Life Maxims of Great Musicians

It is self-evident that one who wishes to accomplish any great undertaking must at least know what he intends to accomplish. Then, too, it must be something in accordance with his real inner character and the nature of his talents. One may, with diligence and skill, raise finer and finer roses from a rose bush, but never potatoes; the best razor in the world would make but an indifferent can opener - and it would ruin the razor, at that.

In examining the lives of the great musicians we find that each one of them had some guiding principle in his work which he carried out resolutely without counting the cost or reckoning the reward; but we must not expect that in every case this principle is to be found expressed in the form of a brief, pithy saying. Few musicians have been great phrase makers or proverb quoters, but as it is a dictum both of law and of common sense that a man's intentions are to be judged by his actions, it is not difficult, supposing we are sufficiently familiar with the facts of a person's life and work, to deduce the chief underlying motives in each individual's case.  A "maxim", then is not necessarily a verbal utterance, but simply a guiding principle sanctioned by experience and relating to the practical conduct of life.

One other caution before we proceed - what do we mean by "success"? If we mean the accumulation of a great fortune, we shall find  but an unprofitable field for discussion in the musical profession, although it is a pleasure to be able to recall some worthy exceptions, such as Verdi, who became immensely wealthy and made good use of his wealth; Paderewski; Caruso; Patti; Ole Bull; some half dozen others perhaps, Brahms, a composer, whom many critics reckon in the same class with Bach and Beethoven, by a lifetime of the most conscientious and enduring sort of work, accumulated a fortune of $80,000. He is worthy of all respect, but on one, unless through a false and distorted sense of life's true values, would attempt to maintain that he was a great "success" than Mozart, although the latter through a lack of worldly wisdom passed up his best opportunities for advancement (for instance a most flattering offer of a high salary from the King of Prussia) and at last filled a pauper's grave.

What then is success? To be what one is born to be - to develop one's powers to the utmost - to live life as a great adventure, taking bravely whatever hard knocks come to one, but never turning aside from one's main purpose! If one has great and peculiar talents, this is a great and peculiar problem, for other than that which comes to those whom Wagner (in one of his letters to Liszt) designated as "Dutzend-Menschen" - people who come in dozen packages!

We are now only ready to consider some of the most interesting individual cases.

Bach and the Ministry of Music

The young music student who knows Bach only from the Inventions, a few Gavottes, Minuets and Bourees, or even that wonderful collection of preludes and fugues known as the Well-Tempered Clavichord, is in no position to form any adequate idea of the real nature of Bach's genius. His great organ works, such as the Fantasia and Fugue in G minor, display him in a more noble aspect, but above all he was by nature a composer of sacred music. His greatest works are The Passion According to St. Matthew (a work having the dimensions of an oratorio, and suitable for performance on Good Friday, or in general on the days of Holy Week), the Christmas Oratorio, and the Mass in B Minor, but his sacred cantatas and other miscellaneous church compositions number hundreds and embrace material suitable for every possible occasion of the Church Year. Probably the finest performances in the world of these works at the present time are at the annual Bach Festival held at Bethlehem, Pa., under the direction of Dr. Wolle. To listen to these renditions of Bach's greatest music under such ideal conditions is a privilege to any musician, well worth much effort and sacrifice.

Bach had excellent musical training in his youth, which he supplemented by constant study in later years, and by going to hear other great musicians of his day; he was untiringly diligent as a worker and had no vices or unprofitable habits; but above all, his success as a composer of sacred music lay in his intense sincerity. He was a profoundly religious man - had some eighty books on religious or theological subjects in his library - made a practice of daily family prayers in his large household, and in the conduct of daily life honored the religion he professed. He was a member of the Lutheran Church, but so far removed from religious bigotry that he wrote four Masses for the Roman Catholic Church, on account of its length interfering with the ritual, but portions of it have been used on some occasions in certain Protestant Churches, after the manner of anthems.

Why Not More Bach?

Why is it that these works - the cantatas, for instance - which are to be classed among the greatest music of all time, are almost never heard in churches today? There are two great reasons: First, because of their extreme difficulty to choirs not accustomed to the polyphonic and contrapuntal style of music, which had arrived at its height in Bach's day; second, because the words (except such as are directly quoted from the Bible) were written by persons of no particular ability or good taste, and are often so far inferior to the music as actually to be a blemish. One single instance will be amply sufficient to illustrate what we mean; In the Matthew Passion, where those unspeakably solemn words of Our Lord are quoted, "O my Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me, nevertheless not as I will but as Thou wilt," the pious librettist (not Bach, but probably some pastor of his acquaintance) undertakes to improve on the thought by adding his own naive and original meditation - "That cup in which the sins of the whole world are immersed and hatefully stink!" (an absolutely literal translation). Bach dutifully sets this to music along with the rest.

But let us forget these unfortunate little blemishes, in view of the surpassing greatness of his work taken as a whole; what maxim seems to have the guiding principle of life as a musician? We have his own words:

"The true purpose of Music is none other than this, to minister to the honor of God and the comfort of humanity, whereof if one take not heed, it becomes no true music, but devilish din and discord."

Query - What would Bach think of Richard Strauss; Salome? - or of the "futurists", Ornstein, Schonberg, or Stravinsky?

Haydn was an incurable optimist: the apostle (in music) of light-hearted, good-natured merriment and joy.

Was he then akin to the present day writers of ragtime or of ribald comic songs? Perish the thought! As Ruskin pointed out in alluding to the expression - "Vital feelings of delight" in one of Wordsworth poems - not all feelings of delight are "vital" (i.e., life-giving) some are deathly feelings of delight. There is a most important distinction, but we leave the reader to draw his own moral. Haydn's music always leaves a clean taste in the mouth.

This, in spite of the fact that he had his own share of troubles, great and small, throughout his life. Leaving home at the age of six years, to be educated in music by a relative of the family, his fun-loving disposition often got him into trouble; thrashed for climbing up on a high scaffolding of a palace that was building; expelled from school for cutting another boy's pigtail (for so they wore their hair in those days); later on having to get his own hair clipped short and wear a wig, "for the sake of cleanliness", he explains. When a young man, falling love with a barber's daughter, where he boarded; but she became a nun, and he was persuaded to marry her sister, who proved a very disagreeable, quarrelsome and unsympathetic woman, so that it is not strange that he sometimes sought consolation in other society. In later life he was disfigured by a growth in his nose (a polypus), yet he never lost his cheerfulness. His dark eyes beamed with benevolence, and he used to say himself, "Anyone can see by the look of me that I am a good-natured fellow".

Like Bach, he was an indefatigable worker, and one of his marked characteristics was his constant aim for perfection in his art. The greatest master of orchestration of his day (with possible exception of Mozart), he nevertheless, in old age said regretfully to a friend, "I have only just learned how to use the wind instruments, and now that I do understand them, I must leave the world." His musical penmanship was extremely neat with seldom a correction, "Because", said he, "I never put anything down till I have quite made up my mind about it". This element of clear, definite thinking is evident musically in all his compositions; nothing is ever confused or superfluous.

His best works are decidedly not his piano sonatas, but his symphonies for orchestra, his string quartets, and his oratorios, The Creation and The Seasons; in regard to his Masses, of which he wrote a number, one must speak specially. Considered from a purely musical standpoint, they are masterpieces. Freshness of invention, beauty of melody, sparkling orchestration are everywhere in evidence; they have not the dignity that is supposed to pervade church music yet this is not from any lack of reverence and decorum oh Haydn's part, but the sincere reflection of his sunny disposition, which arose from true religious feelings. For, in spite of some forgivable shortcomings, Haydn was, like Bach, deeply and truly religious, though his temperament was totally different. He told Carpini (speaking of the character of his church music) that "at the thought of God his heart leaped for joy, and he could not help his music doing the same". At the end of a completed manuscript he often would inscribe the words, "Laus Deo" (praise be to God), and occasionally also "Et  B. V. M. et Om. SS." (an abbreviation for Latin words, meaning "and to the blessed Virgin Mary and all the saints").

Haydn was a Free Mason, as were also Leopold Mozart, and his more famous son. In his old age, he attributed much of his success in life to the habits of untiring diligence which he had acquired in early youth through the hard discipline of Johanna Mathias Frankh, the relative who educated him. "I shall be grateful to that man as long as I live," said he, "for keeping me so hard at work, though I used to get more flogging than food."

Summed up in a few words, the maxim of Haydn's success seem to have been:

• Hard work

• Clear thinking

• Constant striving for perfection in his art

• Frank expression of his own cheerful nature

• A grateful and sincere religious faith

Mendelssohn's Happy Life

In the Leipsic Conservatory (founded largely through Mendelssohn's efforts) stands the motto, RES SEVERA VERUM GAUDIUM - "A perfect (strict, or exact) thing is a true joy". This same motto is said to have stood in the Old Gewandhaus, famous for symphony concerts for many years before the new building was erected for that purpose. That Mendelssohn chose this motto, we have no direct evidence, but it seems intrinsically probably, as the phrase would be so wholly characteristic of his character. His father, for whom he had the greatest love and veneration, brought him up always to finish one thing before he began another, and he early showed such methodical habits and such efficiency in all he undertook that his parents, though they had no prejudice against a musical career, deemed him destined for a business man.

A glance backward at his ancestry may be of some interest in this connection. His great-grandfather, Mendel, was a poor Jewish schoolmaster at Dessau. Mendel's son, Moses, adopting the European custom of having a surname (which was not yet universal among the Jews), called himself Moses Mendelssohn ("Mendel's son), and this Moses Mendelssohn lived to become a great philosopher, one of whose books was translated into nearly all European languages and at least one Asiatic. His son, Abraham (father of the composer), took to a business career, and in course of time became a wealthy banker, likewise a man of wide culture with an intelligent appreciation of art, literature and music. The time came when he humorously remarked that in his youth he was best known as his father's son, but in middle age as his son's father! Abraham Mendelssohn gave his son Felix the benefit of a most thorough education, both in the more solid branches and in what may be classed as "accomplishments". He made such diligent use of his opportunities that, besides developing wonderful talent in music at an early age, he made translations of poetry from several different foreign languages into German verse, and he learned to sketch and to paint in water colors, some of his attempts in this line showing almost a professional degree of excellence. In this, by the way, he resembled our own Edward MacDowell. He was a good dancer and fond of society, making hosts of friends, and in his correspondence he showed himself a delightful letter writer.

Abraham Mendelssohn was a Jew of such an extremely liberal type that he gradually drew away from the religion of his fathers and his children, including young Felix, were allowed and perhaps encouraged to become members of Christian churches. Felix was confirmed in the Lutheran Church. This perhaps explains his choice of "St. Paul" as a subject for his first great oratorio.

The wealth of the Mendelssohn family, coupled with Felix's own monetary success in his professional work, placed him in a more independent position than has been the fortune of most musicians, and he was able to carry out consistently the maxim which he adopted, of writing solely to express his own individual taste in the best manner possible, without regard to the critics - for even Mendelssohn was not exempt from much hostile criticism. He wrote some little verses expressive of his views, which we quote here in Sir George Grove's translation:

"If the artist gravely writes,
To sleep it will beguile.
If the artist gaily writes,
It is a vulgar style.

If the artist writes at length,
How sad his hearers' lot!
If the artist briefly writes,
No man will care a jot.

If the artist simply writes,
A fool he's said to be.
If the artist deeply writes,
He's mad; 'tis plain to see.

In whatsoever way he writes,
He can't please every man;
Therefore let an artist write,
How he likes and can.

Chopin's Definite Path

If Mendelssohn's character may be called rich by its inclusiveness, Chopin's may be called rich by exclusiveness; he early realized what was his chief talent, and confined his energies within one narrow but deep channel, with wonderful results.

Though born in Poland (of a French father and Polish mother), he lived most of his life in Paris, where he mingled in a circle of high society more distinguished for graceful manners and witty conversation than for fastidious morality.

Unlike other great composers of his day and earlier, he did not attempt every field of composition, but confined himself almost exclusively to piano solo, developing a new and characteristic idiom for that instrument - an intrinsic piano style, free from the influences of orchestral or choral music. He wrote several really beautiful songs, which are less known than they deserve to be, but his few excursions into the realms of orchestral music (as in the orchestral parts of his two concertos) show that he was not thoroughly at home except at the keyboard. Aside from the returns from his work as a composer, he supported himself as a piano teacher, having a fashionable clientele and charging high prices, but experiencing some difficulty in meeting the expenses involved by living among extravagant people.

He seldom wrote letters, and mingled so little among other professional musicians that many of them regarded him as simply a sort of inspired amateur. Liszt, however, respected him greatly, as did Schumann, and the latter did much to spread the vogue of his compositions in Germany, in the face of strong opposition.

Chopin's very evident maxim was to confine himself to the development of the piano as a medium of expression. In this he succeeded so admirably as to remain \a model unexcelled even to the present day.

Schubert's Difficult Road

Schubert spent his whole life in almost squalid poverty, relieved occasionally by short periods of financial success. He had talents sufficient to have won him a comfortable position in the world, and he was by no means destitute of friends writing to be helpful, but he had one overwhelming purpose in life - to write down the beautiful musical thoughts which seemed to flow from his brain in an endless torrent of melody. The most incredibly prolific of composers, he appeared to write music with as little premeditation as one would write a friendly letter. To Schubert's absorbing devotion to this employment, regardless of consequences, we owe the rich treasure of music that has come from his pen. This was evidently his maxim - to produce what was in him. He could no more dare to turn aside from this than one of the old Hebrew prophets could refuse to speak "the Word of the Lord" when the spirit of prophecy came upon him. Who dares say he was not a "success"?

Brahm's Intense Sincerity

The keynote of Brahm's character was his intense sincerity in work and his tireless strife for perfection. One is reminded on Longfellow's verses:

In the early days of art,
Builders wrought with greatest care
Each minute and unseen part,
For the gods see everywhere.

We are fortunate in being able to quote authentically the maxim which he spoke to his friend, Sir George Henschel: "Beautiful it may not be, but Perfect it must be". As an athlete keeps himself fit by regular gymnastic exercises, so Brahms, even after he had become a mature composer, used to work exercises in counterpoint, to limber up his brain. Not all of his compositions are equally happy in conception or pleasing in style, but we defy the most experienced musician to take any one of them and actually improve on it by any change in detail. Of its kind, everything is perfect, which is just as he intended.

Grieg's Precept

When Grieg was a student at the Leipsic conservatory he was a delight to Reinecke, his composition teacher, on account of his great talent and industry, but at the same time a great vexation because he would not obey the time honored rules of harmony, but indulged in what seemed to his teacher eccentric oddities. It was the old story of the hen with ducklings. After Grieg's graduation he made some rather half hearted attempts to compose in the classical manner, but falling in with Rikard Nordraak, his eyes were opened to his true mission as an artist, and he adopted a style founded on Norwegian folk song and traditional dance music, throwing over board bodily all he had learned in Leipsic, except the habit of thorough and conscientious work. His maxim was to be a composer frankly representative of the genius of his nationality, and in this he won both artistic and financial success.

Concluding Remarks

Did space permit, we might continue this interesting discussion almost indefinitely, taking up other great musicians one by one, and commenting on what appeared to have been their leading maxims in life; but we have already gone far enough to deduce a general principle; all these maxims narrow down to one - Know thyself and Be Thyself!

So much for maxims which have a broad bearing on life as a whole; besides these, however, htere are many little maxims, helpful to young musicians, which have a bearing on the technic of the piano or other instruments and which may easily be searched out by those who are interested; such as Robert Schumann's Rules for Young Musicians, also many, many passages here and there in Great Pianists on Piano Playing, in which are quoted various pianists' views on the subject of important principles of their art.