CHAPTER XI
BRAHMS, WAGNER, AND LISZT

I

When we come to Brahms we find perhaps the only song-writer besides Schubert whose truly memorable songs number more than fifty. Brahms’ song product is amazing in its richness, its creativeness, its high average of excellence. A modern taste, often misled by mere obvious effectiveness, has pronounced these songs dull. This notion prevails almost universally among the superficial, and many an appreciative critic has joined in the chorus with grudging reservations. The student in particular is likely to be frightened away from the Brahms songs by this bogey of ‘dullness’ as well as by the very considerable difficulty which they offer to the singer who is inadequately prepared. But in most cases those who accept this opinion have never studied the Brahms songs and have not allowed themselves to become familiar with their beauties. Certainly, even though certain temperaments may admit the charge of ‘dullness’ against much of the Brahms symphonic and chamber music, the charge will hold least of all against the songs. Here we find Brahms the romanticist, the composer who was master of the art of obtaining sensuous beauty of melody and richly colored harmony. We must never forget that Brahms was hailed by Schumann as the great continuer of the romantic tradition for which he himself had fought so hard and so well. If, in his maturity, Brahms came to regard form and artistic control at a higher value than his contemporaries did, it was not because his romantic invention became exhausted. From the beginning of his life to the end he was possessed of a rich fund of lovely musical ideas, and his last works (vide the later Rhapsodies and the Gypsy Songs) are even more romantic than the first. Brahms was a ‘classic’ solely because he chose to be. It would perhaps be truest to say that he was romanticist in his musical ideas and classicist in his treatment of them. However, such bandying of terms only tends to obscure the facts. Let us get to the songs.

Because Brahms worked with more care and reserve than most of his contemporaries, he must be approached with some care by the student. Doubtless, if one unfamiliar with his work turned over his songs at random the result would be somewhat discouraging. There is so much more there than meets the eye that much of his work is certainly uninteresting to the superficial glance. But there are many songs which must make an instant appeal by their sheer loveliness. Let the student who sincerely wishes to appreciate Brahms begin with these songs. Let us make out a provisional list of them. It would include: ‘In Strange Lands,’ opus 3; ‘Rest, My Love,’ opus 33; the ‘Folksong’ in opus 7; ‘The Sorrowful One,’ the ‘Serenade,’ and ‘Longing,’ from opus 14; ‘Hey, Bow and Arrow,’ opus 33; ‘Sunday,’ opus 47; the famous Cradle Song, opus 49; ‘Remembrance,’ opus 63; ‘The Lover’s Oath,’ opus 69; ‘Vain Serenade,’ opus 84; ‘The Virgin’s Lullaby,’ opus 91; the Sapphic Ode, opus 94; and every one of the Gypsy Songs, opus 103. To call any of these songs ‘dull’ is rank foolishness. Their beauty appeals instantly even to a listener who is in no wise a technical musician. Sentiment, passion, military frenzy and simple high spirits are expressed in these songs. They are in some cases as simple as anything by Schubert, as popular in character as any folk-song. Let the student learn to know and love some of these and he will have little difficulty with the more elaborate songs later on.

The first quality that appeals straight to the heart in many of the Brahms songs is their large element of the folk-song. Many of the lyrics bear the title Volkslied, being musical settings of popular poems, treated in the popular vein. Brahms was devoted to folk-music and understood the value of the musical units it contains in such profusion. A large proportion of his music, if analyzed to its essentials, will show the folk-song as its base. His elaborate songs, however abstruse and self-conscious, may be called only a development of the folk-song. The development is managed with the consummate art of the trained musician; but the stuff of the song is in almost every case a musical unit which makes an instant appeal. The student is very foolish if he sees only the development and not the beautiful music beneath it.

In a large proportion of his songs Brahms has given the best of his profound musical learning—always in due proportion and without obtrusion of detail. His management of polyphonic parts, in the bass or in the inner voices, is unequalled by any song-writer—save, perhaps, Franz—and his range of expression is vastly wider than that of Franz. His complication and intertwining of rhythms is highly developed, as in his symphonic music. His harmony is often bold, though never at the expense of cogency. Whether he is simple or complex his musicianship is working every moment. It is this, in the last analysis, which we mean by technical mastery. The real test of technical excellence is not the applying of rules out of the harmony book. The real test is a human one. Read or play a number of songs by some second-rate composer—Gounod, for instance. Then take up Brahms’ songs. By the time you have done thirty or forty by Gounod you are deathly sick of the same harmonies, the same melodic phrases, the same way of placing the parts. In Brahms’ songs you will never be allowed to sleep; you are never sure that the conventional thing is coming next. Your interest is not allowed to flag. Brahms is almost never commonplace. But this does not mean that he obviously avoids the obvious, as is the fashion among lesser composers of modern times. It means that his musicianship is so rich and resourceful that he can always find some fitting thing to do that a minor composer would not have thought of. Test out this statement with some concrete instance. Take one of the simplest of Brahms’ melodies—the famous cradle song, opus 49. No tune could be simpler. Any second-rate composer would have supplied it with a conventional accompaniment of bass and treble chords. Most composers would have regarded such a song as a trifle to be tossed off before breakfast. But it is evident that Brahms bestows as much care upon this as upon his most elaborate lyric. There is not a single unusual or strained chord in the accompaniment. Yet there is not a measure without its elements of variety and interest. The gentle syncopation, as of the rocking of the cradle, is always present; always shows some motion and variety. Yet the whole song is managed without any straining for effect, without letting the varied accompaniment overshadow the simple melody.

Brahms has carried into his romantic song-writing a classic regard for form. In the more general sense this means that he always observed artistic proportion, giving unity and body to his melodies, and curbing the exuberant imagination which in so many song-writers makes the parts attempt to be more important than the whole. Concretely considered, we find that Brahms nearly always held to the strophic form, seeing his poems as stanzas which could be set to the same melody. In some cases, as in his first song, ‘Faithfulness,’ he treated the last strophe somewhat differently from the others. A few of his songs are durchkomponiert, after the manner of Schubert. But in general he felt his songs to be far more musical architecture and less mere running comment on the words. Certainly every one of his songs would be a satisfactory piece of pure music, apart from the text and apart from the special meaning conveyed. His regard for form makes this possible. Sometimes the form is hard to analyze, not coinciding with any set formula, but the sense of form, of architecture, of proportion, of restraint is always there. Some have said that Brahms’ songs are mere instrumental compositions with words added. As a final criticism this is certainly unjust. But it has a certain superficial justification, for Brahms certainly had less regard for the words themselves than any other great song-writer. He is not unwilling to force the text into the form necessary to fit the music. Sometimes he consistently and deliberately misplaces accents, as in the first line of the song, Wie bist du, meine Königin, which with Brahms’ music reads, ‘Wie bist du, meine Königin.’ He is very free with slurred notes and shows not the slightest hesitation in putting two notes to one syllable in measure after measure. The music has its own architecture, derived from formal or melodic considerations and not from considerations of the text. Of course, this is not the result of carelessness on Brahms’ part, nor a belittling of the importance of the words. It was merely that Brahms regarded his songs as interpretive music, and not as ‘heightened speech.’ In this he differed from nearly every great song-writer, and put himself in opposition to the taste of the time. For those who feel Schumann’s scrupulous regard for the text this will rank as a fault, a blot on the beauty of Brahms’ songs. The student should decide the matter for himself. At any rate, the fact points to the peculiar interpretation which Brahms’ songs demand—an interpretation which involves firm, reserved, controlled modelling rather than minute emphasis on the parts. Out of this regard for the design as a whole rather than from the direct meaning of the details will come the interpretive truth of the song.

Because Brahms’ songs represent the purely musical and formal, as well as the interpretive, they are one of the most valuable of studies for the advanced pupil. A singer’s art cannot be complete as long as the effective interpretation of Brahms’ songs remains a mystery to him. Not to attempt to understand and love them, because of the myth of dullness, is a sin against artistic open-mindedness which no music-lover should be guilty of. Indeed, if we can manage to escape for a time in our souls from the trend of the time toward the spectacular, the sensuous and the sensual, the easy and effective, we shall find in Brahms a song-writer like no other who ever lived, save only Schubert. Brahms has treated almost every kind of sentiment and emotion successfully. His melodies are lovely in the extreme, his accompaniments are an endless delight to the careful pianist; his musical procedure is never conventional yet always appropriate; his music has a wholesomeness and dignity unsurpassed in all song literature. Other song-writers surpass Brahms in certain qualities. But it is doubtful if any, except Schubert, can be regarded as his equal in the combining of such a large number of first-rate qualities and in the quantity of first-rate songs produced.

II

We may conveniently divide the Brahms songs into two classes—the ‘folk-songs,’ written usually to anonymous popular poems and preserving the simplicity and directness of the true folk-song; and the art-songs which make use of all the resources of elaboration and organization at the command of that master craftsman. Some of the opus numbers contain ‘folk-songs’ entirely or in large proportion. (Brahms wrote but one cycle in the strict sense, and usually followed no scheme of grouping.) But a folk-like song may appear anywhere in his song output. The type of folk-feeling in Brahms is almost exclusively German. There is scarcely the slightest attempt at ‘local color’ in the whole of Brahms’ music. Even the Gypsy songs, though they somehow attain an exotic flavor, make use of none of the conventional musical formulas of Hungarian music. Moreover, while the ‘folk-songs’ are distinctly German, they are also distinctly Brahms. The composer never lost his individuality in any single work. The accompaniments to these songs are usually simple, but they are never merely conventional. They show a nice adaptation of the style of the piano part to the character of the melody and of the song as a whole, and continually present unobtrusive elements of interest in detail.

These ‘folk-songs’ are numerous. From opus 7 we may select two very beautiful songs for special mention—namely, the Volkslied and ‘The Mournful One,’ the latter one of Brahms’ finest expressive melodies. Opus 14 is a treasure. ‘Before the Window’ is a thing of great beauty. ‘Going to My Sweetheart’ has a humorous touch, which Brahms could get inimitably. But it is very restrained; the melody is so very simple that for a moment it seems almost trivial. The ‘Serenade’ and ‘Longing’ from the same group are delightful. From opus 47 we should mention ‘Sunday’ and from opus 48 ‘Joy Hath Left Me,’ a fine song in the style of an old German chorale. In opus 69 are an exquisite ‘Lament’ and the delicious song, ‘The Lover’s Oath.’ ‘The Maiden,’ in opus 95, is a dialogue between the girl and the reflection of her face in the water. The words are a Servian popular poem and the music is in an irregular metre which is peculiar to the Slavic races. Brahms’ last group of lyrics, the Gypsy Songs, opus 103, are beyond all praise. These eight songs, written when the composer was past middle age, have all the fire and ardor of early youth just awakened to its powers. There is in them a frenzy of animal spirits which befits their Gypsy words. In them we seem to hear the message of that fine Hungarian song:

The Gypsy Songs, all in strophic form, are very short. Into a few seconds of melody Brahms injects his musical message. Not a note is wasted. The mood is carried over with perfect accuracy and conviction. The songs are all nicely contrasted. Each might be a tiny movement from a symphony, multum in parvo. There is an allegro agitato, an allegretto, an allegro giocoso, a vivace grazioso, an andantino grazioso, and so on. Each song has a very distinct ‘style,’ as modern critics would say. The mood is established at the first note and maintained until the last. The melodies themselves are altogether charming. But a mere knowledge of the melodies will not suggest the thrilling effect which these songs make when well sung in a large hall. The startling effectiveness of many of the Brahms songs is the best answer to the charge that Brahms is academic and pedantic. It is hard to select any best out of these eight songs. ‘The Nut Brown Lad’ is perhaps the most popular of them, but the charm of each is so distinct that a comparison is difficult. ‘Three Roses in a Row’ is a delicate melody of great beauty. The vigorous ‘Hey, Ye Gypsies!’ and the furious ‘Red Evening Clouds’ which closes the series, are overflowing with animal spirits.

Of the pieces which are more specifically art-songs we must admit a gradual change in character corresponding to the general change in Brahms’ music from the ‘romantic’ to the ‘classic.’ Of course, this change has been overemphasized in superficial Brahms criticism. It was not so much Brahms who changed; it was the lay of the land. Music became much more sensuous and free and formless. Brahms became still more himself. The revolutionary Brahms of 1850 was a conservative Brahms in 1880. But, undoubtedly, where Schumann expected him to look forward, Brahms chose in many things to look backward—or, rather, perhaps, to look inward. And so we feel in Brahms’ music as a whole that it becomes stranger and more reserved as the man matures. He became more interested in the things that had ceased to interest the rabble, and less interested in the things which scores of new and radical composers were beginning to do very well. And we can feel this change in his songs. The earliest ones—in opus 3—are filled with the joy of spontaneous creation. The so-called ‘classic’ virtues seemed the last things the composer was thinking about. But the songs were in a pretty strict strophic form and their intelligence was at least equal to their exuberance. And it was these formal and intellectual qualities, and not the others, which were to receive the chief emphasis and intensification as the composer matured. To Schumann, Brahms was the continuer of Schumann. To the world he became the continuer of Beethoven.

The songs of opus 3 are filled with physical energy. ‘Fidelity,’ the first of them, with its accompaniment of throbbing triplets, seems to tap some hidden source of power like a huge dynamo. We cannot see the source but we know there is much more where that came from. ‘Love and Spring’ suggests certain of the later Brahms qualities and the song from ‘Ivan’ seems like a shooting arrow in the vigor and directness of its expression. The same physical energy is shown in the ‘Spanish Song,’ in bolero tempo, in opus 6; and the peculiarly rich Brahms modulation is again revealed in ‘As the Clouds.’ The ‘Nightingale’ song from the same group is the first to foreshadow the increased technical elaboration which Brahms was later to give his accompaniments. Here the fluttering triplets in the piano are meant to suggest the winging of the birds, but it is easy to see that the purely technical problem which they created had fascinated the composer. And, except for this technical care, such an accompaniment would have overbalanced the melody. The Anklänge of opus 7 has an elaborate syncopated accompaniment which shows the continuation of the technical concern; ‘The Return,’ from the same series, is another example of Brahms’ unsurpassed power to pour great energy into small compass. In opus 19 there are two more songs of the highest quality. One is ‘The Smith,’ to Uhland’s words, perhaps the shortest of all Brahms’ songs and certainly one of the most overwhelmingly effective. The maiden who speaks in Uhland’s delicious poem tells admiringly of her lover, who is a smith and who works all day amid the grime and the sparks. The melody, with that strange and very Brahmsian avoidance of the regular balancing of phrases which seems physically to condense great energy in a small compass, seems a succession of hammer blows. Each note has a ponderous weight of its own, but a weight which is followed by a fine rebound. The accompaniment, which is obviously intended to suggest flying sparks, is magically adapted to the peculiarities of the pianoforte. The short postlude, and, indeed, the whole of the accompaniment, is strikingly Wagnerian, recalling very closely the Valkyrie’s cry in Die Walküre. Such a detail is only one more proof of the foolishness of the artificial rivalry which stupid critics set up between Wagner and Brahms. The two men were great artists working in very different lines. As for their musical ideas, they could almost, at times, have been interchanged. The second remarkable song of opus 19 is the ‘Æolian Harp,’ one of the three or four most admired of all Brahms’ lyrics. This is one of the few that are in quite free form. It is almost a scena rather than a song, since it opens with a recitative and is interrupted in the middle with free declamation. The Æolian harp sings in the west wind the lament of a Greek boy who had been taken to a distant land. Here Brahms’ marvellously colored harmonies have created a peculiar beauty which quite escapes analysis.

As we come to the more mature work we find the mere animal spirits less frequently in the foreground. We feel more and more the qualities of control and dominant intellectuality. Not that these songs are better than their predecessors, for some of the earliest ones are finished masterpieces which could hardly be improved. Nor (let it be repeated) does Brahms’ fund of musical ideas become less fresh or less charming. But the composer had begun to show at their best the qualities which have chiefly given him a place in modern music. The second song of opus 32 is a triumphant justification of this mature Brahms. The song is entitled only with a number, but it can be known by its first line, Nicht mehr zu dir zu gehen! Here is intellectuality in song writing at its best. Brahms never wrote a finer song; few composers, if any, have done so. Its popularity may always be limited, but it is surely one of the great songs of musical literature. Here, as nowhere else, Brahms has observed the rhythmic and quantitative values of his text to the last letter. The words, which are in a moody, reflective vein, are treated almost in declamatory fashion. Every rise or fall of the voice finds its expression in the melodic line of the voice part. The tempo is a slow 3/2, and through this winds the melody, now breaking off suddenly, as though gasping for breath, now rising sharply, as though choked with pain. If it were pure declamation, it could not be more faithful to the words; if it were pure melody, it could not be more faithful to the spirit. The accompaniment, answering the voice part simply but intensely, and providing a noble bass for the musical texture to be woven upon, shows Brahms’ finest qualities of restraint and perfect fitness. Here is a song which is never exhausted. Let the student play and sing it every day, it will still have something to teach him. Hardly less noble is another song in the same group, So steh’n wir, ich und meine Weide. Its theme has all the dignity of a great andante fugue subject by Bach. The treatment of the piano part, with its definite melody in the bass forming an answer and a sort of canon with the voice, is superb. We may also mention in this opus number the much overrated song, Wie bist du meine Königin, a piece which has doubtless gained its popularity by its passionate fervor, but which in musical beauty and artistic fitness is far inferior to Brahms’ best work.