with the more direct and vivid emotions of the stage. But most of all may we thank the conditions of Brahms' life for supplying him with the atmosphere which his genius essentially needed. A style so opulent, so original, so perfect in form and balance, could only have been elaborated in seclusion. And it is as a master of form that he will live. To no one since Beethoven, and to one other alone beside Beethoven, has there been granted such unerring certainty of phrase, or such wide and comprehensive grasp of structure. True, Mozart has shown once for all that music can be made wholly transparent; his writing has every quality of precision and delicacy, of charm and sweetness; but Mozart at his greatest never attains the broad virile strength which Brahms has inherited from Bach and Beethoven. And it is false criticism to estimate a style merely by the continuity of its triumphs. Much depends on the nature of the enemy against which it was contending, and in this respect a high failure may often overleap the bounds of a low success. And, further, when the music is full and complex we have no right to expect the lucidity which reveals its truth at a single glance; it is enough if we ultimately attain to the meaning, and recognize that it was but our weakness which obscured it before. A stream is not necessarily turbid because cannot count the pebbles at the bottom; it may baffle our imperfect eyes by the depth of its waters and the volume of its current. It is thus with a great deal of Brahms' music. At first hearing we are often bewildered by the very complexity of the phrase; our ears are overcharged with excess of sound; we are conscious that the web is of magnificent texture, but we cannot unravel it, or even, as yet, interpret its design. A little further experience, a little closer familiarity, and the difficulties begin to disappear. Gradually the eye acquires power and confidence; the chaos becomes order; the confusion melts into beauty and arrangement; and there emerges a scene of gods and heroes so we clear, so vivid that we look back and marvel at our blindness. There is probably no student of Brahms who has not at some time felt this sense of awakening. The obscurity of which amateurs complain arises not from deficiency of light, but from deficiency of attention. It may possibly be asked whether the need of such attention is not in itself a sign of artistic weakness; whether it does not belong to self-conscious and Alexandrine days in which music has ceased to be spontaneous and has become reflective and calculating. Plato has told us that the highest beauty is simple in character; and there is more of the true poet in "dewdrops of Celestial melody" than in elaborate monologues and ingenious allegories. There is something painful, industrious, mechanical about an art which involves so much expenditure of labor; better the careless rapture that recks nothing of rule and measure, that sings without thought, without premeditation, unconscious even that it is overheard, oblivious of all except its own need of utterance. But in the first place the complexity of Brahms is not a matter of superfluous lines and unnecessary details; it is the grasp of an artist who can compose a hundred figures as readily as a score; and in the second place the strong intellectual element in his work is to be regarded as constituting not the source of his poetic impulse but its requisite guidance and control. The Alexandrine method of composition, the Kapellmeistermusik of Wagner's epigram, is always essentially imitative, drawing inspiration from its library and assimilating style from its models. Brahms, though like every great composer he is affected by past tradition, is yet one of the most original of thinkers; he administers a kingdom that he has inherited by right of race, and is not the less a monarch because others have preceded him in the dynasty. That there is sometimes a touch of deliberation in his music we are not concerned to deny; it is a characteristic of the age, and he has adapted it to its noblest use. But to infer from this that the work is dull or academic or artificial is merely to show that perverse ingenuity in paradox which is sometimes mistaken for the critical faculty. We do not call the human body a machine on the ground that it is a highly developed organism directed by a thinking mind. It is important that some stress should be laid on this aspect of Brahms' writing, at a time when German music seems to be entering on a period of riot and intemperance. It has conquered its empire; it has enjoyed the rewards of victory; its last great legislator is dead; already there begin to appear the signs of corruption which often follow too long a period of prosperity. Excessive sensationalism, excessive stimulation, thought that is often morbid, phrase that is often deliberately harsh and cacophonous; all these are the marks of an art that has passed its prime, and that strives by desperate artifice to stir the jaded senses into a semblance of their lost vigor. Like certain classes of literature, it has left the natural passions and gone off in quest of the monstrous and the horrible; its talents-and there are many men of great talent in its ranks-are misused to evoke some transitory thrill; it has lost all reticence, all purity, all dignity of tone, and has degraded its religion into a corybantic orgy. There is little wonder if beside this the music of Brahms appears cold and self-contained. The "old blind schoolmaster's tedious poem on the fall of man" seemed a very dull affair to readers who had Sedley and Rochester; the wits of the Parc aux Cerfs preferred their evil and poisonous romances to any more austere embodiment of French genius; but, apart from the ethical question, which we are too ready to disregard, there can never be the smallest doubt as to which is the winning cause. If German music returns from its period of anarchy it may once more resume its high position in the artistic world. If not, the sceptre will pass into other hands. This is not the place to describe in detail the features that distinguish Brahms' manner of composition. In his early days he started with an almost obstinate force and vigor, lavishing a strength which he had no care to economize, and making perhaps too little concession to the limitations of his auditors. But the year that marked the turning-point in his life marked also the turning-point in his style, and the first two piano quartets which he brought in manuscript to Vienna already indicate that feeling for mellowness and geniality which steadily grew and developed up to the end of his career. We need only instance the D minor Violin Sonata, the second string quintet, and, better still, the great chamber work for clarinet and strings, all of which were written during the later years, and all of which possess that golden opulence of beauty which his highest work so conspicuously displays. Yet it is easy to overstate the changes that followed from the course of age and experience. The B flat Sestet is an early work, the pianoforte quintet is not much later, the "Schicksalslied" was written in 1871, and the second Symphony in 1877. And in all these we shall find the same richness of polyphony, the same love of deep and massive harmonization, the same contrasts of pale transparence and glowing color, the same broad diatonic melody, the same unerring mastery of chromatic effect. Some of his qualities he shares notoriously with Bach: the moving bass, the independence of partwriting, the balance held between contrapuntal and harmonic ideals; but he adds to these a sense of structure and a power of narration which could only have come after a century of later experience. In his form he is largely influenced by Beethoven, more so, indeed, than any composer of our time, yet he has not failed to gather from the best of the romantic movement, and to augment the whole with treasure from his own store. The common devices of the composer-syncopation, transference of themes, combination of rhythmic figures, organization of key-system-acquire with him a new value and signincance; we can trace their ancestry to are From The Leisure Hour. A PROVENCAL SKETCH. The recent death of M. Paul Arène at a little over fifty years of age has revived in France a marked interest in the literary work of this delightful conteur. Alphonse Daudet, in his "Lettres de mon Moulin" has scarcely surpassed Paul Arène as a painter of sunny southern pictures and a teller of short stories free from all apparent effort, and yet gems of literary art. The pure form, the clean-cut precision of language, and the simple methods and practices of a past age, but they more subtle, more delicate, more civilized than their forerunners. And when to this it is added that for pure charm of tune Brahms has been equalled by no composer since the death of Schubert; that beside his melodies even Chopin seems trivial, and even Schumann ineffective; there need be no further question about his claim to immortality. Had he written nothing but his songs he would be one of the greatest names in musical art, and his songs are but a small por- the idyllic charm of Paul Arène's contes tion of his whole achievement. It is probable that another decade or two will pass before his full influence is felt on the course and progress of composition. At present we only half understand his message, and must attain to a fuller comprehension we can interpret it in our own practice. And, beside this, there is every indication that a period of Slavonic supremacy is at hand, and we cannot as yet before forecast either the limits of its tenure or the character of its administration. Yet changes of dynasty, though they count for more than changes of potentate, have rarely exercised any permanent influence on the direction of events. The principles of historical development lie deeper than the record of kings and conquerors, revolution itself is more often a symptom than a cause, and the true efficient force originates in the fundamental needs of human nature. This is conspicuously so in the history of music. There freedom means order, broadening from precedent to precedent, and willing to take what is best in the heritage of past attainment and to hand on the tradition, amended and revised, for the guidance of the generations to come. And it is in thus maintaining the continuity of the art that Brahms has done it the most signal service. Leaders of mere anarchy and revolt have usually found their reward in swift oblivion; through all ages it is the lawgiver that is had in remembrance. W. H. HADOW. have caused him to be spoken of as a hood, only allowed the ancient learning mained beneath the blue skies of Provence, with the almond-trees, the wild figs, the clambering vines, and the joyous cicadas that he loved so much; but there was in his mind that which would not combine with the peasant's lot. He strove to enter the intellectual life by one of the lower doors opened to ambition by the University of France, and succeeded, no doubt beyond his earlier expectations, yet he died a prematurely worn-out and a disappointed man. Although a licentiate of letters, his "schoolmastering"-to use Carlyle's contemptuous but concise expressiondid not go beyond the position of a répétiteur, or preceptorial drudge in a public school, but it enabled him to live while he patiently bored the rock that separated him from the recognition of as one who had a his fellow men message worth delivering in the form of literature. But he never really He excelled reached the great public. in fashioning cameos of delicate beauty, knife, while Madame Peyrolles returned and these only. A few readers carried to her grievance. their admiration to enthusiasm, but the crowd remained indifferent. The incessant struggle of Paul Arène's life having at length ceased, we now hear of statues to be raised in different places to his memory. The best known of his contes is "La Chèvre d'Or." The following is a translation of a shorter one, the scene of which is also laid in Provence: 66 LES BRAVES GENS ("GOOD FOLK ”). As the silkworms had turned out badly, that good woman Madame Peyrolles happened to be in a rather sharp humor, and M. Peyrolles, with a spirit of resignation, listened as she repeated "Ave Maria!" without daring to offer a remark. "Ten pounds of cocoons!" sighed Madame Peyrolles. "Not so much as the worth of the eggs. Who could buy a shawl with that?" "Never mind, Ambroisine, you will buy one next year. Twelve months soon go by." "Who has ever seen next year? Only one thing is certain, and it is that I shall not have the shawl this year. And yet I had reckoned upon it!" Madame Peyrolles having lapsed into silence again, M. Peyrolles, thinking that the weather had calmed, picked up a nail and his pruning-knife with the intention of taking a turn in the garden. Madame Peyrolles stopped him. "Do leave the trees alone! You will have time enough to-morrow to disfigure them. Before it was meddled with, the old espalier always bore fruit, but since that great savant from Paris passed through Canteperdrix and delivered that famous lecture at the club, and since we have subscribed to the Revue d'arboriculture, and you, deep in your methods, your grafts, your fruit-buds and other buds, have been snipping and chopping, I have not known the taste of a pear." Hurt by this philippic, the justice of which he was secretly obliged to admit, M. Peyrolles put down the pruning "So much trouble, and all for nothing! For the last two months we have been killing ourselves, working night and day with Scholastique, to whom I promised my old shawl when I should have the new one, and who all next winter will have to wear her pelisse of Indienne at the seven o'clock mass. First the silkworms were in too great a hurry to come out of their eggs. They appeared a week too soon, before there was any green on the mulberries. Every morning we had to pick leaves from the brambles along the ditches like a couple of gypsies. There are scratches on my fingers still. Then, when after their second sleep they all of a sudden looked sad, who was it, at the risk of tumbling down, gathered on the castle rocks the lavender and marjoram needed for fumigating them? And what bother there was besides! At last they seemed to be going on all right, my silkworms were at the end of their third sleepbright as gold, fat, transparent, and full of silk. Already they were climbing up the twigs of heather; the bravest of them were even spinning, fixing their threads to the right and left, when that storm broke. After the first thunderclap I saw the poor creatures come down to die. What a disaster! Scholastique cried, and I had a mind to do the same." M. Peyrolles' heart was touched. To brace up his courage he had to take a double pinch out of his tortoise-shell snuff-box. For some seconds he and Madame Peyrolles looked at one another in silence. M. and Madame Peyrolles, or M. Victrice and Madame Ambroisine, as they were familiarly spoken of in the locality, were in the fullest sense of the term old-fashioned people. Although very old (Charles X. was still reigning when they were married) they were nevertheless in good health. They had a little independence derived from very small rentes, but such as in days gone by would have been accounted a fortune. Really poor now, they were not aware of it, for they had grown old without creating for themselves any of the needs of the new society. And they were happy after the manner of fifty years ago in their small house in the Grand' Place, where the furniture that had grown dull and faded little by little, and the mirrors that had slowly become tarnished, were of the same unchangeable freshness to them, thanks to the recollection. On each returning April, however, Madame Ambroisine in a high whitewashed loft spread out an ounce or two of silk-worms' eggs. When the yield was good it enabled the Peyrolles to indulge in a few little luxuries. The rearing of silkworms is not looked upon at Canteperdrix as an occupation of the working class, and the old-fashioned and impoverished bourgeoisie in this provincial nook liked to increase their income a little in such a way without feeling that they had come down from their station. But alas! Madame Ambroisine's silkworms had not been successful this year. a baker his cart. In this two chairs were firmly moored, and on these M. and Madame Peyrolles placed themselves in the midst of the baggage and provisions accumulated by Scholastique. Said she: "You will go straight on as far as Entrepierres" (she knew the country), "then you will leave the highroad, but any one will tell you the lane that you must take. You will stop at a spring under an oak for lunch, but as carts cannot go any higher, madame must afterwards mount the donkey. I have placed the pack-saddle at the back of the cart. I wonder if you will be able to saddle the donkey?" The programme marked out by Scholastique was followed, and after four good hours of up-hill work over scrubby and stony ground the travellers reached the Jas perdu de Brame-Faim. "It is not beautiful!" said Madame Ambroisine, pulling hard at the donkey's bridle so that she might take a good look at the reddish-looking hovel Suddenly the good face of M. Victrice built of pebbles, from the low roof of brightened up. "How stupid we are! I can buy the shawl for you, of course I can. There is our rent from the Jas de Brame-Faim. We have had nothing of it since our poor uncle left us the property, and that was two years ago. At one hundred and fifty francs a year the total comes to three hundred francs without the interest-just the sum that you hoped to get from your cocoons." As M. and Madame Peyrolles thought over this their spirits rose. How could they have so procrastinated! Why, three hundred francs was quite a sum. And they had not so much as seen the face of this Frédéri, the farmer. For a whole week M. and Madame Peyrolles spoke of nothing but the journey. Now it was not altogether easy to reach the domain of BrameFaim on a hill above the village of Entrepierres, which was itself perched high. The ascent would take four hours, and it would need as much time to return. This meant a whole day's absence. Everything was at length ready. A neighbor lent her donkey and which a little smoke was rising. "The wheat is very straggling," remarked M. Victrice. "I can see the crickets running in it." Here Madame Ambroisine exclaimed "Bah! You cannot expect to have the castle of the Marquis de Carabas for one hundred and fifty francs a year!" Assisted by M. Victrice, Madame Ambroisine alighted from the donkey, and, followed by the latter, they moved towards the house. But what they saw there impressed them with such an air of wretchedness that they already felt uncomfortable at the thought of asking for money. "You will speak first and explain matters, Victrice!" "I think it would be better for you to do so, Ambroisine!" At the sight of them, two urchins who were playing on a heap of straw took to their heels. Their mother, who was spinning from her distaff while sitting on the trunk of a tree, now rose. "You have lost your way? No doubt you want to go to Pierre-Ecrite. It is farther down, near the spring." |