Read Ebook: History of the pianoforte and pianoforte players by Bie Oskar Kellett E E Ernest Edward Translator Naylor Edward W Edward Woodall Translator

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It is true that we justly judge Bird chiefly from the modern point of view, since we are investigating the progress of history, and therefore work for the new, the developing, rather than for the old. But it is precisely from this point of view that he presents such surprises that we are not at first able to form a decisive opinion about him. I find a quiet pleasure in observing his harmonies, which are felt rather than calculated, as, for example, the sudden D major chord in the famous song, "John, come kiss me now" , and in studying the delicate parallel legato passages, the gradual change of melody, the growing complexity, the unusual variations, the alternation of hands, the rhythmical developments. In the ninth variation there run together plain quavers, dotted quavers, and the melody above all.

New suggestions, aroused by the clavier, are constantly being introduced. Prelude xxiv. has a stiff structure. The Passamezzo-Pavan and Galliard present broken chords as a genuine clavier-motif, and the most delicate canonic repetitions by means of a thematic modulation from the key of F to that of G. Very neat is the descending D C A in the seventh galliard-variation alternating with E D B. Bird is particularly fond of writing a passage based on a chord of F, and immediately followed by another based on G. This is akin to the practice of the drone in bagpipes, and has analogy with the ancient "Pes," or "pedal" two-part vocal accompaniment in "Sumer is icumen in." The similarity to the bagpipe drone is rather striking in "The woods so wild" or in "The Bells," where the lower bell voices repeat themselves in a way that reminds us of the pedal bass of Chopin's Berceuse.

The rich technique of "Fortune" , the wealth of figures in "O Mistress Mine" , the harmonies of the Passamezzo dances , cling to the memory. But chief are his two most modern clavier-pieces--the variations on "The Carman's Whistle" and "Sellinger's Round" . These have often been issued in popular form, and in Pauer's collection are provided with modern execution marks.

"The Carman's Whistle" is a perfected popular melody, one of those tunes which will linger for days in our ears. At the beginning of the third and fourth bars Bird sets the first and second bars in canon, in the simplest and most straightforward style. Next come harmonies worthy of a Rameau, with the most delicate passing notes. In the variations certain figures are inserted which are easily worked into the canonic form, now legato with the charm of the introduction of related notes, now diatonic scales most gracefully introduced, now staccato passages which draw the melody along with them like the singing of a bird. Finally fuller chords appear, gently changing the direction of the theme. From first to last there is not a turn foreign to the modern ear.

The "Sellinger's Round" is more stirring. Its theme is in a swinging 6/8 rhythm, running easily through the harmonies of the tonic, the super-dominant and the sub-dominant. It strikes one like an old legend, as in the first part of Chopin's Ballade in F major, of which this piece is a prototype. The first variation retains the rhythm and only breaks the harmonies. Its gentle fugalisation is more distinctly marked in the third variation, which at the conclusion adopts running semiquavers, after Bird's favourite manner, anticipating at the conclusion of the one variation the motive of the next. The semiquavers go up and down in thirds, or are interwoven by both hands, while melody and accompaniment continue their dotted 6/8, in a fashion reminding us of Schumann. In the later variations the quaver movement is again taken up, but more florid and more varied with runs which pursue each other in canon. This piece, perhaps the first perfect clavier-piece on record, which had left its time far behind, was written in 1580.

Alongside of William Bird stands Dr John Bull . These two represent the two types which run through the whole history of the clavier. Bird, the more intimate, delicate, spiritual intellect; Bull, the untamed genius, the flashing executant, the restless madcap, the rougher artist. It is noticeable how these two types stand thus together on the very threshold of the clavier-art.

John Bull, at nineteen, became organist of Hereford Cathedral, and at twenty-two a member of the Royal Chapel. In the following year he becomes Bachelor of Music of Oxford, three years later Doctor of Music of both Oxford and Cambridge. When, in 1596, Sir Thomas Gresham founded his College in London, he was made Professor in Music, and that without lecturing in Latin. But he held this post no more than five years. We find him, "on grounds of health," travelling in foreign countries. His playing created the greatest enthusiasm. The French, the Spanish, and the Austrian courts were in a furore. Like all later executants, he is the subject of myths. There is an anecdote that a kapellmeister of St Omer showed him, as an extraordinary curiosity, a piece in forty parts. Bull, nothing daunted, added another forty parts to it. The kapellmeister stares, and takes him for the devil himself. After an absence of six years he returned to England, where, like his satanic prototype, he resists all authority. He resigned all academic positions, threw up his post in the Royal Chapel, and in 1613 again set out, without permission, for the Continent. Four years later he emerges as organist of Notre Dame in Antwerp, where he died in 1628.

Doctor Bull's flying fingers, utterly altering as they did many a church-tune and many a dance, were constantly making discoveries among the clavier-figures, just as the worst of executants has since done. Thus, in Bull's somewhat bewildering forest, we find many a germ of future wealth: broken triads, which even in the contrary motion of both hands delight us in the midst of all kinds of consecutive fifths; broken octaves, of which Beethoven was so fond, a greater frequency of the crossing of the hands, by which the voice-part gained a wider field, and finally endless repetitions of the same note, either singly or in the middle of a passage,--this last a genuine clavier-device, for which later the new repeating mechanism was invented. Also, in harmonic relation, Bull seeks out many novelties, boldly bending the voice-part to his will; as he does in the truly stupendous Prelude No. 43, in the Virginal Book, or in the bold enharmonic modulation in Piece 51, an exercise in DO, RE, MI, FA, SOL, LA, a theme which appears a tone higher at each repetition, starting from G, in the midst of close figuration, until the C sharp simply changes to D flat.

There is a Lute Book of Bull's in Vienna which gives us pieces like the following: "Miserere Mei," "Galliard," "La chasse du Roy," "Salve Regina," "Canon perpetuus, carens scriptura, notulis in systemati positis scriptus," and so on. Let us not think too badly of them. The Virginal Book also has a variegated collection. In the time of variations, "variatio delectat," there are collections for household use, which are not necessarily an indication of a want, on the part of the originator, of the sense of the characteristic in an instrument. At this epoch the instrument delivers men from the mediaeval love of grouping instruments. And I even find that Bull in certain pieces has shown a noteworthy sense for characteristic. He has once a simple bag-pipe melody e f e d e f d c, called "Les Buffons," with a series of variations in humorous style. There are at first chords with simple broken accompaniment, then hopping semiquaver figures, then a popular canon, then slurred sixths, and similarly right on to the conclusion, which is as usual fully harmonised, in the turns of which, of course, his want of plasticity, as contrasted with Bird, is clearly shown. More striking still is the working out of his best-known piece, the variations on the fresh delightful song, the "King's Hunt," giving us a romantic reminiscence of horns and trumpets. Something of this romance runs through his figures. He uses the horn-motive of the second part specially for a longer variation, which is simple and full of character. The flourish of runs in quavers, which he also uses in Galliard No. 17 of the Virginal Book, and the systematic answering of right-hand chords by the left hand, which appears also in Galliard 11, are here specially characteristic. We seem to see tramping horses and waving flags delineated in ancient technique. He was specially good in such hunting pieces. On the musical side, as his somewhat awkward variations on the fine "Jewel," though among his best pieces, clearly show, he cannot be compared to the magical Bird; but his sense for characteristic and for technique has aided the advance of the clavier. Both of these superiorities are parts of his nature, which expressed itself most completely in this style. The clavier needed both types.

In their clearness of arrangement and harmonious development, so far as they do not deal with dance or song, the majority of the pieces of the Virginal Book are marked by the spirit of the Toccata of the great Dutchman Sweelinck, which appears as Piece 96. Here the spirit of Bach is seen before its time. Gradually the distinctive edges of individuality fade away. A piece by Thomas Morley on the theme, "Goe from my window," whose melody he himself partially employs again in his "Nancie," appears again almost unaltered in the same Virginal Book, and is then ascribed to John Munday. With John Blow, Henry Purcell, Thomas Augustine Arne, in the following generations, English clavier music blends with the general Continental stream, till it is absorbed and must seek its nourishment from without.

Readers who do not know the picture must not be misled by this expression. St Jerome's window-frames are filled with numberless little rounds of bottle-glass.

The bagpipers play before Othello's house, and the clown reproves their nasal tone. Othello himself gave them money to go away, which argues rather in his favour. As for Caliban, he was a true musician, except when drunk. Even then he liked howling catches. See especially Tempest, Act iii. 2, 136.

Readers to whom this ancient method of composition is new will find in Mendelssohn's "St Paul," an easily accessible example, viz.: the chorus "But our God abideth in Heaven," where the second trebles sing in long notes the old melody of the Apostles' Creed. No one could recognise it in the midst of the counterpoint of the other vocal parts, and this is the point in question; namely, that the mediaeval writers used secular tunes in the same way, and were held blameless.

Named after Jacques Arcadelt, of the early sixteenth century, one of the many natives of Flanders who so distinguished that period of Madrigal composition; a first-rate man.

This paragraph replaces some rather obscure sentences in the original, and aims at conveying their general sense.

An excellent book, which ought to be known widely, containing many examples of early lute music, is W. G. v. Wasielewski's History of sixteenth century instrumental music. Berlin, 1878.

Another spelling for Pavana, or Pavan, slow dance in square time.

See "Shakespeare and Music," pp. 169-171, for other English examples.

"The English call it quite appositely by the name 'Consort' when several persons with various instruments, such as ... etc. ... play together in sweet concord with one another."

It is misleading to say "in six parts." There are six voices, but the canon proper only takes four. The other two sing, independently of the canon, a "bussing bass," founded alternately on Do and Re.

In the early seventeenth century it was matter of complaint in England that "French songs" and instrumental music "in the Italian manner" were more popular than necessary.

These were also called by the plain English name "fancies."

One of the many names of what we know best as "harpsichord."

This is also the case with the English variations. The last one is commonly the most valuable and convincing.

It is right to mention here that Thomas Tallis actually did write a motet in forty parts, "Spem in alium non habui," which, thanks to the enthusiasm of Dr Mann of Cambridge, has been published , and performed in public on more than one occasion during the last few years.

Meaning a "manufacturer" of show pieces.

The mordent is a grace where the main note is alternated rapidly with the note below.

This is a really fine passage, and bears every mark of the madrigal for double chorus.

The author here makes a startling leap of a century or so in his chronicle of English composers. From Munday, who was a grown man in 1586, he suddenly goes to Blow and Purcell, who flourished in 1690, and even mentions Arne in the same breath, who died in 1778.

Old French Dance-Pieces

The independent musical fame of England--omitting Purcell, the evening star--rests solely on this early period. Hence we have been led to trace the musical history of England further back than that of countries where the stream spread over a wider area. Old English music, indeed, had no influence worthy of the name. It stands, like a half-mediaeval prelude, before the actual history of the piano. It is true that it shows the forces which are to work in the future; but they are not yet brought into the line which they are constantly and exclusively to follow. This process begins rather in France; it unites itself later with a second movement which comes from Italy, and follows a broader and more lively path through Germany until it reaches our own times.

The emancipation in France was due to the attainment of a point of departure which was as distant as possible from anything vocal. The dance--although of course there were some sung dances--had early allied itself with the purely instrumental exercise. It has never been treated so entirely "? plaisir des gorges," as Gargantua expresses it. It had a stiff arrangement in common with a stiff harmony. It never showed much affinity with the contrapuntal twists and turns of the voice, to which song associates itself so easily from its close connection with choral music. If we compare the earliest instrumental dances of the sixteenth century with the dances, in several parts, of the old song-books--the "Rat's-Tail," the "Crane-Bill," "Fox-Tail," "Cat's-Paw," "Peacock's-Tail," and the like, we see how rapidly the influence of the instrument over a clear and light vocal current was increased in France. Here especially does the dance, from the very earliest times, enjoy great popularity. It is very early set to the lute or the clavier, other instruments being but rarely employed. Men grew accustomed to pieces in a condensed musical style, harmonised simply and melodiously, contracted in form. These were regarded on their own merits, and not as subjects for variations and figurations. It was for this reason that the French clavier-piece was more fruitful, more musical, and more capable of development than the English.

The dance then is the darling conception of French music; and French dances are the nucleus of all instrumental music. So early as 1530--for we can go back a great distance--the Paris printer, Attaignant, the oldest of French note-engravers, published all kinds of musical volumes "reduict de musique en la tablature du jeu d'Orgues, Espinettes, Manicordions," etc. We wonder to-day how M. Attaignant could transcribe his pieces "out of music" into the script of organs, spinets and monochords. But by "music" he meant nothing more nor less than song, and song, down to his day, was nothing more nor less than music. A few years after the German music-publisher Agricola wrote:--

"Drumb lern singen du kneblein klein Itzund inn den jungen jarn dein, Recht nach musicalischer art Las aber keinen vleis gespart."

"Thou little boy, come learn to sing, Now, ere thy youth has taken wing. Let all be done with art refined, And give thereto thy heart and mind."

A hundred years after, the dance still rules French music, and not merely French music, but French life. The forms of social intercourse, as they were fashioned for the universal use of Europe at the court of the Parisian princes, were modelled on the broad rhythms of the dance. Going and coming, bowing and sitting, complimenting and smiling--all the pleasure in the formal beauty of hollow conventionalities, all this is nothing but the light and yet regulated step, the theatrical and yet sympathetic essence of the dance. The French people, having resolved to live their life, determined to do it prettily; and therefore to put even their ordinary motions and common gestures under the mild rule of the dancing master. Even in rough and ready England, traces of this are extant; witness the would-be grace of the formula of "introduction."

After the time of Lully, who had done so much for the development of the characteristic dance, the art advances with rapid strides. The Pantomime was invented by the Duchess of Maine: it was in 1708, at her famous festivals, "les Nuits de Sceaux," that the last scene of the fourth act of Corneille's "Horace," was pantomimically represented with musical accompaniment.

"Ah, Camargo, que vous ?tes brillante! Mais que Sall?, grands dieux, est ravissante! Que vos pas sont l?gers, et que les siens sont doux! Elle est inimitable, et vous ?tes nouvelle: Les Nymphes sautent comme vous, Et les Graces dansent comme elle."

The victories of the dance were universal. Even public ceremonies were taken up in its advance. The "Messe des R?v?rences" was altered into the "Ballet des ?crevisses." In their first delight of dominion, love and the pleasure of life revel in the light and magical rhythms of the dance. The great and flourishing masked balls of the opera, acquiring a new rapture, lead on to new dances--the Calotins, the Farandoule, the Rats, Jeanne qui saute, Liron Lirette, le Poivre, la F?rstemberg, le Cotillon qui va toujours, la Monaco--old songs of universal popular origin; or, like wines and laws, named after towns and races, and now, as dances, naturalised on the parquet. How ancient is this connection between song and dance, in which the name of the song remains attached to the dance! This is a process which is of daily occurrence in our music-halls.

But here we must speak specially of programme-music.

We can trace the psychology of this programme-music with great ease in the French instrumental art of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. From the first definite orchestral programme-piece--the storm in Marais' opera Alcyone--to the volume of Fran?ois Dandrieu, "contenant plusieurs Divertissements dont les principaux sont les caract?res de la guerre, ceux de la chasse, et la f?te de Village"; from the lute-dances of Gaultier to the clavier-pieces of Rameau, we see nothing but an endeavour of the developed dance-form to enter into relations with actual life--an endeavour which leads to the manifold names of the pieces. Formerly the dances had taken their names from the songs. Now, as definite pieces, they are so full of special significance, so rich in all kinds of characteristic figures and harmonies, that the composer feels his mind insensibly drawn to incidents of life, of persons, of characters, humours, landscapes, and calls upon all his fertility in association to fashion decorative titles out of them. Music, which has arrived at the limits of the traditional dance-forms, passes over from the formal to the characteristic. As Berlioz' Queen Mab is nothing but a further development of Beethoven's Scherzos, and not a heaven-descended music, discovered in Shakespeare, so the pieces of the great clavierist Couperin, whether they have descriptions of humours or personal names for titles, are merely the developments of dances, which, so fertile were they, reminded the composer of life itself. Couperin himself declares that he gives in his pieces portraits, which appear to give to others also, before whom they are performed, the actual features of the models. But it is obvious that he could hold himself as a portrait-painter, only so far as his music was rich enough, by its definite relations to actual life, to give clearer definition and a distinct picture to its stream as it flowed in a thousand forms. Like all programme-musicians, he is such, not from poverty in musical invention, but from wealth. The French are a people that revel in the fulness of forms, and find their very life in the special magic of the formal presentation of all things, whether social or artistic. Thus in their hands all musical forms, melodious, harmonic, rhythmic, grew so luxuriantly, that at all times, from Jannequin to St Saens, in order to live they have necessarily turned to programme-music.

Yet the titles of the clavier-pieces are not fully explained by this reference to the value of programme-music for the French mind. We must take into consideration also an old decorative tradition. Let us open the magnificent volume of lute-pieces by the famous Denis Gaultier, which came into the Berlin Museum of Engravings along with the Hamilton collection. It is fantastically called "La Rhetorique des Dieux," because only gods could speak so movingly by music, and equally fantastically he introduces all kinds of titles for the pieces, such as "Phaethon struck by lightning," "le Pan?gyrique," Minerva, Ulysses, Andromeda, Diana, "la Coquette virtuosa," and the like, besides several "Tombeaux," by which term dedications to deceased persons were generally indicated. If we compared these sixteenth century pieces with their names, a certain nimble fancy is required to find actual programme-music in them. Of a genuine representation of the content there is no pretence. Minerva, Echo, and the Coquette would seem to have more in common than they ever suspected. The titles are nothing but decorative stamps, resembling those medallions of Aphrodite which are so often engraved over a love-poem. The interpretation is always in the widest spirit possible. It is amusing to see how the editor of the collection labours to explain the names while confining himself exclusively to the vaguest generalities. On "l'Homicide," or The Fair Murderess, as it is also named, he writes: "This fair creature deals death to every one who sees and hears her; but this death is so unlike the usual death that it is the beginning of a life, not its end." It could not easily be more plainly indicated that there is no clear representation of anything to be seen in the piece, and that the title is a piece of self-flattery in the dress of the fantastic. Already had the elder Gaultier, the founder of this lute-school, recognised, or perhaps even invented, these decorative titles, such as "le canon," "la conqu?rante," "les larmes du Boset," or "la volte," "l'immortelle," "le loup." This last, it is certain, is no ordinary wolf, but howls so musically that it is really a man.

The Couperins, like the Chambonni?res, were a widely spread musical family. It was old Chambonni?res who, in a noteworthy fashion, had discovered Louis Couperin, the uncle of Fran?ois. One morning the father of Fran?ois and his two brothers who lived in the neighbourhood of the old master, brought a serenade for his inspection. Chambonni?res was struck with it, asked after the composer, brought him to Paris, and thus laid the foundation of the fame of the family from which the great perfecter of his work was to spring. Fran?ois was born in 1668. He lost his father when he was ten years old, but in Tomelin, the organist of St Jacques-la-Boucherie, he found a teacher and a second father. His life, as its details have come down to us, was simple and uneventful. He became organist of St Gervais and chamber-clavierist to the king, and died in 1733. But the dedications of his works enable us to conceive him more definitely. He appears in them as the professional artist and man of the world, pampered by noble ladies, and kissing their hands with graceful flatteries. We see him as he moves in the salons of Paris, which were then beginning to realise their mission. He is the admired artist of the court which he charms with his chamber-music; the intimate of the Duke of Burgundy and of the Dauphin, of Anne and Louis of Bourbon, giving his lessons and receiving pensions of a thousand francs. A true lady's man, he thinks the hands of women better adapted to the clavier than those of men. He is the first to sanction ladies in his own family as clavier-players. His daughter Marguerite Antoinette, and his cousin Louise, played at court. Marguerite even became the teacher of the Princesses, and was official royal clavier-player--in France certainly, and probably in the world, the first woman to hold such a post.

The theatre of Couperin is rich and varied. The representations which we see in this theatre under the innumerable titles of the pieces, range over the whole world. Some of the characters are also not strange to us; others we soon learn to know; a few remain unintelligible to us since the relations they betoken are too subjective. But all lend to the pieces a personal value and an intimate charm, as Goya's editions present them to us; and it is from them that the clavier derives its great significance as interpreter of this intimate personal art.

"Nanette" greets us with her pleasant quavering melody; "Fleurie" is more subtle, and sways delightfully in richly-adorned 6/8 time; the "Florentine" blooms in graceful, gentle play of quick triolet-figures; but the "Garnier" has the dress of the confined fantastic time, having not yet cast off her heavy folds. "Babet" is "nonchalamment" contented; "Mimi" has a temperament which the many slurs and points of the ornamentation can scarcely fully exhibit. "Conti" works lullingly out her counterpoint; "Forqueray" has a physiognomy of almost academic severity. Many ladies pass by us in these pastel-portraits. We are amused with the divine Babiche and the beautiful Javotte ; but the most beautiful in melody is Soeur Monique, an intellectually delicate creation, and the most beautiful in construction is "La Couperin" who poses before us in a masterly, stately, and slightly fugal movement.

The Bees hum and revolve round one point; the Butterflies flutter past in ravishing triplets; the Fly buzzes and dances round her own melody; the retiring Linnet hurries through restless triplets; the complaining Grasshopper chirps in endless imitative short grace-notes; the Eel twists itself now tightly, now loosely; the Amphibian creeps along in legato notes, winding itself through bar-sections of Schubertian length; the Nightingale in Love sings her piercing plaintive accents in quick and ever quicker trills, or as Victor chants more joyfully and triumphantly. Or, again, blooming lilies rise before us in delicate self-enfolding figures with petal-like ornamentations; the sedge rustles eternally to its melody; the poppy spreads abroad a wonderful secret mysterious tune, with many slow arpeggio thirds; and garlands twine themselves in festal guise on a canonic trelliswork.

The "Earlier Ages" appear in four figures--the first exercise gives the syncopated "Muse naissante," the second the rocking "Enfantine," the third the rioting "Adolescente," the fourth the "D?lices" in violoncello style, which is Couperin's favourite for the attainment of the most delightful effects.

Or the great "Shepherds' Feast" with the twanging musettes of Taverni or Choisy, and the lightly rocking rhythms.

Next, the cycle of the old and young men; the former sober, the latter happy.

But, before all, that original of Schumann's Carnival, "Les Folies fran?aises ou les Dominos." Maidenhood in invisible colours, Shame in rose, Impetuosity in red, Hope in green, Faithfulness in blue, Perseverance in gray, Longing in violet, Coquetry in a domino of many colours, the old gallants in purple and gold, the cuckolds in brown, silent Jealousy in dark gray, Rage and Desperation in black. Externally the form is that of a great ballet of the time; internally it is the variation of collected pieces on a single harmonic succession, its contents are the allusions easily comprehended at the time; the characterisation is carried through with great skill; but its musical setting is even shorter than is usually the case with Couperin's clavier-pieces.

Thus the fame of the clavier is fixed in the Paris of the beginning of the eighteenth century, and its future assured. It is a kind of symbol of history that from the guild of violinists, founded by a king of violin-players, which reigned throughout the seventeenth century, should have proceeded, first the dance-masters, for reasons of independence, and then the organists and clavierists, who actually maintained that a musician was he only who played an instrument with full harmony. The orchestra went its own way, the "grande bande des violons" and the "petits violons" of Lully's time having laid the foundation. The clavier was again the opponent of the orchestra, and concentrated the whole body of tone in its keys. An intimate, personal interpreter of musical emotions, it chooses to perform its functions in itself. Its consciousness of its own importance grows to a height. No longer will a clavecin-player when accompanist be the Cinderella among a company of proud sisters. "The clavierist," cried Couperin indignantly, "is the last to be praised for his share in a concerto. What injustice! His accompaniment is the foundation of a building which supports the whole, and of which no one ever speaks!"

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