NINETEENTH-CENTURY SONG ACHIEVEMENT Brahms.—The unerring sagacity of Brahms discerned that the possibilities of song on the lines set by Schubert were far from being exhausted : his practical mind preferred to develop those possibilities rather than to seek after strange and novel methods, conforming thus, in song, to his practice in other branches of com position. A broad melodic outline was for him essential; also a strong contrapuntal bass. In form, the majority of his songs are strophic and follow the orthodox ABA or AABA pattern (the letters standing for stanzas), the central portion, B, being so or ganized as to offer, with the least possible introduction of new ma terial, a heightened contrast with the opening portion through changes of rhythm and tonality, and at the same time to justify itself by producing the mood in which the return to the opening portion is felt as a logical necessity. Chromatic effects in Brahms's scheme of melody are rarely introduced till the middle section, the opening being almost invariably diatonic. It must, however, be admitted that Brahms's formal perfection involves some awkward handling of words, as in the second stanza of "Feldeinsamkeit"; sometimes, as in Nos. 3 and 4 of the Magelone Lieder, they are frankly sacrificed to that formal development of material which has already been criticized in the cases of Mozart and Beethoven.
No part of his songs deserves closer study than the few bars of instrumental prelude and conclusion; in them is enshrined the very essence of his conception of a poem. It may almost be said that, since Schumann set the example, the first and the last word have passed from the voice to the instrument, from the singer to the accompanist, who is called upon to understand poetry as well as music. Mastery in close organization of form was allied in Brahms not only with the warmth and tenderness of romance, but with the imagination and insight of an earnest thinker. Con centration of style and of thought are nowhere else in the his tory of the Lied combined on a plane so high as that which is reached, with all perfection of melodic and harmonic beauty, in "Schwermuth," "Der Tod, das ist die kale Nacht," "Mit vierzig Jahren," "Am Kirchhof," "0 wiisst' ich doch den Weg zuriick," and the "Vier ernste Gesange," which closed the list of his 197 songs. The alliance to song of so dangerous a companion as phi
losophy, or at any rate of thoughts which are philosophical rather than lyrical, proved no obstacle to Brahms's equal success in the realm of romance. This side of his genius may be illustrated by numerous songs from the Magelone cycle (notably "Wie froh and frisch" and "Rube, suss Liebchen") and by many others such as "Liebestreu," "Die Mainacht," "Feldeinsamkeit," "Wie rafft' ich mich auf in der Nacht," "Minnelied," "Immer leise wird mein Schlummer," "Lerchengesang," "Wie Melodien zieht es," "Ge heimniss" and "Dein blaues Auge." It has already been said that Brahms was a student of Schu bert. If he had not Schubert's spontaneity of melody, he restored it to its Schubertian place of supreme importance. In spite of all the tendencies of his age, he never shirked that supreme test of a composer, the power to originate and organize melody, but it is melody which with its long phrases, its wide skips and something uncompromising in its nature may repel those hearers who are unable to attain to his level of thought and feeling. All mere prettiness and elegance are as alien to his nature as sentimental weakness on the one hand, or realistic scene painting on the other, so that, for the world at large, his popularity has been jeopardized by an attitude which is felt to be unnecessarily lofty and austere. It has found it difficult. to reconcile itself to the treatment of modern lyrical poetry in a style whose elaborate contrapuntal texture differs as much from the delicate polyphony of Schu mann, as that in its turn differed from the broad harmonic style of Schubert. But that Brahms is not difficult without reason, or elaborate when he might. have been simple, may perhaps be as sumed from the preference he felt for his slighter songs in the Volksthfonlich form and style (e.g., "Abschied," "Sonntag," "Ver gebliches Standchen" and "Wiegenlied").