Clementi's opinion regarding Beethoven's playing at the piano. "His playing," said Clementi, "was but little exercised, and often brusque, like Beethoven himself; yet nevertheless it was always full of soul."

Not long after the arrival of the old master at Baden, his wife, worried at not hearing from him, came there to join him and, after some weeks spent in Vienna, they returned to England, where a reception was prepared for the old man which partook of the nature of an apotheosis. He was, in fact, invited by all the artistic notabilities of the English capital to a great banquet given on December 17, 1827, at the Hotel Albion in London: there choral chants and toasts resounded in his honor, "and it is easier to imagine than describe the sentiments which filled Clementi," says a biographer. Cramer and Moscheles played his magnificent Sonata in E flat, Op. 14, for piano four hands, and a number of other vocal and instrumental works were played by celebrated artists, but all were silent when-accompanied by Cramer and Moscheles-the patriarch was seen to approach the instrument. At last they could hear him play! And in a flash he flung the burden of age aside; he improvised on a motive from Händel's First Organ Concerto with the fire and brilliance of youth, his eyes sparkled and the rafters rang to the thunders of applause which rose when he concluded and regained his seat.

This, however, was not his final appearance in public: in 1828 he was once more seen at a concert of the Philharmonic Society, and at a gathering held in the same year, he played before a young woman already famous, Henriette Sontag, and an old man more famous still, Sir Walter Scott. His last years were spent peacefully on his estate, Elm Lodge at Evesham (Worcester), where he took pleasure in receiving his friends. His wit, his clear intelligence, had not diminished and, justified as we are in admiring his art, it is quite as legitimate to admire the splendid physical constitution of this remarkable man. His end appears to have come suddenly, and we prefer the account given by an old serving-woman, who was still living in 1908, and who had been an eye-witness of the old master's end, to the official versions. The following is the account of Miss Myra Taylor:

I think that I am in a position to tell you that it was really at the Elm that Clementi died. I remember that in course of conversation with an old laundress, Mary Westwood, employed by us, I found that she was living at the Elm in 1832, so I questioned her about Clementi. Her reply was that she could not remember the name, but quite well remembered an old “Italian” suddenly dropping down dead in the laun

dry there and that the body was afterward taken to London. From what she said I gathered that he was staying at the house as a visitor, so I do not think that he rented it himself.i

The "old Italian" died several hours afterward, in the night of March 9-10, 1832, and this humble serving-woman recalled with exactness that his body "was afterward taken to London." The English, in fact, proud of their adopted son, deposited his remains in the cloisters of that famous shrine, Westminster Abbey.

A certain quality of mystery surrounds various circumstances of Clementi's life; there is no documentary evidence as to the date of his birth; there is no information concerning his obscure stay in Berne, after Mlle. Imbert-Colomès had been taken from him in 1783 or 1784; there is no explanation of the disappearance of the great symphonic works of the close of his career. In the same way, one might say, the impressions disengaged from certain great pages of his compositions frequently offer the critic a psychological meaning which is decidedly difficult to define. This is something which occurs in the case of various works of the great creative artists, especially the romanticists; and the striking "romanticism" which manifests itself in Clementi, beginning with his Op. 5 (Paris, 1780), is, perhaps, one of the reasons for the really astonishing lack of comprehension shown in current judgments anent his work. When professional musicians place in the hands of young girls of family these sonatas which, to the professional eye are "cold, correct and distinguished," while several among them are alive with troubled passion, are strongly "romantic, the competence of judgment of the professional may be estimated by the fact. The persistence of this current opinion regarding Clementi's works is, to tell the truth, one of the most astonishing things in the history of music. It is not rare, on the other hand, to find among the public far more intelligent appreciations— notably that which treats Clementi as a "disturber of music."

The great "trouble moral" which the nineteenth century introduced in music already makes itself manifest in several of Clementi's earlier works: his scholarly virtuosity engenders an art which, bearing the stamp of Bach, is often near akin to Beethoven in its expression, in the quality of its ideas, as well as the spontaneity of its modulations, and which, toward the end of his life, on occasion will be found to have clearly apparent affinities to Richard Wagner. An astonishing lucidity, altogether Latin, clarifies these Germanic tendencies, and from all this re

'Max Unger. Op. cit., p. 275.

sults that indefinable something, that quality of quasi-inquietude, that "unsatisfied" feeling, a quality which, at times, may become one of major greatness. What is generally said of Clementi? That he had a very cultivated nature, and also a very active and happy one. This is true, yet at the same time quite insufficient. Clementi, as I see him, was above all a grand esprit, he had a great mind!-and I might add that he belongs in the rare category of those who impress us with the clear conviction that they have known how to scale the heights.

(Translated by Frederick H. Martens)

CONSTRUCTIVE AND DESTRUCTIVE

T

INFLUENCES IN MUSIC

By ERIC BLOM

HE innumerable currents of influence that go to the development, the completion, and the deterioration of any particular form of art, are so complex and so dependent upon a variety of side-issues branching off from the main subject, that it is exceedingly difficult to discern the paternity and the progeny of any given movement, and well-nigh impossible to reconstruct a genealogy of the art as a whole. Yet something resembling the genealogical tree, used to represent the ramifications of a family, will equally appropriately symbolize the growth of any form of art, and certainly that of the art of music. In the evolution of an artistic movement, there is a stem from which branches grow in all directions, and from the branches again smaller sprigs shoot up here and there, which bear a cluster of leaves and sometimes a blossom that gradually turns into fruit. The fruit, apparently, is the ultimate end, and it is therefore generally looked upon as the only thing that matters; but it is the tree that matters, in reality, and the fruit only comes into being so that other trees may in turn spring up from it.

Thus with music. The fruit, for all its splendour, is not the most important thing. The achievement of a master, glorious though it be, leads nowhere. It may perhaps, very much later, engender something useful, but that happens very rarely. How many apples are destined to become apple-trees? The vast majority are eaten and enjoyed; they nourish, they render life more agreeable; that is all. But the tree lives, it remains full of beauty and interest and goes on developing new features. Exactly the same applies to the evolution of music. The great masters who give us the flowers and the fruit, do nothing more; they have no influence whatever on the shape of the tree, and but for the new sprigs that shoot off from the main branches here and there, where would be flower and fruit? Thus the great masters could not have developed, had it not been for the smaller men who immediately preceded them and smoothed their path.

But most of the great classics demonstrably not only lead to nothing; they actually have a negative, a destructive influence.

Another simile may for a moment be adopted to illustrate this. Music is like the sea, as eternal and as beautiful, and its everrecurrent, yet ever-changing tendencies are nothing more than so many waves driving to shore and, having reached it, falling back and becoming absorbed in the great mass of water. The wave may be advancing very gently and spend itself without causing an upheaval, or it may rush magnificently onward, gathering strength on its way, and reach the shore, stirring the sands as it falls and moving them to a new position, from which they can never be restored to the old one again. But fall it must, and though it may reach a few inches farther inland, it will soon be lost in the waters that surge after it. And the more powerful the billow, the more rapid the backwash. Another wave may follow that looks as promising as the one that has just spent itself, but it will collapse too soon, prevented from ever reaching land by the reflux of its predecessor which, because of its very power, has become an agent of destruction.

It may be found throughout the history of music that the great composer, for no other reason than because he is great, proves an evil influence, and that the really valuable services have been rendered to the progress of the art, not by the great classical masters, but by a certain number of men who, comparatively insignificant as regards their own work, did an incalculable amount of pioneer work and thus became, if not towering figures in musical history, constructive influences that are scarcely ever rated at their full value.

To the blind worshipper of actual achievement it sounds heretical to describe Beethoven, Wagner or Brahms as destructive influences; yet no other conclusion is logically possible. It does not detract from the merits of any master's work, judged in the abstract, for influence and achievement are diametrically opposed values, and it may be generally observed in the case of any great master, that the greater the latter, the more unwholesome the former.

Bach, Beethoven, Mozart, Wagner and Brahms are insuperable masters, but it is easy to see that their influence was in some isolated cases fruitless, in the others actually harmful. Bach is a transcendent master, and the fact that he proved merely fruitless and not harmful, is only to be explained by the fact that no other musician ventured to follow him, not even his own sons. He overtowered his contemporaries like a high mountain that can make a complete impression only from a certain distance. Bach was not really known, much less understood, until, about three