MARX'S MUSIC OF TUE NINETEENTH CENTURY.'
Dn. MARX, who is the Professor of Music at the University of Berlin, has no superior among the didactic musical writers of the
day. Of living writers, his only equal, in knowledge and author- ity, is M. Fetis, the eminent Director of the Conservatoire of Brus- sels. We in England do not possess, nor ever did, a single writer
of this class. We have abundance of treatises on harmony, tho- rough-bass, and various branches of the art; but these are mere
compilations of empirical rules ; while in musical science and phi- losophy we have nothing but translations of German and French works ; and indeed the French themselves are indebted to Ger- many for the best part of their musical literature. This depend- ence on foreign writers, especially Germans, is very disadvanta- geous to us : in the first place, because a translation never can be so clear as the original ; and secondly, because the German way of handling philosophical and what they call " a3sthetic" subjects is very obscure to the English reader. We do not even understand their terminology, and are strangers to their habits of thinking and rea- soning. However familiar we may be with Locke and Reid and Stewart, we are baffled by the philosophy of Kant : and similar diffi- culties are more or less felt by every English reader who attacks a German disquisition on the " beautiful " in the fine arts. The author of the book before us has shown himself, on practical subjects, a very clear writer. Nothing can be more plain and distinct than his School of Musical Composition ; and yet, when he embarks on the sea of testhetic speculation, he becomes, to an English intellect, as vague, misty, and obscure, as any of his metaphysical oountry- men. We have floundered through page after page about the "past," the "present," and the " future ' of music, groping in the dark among generalities, till we have arrived at some specific il- lustration—a criticism on the genius or the works of some particu- lar musician—equally sound, striking, and instructive. We must add, in justice to Dr. Marx, that the work as it stands is very in- complete. A notice at the conclusion informs us, that "the prac- tical development of the philosophical principles contained in the foregoing part of the work, forms the subject of the remaining portion, which is in rapid progress." It would have been better, we think, to have waited till the translation was completed and then have published the whole together. In the portion before us, however, there is much to interest the musician : and we shall select a sample of the many passages which have a value of their own, independent of the unfinished disquisition into which they are introduced. Dr. Marx's leading idea is that music, like all things else, obeys the universal law of change, and that this change is ultimately, though not uniformly, progressive. Progress, he says, is "in the form of action and reaction ; it resembles the flowing tide—every wave that dashes forward against the shore seems to be rolling back as far as it advanced.' It is as steps in this progress, whether forward or backward, that he examines the music of particular epochs and the works of particular masters.
"If it was the task of the first epoch of musical art to raise itself from the crude attempts at harmony to the Gothic structures or the scholastic subtil- ties of the most ingenious counterpoints, these strict and over-learned
architectonic forms were no longer fit for the second epoch. Even Emanuel Bach, Sebastian's most gifted son, found himself already compelled by necessity to abandon the high and severe style of his father. The time of prophetic inspiration and holy zeal had gone by; mankind began to make life upon earth more easy and materially comfortable ; people could no longer
bear the heavy yoke of Jeremiah, or, with the winged faith of St. John, soar up to the throne of the Eternal. Art, therefore, assumed a more personal, mild, and accommodating character ; and so tame did she become, that old Sebastian Bach had scarcely closed his eyes, when people already began to find fault with his harsh discords' ; to cull his deeply dialectic mode of interpretation cold reflection' and calculation' ; and to pro- nounce his church-music 'unsuited to the church.' But here also there is a brighter side to the picture. What art was losing in one direction, it was gaining in another. A new spirit of youthful enthusiasm and innocent joy- ousness supplanted the stern severity of the preceding period. Whatever there is of bliss and tenderness in this sublunar world, that found its echo in the strains of Haydn and Mozart—that grew and bloomed in flowers of sound, and decked our art with ineffable loveliness. The melodies became more smooth and singable, the accompanying parts accommodated themselves more readily to the leading cantilena, the harmonies blended in graceful flow. The rondo and sonata forms expanded themselves with playful freedom. Mozart, with his diversity of light and flowing arias, duets, terzets, and finales, broke through the fetters of the monotonous Italian opera, and made it adapt itself to his own fine perception of truth and beauty. The power and freedom with which he moved in this new sphere becomes only ap- parent when we compare his works with those of his successors, which,
whilst they have increased in 'ength and heaviness, have only become more monotonous and poor, without supplying anything that could be designated as really new in the spiritual life of art. From Winter, Paer, Righini, and Boieldieu, down to Spahr, Rossini, and other modern opera-composers, there is scarcely one to whom this observation does not apply."
Of Gluck, as the creator of the true dramatic style, Dr. Marx says-
• The Music of the Nineteenth Century, and its Culture. By Dr. Adolph Bern- hard Marx. Published by Cocks and Co. "There is no sign of contrapuntal skill and power to be found in the works of the last-named remarkable man, whose greatness was rather of an intel- lectual than purely musical nature. Comparing him with his great prede- cessors and followers, we might safely assert that he could not, or rather would not, (for a man like him can accomplish anything he sets his mind upon,) write a duet or a terzet. He had another aim in view, and that he realized. Out of the meaningless play with sounds and forms into which the old Italian opera had degenerated, the genius of the true drama rose be- fore his eyes. Gluck east aside the useless rubbish that had so long encum- bered him, and determined that truth of expression and dramatic life should henceforth be his aim, and that every other thing should be subordinate to this. If we turn to the work in which this idea has been most rigorously and powerfully carried out, his Iphigenie en Aulute, we find, in the first place, that every progresssion and skip of the melody is faithfully and in- geniously adapted to the sense of the words. We next discover, that this truthfulness and precision of melodic progression is combined with a rhythm as rich, elastic, and powerful as none but ./Eschylus had ever at his com- mand. How readily his warlike anapresta range themselves in battle array, or join in military dance at his desire ! How carefully does he allot to every syllable its proper time and accent! How truthful is his declamation, even in his airs and choruses ! • • • "Gluck's great predecessors had already succeeded in blending words and tones, to the great advantage both of language and music ; but it was re- served for him to bring about the closest and most powerful alliance between the art of sound and the poetical forms of speech. And this he effected in a language of all others the most unrhythmical and most unfavourable to music. • • • • "The pioture of this great man, and all that our art has gained through him, would be too imperfect if we were to leave unmentioned what he has done for the delineation of character and situation. We must, however, remember that he looked upon his Greek heroes and heroines from the stand- ing-point of his age, and therefore not blame him for treating his characters as they were represented to him by Racine and Corneille. His Achilles is a chivalrous French prince, his Iphig,enie a princesse, perhaps after the ideal- ized model of Marie Antoinette, his patroness. Taking these things into consideration, we shall find that all his characters have been delineated with wonderful distinctness. It is impossible to mistake any of Iphigenia's airs for those of Clytemnestra, or any of the chorus-leaders ; and, what is still more remarkable, the different characters do not stand still, but actually progress,—as may be seen in Agamemnon's first two airs, as well as Clytem- nestra's four solos, in which a gradual development is apparent to every attentive observer. In conclusion, let us mention that the orchestra, also, is often employed by Gluck, with the most striking effect, to make the sketch of a character more perfect and complete."
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