THE

MASTERS AND THEIR MUSIC

A SERIES OF ILLUSTRATIVE PROGRAMS, WITH
BIOGRAPHICAL, ESTHETICAL, AND
CRITICAL ANNOTATIONS

DESIGNED AS AN INTRODUCTION TO
MUSIC AS LITERATURE

FOR THE USE OF CLUBS, CLASSES, AND
PRIVATE STUDY

BY

W. S. B. MATHEWS

Author of "How to Understand Music," "A Popular History of Music,"
"Music: Its Ideals and Methods," "Studies in Phrasing,"
"Standard Grades," Etc., Etc.

Philadelphia
Theodore Presser
1708 Chestnut Str.

COPYRIGHT, 1898, BY THEO. PRESSER

PREFACE.

When a musical student begins to think of music as a literature and to inquire about individualities of style and musical expression, it is necessary for him to come as soon as possible to the fountainheads of this literature in the works of a few great masters who have set the pace and established the limits for all the rest. In the line of purely instrumental music this has been done by Bach, Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, Mendelssohn, Schumann, Chopin, Liszt, and Wagner. The latter, who exercised a vast influence upon the manner of developing a musical thought and in the selection of the orchestral colors in which it can be expressed advantageously, powerfully stimulated all composers later than himself, nevertheless exerted this influence at second-hand, so to say, never having written purely instrumental movements, but merely dramatic accompaniments of one intensity or another. Hence, for our present purposes we may leave Wagner out altogether. Practically, down to about the year 1875, everything in instrumental music is original with the masters already mentioned, or was derived from them or suggested by them. Hence, in order to understand instrumental music we have, first of all, to make a beginning with the peculiarities, individualities, beauty, and mastership of these great writers. Such is the design of the following programs and explanatory matter.

My first intention has been to provide for the regular study of a musical club, in which the playing is to be contributed by active members designated in advance, the accessory explanations to be read from these pages. I have thought that the playing might be divided between several members, through which means the labor for each would be reduced, and, on the whole, an intimate familiarity with the music be more widely extended in the club. This method will have the disadvantage of leaving a part of every program less well interpreted than the others, whereby it will sometimes happen that valuable parts will not be properly appreciated. The advantages of this method, however, will outweigh the defects, since the awakening influence of a course of study of this character will greatly depend upon having as many members as possible practically interested in it.

While designed primarily for the use of a club, this course is equally well adapted to serve as a manual for individual study, in which case the individual himself will necessarily study every composition upon the list, and advance to a new program only after having completely mastered each and understood its relation to the remainder of the course. The only exception to this rule will be in the case where several programs of increasing difficulty are given. In this case the player should take the easiest; after mastering this, let him go on to the next most difficult, and, having succeeded with this, if possible let him attack the most difficult given. In case the latter should be impracticable for his technical resources, let him at least familiarize himself with the general features of all of the pieces mentioned, and get into their meaning and beauty as much as he can.

The course is also well adapted for use as a text-book in female seminaries and the like. In this case the forms of a musical club or definite musical organization had better be observed, and the meetings conducted weekly or bi-weekly. The teacher should remember that all the most important works, in which the maturity and mastership of the composer come to their fullest expression, should be studied by the most advanced members of the class, according to their ability, and afterward played by the teacher himself, should he happen to possess the necessary technical qualifications. When the maturity of the teacher comes in to supplement the immaturity of the pupil, after the latter has done his best, the best results will be produced.

It will be noticed, and with disappointment to some, that the analyses and comments are free from so-called "poetry," and gush of every kind. Particularly are they free from attempts to connect each piece with a story or poetic idea. In the opinion of the writer, the first step toward musical growth lies in learning to appreciate music, as music. In instrumental music the development of a musical idea, the creation of musical symmetries, figures, and arabesques, and the legitimate building up of musical climaxes upon purely harmonic and rhythmic grounds are the phases of thought which interested the composer and gave rise to the composition. And while we may not attempt to assign limits to the inspiration and uplifting effects of great tone-poetry, it is quite certain that effects and influences of this kind are arrived at in the consciousness of the listener only when purely musical appreciation is active and deep. Without the background of living musical appreciation of this kind, the highest flights of the composer will pass as mere noise and fury, the hearer being in no whit uplifted or inspired. The uplifting which comes from the supposed assistance of a "story" or a poetic idea attached to the composition by some outside person is quite likely to fail of being the same in quality as that intended by the composer. Music is one thing, poetry another. While aiming at like ends,—the expression of spiritual beauty,—they move in different planes, which in the more highly organized minds are not proximate. The hearer specially gifted in music does not need the story or the poem; he finds it a hindrance. The hearer specially gifted in poetic sensibility does not care very much for the music; to him it is merely a foreign speech, trying to say vaguely and imperfectly what the poetry has said definitely and well. To put the immature and unspecialized hearer upon the poetic track as an aid to understanding a piece of music is, therefore, to place him at a disadvantage, leading him to expect phenomena which he will find only in literature; just the same as it would be a mistake to intrude pieces of music as explanations in a course in poetry or imaginative literature.

There is a time in both cases when these accessory or related provinces of mind can be called into friendly activity to the advantage of each other. In a poetic training this might be at the point where the motive of the poem is of that vague, mystical character—a mere soul-mood—which words express so imperfectly; or, in a course of music, when it is a question of a piece in which the composer has definitely attempted to express a poetical idea—as happens often in dramatic music, occasionally in symphonic poems and elsewhere. Here the outside help is needed not so much in order to explain the music as to supplement its shortcomings. But in the earlier stages of musical training in this higher sense, purely musical observation (not so much technical as esthetic) comes first, since without this all our rhapsodies upon the greater works signify nothing.

In the course of the book there are two essays embodied which are very important to the true mastery of the material. They are the essay upon "Moving Forces in Music," the first chapter, and that upon "The Typical Forms of Music," at the end of Part I. The first should be taken up where it occurs. The other may be left to the end or introduced at any stage of the discussion preferred by the student or by the conductor of the class or club.