Part 5

Berlioz relates somewhere that the musical ideas for his "Faust" came to him unbidden during his rambles among Italian hills. Weber's melodies are so much like fragrant forest flowers that one feels sure before being told that he came across them in the woods and fields. His famous pupil, Sir Julius Benedict, relates that Weber took as great delight in taking his friends to see his favorite bits of landscape, as he did in composing a fine piece of music; and he adds that "this love of nature, and principally of forest life, may explain his predilection, in the majority of his operas, for hunting choruses and romantic scenery."

Richard Wagner conceived most of his vigorous and eloquent leading melodies during his rambles among the picturesque environs of Bayreuth, or the sublime snowpeaks of Switzerland. How he elaborated them we shall see later on. Of Beethoven's devotion to nature many curious anecdotes are told by his contemporaries. A harp manufacturer named Stumpff met him in 1823 and wrote an account of his visit in "The Harmonicon," a London journal, in which occurs this passage: "Beethoven is a capital walker and delights in rambling for hours through wild, romantic scenery. I am told, indeed, that he has sometimes been out whole nights on such excursions, and is often absent from home for several days. On the way to the valley [the Hellenenthal, near the Austrian Baden] he often stopped to point out the prettiest views, or to remark on the defects of the new buildings. Then he would go back again to his own thoughts and hum to himself in an incomprehensible fashion; which, I heard, was his fashion of composing."

Professor Kloeber, a well-known artist of that period, who painted Beethoven's portrait, relates that he often met Beethoven during his walks near Vienna. "It was most interesting to watch him," he writes; "how he would stand still as if listening, with a piece of music paper in his hands, look up and down and then write something. Dont had told me when I met him thus not to speak or take any notice, as he would be very much embarrassed or very disagreeable. I saw him once, when I was taking a party to the woods, clambering up to an opposite height from the ravine which separated us, with his broad-brimmed felt hat tucked under his arm; arrived at the top, he threw himself down full length and gazed long into the sky."

Another contemporary of Beethoven, G.F. Treitschke, gives us an interesting glimpse of Beethoven's manner of creating and improvising. Treitschke had been asked to write the text for a new aria that was to be introduced in "Fidelio" when that opera was revived at Vienna in 1814. Beethoven called at seven o'clock in the evening and asked how the text of the aria was getting on. Treitschke had just finished it, and handed it to him. Beethoven read it over, he continues, "walked up and down the room, humming as usual, instead of singing--and opened the piano. My wife had often asked him in vain to play; but now, putting the text before him, he began a wonderful improvisation, which, unfortunately, there were no magic means of recording. From this fantasy he seemed to conjure the theme of the aria. Hours passed but Beethoven continued to improvise. Supper, which he intended to share with us, was served, but he would not be disturbed. Late in the evening he embraced me and, without having eaten anything, hurried home. The following day the piece was ready in all its beauty."

This anecdote appears to indicate that Beethoven sometimes composed at the piano. Meyerbeer, it is said, always composed at his instrument, and there is a story that he used to jot down the ideas of other composers at the opera and concerts, and, by thinking and playing these over, gradually evolve his own themes. It is rather more surprising to hear, from Herr Pohl, that Haydn sketched all his compositions at the piano. The condition of the instrument, he adds, had its effect upon him, beauty of tone being favorable to inspiration. Thus he wrote to Artaria in 1788: "I was obliged to buy a new forte-piano, that I might compose your clavier sonatas particularly well." "When an idea struck him he sketched it out in a few notes and figures; this would be his morning's work; in the afternoon he would enlarge this sketch, elaborating it according to rule, but taking pains to preserve the unity of the idea."

Weber's son relates that it was his father's habit to sit at the window on summer evenings and jot down the ideas that had come to him, during his solitary walks, on small pieces of music paper, of which a large number were usually lying on his table. "No piano," he adds, "was touched on these occasions, for his ears spontaneously heard a full orchestra, played by good spirits, while he wrote down his neat little notes." And Weber himself remarks in one of his essays that, "the tone poet who gets his ideas at the piano is almost always born poor, or in a fair way of delivering his faculties into the hands of the common and commonplace. For these very hands, which, thanks to constant practice and training, finally acquire a sort of independence and will of their own, are unconscious tyrants and masters over the creative power. How very differently does he create whose inner ear is judge of the ideas which he simultaneously conceives and criticises. This mental ear grasps and holds fast the musical visions, and is a divine secret belonging to music alone, incomprehensible to the layman."

Mozart had already learned to compose without a piano when he was only six years old; and, as Mr. E. Holmes remarks, "having commenced composition without recourse to the clavier, his powers in mental music constantly increased, and he soon imagined effects of which the original types existed only in his brain."

Schumann wrote to a young musician in 1848: "Above all things, persist in composing mentally, without the aid of the instrument. Turn over your melodic idea in your head until you can say to yourself: 'It is well done.'" Elsewhere he says: "If you can pick out little melodies at the piano, you will be pleased; but if they come to you spontaneously, away from the piano, you will have more reason to be delighted, for then the inner tone-sense is aroused to activity. The fingers must do what the head wishes, and not vice versa." And again he says: "If you set out to compose, invent everything in your head. If the music has emanated from your soul, if you have felt it, others will feel it too."

Schumann had discovered the superiority of the mental method of composing from experience. In a letter dated 1838 he writes concerning his "Davidstaenze:" "If I ever was happy at the piano it was when I composed these pieces;" and it was well known that up to 1839 "he used to compose sitting at the instrument." We have also just seen how Beethoven practically composed one of his "Fidelio" arias at the piano. Nor was this by any means an isolated instance. To cite only one more case: Ries relates that one afternoon he took a walk with Beethoven, returning at eight o'clock. "While we were walking," he continues, "Beethoven had constantly hummed, or almost howled, up and down the scale, without singing definite notes. When I asked him what it was, he replied that a theme for the last allegro of the sonata had come into his head. As soon as we entered the room, he ran to the piano, without taking off his hat. I sat down in a corner, and he had soon forgotten me. For at least an hour he now improvised impetuously on the new and beautiful finale of the sonata [opus 57]." Another of Beethoven's contemporaries, J. Russell, has left us a vivid description of Beethoven when thus composing at the piano, or improvising: "At first he only struck a few short detached chords, as if he were afraid of being caught doing something foolish; but he soon forgot his surroundings, and for about half an hour lost himself in an improvisation, the style of which was exceedingly varied, and especially distinguished by sudden transitions. The amateurs were transported, and to the uninitiated it was interesting to observe how his inspirations were reflected in his countenance. He revelled rather in bold, stormy moods than in soft and gentle ones. The muscles of his face swelled, his veins were distended, his eyes rolled wildly, his mouth trembled convulsively, and he had the appearance of an enchanter mastered by the spirit he had himself conjured."

Russell was probably one of the witnesses of whom Richard Wagner remarked, in his essay on Beethoven, that they have testified to the incomparable impression which Beethoven made by his improvisations at the piano. And Wagner adds the following suggestive words: "The regrets that there was no way of writing down and preserving these instantaneous creations cannot be regarded as unreasonable, even in comparing these improvisations with the master's greatest works, if we bear in mind the fact, taught by experience, that even less gifted musicians, whose written compositions are not free from stiffness and inelegance, sometimes positively amaze us by the quite unexpected and fertile inventiveness which they display while improvising."

A similar remark was made by De Quincey, in pointing out the spontaneous origin of some of his essays: "Performers on the organ," he says, "so far from finding their own impromptu displays to fall below the more careful and premeditated efforts, on the contrary have oftentimes deep reason to mourn over the escape of inspirations and ideas born from the momentary fervors of inspiration, but fugitive and irrevocable as the pulses in their own flying fingers."

By way of illustrating this thesis a few more cases may be cited. Mozart used to sit up late at night, improvising for hours at the piano, and, according to one witness, "these were the true hours of creation of his divine melodies," a statement which, however, we shall presently see reason to modify somewhat. Schubert never improvised in public like Mozart, but only "in the intervals of throwing on his clothes, or at other times when the music within was too strong to be resisted," as Mr. Grove remarks. What an inestimable privilege it must have been to witness the spontaneous overflow of so rich a genius as Schubert! And once more, Max Maria von Weber writes that his father's improvisations on the piano were like delightful dreams. "All who had the good fortune to hear him," he says, "testify that the impression of his playing was like an Elysian frenzy, which elevates a man above his sphere and makes him marvel at the glories of his own soul."

In reading such enthusiastic descriptions--and musical biographies are full of them--we cannot but echo De Quincey and Wagner in regretting that there has been no shorthand method of taking down and preserving these wonderful improvisations of the great masters. Future generations will be more favored, if Mr. Edison's improved phonograph fulfils the promises made of it. For by simply placing one of these instruments near the piano it will be possible hereafter to preserve every note and every accent and shade of expression, and reproduce it subsequently at will. And not only will momentary inspirations be thus preserved, but musicians will no longer be compelled to do all the manual labor of writing down their compositions, but will be able to follow the example of those German professors, who when they wish to write a book, simply engage a stenographer to take down their lectures, which they then revise and forward to the publisher. True, the orchestration will always have to be done by the master's own hands, but in other respects musicians of the future will be as greatly benefited as men of letters by the new phonograph which, it is predicted, will create as great a revolution in social affairs as the telegraph and railroad did when first introduced.

The charm of improvisation lies, of course, in this, that we hear a composer creating and playing at the same time. This very fact, however, ought to make us cautious not to overestimate the value of such improvisations. For we all know how a great genius can invest even a commonplace idea with charm by his manner of expressing or rendering it. It is probable, therefore, that in most cases these improvisations, if noted down and played by others, would not make as deep an impression as the regularly written compositions of the great masters. It is with music as with literature. Schopenhauer says that there are three classes of writers: The first class, which is very numerous, never think at all, but simply reproduce echoes of what they have read in books. The second class, somewhat less numerous, think only while they are writing. But the third class, which is very small, only write after thinking and because their thoughts clamor for utterance.

If we apply this classification to music we see at once that improvising comes under the second head: improvising is thinking or composing while playing. But the greatest musical ideas are those which are conceived entirely in the mind, which needs no pen or piano mechanically to stimulate its creative power. Of this there can be no question, whatever. With an almost absolute unanimity we find that the greatest composers conceived their immortal ideas in the open air, where there was no possibility of coaxing them out of an instrument. And not only is the bare outline thus composed mentally, but the whole composition with all its involved harmonies and varied orchestral colors is present in the composer's mind before he puts it down on paper. The composition of "Der Freischuetz" affords a remarkable confirmation of this statement. Weber began to compose this opera mentally on February 23, but did not write down a single note before the second of July. That is, he kept the full score of this wonderful work in his brain for more than four months, and, as his son remarks, "there is not a number in it which he did not work over ten times in his mind, until it sounded satisfactory and he could say to himself 'That's it,' and then he wrote it down rapidly without hesitation and almost without altering a note."

This power of elaborating a musical score in the mind, and hearing it inwardly, is a gift which unmusical people find it difficult to comprehend, and which even puzzles many musical people. Yet it is a power which all students of music ought to possess; and, like other capacities, it can be easily cultivated and strengthened.

A comparison with two other senses will throw some light on the matter. Most of us can, by thinking fixedly of some appetizing dish, recall its flavor sufficiently to start a nerve current and stimulate the salivary glands. The image of the flavor, so to speak, makes the mouth water. What do we do when we go to a restaurant and look over the bill of fare? We simply, on reading the list, recall a faint gastronomic image, as it were, of each dish, and the one which is most vivid, owing to the peculiar direction of the appetite, decides our choice.

The sense of sight presents many curious analogies. Mr. Galton, in his "Inquiries into Human Faculty," gives the results of a series of investigations which show that there are great differences among persons of distinction in various kinds of intellectual work in the power of recalling to the mind's eye clear and distinct images of what they have seen. Some, for instance, in thinking of the breakfast table, could see all the objects--knives, plates, dishes, etc., in the mental picture as bright as in the actual scene, and in the appropriate colors; others could recall only very dim or blurred images of the scene, or none at all; and all stages, from the highest to the lowest visualizing power, were represented in the letters he received on the subject.

Sometimes these mental images are as vivid as the actual images, or even more vivid. Everybody has heard the story of Blake, who, when he was painting a portrait, only required one sitting, because subsequently he could see the model as distinctly as if he were actually sitting in the chair. Mrs. Haweis wrote to Mr. Galton that all her life she has had at times a waking vision of "a flight of pink roses floating in a mass from right to left," and that before her ninth year they were so large and brilliant that she often tried to touch them; and their scent, she adds, was overpowering.

Much has been written regarding the remarkable feats of Zuckertort and Blackburn who can play as many as sixteen to twenty games of chess at once, and blindfolded. Of course the only way they can do this is by having in the mind a clear picture of each chess-board, with all the figures arranged in proper order.

Mr. Galton says he has among his notes "many cases of persons mentally reading off scores when playing the pianoforte, or manuscripts when they are making speeches;" and he knows a lady, the daughter of an eminent musician, who often imagines she hears her father's playing. "The day she told me of it," he says, "the incident had again occurred. She was sitting in her room with her maid, and she asked the maid to open the door that she might hear the music better. The moment the maid got up the music disappeared."

It is obvious that this case, like that of the eminent painter just referred to, borders closely on the hallucinations of the insane, and Blake did become insane subsequently. But usually there is nothing abnormal or pathologic in the power of mentally recalling sights or sounds, and it would be well if everybody cultivated this power. Mr. Galton mentions an electrical engineer who was able to recall forms with great precision, but not color. But after some exercise of his color memory he became quite an adept in that, too, and declared that the newly-acquired power was a source of much pleasure to him.

In music most of us have the power of recalling a simple melody; and who has not been tormented at times by an unbidden melody persistently haunting his ears until he was almost ready to commit suicide? But to recall a melody at will with any particular tone-color, i.e., to imagine it as being played by a flute, or a violin, or a horn, is much less easy; and still more difficult is it to hear two or more notes at once in the mind, that is to recall harmonies. It is for this reason that people of primitive musical taste care only for operas which are full of "tunes." These they can whistle in the street and be happy, while the harmonies and orchestral colors elude their comprehension and memory. Consequently they call these works "heavy," "scientific," or "intellectual;" whereas if they took pains to educate their musical imaginations, they would soon revel in the magic harmonies of modern operas, with their infinite variety of gorgeous orchestral colors.

Every student of music should carefully heed Schumann's advice. "Exercise your imagination," he says, "so that you may acquire the power of remembering not only the melody of a composition, but also the harmonies which accompany it." And again he says, "You must not rest until you are able to understand music on paper." I remember that, as a small boy, I used to wonder at my father, who often sat in a corner all the evening looking over the score of an opera or symphony. And I was very much surprised at the time when he informed me that this simple reading of the score gave him almost as vivid a pleasure as if he heard it with full orchestra. This power of hearing music with the eyes, as it were, is common to all thorough musicians, and is, of course, most highly developed in the great composers. Schumann even alludes to the opinion, which some one had expressed, that a thorough musician ought to be able, on listening for the first time to a complicated orchestral piece, to see it bodily as a score before his eyes. He adds, however, that this is the greatest feat that could be imagined; and I, for my part, doubt whether even the marvellously comprehensive mind of a musical genius would be able to accomplish it.

These facts illustrate the manner in which composers, being virtuosi of the musical imagination, are able to elaborate mentally, and keep in the memory, a complete operatic or symphonic score, just as, for example, Alexander Dumas, when he wished to write a new novel, used to hire a yacht and sail on Southern waters for several days, lying on his back--which, by the way, is an excellent method of starting a train of thought--and thus arranging all the details of the plot in his mind.

The exact way in which original ideas come into the mind is, of course, a mystery in music as in literature. Every genius passes through a period of apprenticeship, in which he assimilates the discoveries of his predecessors, reminiscences of which make up the bulk of his early works. Everybody knows how Mozartish, e.g., Beethoven's first symphony is, and how much in turn Mozart's early works smack of Haydn. Gradually, as courage comes with years, the gifted composer sets out for unexplored forests and mountain ranges, attempting to scale summits which none of his predecessors had trod. I say, as courage comes, for in music, strange to say, it requires much courage to give the world an entirely new thought. An original composer needs not only the courage that is common to all explorers, but he must invariably come back prepared to face the accusation that his new territory is nothing but a howling wilderness of discords. This has been the case quite recently with Wagner, as it was formerly with Schumann, Beethoven, Mozart, the early Italian composers, and many others, including even Rossini, who certainly did not deviate very far from the beaten paths. Seyfried relates that when Beethoven came across articles in which he was criticised for violating established rules of composition, he used to rub his hands gleefully and burst out laughing. "Yes, yes!" he exclaimed, "that amazes them, and makes them put their heads together, because they have not seen it in any of their text-books."

Fortunately for their own peace of mind, the majority of the minor composers never get beyond a mere rearrangement of remembered melodies and modulations. Their minds are mere galleries of echoes. They write for money or temporary notoriety, and not because their brains teem with ideas that clamor for utterance. The pianist Hummel was one of this class of composers. But whatever his short-comings, he had at least, as Wagner admits, the virtue of frankness. For when he was asked one day what thoughts or images he had in his mind when he composed a certain concerto, he replied that he had been thinking of the eighty ducats which his publisher had promised him!

Yet even the greatest composers cannot always command new thoughts at will, and it is therefore of interest to note what devices some of them resorted to rouse their dormant faculties. Weber's only pupil, Sir Julius Benedict, relates that Weber spent many mornings in "learning by heart the words of 'Euryanthe,' which he studied until he made them a portion of himself, his own creation, as it were. His genius would sometimes lie dormant during his frequent repetitions of the words, and then the idea of a whole musical piece would flash upon his mind, like the bursting of light into darkness."