Arthur Johnstone

DÜsseldorf.

May 26, 1899.

Richard Strauss is now beyond question the most prominent figure among the younger composers of Germany. He was born at Munich in 1864. At an early age he mastered the various arts of composition and produced works that showed originality and power. Among such early works may be mentioned a String Quartet produced in 1881, and a Symphony first heard in the following year. Within a few years he also composed a Sonata for 'cello, a Serenade for wind instruments, a Concerto for violin, a Concerto for horn, besides songs and pianoforte pieces. These early works show the influence of classical models, and in three cases—the Sonata for 'cello and the Concertos for violin and horn respectively—the influence of Mendelssohn. At a later period Richard Strauss became a disciple of the Wagner-Liszt school and adopted the Symphonic Poem as his principal medium of expression. His fine Sonata in E flat for pianoforte and violin marks the transition stage. In his later phase Strauss appears as a psychologist and an esprit fin. His study of Nietzsche's philosophy appears not only in his "Zarathustra," but in nearly all his "Symphonic Poems." The "Heldenleben" might quite well be labelled with the Nietzschian expression "Der Uebermensch." Strauss thus seems to stand to Nietzsche in something like the relation that Wagner bore to Schopenhauer, and it is a curious point that in each case the musician is found diverging somewhat violently from the taste of his philosophical master. These two philosophers—the only two that have taken a genuine interest in modern music—had both somewhat rudimentary musical taste, though good taste as far as it went. Schopenhauer's preference was for Rossini and Nietzsche's for Bizet, and even as Wagner's style differs toto coelo from Rossini's, so do Strauss's incredible richness of imaginative detail and indifference to rhythmical charm stamp him as something very different from those "Halcyonian" composers whom Nietzsche loved. Strauss is not likely to become popular in England, but two or three of his larger orchestral works, and especially the "Heldenleben," would probably find favour with a section of the English public. To the mandarins and to the majority he is and must remain anathema.

On the third and last day of this Festival Strauss's "Don Quixote" was the work upon which public curiosity was chiefly concentrated. In these "Fantastic Variations" we find the composer once more adopting a style as frankly grotesque as in "Till Eulenspiegel." The long and important introduction stands in a relation to the rest of the work that, so far as I know, is unique. It is a preparation for the principal theme, successively emphasising all the different kinds of significance supposed to be contained in that theme. First we have a naÏve, stilted, and pompous phrase suggesting Don Quixote's absorption in the romances of chivalry. Succeeding passages touch upon the hero's pose of gallantry and the great predominance of imagination over reason which leads him into grotesque adventures. The psychological method of the composer causes him to lay stress on the crisis forming the point de dÉpart of Don Quixote's career—a vow of atonement for sins and follies. At last we get the theme in its complete form—a masterpiece of droll characterisation,—and immediately after it the prosaic jog-trot of Sancho Panza. In the first variation a musical element is introduced typifying Don Quixote's feminine ideal—Dulcinea of Toboso. It ends with the windmill incident. One hears the airy swing of the mill-sails, the furious approach of the knight, and his sudden overthrow. Variation No. 2 gives the meeting with the flock of sheep. In the third we have a colloquy between Don Quixote and Sancho, forming an elaborate movement. Next comes the quarrel with the pilgrims, and then the scene in the tavern where Don Quixote undergoes regular initiation into the order of knighthood by keeping guard over his armour all night. No. 6 represents the scene of the peasant woman mistaken for Dulcinea, and No. 7 the ride of the two companions on wooden horses at the fair. Nos. 8 and 9 are concerned with the enchanted boat and the priests mistaken for magicians. No. 10 gives the disastrous fight with the Knight of the Shining Moon. There is also a finale setting forth the reveries of Don Quixote in his old age, and, last of all, his death. Together with the purely grotesque elements are many touches of wonderful poetic beauty, among which may be mentioned the scene of Don Quixote's midnight watch and, above all, the concluding strain—a sigh of ineffable pathos. On the other hand, it may be urged against the encounter with the flock of sheep that such sounds do not really belong to the domain of music, but rather to that of farm-yard imitations. On the whole, "Don Quixote" strikes me as a less admirable work than the "Heldenleben," heard on the previous day. The chief feature in the interpretation on Tuesday was the superb rendering, by Professor Hugo Becker, of Frankfurt, of the violoncello solo which throughout the work is identified with the person of the titular hero.

"Don Juan," though much less eccentric than most of the other "Symphonic Poems" by Richard Strauss, is a typical example of his overwhelmingly rich and effective orchestration. It also exemplifies the peculiar quality of his design, crowded with a DÜreresque multiplicity of forms and details, his indifference to symmetry and sustained rhythmical flow, and his systematic endeavour to render the musical medium less vague and more nearly articulate than it ever was before, by enlarging the range of emotional expression, sharpening the instruments of graphic representation, and exploring the mysterious by-ways of the tone-world. Two imaginary figures that originated in Spanish literature have become the property of mankind. If Don Quixote stands isolated, without any close analogue in the romance of other countries, Don Juan—a somewhat later creation—has much in common with several heroes of Germanic legend, such as TannhÄuser, the Wild Huntsman, and Faust. The closest parallel is between Don Juan and Faust. Both are rebellious spirits; but Faust is ruined by intellectual pride, Juan by sensual passion. As those two kinds of revolt belong to the persistent facts of life, neither Juan nor Faust can ever cease to be interesting. It is quite natural that each of them should be found as the subject of innumerable plays, poems, romances, operas, and ballets. The poetic scheme forming the basis of Richard Strauss's Symphonic Poem is remarkably simple. There is no incident of a definite kind. Don Juan is simply conceived as personifying the most direct and vivid affirmation of what Schopenhauer called the "Will to live." He is enamoured of no one particular woman, but of all the beauty and charm that are in womankind. He has a new kind of love for each kind of beauty. Defying the laws of gods and men with demonic recklessness, he rushes from one enjoyment to another, leaving the trail of weeping victims behind him, while he himself remains the incarnation of gaiety—for remorse is unknown to his heart, and he never keeps up a love affair for a moment longer than it amuses him, nor is he ever at a loss for fresh delights. The music of Strauss plunges us at once into this whirl of intoxicating gaiety. A series of love-episodes ensue, each one being individualised with amazing subtlety. It is, of course, no new thing for masculine and feminine elements to be clearly distinguishable in music; but the wealth of resource that Strauss shows in these dialogues of dalliance and passion amounts to originality of a very remarkable kind. After several such episodes we have a section symbolising a masked ball that is very strongly stamped with the composer's genius as a musical humourist. In the latter part the spirit of Juan begins to flag. Reminiscences of the foregoing episodes recur with an ominous change in the emotional colouring, and in the end Juan is brought face to face with the black and cold embers of his once so glowing heart.

Beethoven protested against the desecration of music by so scandalous a subject as the Don Juan story. But Mozart produced from the same subject the prize opera of all the ages. It seems, too, that Richard Strauss has made of it his masterpiece.

There can be no gainsaying that Strauss's "Don Juan" Fantasia was received yesterday with much applause. But there is room for doubt whether the excitement that thus found expression was not due rather to the bold and highly picturesque orchestration than to the essentially musical qualities of the work. Richard Strauss postulates an audience of great mental activity. He expects to be understood instantly, instead of letting a musical idea gradually soak in to the listener's mind, as did the older composers. In order to stimulate such mental activity he constantly deals in strange and violent effects. Hence the irritation of orthodox musicians, who, hearing so much noise and jingle, too rapidly conclude that there is nothing behind; whereas, perhaps, if they listened a little longer, they would begin to discover that Strauss has nearly every gift that was ever in a composer—every gift, that is, except those of a very profound or very sublime order. His power of inventing thematic material to correspond exactly with some peculiar mood of feeling is almost as remarkable as Wagner's. The opening of the "Don Juan" Fantasia is characteristic of that excited condition of mind which is so frequent with the composer. A passage beginning with an upward rush for the strings shows us Juan launched upon his career. Presently a rapid passage, mainly in triplets, for wood, wind and afterwards strings, suggests the eager hunt after enjoyment. Next the impetuous Don is himself characterised. Of these elements a tone-picture of intoxicating gaiety is composed. Then follow the love-episodes, the most beautiful being that in which the oboe has the melody while the lower strings a divisi add a rich and sombre accompaniment. The masked ball scene is, in places, a little like a travesty of the "Venusberg" music. This leads to the scene in which Juan is struck down by some calamity—probably a sword-thrust. As he lies stricken, memories of former days crowd back upon him. He has one or two momentary returns of his old fire and energy. But at last his time comes and his soul departs with a shiver. Strauss knows how to make such a scene marvellously poignant. His most wonderful achievement in this kind is the parting sigh of Don Quixote in the work on that subject. But his treatment of Juan's death is also very powerful.

"Till Eulenspiegel" was the great mediÆval farceur. His name is well known to students of folk-lore. In Flemish books it figures as Thyl Uylenspiegel, in English as Till Owlglass. Like other heroes of popular story, Till lies buried in more than one place, each of his tombstones being adorned with his armorial bearings—an owl perched on a hand-mirror. He originated and, for the most part, lived in Westphalia or some country of the Lower Rhine; but he was a migratory person, and one of his best authenticated exploits occurred in Poland, where he had a contest of skill with the King's professional jester. Till is the incarnation of mockery and satire and buffoonery, sometimes witty and usually coarse. He represents a literary development that may be regarded as a kind of Scherzo, after the Andante of the Troubadours, Minnesingers, and other courtly poets—the inevitable reaction of the popular spirit against too much high-flown sentiment. The legendary figure of Till has appealed with the most extraordinary results to that composer who first brought into the domain of the musical art the specific qualities of the South German imagination, as represented, for example, by Holbein, DÜrer, and Adam Krafft. Incisive, graphic, ornate, and with no less unheard-of power of characterisation is Richard Strauss in his music than those other masters in their graphic or plastic achievements. His "Till" reminds one of DÜrer's woodcut illustrations to the Apocalypse, but, of course, with colour added. And what colour! and what characterisation in the colour! He controls the orchestra precisely as a good actor the tones of his own voice. He can make it render the finest shades of emotion. "Till" is a musical miracle, unlocking the springs of laughter and of tears at the same time. It enlarges one's notions of what is possible in music, so multifarious and inconceivable are the drolleries, so prodigious the technical audacities which the composer succeeds in justifying. Strauss has, in a sense, revived an art said to have existed in the ancient world—the telling of a story in the form of a dance. From the point where that chromatic jig is heard which symbolises Till wandering about in search of material for the exercise of his talents, the imagination is spell-bound.

Strauss goes a distinct point beyond Wagner in the articulateness of his musical phrases, and he knows better than any other composer that it is the special province of music to express what cannot be expressed in any other way—what is too delicate, or too indelicate, to be expressed in any other way. The most wonderful quality of "Till" is its mediÆvalism. Listen to those triplets, in four-part chromatic harmony for five solo violins with sordini, expressing the agony of terror into which Till is thrown by his own wicked mockery of religion. By such devices the composer conjures up the atmosphere of the age, characterised by "Furcht auf der Gasse, Furcht im Herzen." The treatment of the prologue and epilogue, where all that is blackguardly is taken out of Till's themes now that he has become a story, is of inconceivable felicity.

Richard Strauss's song "Sehnsucht," raises a good many interesting questions, such as whether it is not, after all, on harmony rather than on tone-colouring that the essential quality of Strauss's music depends; whether the eminent South German composer would have found it necessary to be so persistently galvanic in his procedure had he not addressed a musical generation that is too fond of taking opium with TchaÏkovsky; whether it is with Eulenspieglish intent that he sets so many unsophisticated love-song texts to music that betrays contempt of mere lyrism, or whether he genuinely misunderstands the trend of his own talent. Thus one might continue indefinitely; for it is the regular effect of Strauss's music to crook the listener's mind into one huge note of interrogation. One further and more important question must, however, be added. Is it Strauss's deliberate intention to abolish rhythm? Would he add to the well-known saying, "Am Anfang war der Rhythmus" the rider "aber jetzt nicht mehr?" The over-strongly salted and too highly flavoured "Sehnsucht" was admirably sung, and the fascination of it, not unmixed with horror, was such that it had to be repeated. Nothing about Strauss is more disquieting than his after-effect on the musical palate. Whether one likes his style or not, any other sounds are tame by contrast with it, and a naÏf and mild composer such as Grieg (the Hans Andersen of music) seems almost bread-and-butter.

The many violent anti-Lisztians in England should be particularly careful just now to keep their powder dry. They are going to have great trouble with this Eulenspiegelisch Mr. Strauss. A considerable group of English visitors heard his interpretation of the "Faust Symphonie" on Monday evening, and they are not likely to forget it. Strauss does not belong to the small group of international conductors who can travel from place to place, commanding success everywhere and in music of every style. He has not studied conductor's deportment carefully enough to be generally pleasing to the public. At the same time, his demonic talent comes out clearly enough in his conducting when he has to deal with some work that makes a special appeal to his sympathies. It seems to be his mission to justify Liszt after decades of misunderstanding and detraction. His rendering of the "Faust Symphonie" was simply a gigantic success. The stress and anguish of the first movement, the wonderful sweetness and charm of the Gretchen music, the almost incredible incisiveness and pregnancy of the characteristic music in the Mephistopheles section of the finale, and the unparalleled grandeur of the concluding idea, where the mask is torn from the face of the "spirit that denies" and the "chorus mysticus" enters with the final stanza, leading up to the crowning idea of the whole drama, "Das Ewig-Weibliche zieht uns hinan"—these beauties and splendours of the composition were revealed with the infallible touch of a master into whose flesh and blood it long ago passed: and the audience, including even the English visitors, felt it. The "Faust Symphonie" declares the composer to be, in his attitude towards art and life, akin to Hugo, Delacroix, and the other great French Romantics, and the result of that attitude seems more completely happy in music than in painting or literature. It makes one look back with envious longing to the freshness and abounding vitality of those fellows who found such huge relish in the great, broad, fundamental human themes, and resources so vast in the treatment of them. It also provokes bewildered reflections on the complex and enigmatic personality of the composer, who, for all his religious orthodoxy, was a more tremendous revolutionary in art than Wagner, and was, in fact, the originator of certain particularly fruitful Wagnerian ideas. All this and much more is to be learned from the Liszt interpretations of Strauss—a sphinx-like person who, as his abnormally big head sways on the top of his tall and bulky figure, to the accompaniment of fantastic gestures, works up his audience into a sort of phosphorescent fever, here and there provoking a process of sharp self-examination.

It is difficult to make out the prevalent state of mind in this country in regard to Richard Strauss—Richard II., as he is often called in Germany. Of course the upholders of a turnip-headed orthodoxy will not hear of him, any more than they would hear of Richard I. a quarter of a century ago, and he seems to have an irritating effect on all critics, except a certain very small minority in whose temperament there is something giving them the key to some part, at any rate, of Strauss's genius. What irritates the critics is simply the difficulty of finding a formula for Strauss. He has the annoying impertinence not to fit into any of their pigeon-holes. He is enigmatic, Sphinx-like, a complex personality not to be conveniently catalogued. That complex personality we are not here proposing to analyse, but on one point we venture to state a definite opinion. Those who assert that Strauss is a mere eccentric will sooner or later find themselves in the wrong. He has in a few cases played tricks on the public, but he is nevertheless a master-composer, in the full and simple sense of those words—a master-composer just as Mozart was. In "Tod und VerklÄrung" we find him in a mood of absolute seriousness. The theme is a death-bed scene, the phantasmagoria of a sick brain during the last moments of earthly consciousness, the final struggle with death, and then a wonderful suggestion of reawakening to immortality. The composition is thus, as a German critic has pointed out, the counterpart of Elgar's "Gerontius," so far as the subject is concerned; but in no other respect have the two works any similarity. The qualities with which Strauss's name is most commonly associated—audacious and grotesque realism, gorgeous, intoxicating orchestral figuration and colouring—are here completely in abeyance. In the mood of the opening section there is kinship with the third act of "Tristan"—the same hush and oppression of the sick man's lair,—but not in the musical treatment, which with Strauss has much more reference to external detail (e.g., the ticking of the clock) than with Wagner. The introductory notes are full of weird power, and they lead on to some exquisitely pathetic "Seelenmalerei." In the ensuing agitato section any listener acquainted with other Symphonic Poems by the same composer—earlier or later—is likely to be surprised at his comparative moderation and restraint in depicting the terrors of the struggle with death. It cannot be denied that Strauss is greatly preoccupied with such ideas. He has set the very article of death to music on at least four different occasions ("Tod und VerklÄrung," "Don Juan," "Till," and "Don Quixote"). The hanging of "Till" is inconceivably drastic in its realism, and the last sigh of Don Quixote is the most unearthly thing in all music. Don Juan's death is purely macabre; but in "Tod und VerklÄrung" a certain suggestion of the macabre gives way to something very different—the suggestion of the soul rising to immortality; and thus is initiated the final section, dominated by the noble and beautiful "transfiguration" theme. Those of the composer's admirers who "always thought he was a heathen Chinee" may here find matter for searchings of heart. For the thing is too well done not to have been sincerely felt.

"Also sprach Zarathustra" ("Thus spake Zarathustra") is the first work in Strauss's most advanced manner. It is scored for the following enormous orchestra:—One piccolo and three flutes; three oboes and one cor anglais; one clarinet in E flat, two clarinets in B flat, and one bass clarinet in B flat; three bassoons and one contrafagotto; six horns in F, four trumpets in C, three trombones, and two bass tubas; kettle drums, bass drum, cymbals, triangle, and glockenspiel; a bell in E; organ, two harps, and the usual bow instruments; and the demands on the technique of the performers are as exceptional as the number of instruments employed. It is as striking an example of Dr. Richter's energy that he should not have shrunk from the task of interpreting so vast and bewildering a score, as it is of his openness of mind that at his age he should have cared to bring forward the most typically advanced and modern of compositions—for that we take Strauss's "Zarathustra" to be in respect both of subject and treatment. We doubt whether another living musician of anything like Dr. Richter's age possesses in the same degree that youthful elasticity which can do full justice to the works of a younger generation. Moreover, he is not in any special sense a Straussian. He simply knows, as everyone conversant with the musical affairs of the present day knows, that Strauss is a composer of very great and commanding talent, and he thinks that in such a musical centre as Manchester his more important works ought to be known. So, in spite of a rather discouraging attitude on the part of the public and an amount of extra trouble that can scarcely be reckoned up, he gives one of them from time to time. It is not Lancashire any more than it is London that, among British musical centres, has displayed the readiest appreciation of Strauss—the great and typical modern. It is the part of the country served by the Scottish Orchestra, where "Tod und VerklÄrung" has before now been chosen for performance at a plÉbiscite concert. This seems very natural, for "Tod und VerklÄrung" is the clearest, simplest, and least heterodox of Strauss's orchestral works, and much easier to understand at a first hearing than Beethoven's C minor Symphony. It has, in fact, been recognised as a classic nearly everywhere, though here it still lies under suspicion of being a mere piece of eccentricity. We can only hope that after hearing "Zarathustra"—which certainly is rather a large order—some of our conscientious objectors may reconsider their position. The extraordinary thing is that it was better received than the far more generally comprehensible "Tod und VerklÄrung." This was no doubt, in part, due to sheer astonishment, but also, we believe, to the perception that whatever else there may be in the work there is a certain grandeur of perception. It is scarcely possible to listen in a state of complete indifference to the opening tone-picture of sunrise, with its great booming nature ground-tone, that recalls the Introduction to Wagner's "Rheingold," and the ringing trumpet harmonies following the three notes of the soulless nature theme. The plan of the tone-poem that gradually unfolds is one of the clearest. It is on the same plan as the discourse of St. Francis on "La Joie Parfaite," quoted by Sabatier from the "Fioretti," where the holy man, the better to impress upon Brother Leo wherein perfect joy consists, first enumerates a series of things in which it does not consist, and then, having disposed of the erroneous opinions corresponding to various stages of the upward path towards true wisdom, tells us at last what perfect joy is. The wisdom of Zarathustra is, of course, very different from the wisdom of St. Francis, but his method of inculcating it is the same. He, too, has mortified the flesh with the "Hinterweltler" (perhaps "other-worldlings" is the nearest English equivalent), and thrown himself for a change into the vortex of exciting pleasures—the "Freuden und Leidenschaften" he calls them, as who should say the "fruitions and passions of youth." It is characteristic that he puts the religion first and the exciting pleasures afterwards. He also "did eagerly frequent doctor and saint and heard great argument," that experience being symbolised by Strauss's "Fugue of Science." But none of these things, he gives us to understand, by emphatic use of the "disgust" theme, is the pearl of great price, or perfect joy, or anything of the sort. The penultimate part of the tone-poem deals with the conversion of Zarathustra into a dancing philosopher—his learning of the great lesson that one must "get rid of heaviness"; and here, of course, the musician is very thoroughly in his element. Very remarkable and surprising is the conclusion. Strauss has declared that the whole composition is simply his homage to the genius of Nietzsche, but it is impossible to resist the impression that in the manner of the ending he has endeavoured to suggest an improvement on Nietzsche—and he might well be pleased with himself, and so a little overbearing, after producing that "Tanzlied" (a sort of waltz for demigods or "Uebermenschen"), which he has done much better than any other composer that ever lived could have done it. He ends with a night picture in B major against the final notes of which the persistent nature theme in C major once more reasserts itself as a pizzicato bass;—in words, "but you have left the riddle of the painful earth just as much unsolved as it was before, for all your wisdom." Whether that ending is more to the point than Nietzsche's own or not, it is really wonderful that musical notes can be made to speak so plainly, and even to say something quite important.

We have here to deal with the latest phase of Strauss, and to arrive at anything like a true estimate of "Heldenleben" we have to remember that Strauss is a reformer and the recognised leader of a party which, whether we like it or not, has played and is playing a great part in the world of music. The central principle of the Strauss school rests upon the perfectly correct observation that the general development of music during the last two centuries shows continual progress towards greater articulateness, and that there is no reason for regarding that progress as having reached its final stage with Berlioz, Liszt, and Wagner. Brahms and the neo-classicists were on a wrong track, they consider, and it is the mission of Strauss and his connection to bring the art back into the paths of true progress. This indicates the sense in which Strauss is called a reformer. It is the usual fate of reformers to overshoot the mark; Mr. Weingartner thinks that Strauss has done so very seriously in his last three Symphonic Poems—"Zarathustra," "Don Quixote," and "Heldenleben,"—and I am constrained to give in my adherence to Mr. Weingartner's view. In each of the three works named there is much that only genius could have produced, but also something that is alien to genius. The perpetration of deliberate cacophony for a symbolical purpose we first encounter in "Zarathustra," where it is done in a tentative and restrained manner and on a very small scale. In "Don Quixote" the same procedure is used on a larger scale and with much greater boldness, and in "Heldenleben" it has given rise, in the "battle" section, to an extended movement that I can only call an atrocity. That section displays the composer in a mood of unparalleled extravagance. Taking harmony in the most extended sense that is possible, it still remains a thing outside the limits of which Strauss's battle-picture lies. It therefore fails altogether, I suggest, to carry on the progress of music towards greater articulateness. It is not music, and does nothing whatever for music. It is a monstrous excrescence and blemish—a product of musical insanity, bearing no trace whatever of that genius which produced the lovely and perfect "Tod und VerklÄrung" and the superbly racy and pithy orchestral Scherzo "Till Eulenspiegel."

The expression of such views carries with it the terrible consequence of being identified with "The Adversaries," whom Strauss, disarming criticism by a novel method, symbolises in the awful strains quoted as examples 4 and 5 in Mr. Newman's programme. But one must testify according to one's convictions, and I confess that I cannot be reconciled to section 4 of "Heldenleben," and find in section 5 a considerable element of merely curious mystification. The principle of "horizontal listening," which the whole-hog-going Straussians recommend, does not help me. Horizontal listening becomes, beneath the murderous cacophony of that battle section, simply supine listening.

In other parts of the work there is much that is thoroughly worthy of Strauss. Perhaps the most attractive thing of all is the violin solo representing the feminine element in the hero's life-experience. The wayward emotion of that part is rendered by the composer with a truly magical touch that shows with what wonderful freshness he conceives the task of such character-delineation in tones. How different from Chopin's princesses is the Straussian lady! How infinitely more subtle, varied, interesting, and psychologically true! The hero, too, is powerfully sketched, though throughout the section specially devoted to him one is conscious of the gigantic rather than the heroic. Most of the thematic invention is telling—perhaps more so than in "Zarathustra,"—and the "Seelenmalerei" in the love music and afterwards in the renunciation music is all very finely done. Even the drastic musical satire of the "Adversaries" is acceptable enough in its earlier phases. It is the polyphony in the sections of storm and stress that goes wrong. The subject of the work as a whole has the merit of general intelligibleness. But the composer identifies the hero much too insistently with himself; nor does he maintain the consistency of tone that is proper to a work of art. If sections 3, 4, 5 and 6 carried out the promise of sections 1 and 2 we should have a sort of gigantic Gulliverian humoresque. But with section 3 a new atmosphere is conjured up, and henceforth the work gravitates backwards and forwards between two irreconcilable elements—the one drastic, sarcastic, and cataplastic, the other at first subtle, sinuous, and soulful, and afterwards turning towards a mood of religious exaltation and austere contemplation.

The case of Strauss is certainly an awkward one for the believers in the neo-classicism of Brahms. In such works as the Quartet, op. 13, and the violin Sonata, op. 18, written twenty or more years ago, he declares himself an absolute Brahmsian, worshipping before all things the well-constructed musical sentence, using the extended harmonies and profuse figuration of the modern technique to express emotions that have but little individuality and are merely typical of the thorough-going German sentimentalist. Indeed, he here shows himself a better Brahmsian than Brahms, avoiding all his model's worst faults, such as his groping and fumbling, his muttering and whining, and only sentimentalising in quite a healthy sort of way and with a flow so abundant and easy that to find fault would seem intolerant. Yet, with all these wonderful qualifications for a great Brahmsian career, Strauss would have none of it, except during his most youthful period. For many years now he has been displaying utter contempt of the well-constructed musical sentence; also of German sentimentalism and of all the other traditional subjects of musical eloquence. As an orchestral composer, he has pursued a path of adventurous hardihood scarcely paralleled in the history of art, and he looks back to his Brahmsian chamber-music as belonging to a fledgeling state of his talent. As it is not open to the Brahmsians to say that those early works prove Strauss's incompetence as a composer of the orthodox kind, the only thing left for them to say is that the chamber-music is much the best of his whole output. Sooner or later we shall doubtless begin to hear that, and in the meantime those who like the early works can play them or listen to them with the comforting assurance that the composer would not object, inasmuch as he has himself quite recently taken part in public performances of them. The Quartet—which Dr. Brodsky and his usual associates, assisted by Mr. Isidor Cohn, played yesterday—might rank as the mature work of anyone but Strauss. It is youthful, relatively to the composer, in the emotional basis of the music; but not in the workmanship, and least of all in the invention, which has all the pith and weight commonly telling of ripe experience. In short, it is an extremely good Quartet of the orthodox kind—one may even say, one of the best existing works for pianoforte and three bow instruments. The Andante is not quite such a marvel as the slow movement of the violin Sonata, but it is very nearly as good in invention and quite as good in its adaptation to the medium—that is, to the particular group of instruments. The Scherzo is as pithy as the Andante is glowingly sentimental, and the framing-in movements are magnificently done. Thoroughly adequate was the rendering of this immensely interesting composition. The tempo in the Scherzo was faster than the composer's own; but, as it is not possible for him to keep up the technique of a solo pianist, he may possibly avoid a very rapid tempo for that reason. Mr. Cohn brought out all the passage work clearly enough, though the rapid tempo caused a certain dryness in the string tone. The other movements were satisfactory from every point of view. It is interesting to note in this Quartet an early example of Strauss's tendency to associate a certain mood with a certain key. A contrasting section with an easier flow he assigns to B major, and throughout the recurrences the original key assignment is preserved in a manner very unlike the procedure of the older composers. Throughout the work the connection between tonality and emotional import is preserved in detail, and we here note a further development of the principle which prompted Beethoven to throw his prevalently dark and mysterious Symphony of Fate into C minor and his Rhythmic or Dancing Symphony into A major, but which, from him, met with no more than a very broad kind of recognition.