As has frequently been pointed out, no other art can show such an absolutely logical and plainly traceable gradual development as can the art of music. And when the development of orchestral music in general, and of the orchestra in particular is considered, a veritable mine of interesting facts is revealed. Italy, the home land of all the beautiful arts, and especially of music, can boast the distinction of having been also the " leader " where the orchestra is concerned. Blest with all those advantages which have to do with the unfolding of artistic principles, blest first of all with that wonderful, heart-ensnaring atmosphere which contributes so greatly toward the creating and fructifying of artistic talent, Italy was destined to be the motherland of musical art, and for a long time to play the leading role not only in the domain of choral and solo song, but also in the realm of the instrumental. It is indeed significant that from the very first, composers and poets expressed the desire to blend or at least to associate for mutual advantage their respective arts, and because of this desire it is found that along with the sense for the actualizing of dramatic incidents upon the stage — scenery and properties being utilized as external means for the enhancing of the actor's art — there was developed gradually the wish for a particular kind of music which not only would satisfy the finer emotions of the hearer, but also would rouse and charm to the last possible degree his sense for tone beauty. Thus from small and insignificant beginnings there came into being and was developed orchestral music — that music which more than any other tonal utterance serves, or should serve, not only to express musical thoughts, but by the expressing of these thoughts becomes or should become able also to establish a kind of spiritual relationship among such persons as are susceptible to the peculiar power possessed by the language of tones, the power of bringing attuned souls more closely together.
Thus we find orchestral music at the close of the Sixteenth Century in the process of formation. The instruments then existent were of a very primitive kind, and were not numerous, but even at this time there was most plainly shown the desire to blend with the tone of that most beautiful and oldest instrument we call our own — our singing voice — the tone of such instruments as human thought and skill had fashioned. We know of the existence at the end of the Sixteenth Century of a " real " opera composed by Jacopo Peri (born in Florence, August 20, 1561). What would be more natural then, than that the Italians should for many years remain lords and masters in the realm of opera? They had at their disposal an inexhaustible wealth of dramatic material, and they were aided and supported by their wonderful language which, in itself a beautiful melody, satisfies and conforms to the needs of song as does no other language in the whole world. And thus it came that Italian music and the old Italian opera made its way out beyond the boundaries of the homeland, and that Italian style and Italian manner of expression were most zealously imitated and copied by all composers of that period.
Giovanni Battiste Lulli (1633-1688) a Florentine who as a boy left his native town and emigrated to Paris, per-formed notable service in the developing of the orchestral music of his time. As his worthy peer and almost as his contemporary stands Henry Purcell (1658-1695) who should be named as the direct predecessor of Handel in the domain of song. Lulli's successor in France was Jean Philippe Rameau (1683-1764) who did more than all his predecessors and contemporaries to widen the orchestral horizon. He it was, for example, who was the first to employ in his compositions the clarinet, the new wood-wind instrument which was invented in the year 1690.
Meanwhile musical life began to manifest itself more and more in Germany, at first also along opera lines. Rein-hold Keiser (1674-1739) deserves to be most honorably mentioned as the actual founder of the German school of opera. In the realm of the purely orchestral, however, Germany accomplished nothing of any significance at this time. Even the influence of Handel on German art in general, and orchestral music in particular, was in nowise of vital or epoch-making effect, a fact which in no way detracts from his greatness as master of oratorio, or his importance as a factor in the development of musical life in England. Handel's orchestra was and remained a medium subservient to the vocal element, and Handel himself was too greatly under the influence of the Italians ever to be in a position to do away with the antiquated, or to create anything actually new.
The musical art of the Italians advanced more and more toward its decadence. Every possibility along vocal lines had been exhausted, and new means were not to be found. Furthermore, there appeared no one who had aught that was new to say. Apollo's beloved goddess seemed to have wearied of heavens eternally blue, and now turned her face toward the cold, gray Northland, and there she chose Johann Sebastian Bach, the greatest master of all nations and all time, as the one who should give forth a new tonal language, even a whole. new tonal world. In place of the antiquated and worn-out song-principles of the Italians there came into use through him the instrumental element; in place of the old showy shell there sprang into being through him a living, feeling and inspiring art. He created new forms, and by means of these forms a musical science which will endure so long as humanity sings and speaks.
Through Bach the way for the free and independent development of the orchestra was first cleared, and his followers were enabled because of his achievements to apply still farther the instrumental principle and make it serviceable. In Bach's own son, the talented Philipp Emanuel (1714-1788), orchestral progress found a notable worker, and it is interesting to find that even at this time the desire for good orchestras was so keen that the orchestra of the court at Mannheim was regarded for a considerable period as the best in Europe. The director of this organization was a Bohemian violinist, Johann Carl Stamitz by name, who as the composer of several symphonies enjoyed a goodly measure of celebrity.
It would lead too far afield to attempt to describe in detail what the direct successors to Johann Sebastian Bach accomplished in the domain of the symphony, or to try to show how gradually, and step by step, the orchestra was built up, and how its technic developed and matured, thus making possible the countless orchestral compositions of our " Grandpapa " Joseph Haydn ( 1732-1809 ), the humorist and miniaturist among the symphonists, and preparing the way for the wondrous creations of the divine Mozart ( 1756-1791 ), who was the lyricist among classic symphony writers. The great services performed by Christoph Willi-bald Gluck, the reformer in the opera field, also can be given only passing mention. The time was ripe, and the orchestra had been sufficiently developed through Haydn and Mozart, for the appearing of the Titan among the classicists, Ludwig van Beethoven ( 1770-1827 ), the greatest symphonist of all countries and all time. It may seem strange that Beethoven was thirty years of age before he wrote his first symphony. Richard Strauss, the greatest musician of our day, was about twenty-five when he gave to the world a work so sensational and epoch-making as his " Don Juan," But a kind of sacred shyness doubtless kept the young Beethoven from entering earlier into the symphony realm. It may also impress one as peculiar that the youthful master, who already had spoken in tones the passionate quality of which never before had been dreamed of, should in his first symphony follow so exactly in the path of Haydn and especially of Mozart. He regarded the orchestra in an entirely new light, and he wished to give it a wider, deeper and more powerful eloquence than had they, but for this very reason he toned down to the level of his predecessors all that he voiced in both his first and second symphonies, and also all the means of expression which he employed. He did this in order that deliberately and intentionally he might strengthen his powers. Therefore it is that not until the third symphony, the " Eroica," do we meet the real Beethoven in his veritable titanic greatness, a true hero proud and conscious of victory. Beethoven in each of his nine symphonies teaches us a new lesson, and discloses to us a new and mighty wisdom. In his opera " Fidelio " he created a work the tones of which voice the greatest dramatic power and the deepest passion of which human sensibilities are capable. And in his "Missa Solemnis" and his ninth symphony his last great choral and orchestral works we contemplate with wonder and awe how the highest and maturest mastery in the handling of musical form is combined with a glowing creative power such as is bestowed only upon him who stands on the topmost peak of genius. The mightiest and supremest achievements of any musician, these are works whose greatness and significance can be measured only by the standards of the eternal.
Much has been accomplished along orchestral lines since Beethoven, and it would almost appear that the real development of the orchestra began with or after him. His orchestra-technic however, his mastery in the handling of the different instruments — the individualizing of the tone of each of them in such a way that, for example, it would be impossible to think of a passage which he wrote for the oboe as being for the clarinet — this mastery was developed to an extraordinary degree for the time in which he lived and achieved, and undoubtedly would have been developed still further had he been spared from the most awful fate that can befall a musician — the fate of growing deaf. The ancient German proverb, according to which care is taken that no tree shall grow till it touches heaven, found in him its application and its man. Aside, however, from all instrumentation art which stands and always will stand within the caprice of the fashion of the day, and which is an element dependent upon the technic and capability of players; upon the number and character of the various kinds of string, wood, brass and percussion instruments at disposal; and upon the skill in the devising of new instruments aside from this art Beethoven, as a symphonist, was excelled by no one, and has not been excelled by anyone up to the present day.
The greatest symphonist of all time had spoken his last word, and it was but natural therefore that after him there should be a silence in the symphonic realm. Surely it would not be well if works of such overwhelming greatness as are J. S. Bach's B-minor mass and " St. Matthew's Passion," Handel's "Messiah," or "Beethoven's " Missa Solemnis " and ninth symphony were created every ten or twenty years. That would be exactly like building a house from naught save corner-stones. Their frequent appearing would be contrary to the enduring and eternal worth of these works which are the great corner-stones in the temple of art. After the chaste goddess, our immortal muse, had yielded for a short time after Beethoven's passing to deepest and hopeless mourning, she came forth one fair day with a smile upon her ever-youthful lips. "It can accomplish naught " she said, " longer to hang our head in sorrow. Beethoven is no more, and it would seem that our art is done forever with the classic the folk complain already of there being too much of it." "Eureka!" she exclaimed rejoicing, " we now will try the romantic. That is some-thing new, and surely will please at least for a little while." And thus came the romanticists into the tonal kingdom, first Carl Maria von Weber (1786-1829) as master over the realm of the romantic opera, and then Franz Schubert (1797-1828), Felix Mendelssohn (1809-1849) and Robert Schumann (.1810-1856) as sovereigns in the domain of absolute music. The claim certainly may with justice be made for these four chief representatives of the romantic school, that they are still the most popular composers of our day, and that they would have been so even had Weber composed nothing more than his " Invitation to the Dance," and " We Wind the Bridal Wreath " from the opera " Der Freischütz," or if Schubert had created only his " Unfinished " symphony and the song "Am Meer," or Schumann only the " Träumerei " and " Ich grolle nicht," or Mendelssohn only the wedding march from the " Mid-summer Night's Dream " and the song without words commonly known as the " Spring Song." Weber was the first German opera composer who understood how to employ in " Der Freischütz," " Oberon" and " Euryanthe " a wealth of folk-song-like melodies, and to employ them in skilful and oftentimes in highly artistic manner, thus creating music which, while it was perfectly suited to the dramatic situation on the stage, was at the same time fully in compliance with the tonal laws of that time. His employment of the leitmotif which later Richard Wagner brought to the highest possible development as a means of characterization, is deserving of the widest recognition and commendation, for its use was for Weber's time a daring innovation.
Much might be written of the achievements of the other three chief representatives of the romantic school, especially of Schubert and Schumann, who not alone performed epoch-making service for the German lied and created imperishable works in that line, but also followed a progressive path in the orchestral and particularly in the chamber-music field. The same is true of Mendelssohn, albeit the admission must be made that his music contains something too much of the amiable, and is wanting in depth, It is now time to turn our gaze from Germany toward other lands, and first of all toward France, where events and conditions were ripe for the appearing of the " French Beethoven," Hector Berlioz (1803-1869). It is beyond doubt that no musician ever possessed greater originality than did he, and but few had the liveliness of fantasy and the glowing imaginative powers which were his. His influence upon the development of the orchestra cannot be estimated too highly, for so far as all technical questions are concerned, he was constantly striving to think out new sound combinations, to bring new instruments in the orchestral body, to develop the technical possibilities, and to widen the capabilities of every instrument. To him must be accorded the credit of having founded, or rather created, the modern orchestra. But Berlioz was not only the greatest progressionist and pathfinder of his time so far as all orchestral technical matters are concerned — his influence in this direction has made itself felt in fullest degree among people of every nation in the world, and is still being felt — in another field equally important his influence has proven of the most wide reaching effect. This field, it is true, is one which is to be regarded with one laughing and one weeping eye, in other words, with distinctly conflicting sentiments. It is the field of program music, that form of art which has as its aim the suggesting, through tones unaccompanied by the spoken or sung word, of certain emotions, or impressions created by a colorful painting, a poem, a historical occurrence, a psychological moment in the life of a poetical or historical personage, or by some fanciful mood in the existence of a plant or of even an animal. The intent is so to influence the imaginative faculties of the listener that he will accept the composition in the way in which its writer wishes, and will hear the music not only aurally, but will see it mentally, and thus find it a richly colored picture in tones, the meaning and expression of which correspond to and fit the program design of the composer. It often has been pointed out, and not without justice, that Beethoven in his " Pastoral " symphony wrote program music, that even his " Eroica " is in large measure of this kind, and that had he lived the ninth symphony would have been found to mark a turning point in his creative life, for after the ninth there would have remained nothing for him to produce other than program music. Long before Beethoven, program music had been known and written. Little of it, it is true, is deserving of consideration, . since in the majority of instances the attempts on the part of composers consisted chiefly in the securing for a spiritually weak child of the muse, a name which would be as fine sounding and as interesting as possible. Beethoven in his " Eroica " wrote hero music, especially in the first two movements wherein most happily inspired themes are employed and developed in heroic and grandiose style. We all know that Beethoven created this symphony while under the influence of the admiration and reverence he felt for the greatest hero of his time, Napoleon Bonaparte, but that when a few years later this hero permitted himself to be proclaimed emperor by the French people, Beethoven's admiration and reverence came to an end, for he felt the " liberator of all mankind " had shown himself as the greatest of egoists and tyrants, and the composer was through with him. He tore to pieces the title-page of the " Eroica " which bore the dedication to Napoleon, and replaced it by another containing a pew dedication. But the music of the " Eroica " remained unchanged in character. It is hero music, and he who inspired it could just as well have been Alexander the Great, or Frederick the Great, or George Washington. The " Eroica " music is not dependent upon any program, it is " absolute."
The " Pastoral " symphony is somewhat different. There Beethoven expresses in tones what we experience when in the presence of nature — our emotions at the sight of a charming landscape while watching a little love-scene beside the brook, with birdsong obbligato, or when beholding the passing of a heavy thunder-storm. All this is in truth very rural and proper, all within the limits of a mood which will be understood in but one way by all persons, no matter how widely different they be in character ; a mood stolen from nature itself, and by means of art reflected in a manner absolutely natural. Beethoven thus proved that music, and orchestral music in particular, is able to a certain degree to affect different people in a uniform way, provided of course that the limits of musical means of expression are not over-stepped. Mendelssohn, too, manifested a great preference for conventional program music. His extraordinarily rich fantasy, coupled with his truly romantic sensibilities, produced those peculiarly happy moments in his creative life wherein he was led and inspired to compose his " Midsummer Night's Dream," " Hebrides " and " The Calm Sea " overtures. Music of this kind might well be classed under the title of " conventional program music," for it is absolute music so far as the strict observance of form and rule is concerned, and yet on the other hand music of distinct programmatic suggestive power. But Berlioz went a decided step further. His program music means tone painting in the modern sense of the word and his fantastie symphony, for example, is the best proof that he had little time for the considering of the esthetic and ethical problems of musical art. The " French Beethoven" wrote little or nothing that in some way is not most closely associated with a program idea. It is indeed unfortunate that when listening to most of his works one cannot avoid the impression that Berlioz as composer was more an experimenter and an educator, and this solely along purely technical lines, than a creator. His art in instrumentation must be wondered at, especially when the time in which he wrote is considered, but there is too much technic and too little music. The heart remains untouched. Wise moderation in the choice of means ever remained foreign to Berlioz. The orchestra could not be large enough and numerically great enough for him; to have under his baton hundreds of string, wind and percussion instruments was his highest aim and greatest ideal. His eye was kept too much on external effects, and too little on inner depth. Yet, despite this, he was qualified to achieve much that even for our time possesses importance and worth. His " Requiem," his splendidly colored " Te Deum," his symphonies and his " Damnation of Faust," while they contain much that is bizarre and much that is empty and showy, include also much that is intensely interesting and is artistically satisfying.
Meanwhile, a new genius of truly gigantic greatness and importance had been given to German art, a man who more than any of his predecessors in the musical realm was destined to attract the gaze of the entire civilized world, and whose works even today, or rather just today, are the object of the most undisguised admiration and wonder — Richard Wagner (1813-1883) the greatest musician-dramatist of all countries and all times, a universal genius in the highest sense of the word. Übermensch, philosopher, magician, seer, such was the poet-musician Richard Wagner. His art created a new world for the artistic perceptions and ideals of his own time and ours. Not alone that, but in every direction far beyond the boundaries of the German nation — one might with truth say throughout the entire civilized world — his art has acted as an inspiring, furthering and ennobling force upon the creative activity of the productive artist, the man who is the beautifier through color and form of our every-day existence. The achievements of Richard Wagner in the developing of the modern orchestra, after Berlioz, were of the greatest, for first through him was the orchestral body organically formed and every single organic part raised to its highest possible degree of capability. Since Wagner the musicians of the orchestra must possess not only the greatest of musical ability, but also a far higher degree of culture and intelligence than was demanded of them before. Therefore throughout the whole world today positions as orchestra players are filled and sought by musicians and artists of the first rank. The perfected presentation of a Wagnerian music-drama is dependent first and foremost upon the quality and qualifications of the orchestra, and it was but natural, therefore, that also as regards the artistic leadership of the orchestra itself a great change should have been brought about through Wagner's achievements, a change which received its first impetus through Wagner's true Eckehardt, the standard-bearer in the fight for the great Wagner question, Hans von Bülow. Bülow was the founder and furtherer of the modern director school, out of which, however, there has grown an element which also has to be regarded with one laughing and one weeping eye, the present-day virtuoso attitude at the director's desk.
But to return to Wagner and his art. The Bayreuth master frequently has been styled a " revolutionist of music." The charge is not wholly unjustified, perhaps, for through him many things which formerly were on top have been relegated to the bottom. If, however, the period in which Wagner lived and worked be taken into consideration, it will be seen that the time of his activity was a veritable storm and stress period, a season of general political ferment, and of revolutionary strivings which were not confined to France alone, but made themselves felt throughout all Europe. Under the influence of revolutionary ideas, Wagner created his " Faust " overture; and his " Rienzi," which had its first presentation in Dresden, Oct. 19, 1842, under the composer's own conductorship, he having been engaged at that time as Court director there, is pervaded by the same spirit of elemental storm and stress. War against the oppressors of humanity, freedom in fact, and freedom in the ideal sense of the word, was Wagner's motto at the time when he, the youthful master scarce thirty years of age, wrote, composed, prepared and directed his " Rienzi." That " Rienzi " itself made unheard-of demands upon the executive abilities of the orchestra need scarcely be stated. Still greater were those made by " The Flying Dutchman," which a couple of months later (January 2, 1843) was brought forward in Dresden under his direction, and still farther went " Tannhäuser," which had its initial production in 1847, also in Dresden, and under Wagner's baton. Each of these operas represented such a mighty advance over all that had gone before, an advance in musical as well as dramatic content, and in scenic structure as well as development of stage technic, that there is little wonder that the orchestra, the soloists and the chorus felt that Wagner had given them wholly new nuts to crack and wholly new problems to solve. The individual treatment of each instrument, from the first violin down to the drums and cymbals, the hundreds of things of which no one even had thought at that time, the overpowering sound of a Wagnerian fortissimo such as we find in his overtures to " Rienzi," " The Flying Dutchman" and " Tannhäuser "— all these things must have been in that day the cause of a vast amount of headache and head-shaking. And then, as regards all purely technical questions in his music, the unusual leading of the melodic line and the harmonic progression, which were exceedingly bold for that day, the astounding modulations, the leitmotif problem and its skilful applying and proving, together with the new " tone language " of the orchestra and the unbounded wealth of instrumental color, must have been confusing and perplexing for most of those who heard. It was but natural, therefore, that the Dresden success of " Rienzi," " The Flying Dutchman " and " Tannhäuser " was little more than an expression of local esteem for the " very talented, peculiar, but also extremely independent opera composer and Court director."
The producing of "Lohengrin," which meanwhile had been completed, was declined by the directorate of the Dresden royal opera, and greatly to Wagner's sorrow, for he had written the opera for that house. Rarely has the truth of the old, proverb, that " the aims, works and achievements of a genius can be completely and fully appreciated only by a genius," had finer confirmation than in the case of Richard Wagner. Fortunately for the saving of his art such a genius was at hand, Franz Liszt, the noblest, most unselfish musician of all ages. He who himself was a genius in the boldest sense of the word, was one of the first to grasp in its full significance and to appreciate the Wagnerian " music of the future." And he vouched for Wagner in the truest and most beautiful manner, for what could say more for Liszt's unshakable belief in Wagner's cause, or tell more plainly of his nobility of spirit and his broadmindedness, than that in Weimar itself, the place where Goethe and Schiller had lived and strived, and the place which was one of the noblest culture centers of German art, he should produce the " Tannhäuser " and the " Lohengrin " of a composer who in the meantime had become a revolutionary fugitive. Presenting " Tannhäuser " on Feb. 16, 1849, Liszt, who at that time held the musical scepter in Weimar, followed it on Aug. 28, 1850, with "Lohengrin," and by so doing made public in the plainest possible manner his attitude toward the art of Wagner.
"On the mountains dwelleth freedom." This fair word of Schiller's, the revolutionary fugitive, Wagner, well may have considered. It was a kindness of destiny that permitted him safely to reach the free mountains of Switzer-land and there to prepare, like a hero, for new deeds of greatness. And a new deed was entered upon, a veritable gigantic work of pure Germanic origin, which tells of the gods, a free race that dwelt on the mountain tops where the eagles have their home, a work that embodies within itself all those primal elements of fire, water, air and rush of storm which breathe forth the wonderful poesy to which the German heart is so responsive and so susceptible. The air of woodland and of mountain, and the freedom of the Swiss Alps — they all played a helpful part in the creating of Wagner's mightiest and biggest work, " The Ring of the Nibelung." In this work the musician-dramatist Wagner made known to the world the real nature of the "music of the future" and he also showed that all his earlier productions, " Rienzi," "The Flying Dutchman," " Tannhäuser " and "Lohengrin," were but advance couriers which he had sent out into the world to prepare the way worthily for that which was to come. Soon, however, was given forth another mighty musico-dramatic creation, " Tristan and Isolde," that overpowering love drama in word and tone which in the strength of its eloquence has no equal, and probably never will have. It was written and composed in its entirety in two years. Then came a new master-stroke of a wholly different nature, " The Mastersingers of Nuremberg," that humor-filled, brightly colored work which well may be considered as the most satisfying and most complete of all the Wagner creations. It would lead too far afield to point out here the really fabulous development of the orchestra accomplished through these works. In every creation of the master, beginning with " Rienzi," the musician is found wisely deliberating with the poet, and it may be of interest to quote here what Wagner himself once stated on this point. " No material," he says, " can attract me, except such as appeals to me not only in its poetic but simultaneously in its musical values. Thus before I even start to fashion a verse, I already am filled with the musical perfume of my creation ; I have all tones, all characteristic motives in my mind, so that when I then have the verses completed and the scenes in order, the actual opera for me is ready. The detailed musical treatment is then little other than a quiet and thoughtful afterwork which the moment of actual creation had preceded." This statement probably more than aught else gives a light upon the wonderful secret of Wagnerian creation, for it shows why with Wagner the tonal, orchestral element so complements and vivifies the sung word that the two form a complete and harmonious whole.
The mighty Wagnerian structure, the art work of the future was completed, and when finally after long years of bitterest disappointments, severest deprivations and crushing hopelessness, the royal friend and benefactor came into the life of the master, and the time of true liberty dawned for him, permitting him, freed from all material cares and hindrances, to create and to actualize that which his mind conceived, then for the first time was it granted to him to see and enjoy in reality that which he had achieved in tone and word. It must indeed have been not alone the feeling of unspeakable satisfaction and the gratifying of his pride as artist that inspired him to the creating of his last monumental work, but rather the emotion of an inexpressible thankfulness and almost reverent joyousness. Thus Wagner with his " sacred stage festival play," " Parsifal " completed his tremendous and unparalleled activity in the domain which he created for us all, the art work of the future, the music-drama.
Not quite twenty-five years have passed since his death, and who shall say what is to come? Wagner's art work and the mighty influence of his masterly creating and perfecting of it are but beginning gradually to mature within us and to bear fruit. His works are of the most enduring and widest reaching significance, not alone because of their artistic worth, but because they prove by their free and independent style the existence of a universal art-ideal, which requires no fixed or conventional form in order to make itself understood, an art-ideal which causes and enables us to receive with new and keener pleasure and enjoyment the creations of all the great masters in the realm of the dramatic-musical, the works of Gluck, Mozart, Beethoven and Weber.
Meanwhile it had been the destiny of the German people to live through that period which rightfully has been called "Germany's greatest, holiest time," a time resultant from the fraternizing of the many small states, and later their coalescence into the one and, it is to be hoped, the eternally united German fatherland, thus forming what is the actual center and, if one cares so to designate it, the heart and soul of Europe. This great event, although wholly an extraneous one, did much or rather contributed much toward the rapid unfoldment of all art life, and especially of that of music. Then began the florescence of musical art. Wagner was more and more endured, then more and more understood, then he became the style, and then his art entered upon its triumphant progress through-out the world. Many masters came with Wagner, through Wagner or after Wagner, and every nation has contributed its quota to this great company which has assisted in the further developing of modern art. To Johannes Brahms was vouchsafed to be Beethoven's successor in the realm of symphonic music, to advance the beloved German lied along the lines laid down by Schubert and Schumann, to discover new fields in chamber music and to be a true and worthy successor of the classicists. Anton Bruckner, who in orchestral matters was most strongly influenced by Wagner, applied the Wagnerian style to the symphony, and achieved results from which we of today and particularly those who follow us may hear and learn much. Hector Berlioz found in Franz Liszt a mighty champion and combatant for his program music doctrines, and these doctrines soon were carried farther still by the creation of the Liszt symphonic poems, and the " Faust " and " Dante " symphonies. And finally in our own day they have been brought to a veritable gradus ad Parnassum through Richard Strauss.
If we are justified in calling Hector Berlioz the Beethoven of France, César Franck certainly merits the title of a French Johannes Brahms, for he achieved much both in the orchestral field and in that of general composition. Vincent D'Indy is perhaps the best proof that César Franck " made a school," and it would be a sin of musical omission to speak of orchestral music without mentioning another Frenchman who " made a school" and still is making " it, George Bizet (1838-1875), the genius-composer of " Car-men." It can be stated with all confidence that seekers after knowledge can derive a hundredfold greater practical good from the study of the score of " Carmen " than from a dozen instruction books on instrumentation ; sources of similar value are his orchestral suites and other compositions.
Still greater would be the sin of omission committed were there left unmentioned the notable achievements of Verdi, who with his operas placed new laurels on the fame of Italian opera, and who in the course of his genius-progress from " Ernani " and " Il Trovatore " to " Otello " and " Falstaff " developed epoch-making tendencies which have been of such importance for the art of his people and his nation that they are o'ertopped only by the similar achievements in Germany of the master-creator of " Rienzi " and " Die Meistersinger." Verdi was the mastersinger, the eternally young, and therefore immortal Walther von Stolzing of Italy. His successors, especially Mascagni and Leoncavallo, devoted themselves to the sensationally realistic and shudderingly brutal. Their works for a brief period remained triumphant masters of the operatic battle-field, but later were forced to capitulate before the greater and more substantial capabilities and achievements of the gifted Puccini.
In darker Russia musical life during the last thirty or forty years has been making itself more and more manifest, the chief impulse being given by Tschaikowsky (1840-1893), whose masterly orchestral works represent an inestimably valuable enrichment of modern literature. The saying that Tschaikowsky's music sounds much better than it really is, is perhaps more than a half truth, but whether it shall be taken in a praising or a faultfinding sense is for every judging person to decide for himself. His music, so far as his symphonies are concerned, is extremely rich in mighty and compelling moments that are filled with a fairly over-powering elemental passion; recall but the first and last movements of the " Pathetic " or the andante of the E-minor symphony, a glowing, self-consuming passion, and the absolutely hopeless yearning of a man terribly unhappy, or perhaps of a nation sunk in misery. These seem to be the fundamental moods of the symphonies of Tschaikowsky. His handling of the orchestra is that of a genius; his music is of the kind in which every note sounds and sings. The Russian school, albeit young, has been wonderfully prolific. Its founders and adherents have been marvelously industrious, and many of them uncommonly gifted. Rimsky-Korsakow (1844- ) has produced numerous operas besides a large quantity of orchestra compositions, and nearly all of these are pronouncedly national in matter and manner, being builded largely upon the folk-song of the country. Alexander Glazounow (1865- ) has adhered less closely to the purely national, but is already the author of eight symphonies and a large number of ballets and orchestral concert works. Both he and Rimsky-Korsakow are consummate masters of instrumentation, and the scores they have penned have helped to widen and enrich the possibilities of the modern orchestra.
Even to the cold Northland musical development has spread, and much is yet to be expected from this quarter, especially from Finland, where Sibelius and Melartion are active, and with extraordinary success. England, too, has brought a notable genius into our sphere, Edward Elgar (1857- ) whose orchestral technic includes much that is new and interesting. Avoiding the ultra-modern tendencies of a Richard Strauss, he succeeded in blazing his own pathway, and achieving something " new " in the strictly artistic sense of the word. His choral work " The Dream of Gerontius " is unique of its kind, the work of a genius, who even in this so-called enlightened age has the free courage of a golden conviction, a truly great artist who in his living and creating expresses that which two hundred years ago Johann Sebastian Bach repeatedly manifested in his mighty works : " I am a Christian, and I am proud of it."
"All art is artist self-confession, striving to be heard." Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert, Wagner, Liszt, Tschaikowsky, Hogo Wolf, all laid bare in their art the inmost heart of their existence, each in his own way. Their sufferings, their needs, their misfortunes, as well as their joys and the secrets of their passions, all these we feel and experience with them in their art. But they all created with artist hands, with a deep and holy reverence for the art which they served. Thus it has always been in every line of art, thus it ever will be. It would be premature, fearsomely, to spread abroad the thought that Dame Musica just now is in direst need, that the art of our day is going to decay and destruction, and that the Strauss-Wilde " Salome " furnished the best proof that a music-morality police-control should be established at once. To Richard Strauss, the greatest musician of our time, belongs in any case the credit of having after Wagner and Liszt developed the orchestra to a point where it seems to have been brought to the highest possible stage of technical capability. By him has been spoken the most important — and unfortunately possibly also the last — word where the symphonic poem as conceived by Berlioz and Liszt is concerned. His "Don Juan," "Death and Transfiguration," " Till Eulenspiegel" and " Zarathustra " are acknowledged today by the whole musical world, and are admired as the creations of a heaven-gifted genius, but his "Don Quixote," "Life of a Hero " and " Domestic Symphony" are regarded by many with conflicting emotions, for they leave the feeling that in them the musical Hercules of our day was approaching the dividing line in his course. And after the putting forth of these last named works, the change in his creative activity was unmistakably disclosed. Out of the symphonist came the musical dramatist, and all in all it was but natural that Strauss should turn to that line of work for which his native talent and his creative endowment so peculiarly fit him. Richard Strauss lives and works in color sensations, he thinks and sees in colors. That which Vincent D'Indy and Claude Debussy, the two chief representatives of modern French music since César Franck, are striving to attain in the realm of color-music has enabled Richard Strauss, by means of his setting of the Oscar Wilde " Salome," to bring about the greatest or at least the most sensational musical event of our day. With the appearance of the Strauss " Salome' we enter upon a new phase, a new epoch in the development of the orchestral idiom. It is a new art element which we could regard with something closely akin to disapproval were it not for the fact that this new art product has been evolved under the high pressure of modern overculture, and is therefore the true child of our time. Our time is under the influence of nervous excitation, and the Wilde-Strauss " Salome," the most sensation filled art product of our day, is nothing more or less than the faithful reflection of psychological experiences familiar to present-day humanity — soul stirrings of inexpressible import which dominate our modern emotional life, moods and sense tingles of the excessively refined kind possible only to beings whose nerves are like the finest electric wires, nerve quivers which are felt only by creatures who are approaching the topmost peak of cultural life. Ten or fifteen years ago Strauss' " Salome" would have been instantly and flatly refused, today it is accepted with rejoicing — " at last another 'real' sensation! " The optimists, and especially the " Straussites," turn somersaults in sheer joy and exhaust their every resource in trumpeting forth the glory of this mighty deed of their hero Richard II. The pessimists sit in sackcloth and ashes, and, lamenting, proclaim the approaching end of all musical art. It is not impossible that " Salome "— and especially her dance of the seven veils — may have brought a few gray hairs to the brow of the fair goddess of our beloved art, but let us console ourselves with the fact that Richard Strauss is still a young composer, and no hearer of any of his works can as yet make the claim that the listening was tedious and devoid of interest. That is at least something, and the future will tell the rest.
Little that is worthy of mention is being accomplished at the present time in the domain of " absolute " symphonic music. It might almost be said that modern orchestral works are distinguished by bodily wealth and mental poverty, or to use a witticism which unfortunately is not without its hint of seriousness, " nowadays nothing is the most that comes to the majority of our composers, and then they proceed at once to orchestrate and instrumentate it in the most brilliant fashion possible."
To be an artist in the true sense of the word means " to live ,within and to strive upward." And it is just this which at the present day is so difficult for the artist to do; just what is made hard for him through the modern mode of living and through the necessity that it puts upon him of complying with and observing the social obligations of existence. This it is which more than all else stands in the way of the free development of American native art. There is no lack of talent; on the contrary, there is talent in abundance. There is a very great deal of music-making in America, and good music-making too, and it is all done with a large percentage of true talent and with much artistic pride and real earnestness. Of composing there is also a great deal (in notes) but there is lacking in it soul, inner depth, and spiritual greatness and maturity. " We " are still very young, or as Theodore Thomas once very aptly said : " We Americans in all questions and in all departments are not yet past the baby-disease age; all (or at least most) of the nations of Europe have passed that age long ago and have fulfilled their culture-mission; in Europe everything has matured and now is firmly planted and rooted in tradition." But we at least are warranted in rejoicing in our youth in the face of what we already have accomplished. The " baby-disease age " we will put behind us in time, and it may be set down as a certainty that with increasing maturity and greater spiritual deepening American native art will have a great future along musical lines. The steadily increasing number of symphony orchestra and of chamber music organizations is the best possible proof that even in this land of the " almighty dollar " the sense for genuine serious art and the desire for true music are taking root more and more.
