CHAPTER XIII. DR. HANS RICHTER. ( October 20, 1897. )

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The genius of musical interpretation is a phenomenon of modern times. Beethoven marks the end of that great symphonic period which begins with Haydn, and though seventy years before the production of Beethoven's greatest symphony, Joseph Haydn had been drilling the little Esterhazy orchestra and trying to secure satisfactory performances, yet to the end of Beethoven's time the most important orchestras were usually filled up with amateurs for those special occasions on which a symphony was to be performed. It seems certain that the notion of a rendering actually corresponding to a symphonic composer's ideal intentions never dawned on musicians as a practical possibility till long after the greatest of symphonic composers was dead and buried.

Beethoven, no less than Sebastian Bach, often wrote for the future—not even for the next generation, but for the distant future. And Mendelssohn, who re-discovered Sebastian Bach and did so much to stir up the lethargy of his musical contemporaries and re-awaken interest in the great works of the past—did not Mendelssohn announce, as a general principle for the guidance of conductors, that they should beware of slow tempi, and take everything at a good pace, so that the faults of phrasing might not be too obvious?

The very terms in which the recommendation was couched show that Mendelssohn was not unconscious of the faults that marred the best orchestral playing of his time; but being of a mild, easy-going disposition, he was not the man to expect impossibilities—such is the ordinary musician's term for any exertion a little out of his ordinary routine. It was reserved for a more masterful mind to expect impossibilities, and to obtain them.

When the works of Wagner began to attract attention, consternation fell on all the old-fashioned conductors of Germany, the "Pig-tails" as Wagner never wearied of calling them. Life was not worth living, they felt, if they had to deal with such scores, and then lamentations were reinforced by the bandsmen, who found that countless passages written by Wagner were impossible of performance.

But it so happened, as if by a special Providence, that along with Wagner certain performing musicians, who were not so easily frightened, had been ripening towards their life's task. From Liszt and Von BÜlow presently came demonstrations of the fact that Wagner's music was not so impossible as at first thought to be, though requiring a method of interpretation different from that of the "Pig-tails." In 1869 appeared Wagner's pamphlet "On Conducting," just three years after his first meeting with Hans Richter, and, whatever may be thought of the style of that pamphlet, it is beyond question that it marks the beginning of a new era in the history of orchestral music. Besides Richter, all modern conductors of world-wide reputation—BÜlow, Levi, Seidl, Weingartner and Richard Strauss—were found in the same school. They learned from Wagner how to play Beethoven, and their method has revolutionised the musical world.

Now that BÜlow is gone, the acknowledged leader and master of them all is Hans Richter, the incarnate genius of musical interpretation.

To Richter's influence and example, far more than to anything else that could be named, is due that prodigious improvement in the standard of orchestral performance all over the world, which is the most notable feature in the history of music during the past thirty years. Principally owing to Richter's matchless combination of artistic enthusiasm, practical mastery, and genial good sense, we now hear things that musical prophets and wise men, such as Beethoven desired to hear and had not heard.

Hans Richter belongs to a German family of musicians. He was born at Raab, in Hungary, in 1843, and, after a good musical grounding, entered the Conservatorium at Vienna in 1859. He chose the horn as his principal instrument, but his gift for playing musical instruments was so prodigiously strong that in the course of a few years he acquired the technical control of all the more important instruments in the orchestra, besides pianoforte and organ.

One of the earliest appointments that he held was that of principal horn-player at the Imperial Opera in Vienna. After quitting the Conservatorium he continued his studies under Sechter, the celebrated contrapuntist, and thus when the great opportunity of his life came he approached his task with magnificent and perhaps unparalleled resources, in respect of practical and theoretical knowledge. The opportunity came in 1866—Wagner, then living in Switzerland, wanted a competent musician to help him in preparing the score of "Meistersinger" for the press.

To Vienna, then, as now, the metropolis of the musical world, he forwarded the request that such a musician should be found and despatched to him at Triebschen, near Lucerne. The choice fell on Richter, and thus the two great men, the exact complements of each other as regards their artistic power became acquainted. Richter took up his residence in Wagner's house; the great composer, who possessed a Napoleonic eye for talent, at once appreciated the immense powers of his youthful colleague, and an alliance sprang up between the two men which only terminated at Wagner's death.

Trial performances with orchestras brought together from the musicians of ZÜrich and Lucerne quickly convinced the Wagnerian circle of Richter's genius for selecting, training and conducting an orchestra, while the preparation of the "Meistersinger" score was carried out to the composer's complete satisfaction. Those who examined the fair copy of Richter's handwriting which was on view at the Musical and Theatrical Exhibition of 1892 in Vienna can testify to the marvellous neatness as well as to the technical correctness and good style of Richter's manuscript. It should be remembered, too, that the score of "Meistersinger" was at that time by far the most intricate in existence, and is even now only surpassed in elaborate complexity by "Tristan."

But not only with the preparation of the score was Richter concerned. Long before Wagner had put the final touches to "Meistersinger," Richter had taken the solo and choral parts to Munich, and had there personally trained the singers who were to take part in the first production. The style was so new and so perplexing to the musicians of the day that Richter encountered apparently insuperable obstacles at every turn. Nevertheless, everything was carried through to a brilliantly successful issue, and the first performance of "Meistersinger," which took place at Munich in June, 1868, was really the first great triumph of the Wagnerian cause. Though BÜlow was at the conductor's desk, it is unquestionable that the labour of Hercules, which was necessary to bring the work to a first hearing, was performed in the main by Richter.

At the sixth performance the representative of Kothner fell ill, and, at the last moment, Richter stepped into the breach, donned the costume of Kothner, and sang and acted the part with great success. No wonder a distinguished critic should have said that Wagner's "Meistersinger" has become part of Richter's flesh and blood.

He prepared the score; he trained all the singers and players for the first performance; he has conducted countless brilliant representations of the entire work, and on one occasion, at any rate, he enacted one of the characters. The qualities exhibited by Richter in connection with the production of "Meistersinger" caused him to be appointed fellow-director with BÜlow at the Royal Opera in Munich, and when BÜlow resigned in the following year Richter stood alone in that post.

The impatience of the King of Bavaria to have Wagner's immense "Nibelung" trilogy performed was the cause of a premature attempt to present "Rheingold" before the extraordinary mise-en-scÈne required by that work was ready. Rather than take part in an unworthy rendering, Richter tendered his resignation and quitted the brilliant post to which he had been so recently appointed. Thus early did Richter show the stuff of which he was made. He had absolutely nothing else in view. He simply had to look about for employment, and we next find him in Paris, working in combination with Pasdeloup, who was engaged in a scheme for bringing out "Rienzi" at the ThÉatre Lyrique. The scheme came to nothing, but the authorities of the ThÉatre de la Monnaie in Brussels, who had heard of Richter's fame, invited him to come and superintend the first production of "Lohengrin" in French which they were preparing.

With "Lohengrin" in Brussels he was no less successful than with "Meistersinger" in Munich. Though at first everyone found the music "impossible," on March 21st, 1870 a magnificent performance was achieved. As an example of the difficulties with which Richter had to contend in preparing for that performance, it may be mentioned that he found the choral singers at the theatre incapable of rendering their parts, and had to teach them, note by note, like children. Yet in the public performance there was no trace of these miseries, everything went with freedom and spontaneity, and ever since the first production under Richter "Lohengrin" has been a great feature of the Brussels repertory.

After fulfilling his engagement in Brussels, Richter returned to Triebschen, near Lucerne, where he found Wagner just finishing that colossal work, the "Ring of the Nibelung." It seems almost incredible that in addition to their gigantic labours in bringing what was almost a new art into existence, these remarkable men should have found means at this period of devoting much time to the study of Beethoven's string quartets. Richter took part regularly in the quartet playing, and he considers these hours during which he was initiated by Wagner into the deepest mysteries of Beethoven's art among the most valuable of his experiences. In the same year, 1870, Wagner finished his "Siegfried Idyll," a lovely aubade that was written in honour of his infant son's birthday. Richter had been entrusted with the task of getting together a small orchestra in Lucerne, and of rehearsing the new work with them. On the appointed day the musicians assembled on the steps of the villa at Triebschen and performed the piece under Richter's direction to the delight of the Wagner household, among whom the "Siegfried Idyll" is generally known as the "Treppenmusik" (from "Treppe," a stair or flight of steps).

The following year Richter accepted an invitation to Buda-Pesth, and there he remained until, in 1875, he was appointed conductor at the Imperial Opera in Vienna, a post that he still (in 1897) holds. Thus the Austrian Capital became for the second time his home and the centre of his activity, and, indeed, those who know him well, know that in spite of all cosmopolitan experiences, Richter is "ein echter Wiener"—a true child of Vienna.

The next "labour of Hercules" was the bringing out of Wagner's trilogy, the "Ring of the "Nibelungs" with which the Bayreuth theatre was inaugurated in 1876. During the rehearsals Wagner sat on the stage directing the actors and Richter stood at the conductor's desk.

Now that the work has become familiar we have lost all standard for estimating the task which Richter undertook and once more carried through to a brilliantly successful conclusion.

That vast scene which occupies four evenings in performance he seemed to have at his fingers' ends. Such was the impression made by Richter upon all who were concerned, either actively, or merely as spectators and listeners, in the inaugural Festival of 1876 at Bayreuth that they recognised him as a new phenomenon in the world of art.

The period of modern orchestral conducting may be said to date from that occasion. It was then brought home to everyone that conducting was a great art worthy of independent cultivation. The public began to take an interest in the style of different conductors, and to show some sensitiveness as regards interpretations of the great masters. The era of the "Pig-tails" had come to an end.

In 1877 Richter came with Wagner to London, and ever since that year the "Richter Concerts" have been a regular institution in this country. In Vienna, the city of his adoption, he is conductor, not only at the opera, but also of the Philharmonic Concerts, and latterly of the music in the Imperial Chapel.

Of late years Richter has conceived a certain dislike to the theatre, where he finds his work beset with small worries. He is coming to regard the concert-hall more and more as his special sphere of activity. Upon Richter's art as a conductor a good-sized book might be written. Here I can attempt no more than to enumerate a few of his qualities:—Practical knowledge of the technique belonging to all the more important instruments; mastery of musical theory in all its branches; an unerring rhythmical sense; judgment and insight with regard to every possible musical style, enabling him always to find the right tempo for any movement or section of a movement (the most important and most difficult thing for a conductor); mastery of the principles discovered by Wagner respecting orchestral dynamics, such as the necessity of equably sustained tone without crescendo or diminuendo, as a basis to start upon the conditions determining proper balance of strings and wind, the nature of a round-toned piano delivery (to be studied from first-rate singers), the manner of producing long crescendos and diminuendos, also of producing a true piano and a true forte (Wagner having pointed out that old-fashioned orchestras never played anything but mezzo-forte); mastery of Wagner's system of phrasing, his far-reaching investigations with regard to cantabile passages, his treatment of fermate, his distinction between the naÏf allegro and the poetic allegro; mastery and practical realisation of all Wagner's other ideas concerning musical interpretation or public performances, a subject in which Wagner took a far more deep, expert and fruitful interest than any other of the great composers.

Finally, Richter is distinguished from most other conductors by his personal behaviour at the conductor's desk. He is free from antics; every movement has significance and every attitude has dignity.


                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                           

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