A Book of Burlesques | Page 5

calls it the motive of prowling. Kraus himself, when
asked by Dr. Fritz Bratsche, of the Berlin Volkszeitung, shrugged his
shoulders and answered in his native Hamburg dialect, "So gehts im
Leben! 'S giebt gar kein Use"--Such is life; it gives hardly any use (to
inquire?). In much the same way Schubert made reply to one who
asked the meaning of the opening subject of the slow movement of his
C major symphony: "Halt's Maul, du verfluchter Narr!"--Don't ask
such question, my dear sir!
But whatever the truth, the novelty and originality of the theme cannot
be denied, for it is in two distinct keys, D major and A minor, and they
preserve their identity whenever it appears. The handling of two such
diverse tonalities at one time would present insuperable difficulties to a
composer less ingenious than Kraus, but he manages it quite simply by
founding his whole harmonic scheme upon the tonic triad of D major,
with the seventh and ninth added. He thus achieves a chord which also
contains the tonic triad of A minor. The same thing is now done with
the dominant triads, and half the battle is won. Moreover, the
instrumentation shows the same boldness, for the double theme is first
given to three solo violins, and they are muted in a novel and effective
manner by stopping their F holes. The directions in the score say mit
Glaserkitt (that is, with glazier's putty), but the Konzertmeister at the
Gewandhaus, Herr F. Dur, substituted ordinary pumpernickel with
excellent results. It is, in fact, now commonly used in the German
orchestras in place of putty, for it does less injury to the varnish of the
violins, and, besides, it is edible after use. It produces a thick, oily,
mysterious, far-away effect.
At the start, as I have just said, the double theme of Zarathustra appears
in D major and A minor, but there is quick modulation to B flat major

and C sharp minor, and then to C major and F sharp minor. Meanwhile
the tempo gradually accelerates, and the polyphonic texture is helped
out by reminiscences of the themes of brooding and of lamentation. A
sudden hush and the motive of warning is heard high in the wood-wind,
in C flat major, against a double organ-point--C natural and C sharp--in
the lower strings. There follows a cadenza of no less than eighty-four
measures for four harps, tympani and a single tuba, and then the motive
of waiting is given out by the whole orchestra in unison:
[Illustration: Musical Score]
This stately motive is repeated in F major, after which some passage
work for the piano and pianola, the former tuned a quarter tone lower
than the latter and played by three performers, leads directly into the
quadruple theme of the sulphur-yellow truth, mentioned above. It is
first given out by two oboes divided, a single English horn, two
bassoons in unison, and four trombones in unison. It is an
extraordinarily long motive, running to twenty-seven measures on its
first appearance; the four opening measures are given on the next page.
[Illustration: Musical Score]
With an exception yet to be noted, all of the composer's thematic
material is now set forth, and what follows is a stupendous
development of it, so complex that no written description could even
faintly indicate its character. The quadruple theme of the
sulphur-yellow truth is sung almost uninterruptedly, first by the
wood-wind, then by the strings and then by the full brass choir, with
the glockenspiel and cymbals added. Into it are woven all of the other
themes in inextricable whirls and whorls of sound, and in most amazing
combinations and permutations of tonalities. Moreover, there is a
constantly rising complexity of rhythm, and on one page of the score
the time signature is changed no less than eighteen times. Several times
it is 5-8 and 7-4; once it is 11-2; in one place the composer, following
Koechlin and Erik Satie, abandons bar-lines altogether for half a page
of the score. And these diverse rhythms are not always merely
successive; sometimes they are heard together. For example, the motive
of disaster, augmented to 5-8 time, is sounded clearly by the clarinets

against the motive of lamentation in 3-4 time, and through it all one
hears the steady beat of the motive of waiting in 4-4!
This gigantic development of materials is carried to a thrilling climax,
with the whole orchestra proclaiming the Zarathustra motive fortissimo.
Then follows a series of arpeggios for the harps, made of the motive of
warning, and out of them there gradually steals the tonic triad of D
minor, sung by three oboes. This chord constitutes the backbone of all
that follows. The three oboes are presently joined by a fourth. Against
this curtain of tone the flutes