Song

Loewe and Weber.

Of his contemporaries, Loewe deserves mention for his singular success in overcoming the difficulties in volved in setting long ballads to music. To preserve homogeneity in a form in which simple narration presents perpetually shifting changes of action, of picture, of mood, is a problem which Schu bert himself only once triumphantly solved. Weber contributed nothing of permanent value to song, outside his operas, beyond a few strophic songs of a popular nature. He disqualified himself for higher work by that singular preference for vapid and trivial verse, which so often led Haydn and Mozart astray.

Mendelssohn and Schumann.

Mendelssohn's literary tastes took him often to the best poems but he made but little at tempt to penetrate beyond their superficial and obvious import. His own lovable personality is far more clearly revealed in his songs than the spirit of his poets. Differences of literary style affected the style of his music less than that of any other dis tinguished composer. He attained his highest level in "Auf Fliigeln des Gesanges," in the first of the two songs to "Zuleika," and "Nachtlied." It is noteworthy that there is no trace of Schubert's influence. Had he never lived, Mendelssohn's songs would have been just the same. Hence, in spite of graceful and flowing melodies, simple in form and instinct with that polished taste and charm of man ner which endeared both himself and his works to his own genera tion, his songs have exercised no permanent influence upon the art. Their immediate influence, it is true, was enormous: it is felt occasionally in Schumann, only too of ten in Robert Franz, and in the work of many composers of more or less distinction in many countries besides his own, such as Gade, Lindblad, Sterndale Ben nett and others who need not be specified.

Of far greater importance is the work of Robert Schumann, whose polyphonic methods of technique and peculiarly epigram matic style enabled him to treat complex phases of thought and feeling, which had hardly become prominent in Schubert's time, with extraordinary success. Both by temperament and by choice he identified himself with the so-called Romantic movement, a movement in which both poetry and music have tended more and more to become a personal revelation rather than "a criticism of life." With Schubert, who was the very incarnation of ro mance, the note of universality, that abiding mark of the classical composers, is stronger than the impress of his own personality.

With Schumann the reverse is the case. If the Romantic move ment gave a new impetus of vast importance both to music and literature, it had its weaker side in extremes of sensibility which were not always equivalent to strength of feeling. Mendelssohn's songs admittedly err on the side of sentimentality—Schumann, with Liszt, Jensen, and Franz, frequently betrays the same weak ness. His best work appears in the settings of Heine's lyrics (es pecially pecially the "Dichterliebe"), in the "Eichendorff," "Liederkreis, in Chamisso's "Frauenliebe und Leben," and a fair number of other songs, such as "Widmung," "Der Nussbaum," "Auftrage,:: and on the dramatic side in "Der Soldat," "Die Karten-Legerin" and "Die beiden Grenadiere," all strong in feeling and full of poetic and imaginary qualities of a high order. He realized that the new poetry called for new methods of treatment. These Schu mann, instinctively an experimenter, provided, first, by a closer attention to the minutiae of declamation than had hitherto been attempted, and herein syncopation and suspension provide possi bilities unsuspected even by Schubert (in whose work hardly a case of syncopation will be found in the voice part) ; secondly, by increasing the role of the pianoforte accompaniment—and in this he was helped on the one hand by novel methods of technique, of which himself and Chopin were the chief originators, and on the other by his loving study of Bach, which imparted a polyphonic element which was new to modern song. In nearly all Schubert's songs, and in all of Mendelssohn's, the melody allotted to the voice is an essential factor. In Schumann the role of interpreter often passes to the accompaniment, while the voice'declaims the words, as in "Es ist ein Floten und Geigen," or "Rosslein," but the notes in which it declaims them are musically important. Consist ently with this attitude, he gave increased prominence to the opening and closing instrumental symphonies; these became in his hands no merely formal introductions or conclusions, but an integral part of the whole conception and fabric of the Lied. This may be illustrated by many numbers of the "Dichterliebe," but most remarkable is its final page, in which the pianoforte, after the voice has stopped, sums up the whole meaning of the cycle.