good specimen of his style. Sometimes he fused the Romanze into the Rhapsodie by dramatising incidents; and to such efforts he owed most of his contemporary popularity; but it was not in produce the true Ballade. Neither did Reichardt or Zelter succeed any better in it. They treated the 'Erlkönig' as a Romanze, and Schiller's Ballades, 'Ritter Toggenburg' and 'Der Handschuh,' as rhapsodies. And even Schubert, for whom in youth this ballad poetry had a great charm, even he was inclined to compose for Balladen too much in Rhapsody-form. In some of his longer pieces, such as 'Der Taucher,' 'Die Bürgschaft,' 'Der Sänger,' where he is faithful to the Ballade form, there are exquisite bits of melody appositely introduced, and the accompaniments are thoroughly dramatic; but the general effect of the pieces is overlaid and marred by a multiplicity of elaborate details. When sung, therefore, they do not fulfil the expectations awakened by silent study of them. To the Romanze, Schubert gave the pure strophical form, as, for instance, in Goethe's 'Heidenröslein.'
The founder of the true Ballade in music was J. C. G. Löwe, who seems to have caught, as it were instinctively, the exact tone and form it required. His method was to compose a very short, though fully rounded melody, for one or two lines of a stanza, and then repeat it throughout the Ballade with only such alterations as were demanded by the tenor of the narrative. This method secures unity for the piece, but it necessitates a richly developed accompaniment, and calls upon the pianoforte to be the sole contributor of dramatic colouring to the incidents. The simpler the metrical form of the Ballade, the better will this treatment suit it. Take, for example, Uhland's 'Der Wirthin Töchterlein.' All Löwe's music to it is developed from the melody of the first line; though other resources are brought into play as the tragic close draws near, the original idea is never lost to view, and the character with which the accompaniment began is preserved intact to the end. Still more importance is given by Löwe to the pianoforte part in the gloomy northern Ballades, 'Herr Olaf and 'Der Mutter Geist.' But his really popular Balladen are 'Heinrich der Vogler,' 'Die Glocken zu Speier,' and 'Goldschmieds Töchterlein': in these the melodies fresh and genial, the accompaniments full of characteristic expression, and stroke upon stroke the best Ballade style effect a vivid presentment of animated scenes.
Mendelssohn never touched the Ballade form the solo voice; and Schumann greatly preferred the Romanze. To his subjective lyric cast of mind the underlying thought was of more concern than external facts. In his beautiful music to Kerner's 'Stirb Lieb' und Freud,' he treats the melody as a Romanze, and puts the Ballade form into the accompaniment. On the same plan are his 'Entflieh' mit mir,' 'Loreley,' and 'Der arme Peter,' from Heine. 'Die Löwenbraut' and 'Blondel's Lied' are more developed Ballades; but the most perfect of his Ballades is 'Die beiden Grenadiere,' op. 49. Its unity in variety is admirable; it stirs and moves the heart, and its impressiveness is wonderfully augmented by the introduction of the Marseillaise. When Schumann essayed to treat the Ballade melodramatically he failed. Singing, in his opinion, was a veil to the words; whenever therefore he wished them to have emphatic prominence, he left them to be spoken or 'declaimed,' and attempted to illustrate the narrative of the song by the musical accompaniment. But the Ballade form was too small and contracted for this kind of treatment, which is better suited to larger and more dramatic works. It is a vexed question whether the repetition of the melody for every verse, or its variation throughout, is the better structure for the Ballade; the former arrangement, at any rate, would seem best adapted for short and simple pieces like Goethe's 'Der Fischer,' and the latter for lengthier ones. If the melody be repeated for every verse in long Balladen an impression of monotony is inevitably created, and the necessarily varying aspects of the poem are imperfectly represented in the music.[1]
The Song continues to hold in Germany the high place to which it was raised by Schubert and Schumann; their traditions have been worthily sustained by their successors, the foremost of whom are Robert Franz and Johannes Brahms. Franz has devoted himself almost exclusively to it.[2] At first sight his work seems to be similar to Schumann's, but on closer examination it will be found to have marked characteristics of its own. There is no lack of melody in his voice-parts, but the chief interest of his songs generally lies in the accompaniments, which are as finished as miniatures, though concealing all traces of the labour expended on them.[3] In form and harmony Franz's songs are akin to the old Volkslied and Kirchenlied. Their harmony frequently recalls the old church scales; and the peculiar sequential structure of the melody (as, for instance, in his 'Zu Strassburg an der Schanz,' op. 12, no. 2; 'Es klingte in der Luft,' op. 13, no. 2, and 'Lieber Schatz, sei mir wieder gut,' op. 26, no. 2), is so common with him, that some critics have condemned it as a mannerism.[4] Most of his songs are strophical as regards the voice-part, the richness and fulness of the accompaniment growing with each successive stanza; or else the harmony is slightly altered to suit the words, as in that subtle change which occurs in the second stanza of 'Des Abends,' op. 16, no. 4. Indeed the perfection of truth with which Franz renders every word is his highest merit. Like Schumann, he is wont to leave much to the closing bars of the piano-
- ↑ See Vischer's 'Aesthetik,' part iii. p. 996; and Reissmann's 'Das deutsche Lied,' p. 236.
- ↑ 'It was the result of an irresistible necessity,' wrote Franz to a friend, 'that I cultivated the Song-form almost exclusively, and wrote very little else: I afterwards became convinced that my own particular talent culminated in this form. On principle, therefore, I have kept to this path, and should with difficulty be persuaded to try my luck in any other.'
- ↑ See Ambros, 'Bunte Blätter.' p. 801.
- ↑ Reissmann. 'Gesch. d. deutschen Liedes,' p. 279.
