The Joining of Words and Music in Late Romantic Melodrama

Author(s): Edward F. Kravitt

Source: The Musical Quarterly, Vol. 62, No. 4 (Oct., 1976), pp. 571-590
Published by: Oxford University Press
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/741557
Accessed: 04-06-2017 16:42 UTC

JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted
digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about
JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at
http://about.jstor.org/terms

Oxford University Press is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to The
Musical Quarterly

This content downloaded from 134.139.46.24 on Sun, 04 Jun 2017 16:42:23 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
 THE JOINING OF WORDS AND
MUSIC IN LATE ROMANTIC
MELODRAMA

By EDWARD F. KRAVITT

LANGUAGE and literature

of nineteenth-century music. Their played a vital
role, however, role in the development
was greater
in the music of northern than in that of southern Europe throughout
that century, as it had been earlier. That northerners traditionally
preferred syllabic text setting - with its greater verbal intelligibility
- over melismatic or florid vocal music, fancied by the Latin peoples,
is well known. Many examples spring to mind - from the Middle
Ages, when northern singers added words to convert melismatic
passages of Gregorian chant into syllabic passages, to Gluck and
Wagner, who strove to banish coloratura from their operas. This
bias persisted and waxed in the later nineteenth century. Accepting
theories that music had its origins in language, German composers
highlighted language by shaping their vocal lines in accord with
speech inflections, while singers developed that word-bound style of
singing known as Sprechgesang, notable for its crisp and chiseled
enunciation. Radical late romantics went still further: they revived
the melodrama in order to achieve the highpoint in music of verbal
intelligibility, for the melodrama, a genre that by definition combines
spoken texts with music, conveys language with utmost clarity.
The melodrama had been created by Rousseau partly as a means
of bringing a greater degree of realism to music.' It flourished for a

1 See Edgar Istel, "Jean Jacques Rousseau als Komponist seiner lyrischen Scene
Pygmalion," Publikationen der Internationalen Musikgesellschaft (1901), I, 1 ff, one
of the few monographs on the early melodrama that mentions the second flowering
of this genre.

571

This content downloaded from 134.139.46.24 on Sun, 04 Jun 2017 16:42:23 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
572 The Musical Quarterly

short period about 1800, then fell into relative disu

of the nineteenth century, when it had its brief but b
The curious fact is that Engelbert Humperdinck (1
composer of music for fairy tales, revived the melodr
ideally suited to express realism. Humperdinck exp
prophetically why he felt that the rebirth of the mel
evitable at a time when so many musicians exerted s
on behalf of realism. "Our modern opera is taking a
lead to the melodrama. With the dominant endeavors of our time,
which no one can avoid, to bring reality to the stage, one must find
a form that is suitable to this trend, and in my opinion the melo-
drama is that form . . .,2
The preoccupation of late romantic musicians with literature
prompted them carefully to distinguish the passages of a text that
they regarded as more suitable for speaking than for singing.
Humperdinck was absolutely explicit: "Everything that does not
fall under the concept of the melody - and to this belong most pas-
sages that do not have lyrical feeling but rather an abstract or intel-
lectual basis - should remain unsung; these [passages] also include
everything in which music has a subordinate role...." Accordingly,
Hans Sommer (1837-1922), in his opera Waldschratt (1912), dif-
ferentiated spoken text by assigning it to actors, not singers. Cosima
Wagner once entertained the idea of having Beckmesser, in Die
Meistersinger, performed by a comedian who had never been on the
operatic stage.3 Felix Weingartner, in his Musik zu Goethes "Faust,"
exploited the realistic possibilities of recitation in a still more unique
fashion. He distinguished the spirits from the real people by setting
to music the roles only of the spirits and by allowing those of the
real people to be spoken.

2 The present writer wishes to thank Wolfram Humperdinck, the composer's son
and professor at the Music Conservatory in Detmold, for making available some un-
published letters and documents written by his father. The quotation is from a letter
by the composer to a Dr. Distl, November 2, 1898, an archivist. See also Wolfram Hum-
perdinck's biography of his father, Engelbert Humperdinck (Frankfurt am Main,
1965), pp. 238-39, where part of the letter in question is quoted.
3 Humperdinck's statement is drawn from his diary (1897), and the Cosima Wagner
reference is from Ernst Otto Nodnagel, "Das naturalistische Melodram," jenseits von
Wagner und Liszt (K6nigsberg, 1902), p. 155. Late romantics, of course, specified the
passages of opera that they thought should be spoken (c. g., in Pagliacci, Cavalleria
rusticana, and Salomne) and those in which the singer is to proceed from singing to
speaking (e. g., Eugen d'Albert's Tiefland and Franz Schreker's Der ferne Klang).

This content downloaded from 134.139.46.24 on Sun, 04 Jun 2017 16:42:23 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
 Late Romantic Melodrama 573

Humperdinck revived the melodrama

approximate that acme of dramatic perf
than for him - Greek drama: "It appears
of the spoken word and orchestral melo
new and original forms of expression .
we shall have a genre that has some sim
recitation of the old Greek theater."'4 W
the melodrama that Humperdinck cr
(1897) differs radically from melodram
posers of this genre, so much so that h
troversy. The reasons for this war of w
distinguishes between the "old" and the
The melodramas of Georg Benda (1722
to develop Rousseau's conception into h
that influenced his contemporaries, provid
old type.5 The chief feature that distinguis
sors of the new type bears upon the rel
and the text. In the old type the music an
whereas in the new style the two are ofte
whether the accompaniment be for orch
lowing comment by Johann Christian
melodrama, is an excellent description
melodrama:

The composer has complete freedom in the overture . . . but, as soon as the pl
begins, the music must be subordinate to [the text] and may not interrupt it unt
the action requires a pause or until the actor is lost in contemplation or reflection
At this point, the composer may allow his genius free reign. . . . But he mu
never interrupt any word, any picture, or any striking occurrence with a bar
music . . . [Otherwise] the text will partially destroy the music and the mus
the text.6

4 An abstract of a letter to Arthur Seidl, August 4, 1895.

5 A German melodrama that antedates those of Benda and even Rousseau's earliest

(i.e., Pymnalion [1770]) is Johann Ernst Eberlin's Sigismundus. (Denkmdler der

in Osterreich, Vol. LV, pp. 91ff.) This work was probably written between
1761, while the composer was employed by Sigismund III, count of Schratten
Robert Haas, "Eberlins Schuldramen und Oratorien," Studien zur Musikwissenschaft,
VIII, (1921), 11ff.
6 The scholarly edition of Benda's Ariadne auf Naxos, from which these comments
are drawn, was prepared by Alfred Einstein, 1920 (p. viII); see also Johann Christian
Brandes, Siimtliche dramnatische Schriften, Vol. I, pp. xxvii ff.

This content downloaded from 134.139.46.24 on Sun, 04 Jun 2017 16:42:23 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
574 The Musical Quarterly

Though contemporaries identified the early mel

most modern of all that is modern,"7 early-nineteenth
posers of this form were, nevertheless, strongly in
eighteenth-century classicistic principle according to
must remain autonomous. Echoing this principle, G
concerning his Proserpina, that confusion would re
arts of the melodrama were to be mingled: the mus
should be confined only to the function of cemen
dialogue. Thinking similarly, most early composers
Rousseau, Benda, Mozart, Beethoven, and Mendelssohn - cultivated
melodramas mainly of the old type. Later composers sought to mingle
music and speech in the melodrama, first only in restricted
passages and later in extensive ones. Humperdinck's Konigskinder
(1897), in which the music and the words are combined more ex-
tensively than even in most other melodramas of the new type,
represents the peak of this movement in romantic music. Before
examining this unusual work, let us first consider the problems that
result from the union of spoken text with background music in the
new kind of melodrama.

The collaboration of musicians and nonsinging actors - in-

dividuals who are unaccustomed to perform together - produces this
perplexing problem: how are the actor and musician to synchronize
the spoken text with background music? The melodrama with piano
obviously allows greater licence in performance than that with full
orchestral accompaniment. Licence is certainly justified, when the
composer also serves as the pianist. (Johanna von Rauchenberger
informed me that when her brother Richard Strauss performed his
once famous Enoch Arden with the great actor Ernst von Possart,
for whom it was written, Strauss adopted a free and improvisatory
manner of accompanying at the piano. Experience had given Strauss
and Possart a thorough mastery of the problems of synchronization
so that each could adjust his performance to the other in passages
where one wished to hesitate or to accelerate his pace to emphasize
a particular phrase.) However, when the composer does not serve
as performer, effective methods of guiding the actor and the musician
must be found and indicated in the score. Numerous methods were
proposed. Liszt suggests this easy way out in his pianoforte melo-
drama Lenore: "The measures that are marked : : may be re-

7 See Einstein's introduction to Ariadne.

This content downloaded from 134.139.46.24 on Sun, 04 Jun 2017 16:42:23 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
 Late Romantic Melodrama 575

peated several times, according to nece

music into agreement with the declam
quently applied to extensive passages,
above each measure (see Ex. 6, below),
syllable-to-note relationship, the word
course, these two systems left the details
relations to be solved by the performe
method reserved for specific passages
which the words are to be spoken by
them (see Ex. 5, below). The term "bo
Melodram), which Humperdinck coine
matic style of his K6nigskinder, may be
dramatic composition or passage in w
recited in a precise rhythm to musical b
in question was applied to isolated pass
further, imaginatively and persistentl
without avail.

When Humperdinck revived the melodrama with his K6nigs-

kinder, he proposed the most radical of all solutions. He actuall
specified the inflections, pitch, and accentuation that actors are
employ in reciting the text. As Humperdinck saw it: "This is, indeed
the first time the attempt is being made to apply Wagnerian [pr
ciples] to the melodrama. In accordance with these [principles] t
exact inflections of the declamation have been designated by
notation that I have devised."9 What Humperdinck envisaged is
kind of elevated speech such as Wagner had theorized about, a ty

8 Strauss, along with most nineteenth-century composers, applied this procedu

to passages in both of his melodramas, Enoch Arden (1897) and Das Schloss am Me
(1899). Pfitzner solved a problem inherent in this method - precisely when the ac
is to commence his recitation? - by placing a sign (C#-,) in that part of the measu
at which the actor is to begin his recitation (see his Fest auf Solhaug). Slightly m
precise is the method used by Joseph von Lindpaintner (1791-1856) and others (e.
Strauss). In his Lied von der Glocke Lindpaintner instructed "the following to
spoken in rhythmical cadence: 4/4 Von der Stirne / heiss - / rinnen muss de
/ Schweiss," thereby requiring the actor to recite such a passage (from Schill
famous ballad) almost in a singsong. Theodor Gerlach (1861-1940) went still furth
in placing the text of his Braut von Korinth into a metrical musical clamp.
equated each ordinary monosyllable with the musical value of an eighth-note
and each monosyllabic end rhyme with a quarter-note. See Max Steinitzer, Zur
Entwicklungsgeschichte des Melodrams und Minodrams (Leipzig, 1919), pp. 45-49,
where such methods are discussed.

9 Quoted from a letter by the composer to Arthur Smolian, August 5, 1895.

This content downloaded from 134.139.46.24 on Sun, 04 Jun 2017 16:42:23 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
 576 The Musical Quarterly

of recitation that the ancient Greeks were said to h

forming their plays. Humperdinck's elevated speech,
a striking resemblance to the late romantic style of re
shall see. For his notation Humperdinck simply rep
heads of conventional musical notation with x's, wh
stems of these notes to indicate the rhythm in whic
be spoken:
Ex. 1 Humperdinck, Die KOnigskinder, p. 4, m. 34
(orchestral score, 1897). Text by Elsa Bernstein-Porges.
A 4

im Brunnen - spiegel sah ich mich ein

However, Humperdinck also used the conventional type of notation

for vocal writing in this work. He explains his reasons for doing
this in the introduction to his score: "the Sprechnoten (W)1O that are

10 Readers who are familiar with the melodramatic notation used by Arnold
Schoenberg and that of Humperdinck cannot fail to notice a striking similarity be-
tween them. Schoenberg's notation for the Sprechstinmmne in his Glickliche Hand
(1909-13) and Pierrot Lunaire (1912) differs but slightly from Humperdinck's Sprech
noten. Schoenberg placed his crosses on the stems of the time values ( j j ), in-
stead of using them as note-heads. His system facilitates the use of half- and dotted
half-notes (, J J.). However, the symbols Schoenberg had used earlier, for the spoken
part of his Gurrelieder (1900-1901; orchestration, 1911), are exactly the same as those
of the Konigskinder (1897). And his objectives for their execution (in the Gurrelieder,
though certainly not in Pierrot Lunaire) were the same as Humperdinck's. These
similarities raise the question of whether Schoenberg had had any knowledge of
Humperdinck's Sprechnoten before or while he was devising his own. The chances
are that he did. For the first performance of K6nigskinder in 1897 (not 1898, as often
erroneously given) touched off heated debates about the melodrama in general and
Humperdinck's treatment of it in particular. The argument involved important
periodicals of music - the Neue musikalische Rundschau of Prague and the All-
gemeine Musikzeitung of Berlin, to mention two of the most prominent. Schoenberg,
who was always interested in musical controversy, must at least have been aware of
this verbal barrage. And he certainly had the opportunity to hear, or to hear about,
the melodramatic version of the K6nigskinder in Vienna, when it was performed
there on May 10, 1897, several months after the Munich premiere. (See Richard
Heuberger, "K6nigskinder," Im Foyer [Leipzig, 1901], pp. 235-43; see also Rudolf
Stephan, "Zur jiinsten Geschichte des Melodrams," Archiv fiur Musikwissenschaft,
XVII (1960), 186.) Furthermore, the K6nigskinder was performed as a melodrama in
130(!) theaters (Humperdinck, Humperdinck, p. 238). Two other composers ex-
perimented with various types of "Sprechstimmen" and with systems of notating them.
The titles they devised are in themselves interesting in that they may serve as English
terminology. In Scotland, Sir John B. McEwen (1868-1948) conceived a type of bound
melodrama he entitled Poems for Inflected Speech, with Musical Accompaniment. The
Russian composer Michael Fabianovitch Gnessin (1883-1957) conceived a "kind of

This content downloaded from 134.139.46.24 on Sun, 04 Jun 2017 16:42:23 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
 Late Romantic Melodrama 577

applied in the melodramatic passages are

indicating the rhythm and inflection of t
melody of the spoken verse) and for placing

ment with the accompanying music. The

is applied to lied passages."
The melodramatic style of Humperdin
wildered contemporaries at the first per
Munich, January 23, 1897. Some critics objected furiously to
Humperdinck's extensive fusion of the spoken word with music and
to his precise indications of how the actor is to declaim the text. They
argued that only a highly specialized actor-musician could realize
Humperdinck's Sprechnoten. The composer contended that the
Sprechnoten are not signs for absolute but for "relative pitch, for
the raising and lowering of the voice"; that they actually permit the
actor sufficient freedom to exercise his art; but, he admitted, "only
an actor with musical training could fill all his requirements.""11 The
reason why the Kdnigskinder failed at its first performance, according
to the composer Max von Schillings (1866-1933), is because "its style
was too novel and the period of rehearsals too short."12 The fiasco
induced the shy and retiring Humperdinck to withdraw the work,
to revise it later, and to present it as an opera, which, incidentally,
had been his original plan.13
The melodramatic version has since fallen into obscurity. How-
ever, the desire for realism, which had prompted Humperdinck to
forge a close link between the theater and opera via the melodrama,
still motivated him. In 1898 he would seek a close link between

declamation . . . to which he gave the name 'musical reading.' " (See "Inflected
Speech," Grove's Dictionary of Music and Musicians, 5th ed., IV, 482, and "Sprechge-
sang," ibid., VIII, 26.)
11 The quotation was drawn by Wolfram Humperdinck from one of his father's
diaries. The other two remarks are further comments that Wolfram H. found in his

father's unpublished memorabilia. See also Humperdinck, Humperdinck p. 234,

the Sprechnoten are discussed.
12 Max Schillings, "K6nigskinder," Neue minusikalische Rundschau, I (1897),
13 After the success of Hdnsel und Gretel Humperdinck wished (in 1895) to
the fairy tale Die Kdnigskinder by Elsa Bernstein-Porges (pseudonym, Ernst R
as the libretto of his next opera. Since the author refused to have her work em
as an opera libretto then, Humperdinck decided to treat the text melodramat
In 1907 she withdrew her original objection, and Humperdinck was, therefor
to revise the melodrama as an opera. See Humperdinck, Humperdinck, pp. 229
278-92.

This content downloaded from 134.139.46.24 on Sun, 04 Jun 2017 16:42:23 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
578 The Musical Quarterly

poetic recitation and the lied via the melodrama. T

his Sprechnoten again, this time to this unknown "son
Ex. 2 Humperdinck, Mazahnung (froinmJunge Lbeder), mm. 4-6.
Text by Moritz Leiffmnann.

wcht durch hellschimmnern, de Wi . pfel der Friih.Aing und

Lo! spring has re.turnd with sweetfragrance, and blossoms and
diraiL

The lively debate that centered

K6nigskinder eventually envelo
violence of the debate is eviden
paraging comment that appeared
Berlin: "the melodrama . . . is preponderantly a miscarriage, a
desolate primeval forest so dark that not even the smallest ray
of spiritual sunshine can penetrate it."14
Such adverse criticism of the melodrama did not deter Schillings
from composing Das Hexenlied (1902). That his decision was wise
is clear from this review: "The deep effect produced by Das Hexen-
lied of von Schillings pleads more for the melodrama than do all the
theories against it."15 As a melodrama the Hexenlied triumphed
spectacularly. Its German text was translated for performance in
English, French, and Russian. This work and Enoch Arden by
Richard Strauss were in such demand that Schillings, Strauss, and
others were stimulated to write more melodramas. The Hexenlied

is selected for special study here for reasons other than that of
former international success: it can yield an especially intimate
derstanding of the "new" romantic melodrama. Unpublished let
by Schillings to the great Ernst von Possart"6 reveal points about it
composition and about melodramas in general. Furthermore, a
forgotten work this once successful melodrama represents a forgot
ideal of the late romantics regarding musico-literary fusion. M
important, a fascinating recording of the work exists by Lud

14 Allgemeine Musikzeitung review (1916) by Leopold Hirschberg. See Steinitzer,

Melodram, pp. 65ff., concerning the debate in question.
15 G. Altmann, "Kritik," Die Musik, XI (1904), 75-76.
16 These letters were in the possession of Ludwig Voss, the grandson of Possa
who was kind enough to make them available for me.

This content downloaded from 134.139.46.24 on Sun, 04 Jun 2017 16:42:23 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
 Late Romantic Melodrama 579

Witllner under the direction of the com

piece, the recording superbly capture
melodramatic recitation, which has long since died. Scored for
reciter and piano or orchestra, Das Hexenlied (The Song of the
Witch) is by no means a children's story, as its title might indicate,
but a complex miniature drama with sensual and deep psychological
elements. The poet Ernst von Wildenbruch (1845-1900), who revised
the original poem especially for Schillings, cast these elements into
a fable, woven about the last confession of an aged monk, Medardus.is
Regard as the "holiest of all" in the cloister, Medardus shocks his
brethren with his confession. When a young priest, he had been called
one night to save the soul of a girl who was on the morrow to be
burned for witchcraft. However, the terrified young "witch" had
filled Medardus not only with compassion but also with such deep
desire that he had easily fallen prey to her seduction. Guilt-ridden,
Medardus was plagued for the rest of his life by continually hearing
in his inner ear the sensuous song the girl had sung to him.
Schillings's letters are most informative on the requisites of the
good melodrama text. This should be written in verse rather than
prose, which "is uncommonly difficult to treat melodramatically."I
Clearly verse, with its regular metric patterns, is easier to synchronize
with music than prose with its irregular rhythms. But verse that is
too compact and terse, like Goethe's Der Gott und die Bajadere, is,
Schillings confesses, equally difficult to work with in composing melo-
drama. In addition to verse, the ideal melodrama text is one colored
by a Grundgedanke, which Schillings explains as a basic thought or
mood that should permeate the entire poem. The Grundgedanke of
Das Hexenlied, the composer specifies, is the dark milieu of the

17 Deutsche Grammophon 35000-2 or Polydor 67047-9. The recording was made

with the Berlin Philharmonic as late as 1933, only a few days before Schillings's death
that year. Willner was then just short of his seventy-fifth birthday. There is no
reason to conclude, from the late date of the recording, that its style is not authentically
late romantic, for the work was recorded under the supervision of Schillings and
Willner. Both artists exercised the greatest care to give it a stylistically accurate
rendition. Few performers, indeed, knew the style in question more intimately than
they. (I should like to thank Mr. David Hall, chief of the Rodgers and Hammerstein
division of the Lincoln Center Library, for tracking down the exact date of the
recording.)
18 The unrevised text had been set melodramatically by Emil Kaiser.
19 From a letter written to Possart, September 1, 1907.

This content downloaded from 134.139.46.24 on Sun, 04 Jun 2017 16:42:23 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
580 The Musical Quarterly

cloister.20 (This he has translated into the score's lu

atmosphere.) And one might infer, from Schilling
about musical description, that poetry abounding i
gery is another textual requisite. Certainly Das Hex
successful melodramas, like the typical naturalist
with imagery and moods that the music closely parall
the music of a melodrama, Schillings stresses, must n
coming fragmentary, for all that it parallels the poem
problem is particularly perplexing in the "new" me
the words and the music not only alternate in long
are combined simultaneously. The music, he argu
independent structure at the same time as it clos
text. Because he considered his music for Goethe's Der Gott und die
Bajadere too fragmentary, Schillings abandoned his melodramatic
composition of this poem.23 He exercised great care in shaping the
Hexenlied's musical structure, which consists of five "motives" that
are transformed and developed like those in a Wagnerian music
drama, a Liszt or Strauss tone poem, or a Wolf lied. Schillings pro-
vides the work also with a broad sectional frame: a free sonata form
with four major sections - an exposition, its modified restatement,
a development section, and a recapitulation with further motivic
development - plus a coda. However, the gradual mounting of the
story and the music towards one central climax, along with the skill-
ful metamorphosis of the motives, imbue the structure of this melo-

20 Schillings's comment on the Goethe text is from a letter to Possart, December

6, 1910. His remark about the Grundgedanke is from a letter to Possart, September
1, 1907.
21 The naturalistic lied, in short, consists of a declamatory vocal line that is
immersed in a piano part of descriptive music. For a discussion of its chief traits,
see my article "The Influence of Theatrical Declamation upon Composers of the
Late Romantic Lied," Acta Musicologica, XXXIV (1962), 18-28. Schillings reflected
often upon the "need" of the music to parallel or illustrate the text. The procedure
of illustrating a text musically, incidentally, is not one that belonged first to the lied
and was later applied to the melodrama. On the contrary, it had been a chief
characteristic of the late-eighteenth-century melodrama, one that composers. Schubert
in particular, later applied to the early-nineteenth-century romantic lied. In fact,
Alfred Einstein believed that the romantic lied is unthinkable without its predecessor,
the early melodrama. See his introduction to the scholarly edition of Benda's Ariadne
auf Naxos.
22 Of those melodramas that lack musical unity, Poe's Raven by Max Heinrich
provides an example.
23 See the letter to Possart, December 6, 1910.

This content downloaded from 134.139.46.24 on Sun, 04 Jun 2017 16:42:23 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
 Late Romantic Melodrama 581

drama more with sense of dramatic con

sectional form.

In composing his Hexenlied Schillings resolves the problem of

the "rights of the music" and the "rights of the drama" in a manner
akin to that of traditional Italian opera - by allowing the music
and the text each, in turn, to dominate. Accordingly, music com-
mands in the extensive passages where it serves to create mood.
These consist of the Hexenlied's prelude - which paints the lugubri-
ous milieu of the cloister, the work's Grundgedanke - and three
other shorter, intensely atmospheric instrumental passages, all with-
out words. These three atmospheric passages are inserted at psycho-
logically crucial moments of the story; for instance, two of them -
passages of enflamed music - burst forth, the first after Medardus
discovers to his horror that he desires the girl (measure 181) and
the second when, after fifty years of penitence, he realizes that he still
wishes to consumate that love (measure 378). The "drama," on the
other hand, dominates in three extensive passages of recitation with-
out music. In these, scenes are set and narratives unfold. These purely
verbal passages, which are inserted into the music, do not injure its
structure, for Schillings places them between the four major struc-
tural sections of music. But, as a typical late romantic, Schillings
sought smooth and imperceptible transitions even between the
purely verbal and the purely musical passages. He produced such
transitions by reintroducing the music into the story at moments of
suspense and by carefully matching the moods of the music and of
the text to each other.

Schillings is able to introduce many short verbal interjections

into the music again without destroying its flow. He accomplishes
this in two ways: either by placing the words directly after unresolved
chords that are strong enough to require resolution even after the
interruption (e. g., measures 116-17), or by shaping them in the man-
ner of a recitative, with the familiar stereotyped chordal outbursts:
The effective insertion of intense passages such as Ex. 3 shows that
a composer does not necessarily destroy the dramatic effect of a text,
as Johann Christian Brandes and his contemporaries believed, if he
"interrupts . . . each picture and every striking experience [in a
poem] with a few bars of music." Introduced at those psychologically
crucial moments, such passages heighten rather than weaken the
drama, while aiding the integration of music and text.

This content downloaded from 134.139.46.24 on Sun, 04 Jun 2017 16:42:23 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
 582 The Musical Quarterly

Ex. 3 Das Hexenlied, mm. 67-69.

Wir haben den Teaftel tm Kloster zu Gast,

Medardus ist dem Ver - sucher verfallen,Medardus ringt in desSatans KrallenI"
"It's the deril himself re have f)ora
guest; Medardus is of God forsaken, Medardus writhes in the clutches of Satan!"
AL

~ mf~c 5?

Schillings construct
and the music are h
allowing the music
than the words; or
equal importance to
Schillings) that is r
into long attractive
important than is th
also on giving prom
lyrical expression to
part may declaim a
scene," illustrates t
the second procedur
single word of the
seduced is an exampl
presents one short le
and transformed (se
of the text:
Ex. 4 Dos Hexenhed, mm. 175-78.

wandte das Haupt.

sie sie schante mich an, Auf thren WIt!en nAekter Arm meine
turned her head, kroch sic heran, Thr Knie' umfing, an
e our eyes they met, on her knees she
=Uft e naked srms eIfolded

XX

This content downloaded from 134.139.46.24 on Sun, 04 Jun 2017 16:42:23 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
 Late Romantic Melodrama 583

Passages such as these two show that Sc

words and the music of this melodrama (a
melodramas) according to the same proc
general fused them in music drama and in
passages also illustrate the "new" melodr
In the opinion of one perceptive critic
such as Das Hexenlied boldly weathered
criticism owing mainly to specially skilled
"The melodrama has undeniably receive
cent past as a result of gifted artists s
Ernst von Possart."24 A listener to W
Hexenlied (see note 17, above) can unde
this comment. Wiillner's skill is undeniabl
the fact that his style is remarkably diffe
melodramatic recitations. First, the shee
astonishing. He plays the gamut of emot
ones to those that are violent and hyste
in a manner that any modern listener w
More startling, however, is Wiillner's f
one might call elevated speech. Thus
seductive song (measures 50 and 95ff.) W
that hovers between speaking and singi
created is eminently appropriate for th
create the effect of elevated speech Wii
gradations that are transitional betwee
sought in these several ways to bridge t
and sung word: by applying portamentos t
and accenting their vowels quantitativel
subtle voice inflections; by speaking upo
to the contour of the melody in the m
Ex. 5); and, curiously enough, through f
ner's reading of the weirdly climactic l
pyre the girl began to sing" is especial
suddenly begins to sing. In general, Wiil
is, however, confined to those passages in
or in some way connotes music. This h
between the text that is unaccompanied

24 August Richard, Max Schillings (Munich, 1922

This content downloaded from 134.139.46.24 on Sun, 04 Jun 2017 16:42:23 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
584 The Musical Quarterly

recite in relatively normal speech) and that which i

with music (to which he may apply elevated speech).
Ex. 5 Das Hexenlied, mm. 189-91.

rnich,. h' den gii - ti - :.n li lart.l, so lie-be ich dt..h!'

me, a~ I Io our ,War NOr . iour. I lore e'en thee!"

AV I. ILA 0
I _./
,'ti, ..<
. a

To what extent did other actors

gradations between speaking and
recitation? The use of elevated s
clusive trait of Wiillner's style: "
Wiullner who spoke well and natu
poem throughout as does Ernst von
clude from the advice offered to the actor in Wilhelm Kienzl's book
on declamation that elevated speech was an intrinsic ingredient of
the late romantic style of reciting melodramas: "The reciter should
guard against one special error - that of letting himself be bound
too closely to speechlike pitches. Through the half-sung, half-spoken
tones that many reciters employ, . . . speech becomes music. [The
listener] must put aside this usual aural impression of the spoken
word as much as possible. We must hope for musically trained
reciters." That Kienzl's comment really reflects prevailing taste rather
than his personal preferences is clear from this English judgment
appearing in an early edition of Grove's Dictionary of Music and
Musicians:

The difficulty of modulating the voice judiciously in music of this descr

[melodrama], is, indeed, almost insuperable. The general temptation is
glide, insensibly, into some note sounded by the orchestra; in which ca
effect produced resembles that of a Recitative, sung hideously out of tune.2

25 Neue musikalische Presse, January, 1903, p. 136. Italics added.

26 Kienzl's statements are from his Die musikalische Deklamation (Leipzig,
p. 154, while the Grove comment appears in William Smyth Rockstro, "Melo
Grove's Dictionary of Music and Musicians, 2nd ed. (1904-10), III, 107.

This content downloaded from 134.139.46.24 on Sun, 04 Jun 2017 16:42:23 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
 Late Romantic Melodrama 585

The vocal training that many German la

contributed considerably to the musical cha
By practicing to speak words on differe
emphasize and differentiate key words
their importance. Actors, therefore, con
their speaking range. Possart developed his
ing range through diligent exercise wit
avoiding such stylized recitation, rely mo
than upon changes of pitch to stress wo
climaxes.)
Other techniques of that forgotten style that are illustrated
through the recording include immaculately clear and chiseled pro-
nunciation, e. g., crisply rolled r's and explosively enunciated con-
sonants. Such distinct speech, of course, recalls its parallel in singing:
Sprechgesang, in which the attention that singers paid to speechlike
clarity in singing bordered upon being an obsession. But the manner
through which Wiillner graphically enacts key words differs more
from modern recitation than does his crisp enunciation or even his
portrayal of different characters: through unusual changes of vocal
color. An excellent illustration occurs in the passage in which
Medardus confesses he could hear the girl, whose sins he was to
absolve, sobbing and weeping as he fled from her filled with terror
and desire. Wiillner recites the words schluchzen und weinen, which
appear at the culmination of that passage, while actually "sobbing"
and "weeping." We consider finally the intensity of Wiillner's
recitation. This trait, too, is not limited to Wiillner's style; it actually
is characteristic of the late romantic manner of reciting melodramas.
Evidence is abundant, including visual testimony, a photograph
of the singer, David Bispham (1857-1921), in his role as an eminently
successful reciter (see plate). Moreover, not only did most late
romantic actors read melodramas in the highly emotional manner
here described, but spectators responded similarly, often crying
during the most moving passages. One of myriad examples should
suffice: the composer of lieder and accompanist Hermann Zilcher
(1881-1947) acknowledged that Wiillner's melodramatic "rendition
of the last song of Ilias moved me so much each time he recited it

27 A discussion of their vocal training occurs in my article (pp. 21ff.) cited in note
21, above.

This content downloaded from 134.139.46.24 on Sun, 04 Jun 2017 16:42:23 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
 586 The- Musical Quarterly

that I was forced to face away from the public whi

him] so that it would not see that I was crying."'28
The recording of the Hexenlied also elucidates h
and Wiillner solved those perplexing problems of
music with the text in the performance of this
fundamental problem exists in executing the boun
passages (such as Ex. 5) for which Schillings provid
The concern is only for those passages in which the w
placed above the music without precise rhythmic
them. The recording, under the direction of the com
that two different techniques were applied: again on
music its rights; and the other that supports the righ
The extended passage in which the imprisoned gir
ardus to release her and flee with her - the "escape
- illustrates the first technique. Here Willner was n
alter the pace of his recitation. To the contrary, he ad
to the pressing tempo Schillings selected by synchr
cented syllables with the accented beats of the mea
the poem's metrical organization facilitates such precis
of text and music, a point that, incidentally, explains
considered verse easier to compose as melodrama than
more, the steady and excited pulse in question pro
passage a mood of urgency that dramatically is rem
priate: through it we keenly perceive that the girl's m
tion was gradually captivating Medardus hypnoticall
Ex. 6 Das Hexenlied, mm. 224-27.

%%iI hen lelu, 141t1 i, ihu it n i' die l a' cakel ertli i it. , r vernit kein Licht, die rurmem -

Il au "k so sof'tly n t by - fIe ht. no for, A shall betivy or secret' fliht, the turret.

m -x _. . F"k '----:-
WI E- + - I-- =.,--:-- -_+ - i +---- -

The music that paints Medardus's growing compassion and

passion for the "bewitched" girl - the "seduction scene" - is treated
as subordinate to text. For here the listener's attention is absorbed

28 Zilcher, "Selbstbiographic" (unpublished, 1942), p. 17. In his youth Zilcher

the accompanist of such outstanding artists as Raimund von Zur Mithlen and C
on their American tours.

This content downloaded from 134.139.46.24 on Sun, 04 Jun 2017 16:42:23 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
 587

David Bispham Reciting "The Raven"

Poem by EDGAR ALLEN POE A MELODRAMA Music by ARTHUR BERGH
Price, $1.00 postpaid
A handsome folder with ten pictures of Mr. Bispham, free to every purchaser of THE RAVEN, for a limited

coPvY*G lT. "Suddenly

Itra. ly * AM-xteap
here came a tapping" "Quoth the ]RAven, 'Nevermore " "Whose fiery eyes now burned into my bosom's core"

cOPYmt GT, 1o01, SySCULz

C ,O"I ,T 10,ll
" Telloo.thi
SY ,soul
rUI with sorrow laden"
"On this home by horror haunted" "And my soul-shall be lifted nevermore "

OLIVER DITSON COMPANY, 150 Tremont Street, Boston

CHAS. H. DITSON & CO., 8-10-12 East 34th Street, New York

When you write to advertisers, mention THE MUSICIAN

The New York Public Library.

This content downloaded from 134.139.46.24 on Sun, 04 Jun 2017 16:42:23 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
588 The Musical Quarterly

by the erotic narrative of the monk (see Ex. 4). Ac

ner was at liberty to alter the pace of his recitation b
and there and freely expressing his art. Schillings
port to all such changes of pace by conducting in t
that characterizes late romantic taste in rhythm: wit
changes in tempo, holds, and pauses, many of which a
in the score. He thereby tended to blur the beat a
some passages, a more or less complete abandonm
nomic time.29
Even the setting for the ideal reception of the
presses a taste of the time that is now also out-of-f
for a performance in Heidelberg (1903), was to co
ductor and orchestra from view, according to that
adopted at Munich (in the Prince Regent Theater)
at Bayreuth. On this occasion, only the speaker, Er
was to be visible, while the music would emanate f
cavern, the hidden orchestra pit. Schilling's comm
is significant: "with a covered orchestra, the [Hexen
produce its ultimate effect."30 Today, except for Bay
ances with the covered orchestra pit are mostly a t
The great demand for good melodrama about 19
in Germany, brings into relief still another differenc
then and now. Strauss and Possart toured German
Enoch Arden in halls filled to capacity; Bispham
acclaim throughout the United States; and in a po
the melodrama became an important feature even o
(Berlin) and the Elf Scharfrichter (Munich), tho
cabaret entertainments of the time.31 Today, perform
drama in Germany are exceedingly scarce, while
tions of them are forgotten, for that close interrelat
and musicians - which sprang from the late romantic
the arts - itself represents a past and forgotten pr

29 Late romantic preferences for such free and flexible temp

the present author's article "Tempo as an Expressive Element in
Lied," The Musical Quarterly, LIX (1973).
8o Letter to Possart, July 12, 1903.
31 On this cabaret entertainment, see A. Hertwig, Ernst von Wo
in Wort und Bild (Berlin, 1901); Arthur Moeller-Bruck, Das V
Otto Julius Bierbaum, Eine empfindsame Reise im Automobil von
(Berlin, 1903); Ernst von Wolzogen, Ansichten und Aussichten (B
Pollard, Masks and Minstrels of New Germany (Boston, 1911).

This content downloaded from 134.139.46.24 on Sun, 04 Jun 2017 16:42:23 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
 Late Romantic Melodrama 589

tegrating music with language and liter

preference were many: the frequent joint r
at which actors recited poems that singer
of actors, on the one hand, to recite with
singer, on the other, to imitate theatri
course, the collaboration of the musician and the actor not alone in
the performance but also in the composition of the melodrama.
The revival of interest in the melodrama late in the nineteenth

century represents a peak at once of this artistic interrelationship

of the influence of naturalism upon German vocal music. That
melodrama (with orchestra) symbolizes for Humperdinck the
of naturalism's influence upon opera is clear from his comment
the subject. But the melodrama (with piano) exemplifies also t
high water mark of this influence upon the lied. This point w
likewise recognized by contemporaries. Rudolf Louis, among oth
identified a trend in the history of the lied "that is inclined towar
the declamatory . . . one in which lyric tonal expression is elev
to naturalistic recitation to a point where the lied veers into
melodrama."33 Louis was referring to that stream of lied devel
ment from 1800 to 1900, according to which the voice part cam
be regarded more and more as a vehicle to communicate poetry
less as the chief means of carrying melody, while the piano p
correspondingly, became less and less of an accompanying agent
more of a principal medium for the musical expression. Since
its musical expression is assigned to the piano and its all lingu
to the voice part, the melodrama (with piano) represents the
of this trend.

The fact that Humperdinck, Strauss, and Schillings revived the

melodrama in order to attain a high degree of realism in vocal music
is somewhat ironic. Granted that Humperdinck's intention expressed
through his daring Sprechnoten was to sharpen realism. Granted,
too, that Schillings and Strauss for much the same purposes effectively
fused melodramatic recitation with music in their melodramas. Yet
the style of recitation that Humperdinck intended the actor to use
according to his notation, is that highly inflected kind characteristic

32 On naturalism, see the present author's study "The Impact of Naturalism on

Music and the Other Arts during the Romantic Era," The Journal of Aesthetics and
Art Criticism, XXX (1972), 537-543.
33 Rudolf Louis, Die deutsche Musik der Gegenwart (Munich, 1909), p. 227.

This content downloaded from 134.139.46.24 on Sun, 04 Jun 2017 16:42:23 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
590 The Musical Quarterly

of late romantic recitation - one that is anything

speechlike. In fact, it suggested to Schoenberg and hi
of musical recitation that, far from strengthening n
them to reach out beyond realism into expression
therefore, is that although Humperdinck had revived
so as to obtain through it the highest point of natura
in nineteenth-century music, the manner in whi
composers applied it did more to destroy naturalism than to
intensify it.

This content downloaded from 134.139.46.24 on Sun, 04 Jun 2017 16:42:23 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms