M U SIC.
A LITTLE MASTER.
SOME years ago Mr. Flack, one of the most vivacious as well as suggestive of American musical critics, vigorously attacked in an essay on Chopin that extravagant worship of mammoth dimensions which he happily christened " Jumbo- mania" He returns to the charge with unabated vigour in the revised edition of his pleasant study* of the life and music of Grieg, for whom he claims a place amongst the great masters. With a great deal of what Mr. Finck writes we find ourselves in cordial agreement, notably his contention that in music it is the quality of the ideas that counts more than the perfection of the form in which they are expressed, or the ornamental detail with which they are decked out. Again, if Mr. Fink's impeachment of " Jumbomania " was fully justified ten or fifteen years ago, it is more than ever needed to-day, in view of the steady growth of the cult of sonority, the greater complexity of modern orchestration, and the multiplication of instruments. It was said not many years ago of a British Minister's answers in the House of Commons that whereas his predecessor said "No" mono- syllabically, he said it polysyllabically; and at the present moment there are a good many composers industriously engaged in saying nothing in the latter fashion with so much fire, fury, and ingenuity that they occasionally persuade the world into believing that they have a new and momentous message to deliver. On the other hand, there have always been creative artists who deliberately avoided the ouvrage de longue haleine, who have studied condensation, compression, and the frugal use of resources. But it is just here that one must discriminate between conciseness of literary expression, work on a small scale in painting or statuary, brevity or the use of few instruments in music, and, on the other hand, pettiness of treatment. Mozart, when we compare his scoring with that of our strenuous moderns, was a positive Lilliputian. Yet with his scanty means he achieved results more deeply impressive than can be attained by wildernesses of saxhorns, squadrons of tubas, or cohorts of kettledrums. Chopin's finest work was all written for a single instrument, the piano, yet it would be as absurd to call him a miniaturist in a disparaging sense as it would be to apply the term to his contemporary and friend, the " unique and eternal Heine,' because his best work is to be found in his lyrics. Though Ge-many bas never forgiven Heine for his merciless ridicule of the unattractive side of the Teutonic temperament, his claim to rank with the immortals has long been conceded. None of the moderns realised the definition of poetry as "simple, sensuous, and passionate" more completely than Heine in his "Book of Songs." His flights were short in duration, but he flew to his goal with astonishing speed and directness. And if Heine was a great poet without writing an epic, Chopin was a great composer, though his instru- mentation was thin and perfunctory, and he never wrote a symphony or an opera. His fragile health, his fastidiousness, and, above all, an exotic strain in his music that often bordered on morbidity, remove him from the category of the Titans, but no one who has heard Rubinstein play Chopin • Griay and his Music. By H. T. Finch. London: John Lane. Re. 6cL net.]
is likely to deny that his works had the quality of grandeur as well as distinction.
Mr. Finck defends Grieg's claim to rank among the great. masters with gallantry and sincerity, but his arguments in the last resort reduce themselves to personal preference. Grieg's popularity in England, though it has slightly waned of late years, is incontestable. No foreign composer since Mendels- sohn has appealed so successfully to the amateur; indeed, the vogue which he has so long enjoyed in the drawing-room is to many critics a convincing reason for denying him the attribute of greatness. To such a view it can at once be retorted that it applies with equal force to Chopin ; but the comparison is fallacious. Chopin's music was admirably adapted to the salon, but the number of amateurs who could render it justice has always been limited, whereas the sim- plicity of a great deal of Grieg's music has brought it within the range of pianists of the most humble equipment. In denying Grieg greatness we are on safer ground in maintaining that the most characteristic quality of his best work is its quaintness. It was often coupled with real melodic charm, but the element of quaintness, of a whimsical, capricious, elfin humour, almost invariably predominated, and for that reason we can no more admit that he was a great composer than we can admit that Hood was a great poet. Debussy's witty remark about Grieg's music reminding him of "a pink bonbon stuffed with snow" pointedly emphasises this aspect of his delightful talent, and suggests a second count in the indictment of a musical advocatus diaboli,—the predominance which Grieg assigned to national mannerism. This was no affectation on his part, for there never breathed a sincerer patriot, but it is none the less a sign of weakness. The greatest musicians have not despised to build on folk- tunes, but in their highest flights of inspiration they have got clean away from them.—Incidentally we may recall the obser- vation of a great musician that the countries which had the greatest folk-music did not produce the greatest art-music.- Grieg was a great tune-coiner, but his tunes were so indis- tinguishable from folk-songs that, as Mr. Finck tells us, a great many people took it for granted that they were adaptations instead of being originals.
Speaking generally, the larger the canvas on which Grieg worked, the scrappier and more patchy was the texture of his work. He did not think in terms of the orchestra—though one gladly recognises the singular charm, both of colour and form, of his delightful incidental music to Peer Glint—and some of his most effective orchestral pieces were transcriptions of songs. And he had none of the confident egotism of genius, being, as Mr. Finck shows by many characteristic. instances, extremely diffident and modest about his work. One must not lay too much stress on his estimates of other composers, because composers have often been very bad critics, but it is pleasant to see that he had a far truer appreciation of Brahms than Mr. Finck. To sum up, we cannot admit that Mr. Finck has succeeded in revealing to the public what he calls " the greater Grieg." We cannot believe that the musical orbis terrarunn will ever rank him with the " mighty-mouthed inventors of harmonies." But none the less we welcome the book for the fresh and pleasant light that it sheds on the personality of a delightful little master, whose slender but genuine vein of melody was consistently devoted to the service of high aims and whole-
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