Modern Music

AFTER a period of mediocrity in the history of German music, Wagner's work stands out as a notable and original achievement, but the school of music founded by him suffered from more than the usual number of weaknesses. The success of the master, and the failure of his disciples, are explained by the exceptionally dominating nature of Wagner's egocentric genius. An unusual combination of talents made him an epitome of the worthy and less worthy tendencies of his period and rendered him--despite the rarified atmosphere in which he sometimes moved--in the best sense of the word, democratic. His work appealed to all sections of the public, to the intellectuals for its thought-provoking qualities, to the romantics for its abundant beauty, to the homme moyen sensuel for the deliberate eroticism which permeates the music, and lastly, also to the confraternity of musicians who were subjugated by the perfect workmanship of the Meistersinger.

IT is remarkable that at a period when a type of music, whose elusive colouring symbolised a doubting mind, had been established by Wagner and had promised to dominate the future, there arose an original and forceful musician who directly opposed this tendency. He was, like Hugo Wolf, an Austrian, but the two men were very unlike in their approach to art. Wolf's interest was in the future; he was drawn to Wagner by a romantic and sensitive temperament, and his achievement was to apply the new outlook in music to songwriting. Bruckner, on the other hand, drew upon a rich inheritance of Austrian musical instinct, which he expressed with absolute faith and the downright strength of the peasant. The doubts which at once enrich and torment the modern composer were for him non-existent, and he attacked the difficulties of that sublime form, the symphony, with all the confidence of simple faith.

THE ethical sense which lies at the root of all that is most valuable and significant in German music tends, at times, to become over-developed, and to thwart the creative impulse. This ethical point of view in the German sense was not at all characteristic of the Austrian Bruckner, in whose simple soul was no trace of didacticism, yet the tendency to probe and moralise was rampant in many who surrounded him and exists in nearly all who worship him whole-heartedly to-day. It is obvious that ethics and ideas remain indispensable in music-in Wagner they begot the will to dramatise and were linked to calculated theatrical effects--nevertheless without the fire of the senses they cannot be artistically creative. At times the didactic propensity, over-analysis, the expression of social ideals, become excessive, smother the creative fire and destroy the work of art.

WE now come to an offshoot of Romanticism which has survived both the intellectualisation of music and the modern attempts at new forms.

All art is rooted in the folk, but with time outgrows their primitive lore. As music is exploited and made public, it tends naturally to break away from its origins. In the glare of world competition and criticism, music of a local or provincial type dies off, but not without throwing up unobtrusive shoots which proclaim the relationship between the folk-tune and the higher developments of musical art.

MAHLER is a problem, one might almost say a cause célèbre, and a mass of literature, eulogistic and otherwise, has accumulated about his name. We may discuss Strauss, Reger, Pfitzner, coolly; but on a subject like Mahler, who touches us more nearly, it must be difficult for the modern musical critic to write calmly. His personality, moreover, is of a type that arouses controversy. He hurried through life in a fever of creative ardour, attempting at one and the same time to revolutionise the theatre and to leave to the world, after the example of the great masters, nine symphonies. He wrought at white heat and his work, highly provocative, bears traces of continuous tension.