Page:The New International Encyclopædia 1st ed. v. 14.djvu/205

* MUSIC. 169 MUSIC. instrument as well as of musical forms. Among the (Jcrnians of lliis jierioil may l)C mentioned Von Biber (l(i38-!"8). Handel ( rti8.5-l Toil), busy as he was with opera, oratorios, and the fati{;uing duties of an impresario in London, found time to compose suites for the luirpsicliord as well as concertos for organ, violin sonatas, and overtures for his clioral works. He was hardly a path- breaker, for he followed obvious Italian models, though he stamped everything he wrote with the seal of his vigorous genius. Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750) was first and last the ideal organist; into its literature he poured the purest treasures of his extraordinary genius. A set of fugues, concertos, and toccatas (see Concerto; Fl'uLE) that have never been equaled, the rich- ness of which is far from being exliausted, were given the world by this modest cantor of Leipzig, who still found time to compose the Well-Tem- pered Clavichord, that unique collection of forty- eight preludes and fugues for a clavier tuned in equal temperament, so that all keys are equally available instead of some being in particular tune in order that a few others might be so. (See Temperament.) He also wrote the English and French suites and partitas for the clavier, as well as the Italian concerto and those delightful lessons, two-part and three-part inventions. On Bach's prodigality of utterance, the astounding variety and depth of his music, its science, its art, its formal beauty and emotional signficance, there is little need to dwell now. The great Pas- sions, the violin compositions, and the clavier and organ music, chorales and motets are a part of the world's m(i>t precious art heritages. His perfection, his inaugmration, form the matrix of all latter-day music. He has influenced Bee- thoven, Schumann, Chopin, Mendelssohn, Wag- ner, Brahms, and Richard Strauss enormously. The orchestra of his days was still in an amor- phous condition and he wrote for it as lie did for other instruments, thorotighly, and as a me- dium for the expression of his ideas. Personality in music revealed itself with no uncertainty in Bach's case. Some of Bach's predecessors, Kul- nian, Matthesen, and ilufTat, wrote sonatas and suites. Domenico Scarlatti ( 1G83-C.1757 ), the son of .lessandro, wrote operas and church music, as did his father, but soon became the most famous harpsichordist of his day, the Liszt of the eigh- teenth century. His compositions show the ex- pert virtuoso, and are remarkable for being the (irst works of the kind in which the fugue and dance are not essential. The key-grouping and arrangement of the movements, with phrasal repetition, set his music ahead of its time and link it with llozart and the early sonata mas- ters. Galuppi and Paradesi followed in his foot- steps. Slowly the contrapuntal style gave way to the harmonic, the Italians simjdified the scheme by writing luscious melodies with a slight accompaniment, and after Corelli (1653-1713) the decadence began. Tartini. Viotti. Rode, Bail- lot, all nolde artists, continiied the Corelli tradi- tion. Bach's sons, Karl Philipp Emanuel and Johann Cliristian. were worthy descendants, though without his masterful grip. The former made the model for the sonata that Haydn fol- lowed, and .Tohann Christian wrote sonatas, sym- phonies, and operas. Symphonies (see Stm- PnoNY) had been attempted by Abel, Esser, Wagensail, but the form received its first shap- ing by Haydn and Mozart. Haydn (1732-1809) began by studying the clavier sonatas of Philipp Knuimiel Bach and ended under the intlucnce of his one-time pupil Mozart (175t)-!)l). The Haydn string (juartets and some of his sym- phonies and piano somitas are inimitable. Mrjzart ])olished the sym]>hony during his short, crowded life, and left us sudi masterpieces as the E Hat, C major, and G minor symphonies. On his way to Paris in 1777 he stopped at Mannheim, where Stamitz conducted the best orchestra in Europe. There he learned the possibilities of instrumenta- tion. Jlozart had the real color-sense, and his orchestral writing shows a feeling for the varying timbrel, and a balance of the various choirs hitherto unsuspected. His orchestra was a more elastic and highly organized instrument, and it lent itself to the most complicated types of com- ])osition. The wood and brass choirs were in- dividualized, and writing for the string quartet had reached a degree of perfection. The dexterity displayed by ilozart was not lost on Haydn, and some of it was rellected in the operatic com- posers who followed him, though it may be con- fessed that Ciluck (1714-87), his great contem- porary, benefited little by his novel researches; indeed, he possibly never went out of his way to hear the D major symphony, which is said to have been given in Paris while the composer of Orfen was there. Xineteenth-century operatic composers like Weber, Berlioz, Meyerbeer, Wag- ner, and Verdi in his later years, were the fir.st to concern themselves with the possibilities of orchestra color enhancing the dramatic situation or contributing atmosphere. .Vfter Muzio dementi (1752-1832), the Italian pianist, went into pianoforte manufacturing and presented to the world a pianoforte that could withstand muscular attacks, and give out a great volume of tone because of its hammers in- stead of jacks, he paved the way for the Bee- thoven pianoforte sonata. He did more. He wrote his (Iradiis ad Paniassum, a collection of studies in style and invention that are in the curriculum of ever_y pianist and student to-day. His in- ventive skill gave to ])ianoforte technicpie many new figures, and his was the technical foundation for the Beethoven sonatas. He is trutlifully the father of modern pianoforte music, and until the appearance of Liszt, his pupils, .J. B. Cramer, the Irishman : .John Field — who originated the Noc- turne form — and others whose style he infiuenced, Dussek. Pleyel. Steibelt. and Moscheles. dominated the entire field of pianoforte playing. In Bee- thoven (1770-1827) classical music reached its apex, and romantic music — so called — bad its birth. The greatest of symphonists. his inlluence, like Bach's, has permeated every department of music. A short-time pupil of Haydn, admired by Mozart, this gigantic genius seems to have in- cluded in his mighty symphonies and sonatas all that had been. In his early etTorts we see Haydn, in his ninth symphony and last piano sonatas may be found the seeds that sprouted into the luxuriant forests of the Wagner music- drama, and gave birth to the dream-haunted imaginings of Chopin. Schumann, and Berlioz. Beethoven has been called the Homer, the Michel- angidn. the Shakespeare of music. He has more affinities with the great Englishman than with the Greek or Italian. He is intensely human, and his temperament, hugely passionate and poetic as it is, is never the ruler of his noble intellect. Nature dowered Beethoven with