Don't Be Too Awfully Dignified

by Henry T. Finck

Incalculable harm has been done to the cause of music by the notion many high-class musicians have that they must be always solemn, dignified and ponderous, heavy to the point of dullness, avoiding all approach to levity—to lightness of humor or temperament, as if it were unbecoming to one of their profession.

One summer, when I was spending a few weeks at a certain hotel in Switzerland, a talented young English professional pianist was among the guests. She was asked by some of the girls to play a waltz for them to dance to, but seemed offended at the request. She didn't know, poor dear, that some of the greatest composers delighted in playing waltzes for their friends to dance to. In the days of Chopin and Liszt there were social gatherings in Paris at which these two geniuses played dance music together, and the guests made the best use of the opportunity.

Schubert was never so happy as when he was playing waltzes for his friends. There were regular meetings in Vienna called Schubertiads, because he was the soul of them. "Occasionally" (I quote from my "Songs and Song Writers") "the ladies were invited, and there was dancing as well as singing, Schubert sitting at the piano and improvising those lovely valses and other dance-pieces of which many were afterward written down. One evening a policeman entered and commanded the dancing to stop—because it was Lent—greatly to the annoyance of Schubert, who exclaimed: 'They do that just to spite me, because they know how I love to improvise dance music."

This same prince of melodists used to amuse his friends by singing his highly dramatic song, The Erlking, through a comb, in the most tragi-comic manner. It is said that he was annoyed when Huttenbrenner arranged this song as a waltz; but from all we know of Schubert, we may be sure that this was not because he considered it undignified, but because it was badly done.

All the great masters, from Bach to Beethoven and Brahms, wrote dance music in abundance. Even Wagner has a waltz in one of his music dramas—The Maslersingers, Tchaikovsky introduced a valse in one of his symphonies—and think of the glorious valses written by Chopin! Many of Grieg's pieces are Norse dances. The waltzes of Johann Strauss may not be as "dignified" as Bach's B Minor Mass, but they are none the less works of true genius, which deserve a place on classical programs.

Raisins But No Grapes

Schopenhauer used to scold the Germans for their habit of abusing their men of genius and not paying homage to them till after they were dead. "Why," he asked, "always eat raisins and never fresh grapes?"

Schopenhauer used to scold the Germans for their habit of abusing their men of genius and not paying homage to them till after they were dead. "Why," he asked, "always eat raisins and never fresh grapes?"I often think of him when looking at orchestral programs. Their makers never hesitate to include in them "raisin" suites by Bach or other masters made up of old-fashioned medieval dances like courantes, allemandes, sarabandes, minuets, pavanes, gavottes, gigues, and so on; but they draw the line at modern dances still in use in our concert halls, apparently because they consider these undignified. Are fresh grapes, pray, less respectable than dried raisins?

Hans von Bulow was a notable exception among conductors. One of his principles was that just as a well-made bill of fare includes olives and ice cream and cake, so a concert program should always be lightened by a delicacy like a Strauss waltz. For many years I have been preaching this same doctrine, but it is seldom that it is adopted by conductors.

When Paur was at the head (of the Boston Symphony Orchestra he once put two Strauss waltzes on his sketch for a New York program, possibly to pacify me; but, although these numbers were announced, they were withdrawn because, as I was told, men in authority were convinced it would be undignified for an exalted orchestra to indulge in such levity.

Poor fools! Composers as widely apart as Wagner and Brahms had one thing in common: their admiration of the waltz-king. Everybody has heard of Mme. Strauss' fan on which Brahms had written the opening bars of the Blue Danube waltz, with the words: "Alas, not by Brahms."

The New York Philharmonic, the oldest orchestra in America, and in my opinion, the best in the world, has a pleasant habit of providing its subscribers every year with one or two extra concerts at which only Strauss waltzes and Sousa marches and that sort of thing is played. These are relished as much as the regular "dignified" programs. But why not give those who are not regular subscribers a chance, too, to enjoy this light music, superbly done, by including such a titbit on each program of the season?

The Cornerstone of Theodore Thomas' Success

Theodore Thomas, the pioneer conductor, who did more than any other musician to educate the American public to an appreciation of the best music, was wise in his day. When visiting Vienna he often went to hear Strauss' dance music as conducted by the great Johann himself, so that he might reproduce its best effects at his own concerts in New York. "No one," writes his widow in her admirable "Memoirs," "knew the value of a good piece of popular music so well as Thomas, and he was always on the lookout for such dainty musical titbits and would take infinite pains to make them effective."

She recalls his arrangement for orchestra of Schumann's Traumerei, ending with muted strings "piano, pianissimo, pianississimo," as he said. He instructed his violinists, in order to emphasize the effect at the end, to continue drawing their bows over the strings without making a sound. The audience imagined it still heard the sounds floating off to an immeasurable distance, till Thomas broke the spell by quietly laying down his baton.

Maybe it wasn't very "dignified" to do such a thing, but, as Mrs. Thomas relates, when her husband began to travel with his orchestra, his little arrangement of Schumann's exquisitely dreamy piece "created such a sensation with the public everywhere that it might almost be called the cornerstone of his success."

Another thing that Theodore Thomas did in his shrewd efforts to enable the general public to glimpse the beauties of the best music, was that he did not hesitate to select the best movement of a great symphony and play that alone in order to give the people a chance to digest it. Pedants abused him therefor, but he knew, if the pedants didn't, that not much more than half a century earlier Viennese orchestral conductors actually used to interpolate vocal numbers between the several movements of a symphony, in order to make it easier for the audience to assimilate the orchestral pabulum.

For many people, listening to an elaborate composition in four movements is as difficult as mountain climbing. They need an occasional rest, time to breathe, and if they don't get it they conclude the game isn't worth the candle. Concert givers and solo recitalists too often forget this. Their bread is heavy and indigestible because they put no yeast in the dough, and that is why so many persons, particularly menconclude that the usual concert fare is too heavy and dignified for them, and stay at home.

Shakespeare is frolicsome and facetious, now and then, even in his tragedies. Richard Wagner, in an occasional merry mood, used to astonish his friends by suddenly standing on his head or climbing a tree. I am not advising pianists or singers to indulge in that sort of thing on the stage. Pachmann's pranks verged on foolishness, and they did not particularly redound to his credit. What I wish to emphasize is that there are times and occasions in programs, as in life, when it is desirable to come off the perch. That's not a dignified expression, but slang often expresses a writer's meaning better than the most carefully chosen words. My experience with great, men has been that the greater they are the more they are inclined to indulge in slang and puns. I know that John K. Paine and Edward MacDowell were irrepressible punsters. So were Beethoven and Shakespeare.

Why Chamber Music is Not Popular

The most intellectual, serious and dignified form of the tonal art is chamber music. It is usually played by two violins, a viola and a 'cello, which gives but limited scope for coloring, or for stirring dynamic effects. That being the case, one would think that the composers of chamber music would try to atone for these disadvantages by providing variety in other ways. Instead of doing this, they go to the opposite extreme. Of all dull, dreary, unimaginative, repelling programs those of chamber concerts are the worst. First number: Quartet in C minor, opus 315, by Mozart. Second number: Quartet in B major, opus 49, by Beethoven. Third number: Quartet in F sharp minor, opus 719, by Rachmaninoff—or something like that. Each of the three numbers has four movements: Allegro, adagio, scherzo, allegro. Only this and nothing more! It is horribly monotonous, monstrous, asinine. And then musicians wonder why chamber music isn't popular!

Some of the greatest gems in music are in the form of quartets, trios, or sonatas for two instruments. They could be made as popular as other kinds of the best music if they were not thu9 smothered in pedantry and formalism. The sonata form, instead of being a great achievement in music, has been its deadliest enemy. In innumerable cases it has tempted composers who had good material for a movement or two to spoil everything by adding the other two regulation movements, in which they had nothing more to say. The result was failure; the more so because, invariably, the less a composer has to say the longer it takes him to say it.

A symphony is an orchestral sonata, and there are few symphonies all four movements of which are good. Mrs. Thomas writes, regarding her husband's early days: "To the average concert-goer the word 'symphony" was a synonym for 'bore,' and it repelled rather than attracted an audience." It does so to this day, with few exceptions, so far as the general public is concerned; and these exceptions are the symphonies which are good in every section.

Program music, which has helped so much to make symphonic music popular in the form of symphonic poems, was bitterly opposed for generations as being undignified. It was not till Beethoven endorsed it by writing his Pastoral Symphony, with its imitations of bird calls, its scene by the brook, and its thunder storm, that it was accepted as a serious species of music; but to this day some conservatives speak of it disrespectfully.

To come back to chamber music: If the givers of it were not afraid to be considered undignified they would select only the best movement or two of each quartet or trio. Foolish critics, of German training, would accuse them of "mutilating masterworks"; but this attitude is ridiculous, because in the vast majority of existing works in sonata (cyclic) form there is no organic connection between the movements. They are merely suites.

Never has there been a more ardent and sincere lover of chamber music than the late E. J. De Coppet; a statement which is proved by his spending a fortune to organize and. float the admirable Flonzaley quartet. Yet this Maecenas once told me that two of the usual three quartets on a program were all he cared to hear at one sitting. If this was the case with an enthusiast, how foolish and suicidal is the regulation program of a chamber music concert!

Percy Grainger and Fritz Kreisler to the Rescue

The Kneisel Quartet used to put life and go and variety into its programs by playing Percy Grainger's Molly on the Shore, to the delight of its audiences. This piece is not dignified, but it is tuneful, sprightly, entrancing—everything that makes music worth while. But the Kneisels played this winsome piece only on the road. For metropolitan audience? it was apparently considered too undignified. A queer world, ladies and gentlemen!

If Grainger were given as prominent a place on programs as Beethoven and Brahms, chamber music would be more popular, and more people would therefore hear Beethoven and Brahms. See?

Grainger is never boresome for one moment. If he ever penned anything tiresome he would cut it out. He doesn't believe in the Teutonic method of "thematic development"—in plain English, padding.

Fritz Kreisler is another very prominent artist who never bores or tires. There is a world of useful suggestion in what a San Francisco manager, Frank W. Healy, said about him the other day, in speaking of him as one of the important factors in making new concert goers in that city: "By introducing a certain number of the lighter pieces on his programs he has made friends for music among those who have had neither the training nor the experience to jump into the higher grade of recital programs with understanding and enjoyment. I consider that it is the great artist's duty to make converts for music, and if he can accomplish this by the subtle allurement of the lighter grades of music which are within the comprehension of the man-who-knows-nothing-about-it, what difference does it make so long as the results are satisfactory?"

The short pieces which make Fritz Kreisler's programs so alluring are partly of his own composition, partly chosen from the neglected treasures of the past. His own pieces are gems ranking with the jewels of Chopin and Grieg. They are as inspired and as racy of the Viennese soil as the waltzes of Schubert and Johann Strauss; exquisitely melodious, and appealing to the tenderest emotions. Small and light they are, but so are diamonds compared with huge symphonic boulders. There are professionals and critics who talk as if boulders were more valuable than diamonds, but the public does not think so; and that is why Kreisler always plays to crowded audiences, usually overflowing onto the stage.

The neglected treasures of the past on Kreisler's programs prove my contention that if concert-givers smashed the dignified and dull sonatas and played only the inspired parts of them, their business would improve tremendously. Many of his treasures are taken from cyclic works of seventeenth and eighteenth century composers. Kreisler is a great scholar. He delves among the dust-covered piles of forgotten music and rescues from them nuggets of gold and precious stones, which he exhibits to the dazzled ears of music-lovers—and others who never knew they were music lovers till they heard him.

In a way Kreisler is doing for, the violinist what Liszt did for the pianist, except that while he chiefly favors' the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, Liszt preferably exercised his skill in setting jewels by more modern masters. His name is more prominent on pianists' programs than that of any other composer except Chopin, and yet audiences of our day have been familiarized with only a fraction of the Liszt things that would enchant them.

I have in mind particularly his amazingly clever and effective operatic fantasies. Each of these ingeniously —and with interspersed flashes of his own genius—brings together the finest melodies of a whole opera and sets them off with consummate art. Not a few of these operas are now obsolete, but their melodies are as lovely as ever. The public would love to hear them and the pianists to play them. Why, then, are they not played in public? Because some stupid, pedantic critics cry "undignified." Dignity be hanged! Ladies and gentlemen of the piano, it is your privilege, as well as your pleasure and profit, to revive the Liszt fantasies and transcriptions and defy the class of critics referred to. It is infinitely more important for you to please the public than those dullards. They can't do you any harm if the public is with you.