Page:Pratt - The history of music (1907).djvu/655

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songs and piano-pieces; Ludvig Schytte of Vienna (d. 1909), born in 1850, a piano-virtuoso, with characteristic piano music and 2 short operas; Victor Bendix, born in 1851, with 3 symphonies, an overture, a piano-concerto and many piano-pieces; and August Enna, born in 1860, a self-taught genius, with at least 13 operas, especially Die Hexe (1892) and Aucassin und Nicolette (1896), besides a violin-concerto, songs, etc.

In Sweden may be named August Johan Söderman (d. 1876), with an operetta, incidental music to Schiller's 'Jungfrau von Orleans,' a fine mass, choral works and part-songs; Anders Hallén, born in 1846, with 4 operas (from 1881), especially Hexfallen (1896), 2 Swedish Rhapsodies, 2 symphonic poems, striking choral ballades and songs; and Emil Sjögren, born in 1853, with 2 violin-sonatas, piano works and songs.

In Norway the great name is that of Edvard Hagerup Grieg (d. 1907), the most prominent master of the northern group, with 3 notable violin-sonatas, 3 orchestral suites, an overture, piano- and violin-concertos, other chamber works, dramatic ballades, many piano-pieces and songs; with Johan Svendsen, born in 1840, with 2 symphonies and other orchestral works, much chamber music, orchestral arrangements of piano works, many songs, etc.; Johan Selmer, born in 1844, a writer for orchestra, chorus and the solo voice in an extreme modern style; Ole Olsen, born in 1850, of similar tendencies, with an opera, an oratorio (1897), a symphony, 2 symphonic poems, piano-pieces, etc; and Christian Sinding, born in 1856, with a symphony, 2 violin-sonatas, important chamber works, many pieces for the piano, songs, etc.

The three musical centres are Copenhagen, Stockholm and Christiania.


The Czech and Magyar group (Bohemia and Hungary) presents striking differences from all the foregoing in the quality and special forms of its melodic, rhythmic and dynamic dialect of expression. In these regards the national music of the Austrian Empire supplies one of the best illustrations of a type that has relatively little connection with established musical language, except so far as traces of its influence entered musical literature through the Viennese writers of the classical and post-classical periods. But, in addition, it is worth noting that on the whole Bohemian and Hungarian music shows a fondness for noisy and hilarious forms whose origin is in ardent social merrymaking, or for somewhat grandiose and sumptuous effects, such as imply a half-barbaric notion of splendor. In these respects this eastern music stands in contrast with the much more personal and subjective musical poesy to which northern composers have tended. While the latter have shown a marked readiness to adopt the introspective and romantic attitude which Schumann so finely illustrated, the music of Austria tends rather to the ostentation or the luxurious sensuous-