stale formula. But what does that prove? Because Bach and Beethoven built their work on the bases of eternity (employing this tremendous term in its limited sense), one may nevertheless enjoy the men whose music is of slighter texture and “modern." Nor is this a plea for mediocrity. Mediocrity we shall always have with us: normal man demands of art what he can read without running. Every century produces artists who are forgotten in a few generations, though they fill the eye and the ear for the time being with their clever production. This has led to another general idea, that of transition, of intermediate types. After critical perspective has been attained, it is seen that the majority of composers fall into this category, not a consoling notion, but an unavoidable. Richard Wagner has his epigones; the same was the case with Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven. Mendelssohn was a delightful feminine variation on Bach, and after Schumann came Brahms. The Wagner-Liszt tradition of musicdrama, so-called, and the symphonic poem have been continued with personal modifications by Richard Strauss; Max Reger has pinned his faith to Brahms and absolute music, though not without a marked individual variation. In considering his "Sinfonietta," the "Serenade," the "Hiller Variations," the "Prologue to a Tragedy," the "Lustspiel Overture," the two concertos respectively for piano-forte and violin, we are struck not so much by the easy handling of old forms, but by the stark emotional content of these compositions. Reger began as a Brahmsianer, but he has thus far not succeeded in fusing form and theme so wonderfully as did his master. There is a Dionysian strain in his music that too often is in jarring discord with the intellectual plan of his work. But there is no denying that Max Reger is the one man in Germany to-day who is looked upon as the inevitable rival of Richard Strauss. Their disparate tendencies bring to the lips the old query, Under which king? Some think that Arnold Schoenberg may be a possible antagonist in the future, but for the present it's Reger and Strauss, and no third in opposition. The Strauss problem is a serious one. In America much criticism of his performances has contrived to evade the real issue. He has been called hard names because he is money-loving, or because he has not followed in the steps of Beethoven, because of a thousand and one things of no actual critical value. That he is easily the greatest technical master of his art now living there can be no question. And he has wound up a peg or two the emotional intensity of tone. Whether this striving after nerve-shattering combinations is a dangerous tendency is quite beside the mark. Let us register the fact. Beginning in the paths laid out by Brahms, he soon came under the influence of Liszt, and we were given a chaplet of tone-poems, sheer program-music, but cast in a bigger and more flexible mold than the thrice-familiar Liszt pattern. Whatever fate is reserved for "Death and Transfiguration," "Till Eulenspiegels lustige Streiche," "Also Sprach Zarathustra," "Hero's Life," and "Don Quixote," there is no denying their significance during the last decade of the nineteenth century. For me it seemed a decided step backward when Strauss invaded the operatic field. One so conspicuously rich in the gift of musicmaking (for the titles of his symphonies never prevented me from enjoying their coloring and eloquence) might have avoided the more facile triumphs of the stage. However, "Elektra" needs no apology, and the joyous "Rosenkavalier" is a distinct addition to the repertory of musical comedy. Strauss is an experimenter and no doubt a man for whom the visible box-office exists, to parody a saying of Gautier's. But we must judge him by his own highest standard, the standard of "Elektra," 'Don Quixote," and "Till Eulenspiegels," not to mention the beautiful songs. "Ariadne on Naxos" was a not particularly successful experiment, and what the newly composed Alp Symphony may prove to be one can only surmise. Probably this versatile tone poet has said his best. He is not a second Richard Wagner, not yet has he the charm of the Liszt personality, but he bulks too large in contemporary history to be called a decadent, although in the precise meaning of the word, without its stupid misinterpretation, he is a decadent inasmuch as he dwells with emphasis on the technic of his composition, sacrificing the whole for the page, putting the phrase above the page, and the single note in equal competition with the phrase. In a word, Richard Strauss is a romantic, and flies the red flag of his faith. He has not followed the advice of Paul Verlaine in taking eloquence by the neck and wringing it. He is nothing if not eloquent and expressive, magnifying his Bavarian songbirds to the size of Alpine eagles. The newer choir has avoided the very things in which Strauss has excelled, for that way lies repetition and satiety. HoWEVER, Strauss is not the only member of the post-Wagnerian group, but he is the chief one who has kept his individual head above water in the welter and chaos of the school. Where is Cyrill Kistner, Hans Sommer, August Bungert, and the others? Humperdinck is a mediocrity, even more so than Puccini. And what of the banalities of Bruckner? His Wagnerian cloak is a world too large for his trifling themes. Siegfried Wagner does not count, and for anything novel we are forced to turn our eyes and ears in the direction of France. After Berlioz, a small fry, indeed, yet not without interest. The visit made by Claude Debussy to Russia during his formative period had consequences. He absorbed Moussorgsky, and built upon him, and he had Wagner at his finger-ends; like Charpentier he cannot keep Wagner out of his scores; the Bayreuth composer is the King Charles's head on his manuscript. "Tristan und Isolde" in particular must have haunted the composers of "Louise" and "Pelléas et Mélisande." The "Julien" of Charpentier is on a lower literary and musical level than "Louise," which, all said and done, has in certain episodes a picturesque charm; the new work is replete with bad symbolism and worse music-spinning. Debussy has at least a novel, if somewhat monotonous, manner. He is "precious," and in ideas as constipated as Mallarmé, whose "Afternoon of a Faun" he so adequately set. Nevertheless, there is magic in his music at times. It is the magic of suggestiveness, of the hinted. mystery which only Huysmans's ten superior persons scattered throughout the universe may guess. After Debussy comes Dukas, Ravel, Florent Schmitt, RogerDucasse, men who seem to have caught talents as Puccini, Mascagni, and Leon- anew the spirit of the eighteenth-century and under his guidance such dissimilar music and given it to us not through the poetic haze of Debussy, but in gleaming, brilliant phrases. There is promise in Schmitt. As to Vincent d'Indy, you differ with his scheme, yet he is a master, as was César Franck a master, as are masters the two followers of D'Indy, Albert Roussel and Theodat de Sévérac. Per sonally I admire Paul Dukas, though without any warrant whatever for placing him on the same plane with Claude Debussy, who, after all, has added a novel nuance to art. But they are all makers of anxious mosaics; never do they carve the big block. It is hardly necessary to consider here the fantastic fashionings of Erik Satie, the "newest" French composer. He seems to have out-Schoenberged Schoenberg in his little piano pieces bearing the alluring titles of "Embryons desséchés," preludes and pastorales. Apart from the extravagant titles, the music itself is ludicrous qua music, but not without subtle irony. That trio of Chopin's "Funeral March" played in C and declared as a citation from the celebrated mazurka of Schubert does touch the rib risible. There is neither time signature nor bars. All is gentle chaos and is devoted to the celebration, in tone, of certain sea-plants and creatures. This sounds like Futurism or the passionate patterns of the Cubists, but I assure you I've seen and tried to play the piano-music of Satie. That he is an archhumbug I shall neither maintain nor deny. After Schoenberg anything is possible in this vale of agonizing dissonance. I recall with positive satisfaction a tiny composition for piano by Rebikoff, which he calls a setting of "The Devil's Daughters," a mural design by Franz Stuck of Munich. To be sure, the bass is in C and the treble in D-flat, nevertheless the effect is almost piquant. The humor of the new composer is melancholy in its originality, but Gauguin has said that in art one must be either a plagiarist or a revolutionist. Satie is hardly a plagiarist, though the value of his revolution is doubtful. The influence of Verdi has been supreme among the Verists of young Italy, though not one has proved knee-high to a grasshopper when compared to the composer of that incomparable masterpiece, Falstaffo." Ponchielli played his part, with "La Bohème," all the rest is repeti- est. The He is more personal, therefore more original, than Elgar. Not one of these can tie the shoe-strings of Peter Cornelius, the composer of short masterpieces, "The Barber of Bagdad"-the original version, not the bedeviled version of Mottl. In Germany there is an active group of young men; Ernest Boehe, Walter Braunfels, Max Schillings, Hans Pfitzner, a gifted composer, F. Klose, Karl Ehrenberg, Dohnány, H. G. Noren. The list is long. Fresh, agreeable, and indicative of a high order of talent is a new opera by Franz Schreker, "Das Spielwerk und die Prinzessin." Schreker's earlier opera, "Der ferne Klang," I missed, but I enjoyed the later composition, charged as it is with fantasy, atmosphere, bold climaxes, and framing a legendary libretto. Curiously enough, the Russian Moussorgsky, whose work was neglected during his lifetime, has proved to be a precursor to latter-day music. He was not affected in his development by Franz Liszt, whose |