RUBINSTEIN AND HIS IDEAS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXIX, Issue 8878, 14 May 1892, Page 2 (Supplement)

RUBINSTEIN AND HIS IDEAS.

Rubinstein's latest book, " Music and Its Masters," written in Russian and German, may be regarded as the musical sensation of the hour. THE SOUL OK MUSIC. The origin of the book was the visit of a lady who expressed surprise to Rubinstein for having only tho busts of Bach, Beethoven, Schubert, Chopin, and Glinka in his music-room. " Why only these ?" she asked; "do you not revere Mozart ?" and Rubinstein makes answer :— " Tho opera was the strong point in Mozart, and to me it is only a secondary musical species. Never in the opera has tho tone of tragedy sounded, or will it sound, as in Beothoven's adagios. The deepest emotions are beyond words. Composers of vocal music remind me of people who only have the right to answer questions, not to ask them, or to talk lomsolvos. The symphony stands highor than the opera ; instrumental music is the soul of music." THE PRE-HISTORIC AGE. His division into periods is interesting. Everything that was written before the middle of the sixteenth century belongs to pre-historie times. It was a scientific epoch, and there is nothing to be said about it. The first works in which tho scientific gives way to the mood of the soul are the church compositions of Palestrina. TUB SECOND AND THIRD EPOCHS. Palistrina is succeeded by a brilliant series of artists, chief among them being the five already mentioned. " There is more soul in Bach and Handel than there was in Palestrina. Bach is a cathedral ; Handel a royal castle." Mozart is spoken of with enthusiasm ; but at last mankind longed to say a serious word, longed for action, and Beethoven appeared. Beethoven's flight took us up to the stars ; but the voice of Schubert sang, " Come down to us; the earth, too, is fair." As Beethoven was the culmination of the second epoch, Schubert appeared as the father of the third—the lyric-romantic epoch. He created the " mood song," a form that comes from the heart and goes to the heart. It was objected that Schubert did not revise his compositions. To this Rubinstein replies :— " God created woman, surely the loveliest part of His work, but full of faults. So it is with Schubert, tho melodic element outweighs all the faults there may be. Bach, Beethoven, and Schubert, I repeat, are the highest summits in music. Mendelssohn sheds no tears, but he created lovely and perfect things and saved instrumental music. Schumann speaks more from the soul than does Mendelssohn, but the spirit of the piano is Chopin." Chopin is the last representative of the third or lyric-romantic epoch, which also includes Weber, Raff, Gade, Brahms, Bruch, and Goldmark, " because of the character of their creations, and because of their musical training."

TUli NEW ERA. A Russian, but not a great master exactly, was Glinka, but Rubinstein is especially attached to him. It is more interesting to learn who are the chief figures in the fourth or modern era, and what is said of them. They are Berlioz, Wagner, and Liszt. Berlioz was at once an innovator ; Wagner, in specific musical respects, was not profound or great, but Rubinstein sympathises with his art principles though not with all his methods. " If Wagner had composed his operas and brought them out without writing about them, the public would criticise them as is the case with other music. But just as the papal declaration of infallibility spoiled the Catholic religion for many a one, does Wagner's declaration of what ho considers to bo the only salvation awaken opposition and protest. Liszt was the demon of music, and his piano playing was incomparable in every respect, but as k composer ho is a mournful spectacle. Everywhere ho appears as a gesticulator: in his church compositions, before God; and in his orchestral compositions, before the public." Thus for Rubinstein the end of music came with Schumann and Chopin. " Finis Musicaj," he cries sadly, " interesting things, to be sure, are written to-day, but nothing beautiful, great, profound,or lofty." WOMEN AS COMPOSERS. 11l conclusion, Rubinstein's remarks on women composers may bo quoted :— " The increase of the feminine contingent in music, both in instrumental execution and in composition (I except the department of singing, in which they have always excelled), begins with the second half of our century. I regard it as one of the signs of musical decadence. Women lack two prime qualities necessary for creating— subjectivity and initiative. In practice they cannot get beyond objectivity (imitation), they lack courage and conviction to rise to subjectivity. For musical creation they lack absorption, concentration, power of thought, largeness of emotional product of the human mind, that is so inaccessible to woman, who is a compound of all those qualities ; all the more as she has done great things in other arts, even in the sciences. The two things most peculiar to womenlove of a man and tender feeling for a child—have found no echo from them in music. I know no love duo or cradle song composed by a woman. Ido nob say that there are none, but only that not one composed by a woman has the artistic value that could make it typical.'*