Ta.s.sO

For the Weimar centennial anniversary of Goethe's birth, August 28, 1849, Liszt composed his Ta.s.so: Lamento e Trionfo. And this stands second in order of his symphonic poems. At the Weimar festival the work preceded Goethe's Ta.s.so, being played as an overture.

When the first part of this Ta.s.so symphonic poem was written--there are two parts, as you will see later--Liszt was not yet bold as a symphonic poet, for he thought it necessary to define the meaning of his work in words and thus explain his music.

Liszt's preface to Ta.s.so is as follows: "I wished to define the contrast expressed in the t.i.tle of the work, and it was my object to describe the grand ant.i.thesis of the genius, ill-used and misunderstood in life, but in death surrounded with a halo of glory whose rays were to penetrate the hearts of his persecutors. Ta.s.so loved and suffered in Ferrara, was avenged in Rome, and lives to this day in the popular songs of Venice.

These three viewpoints are inseparably connected with his career. To render them musically I invoke his mighty shadow, as he wanders by the lagoons of Venice, proud and sad in countenance, or watching the feasts at Ferrara, where his master-works were created. I followed him to Rome, the Eternal City, which bestowed upon him the crown of glory, and in him canonised the martyr and the poet.

"Lamento e Trionfo--these are the contrasts in the fate of the poet, of whom it was said that, although the curse might rest upon his life, a blessing could not be wanting from his grave. In order to give to my idea the authority of living fact, I borrowed the form of my tone picture from reality, and chose for its theme a melody to which, three centuries after the poet's death, I have heard Venetian gondoliers sing the first strophes of his Jerusalem:

Canto l'armi pietose e'l Capitano, Che'l gran Sepolcro liber di Cristo.

"The motif itself has a slow, plaintive cadence of monotonous mourning; the gondoliers, however, by drawling certain notes, give it a peculiar colouring, and the mournfully drawn out tones, heard at a distance, produce an effect not dissimilar to the reflection of long stripes of fading light upon a mirror of water. This song once made a profound impression on me, and when I attempted to ill.u.s.trate Ta.s.so musically, it recurred to me with such imperative force that I made it the chief motif for my composition.

"The Venetian melody is so replete with inconsolable mourning, with bitter sorrow, that it suffices to portray Ta.s.so's soul, and again it yields to the brilliant deceits of the world, to the illusive, smooth coquetry of those smiles whose slow poison brought on the fearful catastrophe, for which there seemed to be no earthly recompense, but which was eventually, clothed in a mantle of brighter purple than that of Alfonso."

Following this came--in later years, it is true--a strange denial from Liszt himself. He admitted that when finally his Ta.s.so composition began to take form Byron's Ta.s.so was nearer his heart and thoughts than Goethe's. "I cannot deny," he writes, "that when I received the order for an overture to Goethe's drama the chief and commanding influence on the form of my work was the respectful sympathy with which Byron treated the manes of the great poet."

Naturally this influence could not have extended beyond the Lamento since Byron's poem is only the Lament of Ta.s.so, and has no share in the Trionfo. Now the anti-programmites could make a very strong case out of this incident, and probably would have done so long before this if they had known or thought about it. But then this question of the fallibility of programme music is an eternal one. Was it not the late Thayer, constantly haunting detail and in turn haunted by it, who could not abide Beethoven's Coriola.n.u.s in his youth because he only knew the Shakespeare drama and could not fit the Beethoven overture to it simply because it would not be fitted? And now some commentators declare that Beethoven must have known the Shakespeare work, that he could not have found his inspiration in the forgotten play of Von Collin.

Liszt's Ta.s.so opens with a descending octaved theme in C minor, meant to depict the depressed mood and oppressed station of the poet. Wagner has made mention of Liszt's particular apt.i.tude for making such musical moments pregnant with meaning. Here it expresses the tragedy of the poet's life, and a second theme is his agonised cry. Gradually this impatience is fanned to fury, and culminates in a wild outbreak of pain.

The tragic first theme, now given fortissimo by the full orchestra and long sustained, spreads its shadow over all. The characteristic rehearsal of the themes concludes the introduction to the work.

With an adagio the princ.i.p.al motif is heard in full for the first time; it is the boat song of the Venetian gondoliers, and embraces in part the first tragic theme with which the composition opened. You recall what Liszt said about the expressiveness of this sombre song. He has heightened its gloom by the moody orchestration in which he has embedded it.

As a contrast comes the belief in self which forces its way to the soul of the poet, and this comes to our ears in the form of the n.o.ble main theme--the Ta.s.so motif--which now sounds brilliantly in major. These two moods relieve one another, as they might in the mind of any brooding mortal, especially a poet.

The next picture is Ta.s.so at the court of Ferrara. The courtly life is sketched in a minuet-like allegro and a courteous subsidiary. How aptly Ta.s.so is carried away by the surrounding splendour we hear when the Ta.s.so theme sounds in the character of the gay minuet. This theme becomes more and more impa.s.sioned, the poet has raised his eyes to Leonore, and the inevitable calamity precipitates itself with the recurrence of the wild and frantic burst of rage and fury.

Alles ist dahin! Nur eines bleibt: Die Thrane hat uns die Natur verliehen, Den Schrei des Schmerzes, wenn der Mann zuletzt Es nicht mehr tragt.

With this, the first half of the first part of the work closes.

The second half concerns itself with the poet's transfiguration. His physical self has been sacrificed, but the world has taken up his cause and celebrates his works.

A short pause separates the two divisions. Now the glorious allegro has an upward swing, the former dragging rhythms are spurned along impetuously. The Ta.s.so theme is glorified, the public enthusiasm grows apace, and runs to a tremendous climax in the presto. Then there sounds a sudden silence--the public pulse has ceased for a moment--followed by a hymn, built on the Ta.s.so theme. The entire orchestra intones this, every figure is one of jubilation, save the four double ba.s.ses which recall the rhythm of the former theme of misery; but--notice the logic of the composer--its resemblance is only a distant one, and it is heard only in the lowest of the strings. So this composition concludes.

The Epilogue to the Ta.s.so symphonic poem was written many years afterward. Liszt called it Le Triomphe funebre du Ta.s.se, and its first performance was under Leopold Damrosch in New York in 1877. The subject must have pursued Liszt through most of his life, and he seems to have felt a certain affinity with the dead poet. We all know that the public denied him credit for his compositions.

Gollerich in his Liszt biography mentions that once during his stay in Italy the composer, in a covered wagon, had himself driven slowly over the course along which the corpse of Ta.s.so had been taken. And of this incident he is supposed to have said: "I suffered the sad poetry of this journey in the hopes that one day the b.l.o.o.d.y irony of vain apotheosis may be spared every poet and artist who has been ill-treated during life. Rest to the dead!"

The a.n.a.lysis of this work is short and precise. The musical programme is simple. It opens with a cry of distressful mourning, while from the distance the cortege approaches. A reminiscence of the Ta.s.so theme is recognisable in this pompous approach and the mood changes to one of triumph. In the midst of all this the public adoration is mingled with its tears, and the two climax in the Ta.s.so motive.

LES PRELUDES

The third of Liszt's symphonic poems, Les Preludes, was sketched as early as 1845, but not produced until 1854, and then in Weimar.

Lamartine's Meditations Poetiques set the bells tolling in Liszt's mind, and he wrote Les Preludes. "What is life but a series of preludes to that unknown song whose initial solemn note is tolled by Death? The enchanted dawn of every life is love; but where is the destiny on whose first delicious joys some storm does not break?--a storm whose deadly blast disperses youth's illusions, whose fatal bolt consumes its altar.

And what soul thus cruelly bruised, when the tempest rolls away, seeks not to rest its memories in the calm of rural life? Yet man allows himself not long to taste the kindly quiet which first attracted him to Nature's lap; but when the trumpet gives the signal he hastens to danger's post, whatever be the fight which draws him to its lists, that in the strife he may once more regain full knowledge of himself and all his strength."

Corresponding to the first line of the programme the composition opens promisingly with an ascending figure in the strings, followed by some mysterious chords. Liszt had that wonderful knack--which he shared with Beethoven and Wagner--of getting atmosphere immediately at the first announcement. Gradually he achieves a climax with this device, and now he has pictured the character--his hero--in defiant possession of full manhood.

"The enchanted dawn of every life is love" reads the line, and the music grows sentimental. That well-known horn melody occurs here, a theme almost the character of a folk-song; then the mood becomes even more tranquil until--

"But where is the destiny on whose first delicious joys some storm does not break?--a storm whose deadly blast disperses youth's illusions, whose fatal bolt consumes its altar." Here was one of those episodes on which Liszt doted, a place where he could unloose all his orchestral technique, piling his climaxes furiously high.

"And what soul thus cruelly bruised, when the tempest rolls away, seeks not to rest its memories in the pleasant calm of rural life?" There was nothing else for Liszt to do but to write the usual pastoral peace dignified by Handel and Watteau.

"Yet man allowed himself not long to taste the kindly quiet which first attracted him to Nature's lap; but when the trumpet gives the signal he hastens to danger's post, whatever be the fight which draws him to its lists, that in the strife he may once more regain full knowledge of himself and all his strength." The martial call of the trumpets and the majestic strife is made much of. Liszt tortures his peaceful motives into expressing war, and welds the entire incident into a stirring one.

Logically, he concludes the work by recalling the theme of his hero upon whose life he has preluded so tunefully.

ORPHEUS

Of the origin of his Orpheus Liszt writes: "Some years ago, when preparing Gluck's Orpheus for production, I could not restrain my imagination from straying away from the simple version that the great master had made of the subject, but turned to that Orpheus whose name hovers majestically and full of harmony about the Greek myths. It recalled that Etruscan vase in the Louvre which represents the poet-musician crowned with the mystic kingly wreath; draped in a star-studded mantle, his fine slender fingers are plucking the lyre strings, while his lips are liberating G.o.dly words and song. The very stones seem moved to hearing, and from adamant hearts stinging, burning tears are loosing themselves. The beasts of the forests stand enchanted, and the coa.r.s.e noise of man is besieged into silence. The song of birds is hushed; the melodious coursing of the brook halts; the rude laughter of joy gives way to a trembling awe before these sounds, which reveal to man universal harmonies, the gentle power of art and the brilliancy of their glory."

The "dull and prosaic formula"--so some English critic put it--differs in this work from that of most of the others of Liszt's symphonic poems. The short cutting themes are absent and sharp contrasts are generally avoided; the music flows rather in a broad melodic stream, serene but magnificent. It is rather difficult to fit a detailed programme to the composition, and the general outline is not so sharply dented with incidents as some of the others.

Again atmosphere is evoked and the mood achieved by the lyre preluding of the poet. Then the voice of Orpheus rises with majestic calm, and swells to a climax which is typical of the majestic splendour of art.

This sweeps all sounds of opposition before it and leaves in its trail awe-stricken man. It is with this mood that the work closes in a marvellous progression of chords, harmonies daring for their day.

PROMETHEUS

The same general plan of conception and interpretation, but of course much more heroic, has Liszt employed in the next symphonic poem, Prometheus. It is a n.o.ble figure that Liszt has translated into music, the t.i.tan. The ideas he meant to convey may be summed up in "Ein tiefer Schmerz, der durch trotzbietendes Ausharren triumphiert." Immediately at the opening the swirl of the struggle is upon us, and the first theme is the defiance of the t.i.tan--a n.o.ble yet obstinate melody. The G.o.d is chained to the rock to great orchestral tumult. His efforts to break the manacles incite further musical riot, and then comes the wail of helpless misery:

O Mutter, du Heil'ge! O Aether, Lichtquell des All's!

Seh, welch Unrecht ich erdulde!

This recitative leads into a furious burst when the shackled one clenches his fists and threatens all G.o.dhead. Even Zeus is defied:

Und mag er schleudern seines feurigen Blitzes Loh'n, In weissen Schneesturms Ungewittern, in Donnerhall Der unterirdischen Tiefe werwirren mischen das All: Nichts dessen wird mir beugen!

Then arises the belief in a deliverer, a faith motif which is one of those heartfelt inventions of the melodic Liszt. After this the struggle continues. Magnificently, the G.o.d, believing in his own obstinate will for freedom, the composition concludes on this supreme note.

MAZEPPA

The sixth of Liszt's symphonic poems, Mazeppa, has done more than any other to earn for its composer the disparaging comment that his piano music was orchestral and his orchestral music Klavierma.s.sig. This Solomon judgment usually proceeds from the wise ones, who are aware that the first form of Liszt's Mazeppa was a piano etude which appeared somewhere toward the end of 1830.

Liszt's orchestral version of Mazeppa was completed the middle of last century and had its first hearing at Weimar in 1854. Naturally this is a work of much greater proportion than the original piano etude; it is, as some one has said, in the same ratio as is a panoramic picture to a preliminary sketch.

The story of the Cossack hetman has inspired poets and at least one painter. Horace Vernet--who, as Heine said, painted everything hastily, almost after the manner of a maker of pamphlets--put the subject on canvas twice; the Russian, Bulgarin, made a novel of it; Voltaire mentioned the incident in his History of Charles the Twelfth; Byron moulded the tale into rhyme, as did Victor Hugo--and the latter poem was used by Liszt for the outline for his composition.

The amorous Mazeppa was of n.o.ble birth--so runs the tale. But while he was page to Jan Casimir, King of Poland, he intrigued with Theresia the young wife of a Podolian count. Their love was discovered and the count had the page lashed to a wild horse--_un cheval farouche_, as Voltaire has it--which was turned loose.

From all accounts the beast did not allow gra.s.s to grow under its hoofs, but lashed out with the envious speed of the wind. It so happened that the horse was "a n.o.ble steed, a Tartar of the Ukraine breed." Therefore it headed for the Ukraine, which woolly country it reached with its burden; then it promptly dropped dead.