Music is kind to its disciples. When they bring high talents to its service they are not forgotten. They survive among the durably salient men, the really great men, the remembered men. Schubert belongs in that rare and enviable company. Life used him harshly, but time has made up for it. He is one of the great glories of the human race.
Brahms
From FIVE LITTLE EXCURSIONS, PREJUDICES: SIXTH SERIES,
1927, pp. 163–69.
First printed in the Baltimore Evening Sun, Aug. 2, 1926
MY excuse for writing of the above gentleman is simply that, at the moment, I can think of nothing else. A week or so ago, on a Baltimore Summer evening of furious heat, I heard his sextet for strings, opus 18, and ever since then it has been sliding and pirouetting through my head. I have gone to bed with it and I have got up with it. Not, of course, with the whole sextet, nor even with any principal tune of it, but with the modest and fragile little episode at the end of the first section of the first movement—a lowly thing of nine measures, thrown off like a perfume, so to speak, from the second subject:
What is the magic in such sublime trivialities? Here is a tune so slight and unassuming that it runs to but nine measures and uses but six of the twelve tones in the octave, and yet it rides an elderly and unromantic man, weighing 180 pounds and with a liver far beyond pills or prayer, as if it were the very queen of the succubi. Is it because I have a delicately sensitive ear? Bosh! I am almost tone-deaf. Or a tender and impressionable heart? Bosh again! Or a beautiful soul? Dreimal bosh! No theologian not in his cups would insure me against Hell for cent per cent. No, the answer is to be found in the tune, not in the man. Trivial in seeming, there is yet in it the power of a thousand horses. Modest, it speaks with a clarion voice, and having spoken, it is remembered. Brahms made many another like it. There is one at the beginning of the trio for violin, ’cello and piano, opus 8 – the loveliest tune, perhaps, in the whole range of music. There is another in the slow movement of the quintet for piano and strings, opus 34. There is yet another in the double concerto for violin and ’cello, opus 102 – the first subject of the slow movement. There is one in the coda of the Third Symphony. There is an exquisite one in the Fourth Symphony. But if you know Brahms, you know all of them quite as well as I do. Hearing him is as dangerous as hearing Schubert. One does not go away filled and satisfied, to resume business as usual in the morning. One goes away charged with a something that remains in the blood a long while, like the toxins of love or the pneumococcus. If I had a heavy job of work to do on the morrow, with all hands on deck and the cerebrum thrown into high, I’d certainly not risk hearing any of the Schubert string quartets, or the incomparable quintet with the extra ’cello, or the slow movement of the Tragic Symphony. And I’d hesitate a long time before risking Brahms.
It seems an astounding thing that there was once a war over him, and that certain competent musicians, otherwise sane, argued that he was dull. As well imagine a war over Beauvais Cathedral or the Hundred-and-third Psalm. The contention of these foolish fellows, if I recall it aright, was that Brahms was dull in his development sections—that he flogged his tunes to death. I can think of nothing more magnificently idiotic. Turn to the sextet that I have mentioned, written in the early 60s of the last century, when the composer was barely thirty. The development section of the first movement is not only fluent and workmanlike: it is a downright masterpiece. There is a magnificent battle of moods in it, from the fiercest to the tenderest, and it ends with a coda that is sheer perfection. True enough, Brahms had to learn—and it is in the handling of thematic material, not in its invention, that learning counts. When he wrote his first piano trio, at twenty-five or thereabout, he started off, as I have said, with one of the most entrancing tunes ever put on paper, but when he came to develop it his inexperience threw him, and the result was such that years later he rewrote the whole work.
But by the time he came to his piano concerto in D he was the complete master of his materials, and ever thereafter he showed a quality of workmanship that no other composer has ever surpassed, not even Beethoven. The first movement of the Eroica, I grant you, is sui generis: it will never be matched until the time two great geniuses collide again. But what is in the rest of the first eight symphonies, even including the Fifth and Ninth, that is clearly better than what is in the four of Brahms? The first performance of his First, indeed, was as memorable an event in the history of music as the first performance of the Eroica. Both were frantically denounced, and yet both were instantaneous successes. I’d rather have been present at Karlsruhe on November 6, 1876, I think, than at the initiation of General Pershing into the Elks. And I’d rather have been present at Vienna on April 7, 1805, than at the landing of Columbus.
More than any other art, perhaps, music demands brains. It is full of technical complexities. It calls for a capacity to do a dozen things at once. But most of all it is revelatory of what is called character. When a trashy man writes it, it is trashy music. Here is where the immense superiority of such a man as Brahms becomes manifest. There is less trashiness in his music than there is in the music of any other man ever heard of, with the sole exception, perhaps, of Johann Sebastian Bach. It was simply impossible for him, at least after he had learned his trade, to be obvious or banal. He could not write even the baldest tune without getting into it something of his own high dignity and profound seriousness; he could not play with that tune, however light his mood, without putting an austere and noble stateliness into it. Hearing Brahms, one never gets any sense of being entertained by a clever mountebank. One is facing a superior man, and the fact is evident from the first note. I give you his “Deutsches Requiem” as an example. There is no hint of what is commonly regarded as religious feeling in it. Brahms, so far as I know, was not a religious man. Nor is there the slightest sign of the cheap fustian of conventional patriotism. Nevertheless, a superb emotion is there—nay, an overwhelming emotion. The thing is irresistibly moving. It is moving because a man of the highest intellectual dignity, a man of exalted feelings, a man of brains, put into it his love for and pride in his country.
But in music emotion is only half the story. Mendelssohn had it, and yet he belongs to the second table. Nor is it a matter of mere beauty—that is, of mere sensuous loveliness. If it were, then Dvořák would be greater than Beethoven, whose tunes are seldom inspired, and who not infrequently does without them altogether. What makes great music is simply the thing I have mentioned: brains. The greatest musician is a man whose thoughts and feelings are above the common level, and whose language matches them. What he has to say comes out of a wisdom that is not ordinary. Platitude is impossible to him. Above all, he is a master of his craft, as opposed to his art. He gets his effects in new, difficult and ingenious ways—and they convince one instantly that they are inevitable. One can easily imagine improvements in the human eye, and in the Alps, and in the art of love, and even in the Constitution, but one cannot imagine improvement in the first movement of the Eroica. The thing is completely perfect, even at the places where the composer halts to draw breath. Any change in it would damage it. But what is inevitable is never obvious. John Doe would not and could not write thus. The immovable truths that are there—and there are truths in the arts as well as in theology—became truths when Beethoven formulated them. They did not exist before. They cannot perish hereafter.
Wagner
From TOWARD A REALISTIC ÆSTHETIC, PREJUDICES: FOURTH SERIES,
1924, pp. 249–51.
First printed in the Smart Set, July, 1922, pp. 41–43
IN contemplating the stupendous achievements of Wagner one often finds one’s self wondering how much further he would have gone had he not been harassed by his two dreadful wives. The first, Minna Planer, was implacably opposed to his lifework, and made hard efforts to dissuade him from it. She regarded “Lohengrin” as nonsensical and “Tannhäuser” as downright indecent. It was her constant hope, until Wagner finally kicked her out, that he would give ov
er such stuff, and consecrate himself to the composition of respectable operas in the manner of Rossini. She was a singer, and had the brains of one. It must be plain that the presence of such a woman—and Wagner lived with her for twenty years—must have put a fearful burden upon his creative genius. No man can be absolutely indifferent to the prejudices and opinions of his wife. She has too many opportunities to shove them down his throat. If she can’t make him listen to them by howling and bawling, she can make him listen by snuffling. To say that he can carry on his work without paying any heed to her is equal to saying that he can carry on his work without paying any heed to his toothache, his conscience, or the zoo next door. In spite of Minna, Wagner composed a number of very fine music dramas. But if he had poisoned her at the beginning of his career it is very likely that he would have composed more of them, and perhaps better ones.
His second wife, the celebrated Cosima Liszt-von Bülow, had far more intelligence than Minna, and so we may assume that her presence in his music factory was less of a handicap upon the composer. Nevertheless, the chances are that she, too, did him far more harm than good. To begin with, she was extremely plain in face—and nothing is more damaging to the creative faculty than the constant presence of ugliness. Cosima, in fact, looked not unlike a modern woman politician; even Nietzsche, a very romantic young fellow, had to go crazy before he could fall in love with her. In the second place, there is good reason to believe that Cosima, until after Wagner’s death, secretly believed that her father, Papa Liszt, was a far better musician. Men’s wives almost invariably make some such mistake; to find one who can separate the man of genius from the mere husband, and then estimate the former accurately and fairly, is surely very rare. A woman usually respects her father, but her view of her husband is mingled with contempt, for she is of course privy to the transparent devices by which she snared him. It is difficult for her, being so acutely aware of the weakness of the man, to give due weight to the dignity of the artist. Moreover, Cosima had shoddy tastes, and they played destructively upon poor Wagner. There are parts of “Parsifal” that suggest her very strongly—far more strongly, in fact, than they suggest the author of “Die Meistersinger.”
I do not here decry Wagner; on the contrary, I praise him, and perhaps excessively. It is staggering to think of the work he did, with Minna and Cosima shrilling into his ears. What interests me is the question as to how much further he might have gone had he escaped the passionate affection of the two of them and of their various volunteer assistants. The thought fascinates, and almost alarms. There is a limit beyond which sheer beauty becomes unseemly. In “Tristan und Isolde,” in the Ring, and even in parts of “Parsifal,” Wagner pushes his music very near that limit. A bit beyond lies the fourth dimension of tone—and madness.
More of the Same
From REFLECTIONS ON HUMAN MONOGAMY, PREJUDICES:
FOURTH SERIES, 1924, P. 107–08.
First printed in the Smart Set, March, 1922, P. 44
EVEN Nietzsche was deceived by Wagner’s “Parsifal.” Like the most maudlin German fat woman at Bayreuth, he mistook the composer’s elaborate and outrageous burlesque of Christianity for a tribute to Christianity, and so denounced him as a jackass and refused to speak to him thereafter. To this day “Parsifal” is given with all the trappings of a religious ceremonial, and pious folks go to hear it who would instantly shut their ears if the band began playing “Tristan und Isolde.” It has become, in fact, a sort of “ ’Way Down East” or “Ben-Hur” of music drama—a bait for luring patrons who are never seen in the opera house otherwise. But try to imagine such a thumping atheist as Wagner writing a religious opera seriously! And if, by any chance, you succeed in imagining it, then turn to the Char-Freitag music, and play it on your phonograph. Here is the central scene of the piece, the moment of most austere solemnity—and to it Wagner fits music that is so luscious and so fleshly—indeed, so downright lascivious and indecent—that even I, who am almost anesthetic to such provocations, blush every time I hear it. The Flower Maidens do not raise my bloodpressure a single ohm; I have actually drowsed through the whole second act of “Tristan.” But when I hear that Char-Freitag music all my Freudian suppressions begin groaning and stretching their legs in the dungeons of my unconscious. And what does Char-Freitag mean? Char-Freitag means Good Friday!
Johann Strauss
From FIVE LITTLE EXCURSIONS, PREJUDICES: SIXTH SERIES,
1927, pp. 169–74
THE CENTARY of Johann Strauss the Younger in 1925 passed almost unnoticed in the United States. In Berlin and in Vienna it was celebrated with imposing ceremonies, and all the German radio stations put “Wein, Weib und Gesang” and “Rosen aus dem Süden” on the air. Why wasn’t it done in this great country? Was the curse of jazz to blame—or was it due to the current pestilence of Prohibition and the consequent scarcity of sound beer? I incline to Answer No. 2. Any music is difficult on well-water, but the waltz is a sheer impossibility. “Man Lebt Nur Einmal” is as dreadful in a dry country as a Sousa march at a hanging.
For the essence of a Viennese waltz, and especially of a Strauss waltz, is merriment, good humor, happiness. Sad music, to be sure, has been written in Vienna—but chiefly by foreigners: Haydn, who was a Croat; Beethoven, whose pap had been a sour Rhine wine; Brahms, who came from the bleak Baltic coast. I come upon Schubert—but all rules go to pot when he appears. As for Strauss, he was a 100% Viennese, and could no more be sad than he could be indignant. The waltz wandered into the minor keys in Paris, in the hands of the sardonic Alsatian Jew, Waldteufel, but at home old Johann kept it in golden major, and so did young Johann after him. The two, taking it from Schubert and the folk, lifted it to imperial splendor. No other dance-form, not even the minuet, has ever brought forth more lovely music. And none other has preserved so perfectly the divine beeriness of the peasant dance. The best of the Strauss waltzes were written for the most stilted and ceremonious court in Europe, but in every one of them, great and little, there remains the boggy, expansive flavor of the village green. Even the stately “Kaiser” waltz, with its preliminary heel-clicks and saber-rattling, is soon swinging jocosely to the measures of the rustic Springtanz.
It is a curious, melancholy and gruesome fact that Johann Strauss II as brought up to the variety of delinquency known as investment banking. His father planned that he should be what in our time is called a bond salesman. What asses fathers are! This one was himself a great master of the waltz, and yet he believed that he could save all three of his sons from its lascivious allurement. Young Johann was dedicated to investment banking, Josef to architecture, and Eduard, the baby, to the law. The old man died on September 25, 1849. On September 26 all three were writing waltzes. Johann, it quickly appeared, was the best of the trio. In fact, he was the best musician who ever wrote waltzes for dancing, and one of the salient composers of all time. He took the waltz as his father left it, and gradually built it up into a form almost symphonic. He developed the introduction, which had been little more than an opening fanfare, into a complex and beautiful thing, almost an overture, and he elaborated the coda until it began to demand every resource of the composer’s art, including even counterpoint. And into the waltz itself he threw such melodic riches, so vastly a rhythmic inventiveness and so adept a mastery of instrumentation that the effect was overwhelming. The Strauss waltzes, it seems to me, have never been sufficiently studied. Consider, for example, the astonishing skill with which Johann manages his procession of keys—the inevitable air which he always gets into his choice. And the immense ingenuity with which he puts variety into his bass—so monotonous in Waldteufel, and even in Lanner and Gung’l. And the endless resourcefulness which marks his orchestration—never formal and obvious for an instant, but always with some new quirk in it, some fresh and charming beauty. And his codas—how simple they are, and yet how ravishing.
Johann certainly did not blush unseen. He was an important figure at the Austrian court, and when he passed necks were craned as i
f at an ambassador. He traveled widely and was received with honor everywhere. His waltzes swept the world. His operettas, following them, offered formidable rivalry to the pieces of Gilbert and Sullivan. He was plastered with orders. He took in, in his time, a great deal of money, and left all his wives well provided for. More, he had the respect and a little of the envy of all his musical contemporaries. Wagner delighted in his waltzes and so did Brahms. Once one of the Strauss wives, encountering Brahms at the annual ball of the Third Assembly District Democratic Association of Vienna, asked him to sign her fan. He wrote upon it the opening theme of “The Beautiful Blue Danube” and added “Leider nicht von Johannes Brahms” – Unfortunately, not by Johannes Brahms. It was a compliment indeed—perhaps the most tremendous recorded in history—nor was there any mere politeness in it, for Brahms had written plenty of waltzes himself, and knew that it was not as easy as it looked.
The lesser fish followed the whales. There was never any clash of debate over Strauss. It was unanimously agreed that he was first-rate. His field was not wide, but within that field he was unchallenged. He became, in the end, the dean of a sort of college of waltz writers, centering at Vienna. The waltz, as he had brought it up to perfection, became the standard ball-room dance of the civilized world, and though it had to meet rivals constantly, it held its own for two generations, and even now, despite the murrain of jazz, it comes back once more. Disciples of great skill began to appear in the Straussian wake – Ziehrer with the beautiful “Weaner Mad’l,” Komchak with “Fidelis Wien,” Lincke with “Ach, Frühling, Wie Bist Du So Schön,” and many another. But old Johann never lost his primacy. Down to the very day of his death in 1899 he was primus inter omnes. Vienna wept oceans of beery tears into his grave. A great Viennese—perhaps the ultimate flower of old Vienna—was gone.
Mencken Chrestomathy (Vintage) Page 61